4. Letting go of God's love
Pathways in the Old Testament
25 July 2010
Hosea 1:2-10 
As we consider the fourth address in this short winter series from the Old Testament, we turn to Hosea.
Although Hosea can be considered one of the greatest of Israel’s prophets, nowhere in the book is he explicitly identified as a prophet. We are simply given his name and the name of his father who, likewise, is unknown to us. However, the words of this prophet have endured for a thousand years.
Grace Emmerson contends, ‘Hosea is well known to many Christians as a prophet whose message to his people was embodied in his own life.’
It is in the troubled context of Hosea’s marriage that God speaks to him. We discover the extent to which God’s care and love is offered to the human family, even through difficult circumstances.
Derek Kidner helps to define the name Hosea. On a number of occasions, we have found that the name of a prophet gives us a gigantic clue as to the purpose or message of that prophet. Kidner writes: ‘His name has suffered a little on its journey into English via Greek and Latin, for it should be Hoshea – the name also for the last king of Israel (2 Kings 17:1), and the name originally borne by Joshua.’ So, like Jesus, it is derived from the verb ‘to save’.
Hosea was a younger contemporary of Amos and brought a very different kind of prophecy. Amos’ strong words on judgement naturally resonate with Elijah and John the Baptist, whereas Hosea is much more like Jeremiah, with the loving nature of Jesus Christ.
Hosea was a native of the Northern Kingdom, possibly from Bethel. When Amos appeared in the Northern Kingdom, he came as a man on fire to a people that he had come to know through his travels. Hosea lived amongst these people and was always part of their community. God spoke to Hosea through the very experience of family life.
Hosea is the first in a collection of what we call ‘The Minor Prophets’ and his foremost contribution is related to the message of hope and comfort. As such, it is an excellent introduction to the twelve books of the Minor Prophets, telling an unforgettable story of the love of God who will not let go of his people, even though we may let go of his love.
The opening verse tells us about Hosea and the political context in which he speaks. The first three chapters address the question of Hosea’s family life. In summarising the book, we could say that Hosea marries one who is the most unlikely of partners; she bears three children and each is given a name which could be said to be ominous for the nation.
Hosea’s words are specifically directed towards Israel, with two themes consistent with the gospel as we have come to understand it … namely the limitless love of God – and, secondly, the unified sense of one God, known as monotheism.
A difficult aspect of the book is that God calls Hosea to marry this person of dubious standing. Whether it is a reflection of a God-directed person after the event – or a direct call to marry someone of this nature, this is not a helpful question to ask. However, we must discover the essential nature of the message.
Hosea’s home life had been wrecked and his wife had deserted him, but Hosea still loved her and would not give her up. He had made a covenant with her and she had borne his children; he brought her back and restored her to his home.
There are many messages here: one is of a sorrowful experience, which becomes a simile capable of teaching the prophet about the love of God; another message is of the unfailing nature of love. Hosea is invited to respond to his wife in a way that is consistent with the nature of God. God has always put up with a human race that had a constant roving eye, choosing allegiances and affections other than himself.
We are told that Hosea’s marriage resulted in three children, two sons and a daughter. The names constitute an important message to be conveyed to the people:
Human sin, divine judgement and hopeful restoration are all found in this book, Hosea. It could be said that in the first chapter the full scope of the divine-human drama is described for us. Hosea, more than most, understands the essential nature of God, whose demands are strong … but whose love is greater.
James Newsome sums up the message: ‘Hosea expresses the anguish of a God who cannot ultimately let go even of those who repudiate God.’
The opening chapter draws to a close with our text, expressing this message of hope:
‘Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” they will be called “children of the living God.’ (Hosea 1:10)
The tone changes remarkably and the rhythm of the whole book is set at this point. The promise of hope is the result of a new relationship with God, described in a phrase which Hosea himself seems to have coined, ‘sons of the living God’. In Matthew 16:16, in response to Jesus’ question, ‘Who do you say I am?’ at Caesarea Philippi, we have Simon Peter’s confession, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’
The same thought is picked up by the Apostle Paul, when he applies the phrase to Gentile Christians by quoting this verse in Romans 9:26.
Even when the final word of God’s judgement appears to have been spoken, there is still a final word of restoration and, therefore, hope.
For me, Hosea does a number of things:-
Hosea is the only classical prophet from the Northern Kingdom; all the others came from the South. Amos prophesied in that region, but lived in the South. The eighth century BC is important in Old Testament history for in 721BC the Northern Kingdom fell.
