Hosea, Part V

I love how the previous passage ends in chapter 2:

I will plant her for myself in the land;
I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’
I will say to those called ‘Not my people,' ‘You are my people’;
and they will say, ‘You are my God.’” (v. 23)

God is all about restoration. He is the father in the parable of the prodigal son: He is always waiting for His children to come home. 

But God doesn't ignore the sin that led His children to wander in the first place. The father says his prodigal son was "lost" but now is "found."

Lost.  Estranged. Wounded. Alienated. Alone.

That is the fruit of sin. To put it another way: Sin never advertises itself as slavery.  It brands itself as freedom and it's not until we hear the shackles' sickening metallic sound as they clamp around our legs and feet that we realize just how devastating sin really is.

He admonishes Israel for their spiritual adultery. They have shackled themselves to gods who are not real; engaged in child sacrifice and sexual immorality; taken on a value system antithetical to Yahweh's and walked away from their beautiful covenantal relationship that is their inheritance.

God made it clear from the moment that Moses descended the mountain with the Ten Commandments, which are the heart and soul of how the children of Israel were to conduct themselves with God and with each other, that: 

You must worship no other gods, for the Lord, whose very name is Jealous, is a God who is jealous about his relationship with you. (Ex. 34:14)

Strong's Concordance says that the word is Hebrew for "jealous" is qanna and means that God will have no rival, and will destroy those who depart from Him. 

Before you assume God is being rather petulant and unforgiving, realize you are seeing Him through a fallen lens. 

Think of God in the Trinity, where He has an unbroken fellowship of adoration with His Son and with the Spirit. 

When God created Adam and Eve, He made a kind of replica of the Trinity: He had an unbroken fellowship of adoration with His children. His children gazed lovingly into His eyes, with no other desire than to walk with Him and hear His voice, marveling in His creation and in each other. 

Sin changed all of that.

Now, because of how sin has stained our love and fellowship with God and with one another, we see God's adamancy as too harsh and rather scary.  

God desires us.  When we even consider a rival to the Lover of our souls, we are allowing sin to dictate the terms of our engagement with God.  Rivals cause us to lose our first Love. Why wouldn't God be  angry and anguished? 

How do we respond when we find out that the one we love is being unfaithful? We are angry, hurt, stunned and feel utterly betrayed. Betrayal is a kind of repudiation:  I no longer care about you.  I have given myself to a rival.  What we had, who you are, where we were going and what we shared no longer matters. 

If we grieve over someone we love being unfaithful, why do we expect God to pat us on the head? God uses the metaphor of being Israel's husband for a reason.  

God's love is not harsh or scary.  It is devoted. Uncompromised. Deep. All-encompassing. 

God speaks through Hosea not only to bring Israel back but to celebrate the coming restoration. He says:

The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”

So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.” 

For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or household gods. Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days. (3:1-5)

Gomer is now probably in debt. Hosea must now redeem her.  So her sin has lead her into an ever deeper literal bondage.  

So has Israel.  They love the gods and the raisin cakes:  They are now indebted, if you will, to follow the rituals that the gods of the Canaanites demand: child sacrifice and temple prostitution. They are in bondage to a set of values that the society demands they enact. Yes, they may do it willingly, but what if they have qualms the day they are to show up with their child who is to be put into the arms of a fiery bronze god?  When they hear their wee one scream has its tiny body touches down on the scalding hot metal? 

The pain.  The guilt.  The questioning.  Having to smile and say, "Praise Molech." Walking home with empty arms and retuning to the house where the little baby bed is now empty.  If that is not bondage, I don't know what is.

But God is faithful. God promises a king who will defeat His enemies and bring Israel back to a place of worship, faithfulness and adoration. 

David will be a representative of the One to come.  Let's travel to the day of when Jesus confronts the woman caught in adultery.  She is brought before Him.  She is in bondage to sin:  She is paid by men for sex and in her degraded state, is dragged before Jesus by her gleeful detractors (are any of them customers who are trying to hide their sin by acting righteous, until the next time they come a-calling?) 

Jesus confronts sin on all of its ugly levels. First, her detractors:

They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” (John 8:6-8) 

The religious leaders and the crowds drop their stones.  They know, deep in their hearts, they are not perfect.  But do they realize just how enslaved they are? Judgement, anger, self-righteous, and wanting to trap Jesus as opposed to learning from Him has enslaved their hearts and minds.  They use this poor woman to discredit Him.  All done, I might add, in the name of serving their version of God. 

Next, Jesus confronts the bondage that the woman is in:  

Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”

“No, Lord,” she said.

And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” (8:10-11) 

Wait a minute!  She calls Him, "Lord."  Not Rabbi.  Not Jesus. But Lord.  She has repented right then and there:  She is facing the true Lover of her soul, and she senses His disappointment in her sin, but also she feels His redemptive call in His voice. 

That what God in Hosea was trying to do and what Jesus was trying to do: Acknowledge your wandering but focus on returning.

Paul puts it another way:

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (1 Cor. 13: 6-7)

God is love. So let's capture this idea even more deeply: God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. He always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Amen.