In the Minor Prophets and in the whole Bible we see a universal principle – the principle of restoration.
On the one hand, God wants to restore the fallen and corrupted universe back to Himself, and He wants to recover the earth including His people Israel. On the other hand, God wants to have a restoration among His people.
What God is doing both in the universe, with the nation of Israel, in and with the church, and with us individually, is that He is operating in us to bring us to the point of being restored!
For Him it is not too difficult to restore the universe and the outward situation, but He is “waiting for us”, patiently working in us until we cooperate with Him to be restored to Him! We are just like the people of Israel, going astray from the Lord and leaving Him as our Husband… so He draw us with cords of a man and bands of love to return to Him!
How God sees His people as they turn away from Him
In the book of Hosea we have a vivid picture of how God sees us, His people, and the people of Israel, as we/they turn away from Him. He sees us as those in apostasy, in harlotry, and idolatry.
God told Hosea to go and marry a woman that is unchaste (Hosea 1:2) – we were created by God to match Him, but we are unchaste, we went after other husbands, we worshiped idols, and we forsook God.
We are not likened here with “a stubborn cow”, or a rebellious son to God. No, we are God’s wife, an unchaste woman that instead of loving God with her first love she loves other people and things more than God. While God asked Hosea to get into a relationship with this person, He was telling His people,
This is really My relationship with YOU! I am not your Master or Custodian, but I am your Husband, Someone who is married to you, and yet you have betrayed Me!
God wants to have a union with us, and in Song of Songs we see it as a positive thing, but here in Hosea it has gone sour, it has gone astray.
Am I that bad? I think I’m pretty good!
We may say, Wait a second, I am not THAT bad, this word is not FOR ME. Well, do you have idols? Do you have something that is more to you than the Lord Himself?
To be in apostasy means to turn away from your original position. We were turned to God, but our health, our career, our enjoyment, our finance, and so many other things cause us to turn away from God. In God’s eyes we are a wife of harlotry.
And even if we want to turn, many times our doings do not permit us to turn because there’s “a spirit of harlotry” in us. We may come back to the Lord because we need some spiritual nourishment, but we may go back to our other lovers for their “wine, oil, and fragrance”….
O Lord Jesus! What kind of a heart is that?!? This is what God sees us like when we turn away from Him.
A disfunctional relationship and a broken marriage
In the picture in Hosea we see a disfunctional relationship, and there are a lot of elements that show that this is a “broken marriage”! You have:
- Adultery, unfaithfulness, and betrayal (see Hosea 5:7).
- God is divorced: He asked the children to contend with the mother, to tell her that she acted shamefully.
- Vengeance: God promises that He will uncover her, hedge her, etc… This is a picture of someone who has turned away from God.
- Apostasy: the people were turned away from God, they were in apostasy. Apostasy is not “an event”, happening once in a while; it is a sickness, an addiction and a habit, of turning away. Here we see God’s unchanging love versus Israel’s stubborn unchastity and habitual turning away.
How does God feel about this?
On the one hand God is deeply hurt and touched, but on the other hand, as we see in the book of Hosea, He will love her freely! His love is an unchanging love: He loved Israel even in the wilderness, as a child (Hosea 11:1).
He has a Father’s love for us, and He also has a Husband’s love for us (He says, I will lure her again, I will speak to her heart, then she will respond to Me, and in that day you will call Me, My Husband! No longer will you call me, Master!)
God promises to betrothe us to Himself forever with justice, lovingkindness, compassions, and righteousness. He has a husband’s love who has been betrayed by His lover and yet still comes back to love her.
What kind of love is this? In the world we see many broken marriages, and when the relationship between the husband and the wife is gone, it is very hard to get back that feeling.
But yet, God was so much betrayed by His people, and we have gone to other lovers so many times, and yet He still says, “I will love her freely“! How can this be? With man it is impossible, but God is God, and He is not a man! His love is not a human love!
Why can God still love us in spite of all of our idolatry and our turning away? Because He is God. He said, I will NOT judge him or turn away from Him, because I am God! Wow, what a loving God we have!
The love with which God loves us
Again I say, what kind of love is this? It is not human love, which runs out. Even though God is broken hearted and hurt by us, yet He still freely loves us and He turns to us! Wow, what kind of love is this?
- A remembering love: The Lord remembers and thinks about how good she was when she was young. How beautiful she was in God’s memory while Israel was in the wilderness… If we read the record of the people of Israel in the wilderness, we can’t see any beauty… but God loved them and He considered them beautiful!
- An unrequited love – a love that loves without getting anything in return. God kept loving, and the more He loved, the more they turned away. Such an unrelenting love, never giving up. In Hosea 11:8 God has a monologue, How can I give her up? He can’t! He is turned, and His heart is warmed!
- A love that would wait until she comes back. She goes away to her lovers, but the Lord is waiting until she returns and acknowledges Him (Hosea 5:15). He will return when she returns, and He is waiting for her in love to return!
- A turning love – God turns first! In chapters 2 and 3 His people gave Him a cold shoulder, but He still went on to lure her and draw her. His people were in apostasy, but God returned to them first.
- A luring love – God didn’t force us, and He didn’t try to use things circumstantially, but He lured us by opening His heart to us. Finally, at the end, this person of apostasy was able to utter, “What have I yet to do with idols?” Wow, she finally said that! All along she’s been saying things like, “I will go after my lovers” (2:5), “I will return to my first husband” (v. 7), “we have no king, what can the king do to us” (ch. 10), “I have become rich!” (ch. 12), “cover me mountains and hills!” (ch. 7) – they would even howl on their bed, but not come to God from their heart! No one called unto God!
Transformation in life by God’s love
God’s everlasting love for us is not a love in affection, a love that some husbands have for their wives and thus spoil them, but a love in life, like the love of a father toward a son. Yes, God loves us as His wife, but this love is a love in life, one which helps us to be transformed in life to match Him.
In His love, God loves us in His humanity by many cords of a man and bands of love (Hosea 11:4). Through the steps of Christ in His humanity, through His incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, God loves us and reaches us as a man wherever we are in His salvation (see Rom. 5:8; 1 John 4:9-10).
His love in life transforms us and yet does not spoil us. His love reaches us in life to enliven us, regenerate us, sanctify us, renew us, transform us, conform us, mature us, glorify us, and make us the same as God in life, nature, appearance, and glory! What a love in life for our transformation!
Lord, thank You for causing all things to work together for good for us, those who love You. Thank You for returning to us first, Lord! Thank You for such an unchanging love for us. Forgive us from going away from You and loving other things. Lord, we return to You! What have we to do with idols? Lord, You are our first love! You’re the One we love the Best!
References and Further Reading
- Sharing inspired from brother Andrew Yu’s review of the book of Hosea, and, Life-study of Hosea (msg. 8), as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of the Minor Prophets, week 2 (entitled, The Restoration of Israel — Transformation in Life by God’s Love).
- Hymns on this topic:
# Lord, we’ve been drawn off by many things; / Now we turn our heart back—how it sings! / We repent of loving other things — / Jesus, Lord, You’re our first love.
# Draw and win and fill completely, / Till the cup o’erflow the brim; / What have we to do with idols / Who have companied with Him?
# I repent and now return, / Grant my heart for You to burn. / Flame in me this zeal. / Lord, be in me so real! - Picture source: I have loved you with an everlasting love.
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Amen…