We don’t know a great deal about Hosea in terms of background, profession or the circumstances of his call. There were no inaugural visions to instigate his call … as in Isaiah or Jeremiah. Uniquely, Hosea was called in the intimate circumstances of his failed marriage to hear what God had to say and then to communicate it to others.
Hosea introduces us to his family which becomes a representation of our world. We hear the phrase ‘he or she comes from a problem family’, but in reality very few people are without problems in their own family. As with all relationships, the difficulties are subtle and need to be dealt with sensitively if there is going to be healing. God does not wave a magic wand to solve problems painlessly.
So in the adult narrative of Hosea’s story, we are pointed forward and reminded of:-
Hosea watched his beloved people disintegrate before his eyes. This was true politically, economically and spiritually. He was asked to go and take a wife who was the most unlikely of people – or turned out to be so (v.2).
Israel suffered a plague of infidelity. The people of the Covenant of God were slowly sinking into a syncretistic religion, where all kinds of religious practice were added on and built into their own way of life.
Leonard Sweet wrote, ‘They still claimed to be God’s chosen covenant people while at the same time they carefully attended to the seasonal worship demands and sacrifices of the Canaanite cults.’ They wanted to please God, but also curry favour with the other gods of the day. Hosea’s message is that there is only one God.
The human experience is one of frailty, not strength. We may tell our history through achievement, but we often understand ourselves best through our failure.
Stephen Pile wrote a modest but highly amusing book with the title The Book of Heroic Failures. It was written about the time of a firemen’s strike throughout the United Kingdom. The army was called in to provide support, ensuring essential services were maintained.
His purpose for writing this book was to accentuate in people’s minds the inadequacy of human behaviour. He tells of one of the great animal rescue attempts of all time. On January 14, in the middle of a terrible British winter, an emergency crew of army personnel was called out by an elderly person in South London to rescue her cat.
They arrived with impressive haste and carefully rescued the cat. The lady was so grateful that she invited the squad of heroes in for tea. Driving off later, with fond farewells and much waving of arms, they ran over her cat and killed it!
Such a story exposes how life is sometimes … we fail even when we are near to doing well. The Apostle Paul, leading the Christian mission in a significant period of growth, confessed this is how it is. (Romans 7:18-20)
We saw in Naaman’s story (2 Kings 5) how pride can prevent the best of what might be possible in our lives. An unhealthy determination based on hard-headedness can, in a similar vein, prevent us really living life to the full. How many relationships are destroyed by self-will?
We read in Genesis, ‘I will surely bless you and make your descendents as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendents will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.’ (Genesis 22:17-18)
It is hard to believe that out of a picture of this dysfunctional family comes the powerful message of God’s restoring grace. But read Hosea 6 and 11 … and it surely does.
Out of hurt can come healing, but only when there is:-
One aspect of our Christian faith that we struggle to express and communicate today is the fallenness of our humanity. Part of the difficulty lies in those understandings of fallenness which chose to use words like ‘depravity’. For us today, fallenness is best expressed in terms of:-
Chapter 11 is one of the key chapters of the book, encouraging us to take seriously the fact that God understands our challenging contexts. Broken and estranged relationships cause the most distressing loneliness.
Ogilvie describes the pain: ‘It is being with a person but out of communication, the ache of separateness, the yearning for intimacy again. Our hearts overflow with caring and concern for someone, but he or she refuses to accept what we desire to express.’
Hosea gives a sweeping review of the story of God’s people and assures them that God lovingly longs for them.
In understanding these Old Testament prophets, we need to get into their skin … but I wonder if entering Gomer’s skin would also help. Naturally, none of us wants to resist the love of God, but selfishness and sin can drive us from him. She represents us all – not deserving love and grace … yet offered the wonderful love of God.
The marvelous truth of God's faithfulness
One of the main words and concepts in Hosea is ‘return’. Along with the people to whom Hosea referred, we are invited to renounce the ways of sin … the compulsive, repetitive patterns in which we resist God – and discover that his love will never let us go.
When we look at Hosea, we remind ourselves of the gospel of Jesus Christ … because God does not heal us with Band-Aids, but offers us something that truly deals with the deep nature of our lives, bringing forgiveness and wholeness.
The willingness of Hosea to take back his unfaithful wife is important in understanding the whole message of the book.
