Hosea: Jesus Is The Faithful Husband
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Hosea: Jesus Is The Faithful Husband
Hosea 1:1-3 (ESV)
1 The word of the LORD that came to Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.
2 When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.”
3 So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
One of the warnings of Jesus that we should not ignore is found in Matthew 6:24 (ESV):
24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
What is intriguing about the verse is that when Jesus was referring to another “master” that can primarily compete with God for surrender and service, the main example He gave was “money.” He could have mentioned fame, family, or friends, but why would He focus on money in particular?
I believe the apostle Paul provided some significant explanations regarding this reference to money in 1 Timothy 6:9-10 (ESV):
9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.
10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
From these two verses, first, I would like to highlight the word “desire” in verse 9 and the word “love” in verse 10 because they are used in the same way. They both refer to an uncontrollable obsession to be rich or make money. The passage plainly states that a person who becomes obsessed with money often ends up being trapped in harmful behaviors that can lead to his or her destruction. So, if you don’t want to be destroyed, you have to heed this warning!
The reality of this truth is clearly established in the book of Hosea. You see, when the Lord commissioned Hosea to the Northern Kingdom of Israel to warn them concerning the coming of the Assyrians, the nation was at the height of its prosperity during the tail end of the reign of Jeroboam II around 750 BC. While the nation enjoyed political and economic success, the moral and spiritual decline became a real concern for God. Prosperity corrupted God’s people because it led them away from God and right into many sinful behaviors. Listen to one of the rebukes in the book of Hosea.
Hosea 4:1-2, 7 (ESV)
1 Hear the word of the LORD, O children of Israel, for the LORD has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land;
2 there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed.
7 The more they increased, the more they sinned against me; I will change their glory into shame.
Notice, the central rebuke against Israel is “no faithfulness or steadfast love and no knowledge of God.” I wanted us to catch this because the book of Hosea will zero in within this theme. Instead of pursuing and loving God in their prosperity, they left him and became unfaithful to him.
Do you know why this happened? The root of the problem can be traced to their obsession for prosperity. Allow me to explain. In place of Jehovah God, Israel embraced the god Baal of the Canaanites. He was the rain and storm god whose chief concerns were agricultural fertility and sexual reproduction among animals and humankind. So, they stopped believing that Jehovah God can sufficiently provide for them. Instead, they started trusting that Baal can bless them with more incredible material wealth.
Now, as God conveys His condemnation to His people, we will also find a precious portrayal of Jesus in Hosea as the faithful husband. But before we go deeper in the book, here are some facts about the book itself:
The name Hosea means “salvation” or “deliverance.”
The Book of Hosea is the first in the 12 minor prophet books. The distinction between the Major Prophets and Minor Prophets is solely based on the length of the books they wrote. Both major and minor prophets have the same level of authority as prophets of God.
Hosea is considered the last writing prophet to address the Northern Kingdom before the Assyrians destroyed the nation in 722 BC.
The Book of Hosea has only 14 short chapters and can easily be divided into two parts. For the first three chapters, the emphasis is on the unfaithfulness of the nation of Israel against God. Then from 4-14, God will reveal his judgments and salvation to them.
Now, let’s look deeper into the theme of spiritual infidelity and the central representation of Jesus in the book. Here are the three major discussion points:
I THE UNUSUAL DIRECTIVE
Since the nation of Israel remains unresponsive to God’s call of repentance, He decided to use a “shock approach” to get the attention of His people. You see, often, God uses unusual or unconventional means to speak or get the attention of His people. Some examples would be God wrestling with Jacob, God speaking through Balaam’s Donkey, and Jonah being swallowed by a fish. Let me also say that I believe God is speaking through this Covid-19 Pandemic. Many people are turning to God more than ever before. I hope and pray that we are all sensitive about what is doing today.
The same can be said during the time of Hosea. If you go back to our main text (1:1-3), we will find the Lord commanding Hosea to marry Gomer, a woman who would later become a promiscuous wife - “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD” (v.2).
Of course, some have interpreted this verse to mean that Gomer was already a prostitute before marriage with Hosea, but the “wife of whoredom” does not necessarily warrant this interpretation. Personally, a better interpretation is that she only became promiscuous after she got married to Hosea. This interpretation strongly supports the metaphor that God wanted to use to describe the infidelity of Israel towards God, who is their covenant husband.
To understand the essence of this covenant marriage, we need to go back to Mount Sinai, where God entered into a covenant with the nation of Israel by giving them the 10 Commandments, which should govern their relationship with Him. As we all know, the very first commandment was stated in Exodus 20:2-3 (ESV):
2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
When God gave them this command, the relationship He expected from them was more than a relationship between a King and His subjects; it was a relationship compared to a husband and a wife because of the love, which was expected from the two parties. Listen to these verses in Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (ESV):
4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
Later on, this metaphor of marriage will be expressed in a direct statement like in Isaiah 54:5 (ESV):
5 For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called.
Apparently, when we move to the New Testament, Jesus Christ personifies the husband married to His church, as stated in Ephesians 5:31-32 (ESV):
31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
So, going back to the unusual directive of God to Hosea to take Gomer as his wife, God decided to use this marriage to expose their sin of spiritual adultery. We need to heed because it is possible for us to also commit the same sin.
