This post is Part 2 out of four posts on Envy. To read the first post click here.
All sin is absurd because it’s rebellion against God. But envy is particularly insane. Envy has a backwards and illogical nature; it despises good and delights in evil. Yet, envy doesn’t make us ignorant of good and evil. We don’t blindly believe vice is virtue. We still recognize the good that others possess, but we despise it in those we envy because that goodness, so we think, stands in the way of our happiness. As Joe Rigney states, “Envy weeps at those who rejoice and rejoices over those who weep,” reversing God’s command in Romans 10:15. This vice makes empathy, and therefore love, impossible.
Envy disrupts our love for God because we despise his goodness in others. To hate goodness is to hate God, Richard Sibbes believed. He writes, “He that hates goodness itself hates it most in the fountain, and so becomes a hater of God himself; and if Christ were in such a man’s power he should escape no better than his members do.” By hating the goodness the Holy Spirit gives others, we hate the Holy Spirit. Because we feel threatened, we disdain members of the body of Christ and consequently disdain Christ himself.
Envy disrupts love for our neighbor because it makes us despise our neighbor altogether. We can’t love our neighbor while we root for their demise. At its worst, envy despairs over another’s life and revels in another’s death. That seems far-fetched until we see it taken to this extreme within the first four chapters of the Bible. Genesis 4:4b-5 states, “And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell.”
Abel offers God a better sacrifice than Cain and Cain burns with envy. Cain has a comparative notion of self-worth: being the best is his identity. He has a perception of inferiority: he’s discouraged because Abel’s offering was accepted and his was rejected. He also hates Abel for his perceived superiority: he kills him in cold blood. Here we have the first physical death recorded in the Bible and it’s on account of envy.
The absurdity of envy makes it dangerous. Envy drove Cain to murder his own brother and Lucifer to try to overthrow God himself. Envy morphed an angel into a devil and this same vice resides in human hearts.[1] If envy is this diabolical, we are in desperate need of a cure for this sinister disease.
- A Helpful Video: “Why Comparing Yourself to Others is Appealing—and Lethal” with Nancy Guthrie, Jackie Hill Perry, and Jen Wilkin. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/why-comparing-yourself-to-others-is-appealingand-lethal/
[1]Revard, “Satan’s Envy,” 198.
Hi Makayla, thanks for writing on this topic! I am reading a book called Beware the Evil Eye: The Evil Eye in the Bible and the Ancient World by John H. Elliott (2016). Elliott briefly talks about what envy is and its relationship with the evil eye. It is interesting to me (and I never thought about this before) that he distinguishes between envy and jealousy. He writes, “It is essential to keep in mind that in antiquity envy was related to, but distinguished from, jealousy. The jealous person feared the loss of his possessions to a rival who sought to acquire them. The envious person grieved the good fortune and possessions enjoyed by others and wished them destroyed. Jealousy fears loss to self; envy wishes loss upon others.” This distinction might not be totally related to your series on envy, but just wanna share it with you.
Hey Chi Xin! Thanks for your comment. I really like that quote! I agree–I’d say jealousy fears the loss of something. I’d also add in covetousness, which is when we want what we don’t have. And then envy goes even further, making us want to harm those who have what we want.