A story is told of two unmarried sisters who had such a bitter disagreement that they stopped speaking to each other. Unable or unwilling to leave their small home, they continued to use the same rooms and slept in the same bedroom. A line divided the sleeping area into two halves, separating doorway and fireplace, so each could come and go without trespassing on each other’s patch. For years, they co-existed in grinding silence. Neither was willing to take the first step.
Whether the story is true or not is beside the point. It illustrates the extent of people’s stubbornness. Hosea is willing to take that first step … because the way to restoration requires:-
Dr Rowatt then began to place other people between the two students and the two were pushed away from each other. The others represented sin in life. He asked his students to describe what took place when forgiveness occurred … and those who had caused the separation sat down. It was then clear that, although forgiveness had occurred, they were still apart. He finished by saying, ‘Restoration occurs when God’s steps towards us again.’
God is never content with broken relationships. He desires to ‘refresh’ them and make them whole again.
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, ‘There is nothing but God’s grace. We walk upon it; we breathe it; we live and die by it; it makes the nails and axles of the universe.’
The full power of the metaphor of the family is the way God speaks through Hosea. Like a spouse whose life is in ruins through the unfaithfulness of a partner, like a parent grieving at the breakdown of relationship with a child, we meet God who, despite the fact that we let go of his love, will not let go of us.
In the cross of Jesus Christ, we see this love … with loving arms outstretched for all the world.
Although Hosea can be considered one of the greatest of Israel’s prophets, nowhere in the book is he explicitly identified as a prophet. We are simply given his name and the name of his father who, likewise, is unknown to us. However, the words of this prophet have endured for a thousand years.
Grace Emmerson contends, ‘Hosea is well known to many Christians as a prophet whose message to his people was embodied in his own life.’
It is in the troubled context of Hosea’s marriage that God speaks to him. We discover the extent to which God’s care and love is offered to the human family, even through difficult circumstances.
Derek Kidner helps to define the name Hosea. On a number of occasions, we have found that the name of a prophet gives us a gigantic clue as to the purpose or message of that prophet. Kidner writes: ‘His name has suffered a little on its journey into English via Greek and Latin, for it should be Hoshea – the name also for the last king of Israel (2 Kings 17:1), and the name originally borne by Joshua.’ So, like Jesus, it is derived from the verb ‘to save’.
Hosea was a younger contemporary of Amos and brought a very different kind of prophecy. Amos’ strong words on judgement naturally resonate with Elijah and John the Baptist, whereas Hosea is much more like Jeremiah, with the loving nature of Jesus Christ.
Hosea was a native of the Northern Kingdom, possibly from Bethel. When Amos appeared in the Northern Kingdom, he came as a man on fire to a people that he had come to know through his travels. Hosea lived amongst these people and was always part of their community. God spoke to Hosea through the very experience of family life.
Hosea is the first in a collection of what we call ‘The Minor Prophets’ and his foremost contribution is related to the message of hope and comfort. As such, it is an excellent introduction to the twelve books of the Minor Prophets, telling an unforgettable story of the love of God who will not let go of his people, even though we may let go of his love.
The opening verse tells us about Hosea and the political context in which he speaks. The first three chapters address the question of Hosea’s family life. In summarising the book, we could say that Hosea marries one who is the most unlikely of partners; she bears three children and each is given a name which could be said to be ominous for the nation.
Hosea’s words are specifically directed towards Israel, with two themes consistent with the gospel as we have come to understand it … namely the limitless love of God – and, secondly, the unified sense of one God, known as monotheism.
A difficult aspect of the book is that God calls Hosea to marry this person of dubious standing. Whether it is a reflection of a God-directed person after the event – or a direct call to marry someone of this nature, this is not a helpful question to ask. However, we must discover the essential nature of the message.
Hosea’s home life had been wrecked and his wife had deserted him, but Hosea still loved her and would not give her up. He had made a covenant with her and she had borne his children; he brought her back and restored her to his home.
There are many messages here: one is of a sorrowful experience, which becomes a simile capable of teaching the prophet about the love of God; another message is of the unfailing nature of love. Hosea is invited to respond to his wife in a way that is consistent with the nature of God. God has always put up with a human race that had a constant roving eye, choosing allegiances and affections other than himself.
We are told that Hosea’s marriage resulted in three children, two sons and a daughter. The names constitute an important message to be conveyed to the people:
- The first was called Jezreel. Peter Craigie suggests this is analogous to an American calling his son ‘Vietnam’ or ‘Watergate’. Jezreel was a place where a royal dynasty had been exterminated in a terrible massacre (2 Kings 9-10). The name carried ominous overtones.