II THE UNDENIABLE DISTRESS (1:4-9)
I’m sure we are all familiar with the sin of adultery. This sin has often been considered one of the most dangerous sins in human society because of its destructions towards relationships and families and the agony or distress it produces among the aggrieved party. The wounds from these intimate betrayals would often be the hardest to forgive and the longest to heal.
But, have we ever considered the hurt that spiritual adultery brings to God? Rev. G. Campbell Morgan commented on this by saying,
“We have in the Book of Hosea one of the most arresting revelations of the real nature of sin, and one of the clearest interpretations of the strength of the Divine love. No one can read the story of Hosea without realizing the agony of his heart. Then, lift the human to the level of the Infinite, and know this, that sin wounds the heart of God.”
As we continue to study the book of Hosea, we need to dig deeper concerning the agony that was brought by the sin of spiritual adultery. Undoubtedly, God conveyed His hurt through the names that He assigned to the children of Hosea. With Gomer’s promiscuity, it clearly appears that only the firstborn child belongs to Hosea.
Jezreel (vs. 4-5) - The name means “God sows” or “God will scatter.” This name is a pronouncement of what God is about to do to the nation that has left Him.
Lo-Ruhamah (vs. 6-7) – The name means “No mercy” or “Unpitied.” This name indicates that the nation of Israel will no longer be pitied but would be punished and sent into captivity.
Lo-Ammi (vs. 8-9) – The name means, “Not my people.” The pain of their sin became so severe that God decided He would no longer recognize Israel as His people.
Time and again, it is crucial for us to be reminded that God as a person possesses the emotional capacity to feel the joy that comes from being loved or pain when He has been betrayed and rejected. Just like a betrayed husband, God conveyed clearly to the nation of Israel that He would punish them because they failed to take into consideration the pain they have inflicted on Him when they have left Him.
Of course, this reaction was not an emotional outburst from God but was consistent with all the warnings He had given them in the past.
Deuteronomy 6:13-15 (ESV)
13 It is the LORD your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear.
14 You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you—
15 for the LORD your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the LORD your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.
Today, we should also give attention to the same warning. The reality is that if we are not careful, we can also be guilty of hurting the heart of God because of spiritual adultery. James clearly expressed this truth in James 4:4 (ESV):
4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Listen, in God’s eyes, believers who become too friendly with the world are spiritually adulterous people. Why? It is because they have loved the world more than they have loved Him. Here is the question we should wrestle with - if God punished Israel for their spiritual adultery, why would He spare believers today when they are guilty of the same sin? Obviously, He won’t look away and spare us if we fall into the same sin.
III THE UNENDING DEDICATION
As we begin the last point, I wanted first to ask these questions:
If you found out that you were a victim of adultery, could you forgive your spouse?
Imagine that the unfaithfulness was not a one-night stand but a long affair. Imagine further that your spouse wasn’t very repentant and was even relatively open about what he or she was doing. Would you still love your spouse? Would you want him or her back?
I’m guessing many of you would respond to these questions, saying, “Absolutely not!” Thank God because He is not like us!
To demonstrate His faithfulness to Israel as her husband, God once again commands Hosea to take Gomer and restore her.
Hosea 3:1-3 (ESV)
1 And the LORD said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.”
2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley.
3 And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.”
To buy back Gomer from slavery, Hosea paid 15 shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. The commentary from Dallas Theological Seminary believes that “a homer and a lethech of barley” may also be equivalent to 15 shekels of silver. So, if that is correct, the price paid was only about 30 shekels of silver. This amount is not really much, but it definitely shows that Gomer depreciated because of her promiscuity. Likewise, the truth is that sin has its way of making sinners worthless.
Despite everything that Israel did, God was unwilling to abandon her or “kick her to the curb” because He still loves her. When you fast forward to Hosea 14, God will end this book with some invitation of repentance and restoration: Here are some of its verses:
Hosea 14:1-2, 4-5 (ESV)
1 Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.
2 Take with you words and return to the LORD; say to him, “Take away all iniquity; accept what is good, and we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips.
4 I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them.
5 I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall blossom like the lily; he shall take root like the trees of Lebanon;
With these words, it is truly amazing to see that God would be willing to forgive as long as Israel is ready to repent. And once they have repented, God Himself will bring healing to them, and He will restore their freshness and beauty that were once taken away by sin from them. Just like Gomer, her restoration into the love of Hosea will restore her worth and beauty.
As I meditate on this, I am reminded of the words in Ephesians 5:25-27 (ESV):
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
From this passage, the words in verse 27 gave me a deeper appreciation for being the bride of Jesus Christ who promised to be faithful to His bride until the day she would be presented as most beautiful, with no more spots and scars, which were caused by sin in her. I know that in God’s appointed time, there will be a grand marriage celebration in heaven and I together with the rest of the bride will finally presented to the groom who is Jesus. At that day, I personally will surely be overwhelmed with gratitude because of all the grace I have experienced in Him. To Him be the glory!
-Dr. Jeremiah Lepasana