- The second child was a daughter named Lo-ruhamah, which meant ‘not pitied’. Imagine growing up with a name like that! Again Hosea was performing the role of a prophet, as the Lord had come to the end of his pity for his people Israel.
- Finally, the third child carried the saddest name of all – Lo-ammi, meaning ‘not my people’. To the covenant people, this was an awful name. We recall in Exodus that God said to Israel, ‘I will take you for my people, and I will be your God.’ (Exodus 6:7) Craigie writes, ‘To a nation whose entire existence and faith were based upon the Covenant, there could be no more terrible pronouncement for those who had ears to hear it!’
Human sin, divine judgement and hopeful restoration are all found in this book, Hosea. It could be said that in the first chapter the full scope of the divine-human drama is described for us. Hosea, more than most, understands the essential nature of God, whose demands are strong … but whose love is greater.
James Newsome sums up the message: ‘Hosea expresses the anguish of a God who cannot ultimately let go even of those who repudiate God.’
The opening chapter draws to a close with our text, expressing this message of hope:
‘Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” they will be called “children of the living God.’ (Hosea 1:10)
The tone changes remarkably and the rhythm of the whole book is set at this point. The promise of hope is the result of a new relationship with God, described in a phrase which Hosea himself seems to have coined, ‘sons of the living God’. In Matthew 16:16, in response to Jesus’ question, ‘Who do you say I am?’ at Caesarea Philippi, we have Simon Peter’s confession, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’
The same thought is picked up by the Apostle Paul, when he applies the phrase to Gentile Christians by quoting this verse in Romans 9:26.
Even when the final word of God’s judgement appears to have been spoken, there is still a final word of restoration and, therefore, hope.
For me, Hosea does a number of things:-
- Hosea certainly challenges naïve ideas about God.
- Hosea gives us, with extraordinary frankness, God’s view of the situation.
- Hosea enables us to look at ourselves in our pain … and to seek a path of restoration.
Hosea is the only classical prophet from the Northern Kingdom; all the others came from the South. Amos prophesied in that region, but lived in the South. The eighth century BC is important in Old Testament history for in 721BC the Northern Kingdom fell.
We don’t know a great deal about Hosea in terms of background, profession or the circumstances of his call. There were no inaugural visions to instigate his call … as in Isaiah or Jeremiah. Uniquely, Hosea was called in the intimate circumstances of his failed marriage to hear what God had to say and then to communicate it to others.
Hosea introduces us to his family which becomes a representation of our world. We hear the phrase ‘he or she comes from a problem family’, but in reality very few people are without problems in their own family. As with all relationships, the difficulties are subtle and need to be dealt with sensitively if there is going to be healing. God does not wave a magic wand to solve problems painlessly.
So in the adult narrative of Hosea’s story, we are pointed forward and reminded of:-
The home truth of human frailty
Hosea watched his beloved people disintegrate before his eyes. This was true politically, economically and spiritually. He was asked to go and take a wife who was the most unlikely of people – or turned out to be so (v.2).
Israel suffered a plague of infidelity. The people of the Covenant of God were slowly sinking into a syncretistic religion, where all kinds of religious practice were added on and built into their own way of life.
Leonard Sweet wrote, ‘They still claimed to be God’s chosen covenant people while at the same time they carefully attended to the seasonal worship demands and sacrifices of the Canaanite cults.’ They wanted to please God, but also curry favour with the other gods of the day. Hosea’s message is that there is only one God.
The human experience is one of frailty, not strength. We may tell our history through achievement, but we often understand ourselves best through our failure.
Stephen Pile wrote a modest but highly amusing book with the title The Book of Heroic Failures. It was written about the time of a firemen’s strike throughout the United Kingdom. The army was called in to provide support, ensuring essential services were maintained.
His purpose for writing this book was to accentuate in people’s minds the inadequacy of human behaviour. He tells of one of the great animal rescue attempts of all time. On January 14, in the middle of a terrible British winter, an emergency crew of army personnel was called out by an elderly person in South London to rescue her cat.
They arrived with impressive haste and carefully rescued the cat. The lady was so grateful that she invited the squad of heroes in for tea. Driving off later, with fond farewells and much waving of arms, they ran over her cat and killed it!
Such a story exposes how life is sometimes … we fail even when we are near to doing well. The Apostle Paul, leading the Christian mission in a significant period of growth, confessed this is how it is. (Romans 7:18-20)
- Out of hard-headedness comes judgement
We saw in Naaman’s story (2 Kings 5) how pride can prevent the best of what might be possible in our lives. An unhealthy determination based on hard-headedness can, in a similar vein, prevent us really living life to the full. How many relationships are destroyed by self-will?
- Stubbornness covers up the possibility of grace.
- Intolerance will restrict our own progress.
- ‘Toughness’ may miss the tender mercy of God.
- Out of this hurt comes a message of grace
We read in Genesis, ‘I will surely bless you and make your descendents as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendents will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.’ (Genesis 22:17-18)
It is hard to believe that out of a picture of this dysfunctional family comes the powerful message of God’s restoring grace. But read Hosea 6 and 11 … and it surely does.
Out of hurt can come healing, but only when there is:-
- An acknowledgement of the pain of our situation.
- A willingness to discover the pathway to repentance.
- A desire to experience God’s refreshment.
The painful implications of fallenness
Our journey in Hosea reminds us of the unfaithfulness of Israel, as well as God’s long-suffering faithfulness towards his rebellious people. This breakdown in relationship affected everything – and so it is with our fallenness.One aspect of our Christian faith that we struggle to express and communicate today is the fallenness of our humanity. Part of the difficulty lies in those understandings of fallenness which chose to use words like ‘depravity’. For us today, fallenness is best expressed in terms of:-
- The breakdown of relationships.
- The extended impact of that breakdown.
- The need for restoration to wholeness.
- The pain of unrequited love
Chapter 11 is one of the key chapters of the book, encouraging us to take seriously the fact that God understands our challenging contexts. Broken and estranged relationships cause the most distressing loneliness.
Ogilvie describes the pain: ‘It is being with a person but out of communication, the ache of separateness, the yearning for intimacy again. Our hearts overflow with caring and concern for someone, but he or she refuses to accept what we desire to express.’
Hosea gives a sweeping review of the story of God’s people and assures them that God lovingly longs for them.
- The passing nature of temporary pleasure
In understanding these Old Testament prophets, we need to get into their skin … but I wonder if entering Gomer’s skin would also help. Naturally, none of us wants to resist the love of God, but selfishness and sin can drive us from him. She represents us all – not deserving love and grace … yet offered the wonderful love of God.
The marvelous truth of God's faithfulness
One of the main words and concepts in Hosea is ‘return’. Along with the people to whom Hosea referred, we are invited to renounce the ways of sin … the compulsive, repetitive patterns in which we resist God – and discover that his love will never let us go.
When we look at Hosea, we remind ourselves of the gospel of Jesus Christ … because God does not heal us with Band-Aids, but offers us something that truly deals with the deep nature of our lives, bringing forgiveness and wholeness.
The willingness of Hosea to take back his unfaithful wife is important in understanding the whole message of the book.
- How relevant is such a metaphor
A story is told of two unmarried sisters who had such a bitter disagreement that they stopped speaking to each other. Unable or unwilling to leave their small home, they continued to use the same rooms and slept in the same bedroom. A line divided the sleeping area into two halves, separating doorway and fireplace, so each could come and go without trespassing on each other’s patch. For years, they co-existed in grinding silence. Neither was willing to take the first step.
Whether the story is true or not is beside the point. It illustrates the extent of people’s stubbornness. Hosea is willing to take that first step … because the way to restoration requires:-
- Humility and honesty in the need for change.
- A thwarting of pride in the process.
- Openness to the peace of God.
- How confident is such a message
Dr Rowatt then began to place other people between the two students and the two were pushed away from each other. The others represented sin in life. He asked his students to describe what took place when forgiveness occurred … and those who had caused the separation sat down. It was then clear that, although forgiveness had occurred, they were still apart. He finished by saying, ‘Restoration occurs when God’s steps towards us again.’
God is never content with broken relationships. He desires to ‘refresh’ them and make them whole again.
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, ‘There is nothing but God’s grace. We walk upon it; we breathe it; we live and die by it; it makes the nails and axles of the universe.’
The full power of the metaphor of the family is the way God speaks through Hosea. Like a spouse whose life is in ruins through the unfaithfulness of a partner, like a parent grieving at the breakdown of relationship with a child, we meet God who, despite the fact that we let go of his love, will not let go of us.
In the cross of Jesus Christ, we see this love … with loving arms outstretched for all the world.
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