This post by christinecoltman was originally published at GRACE PLACE
A Redeeming Love – A Redeemed Identity
As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.”
This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one.
Eph 5.31-32
After our intro night a couple weeks ago, I’ve spent time reflecting on the chat Anne, Christine and I had, and it made me think back to a day a couple years before I was married. I was living in Harleysville PA with two housemates and one afternoon they were both out with their families. My family was thousands of miles away and, although it was a sunny day, it was almost oppressive and I was overwhelmed with feelings of loneliness.
I remember laying face down on the floor, crying into the carpet, pleading to God to give me a husband who would love, accept, cherish, look after me — someone who’d fulfil me and make me whole…
Looking back, the pain I felt right in the depths of my insides was God’s plan for us all along. From the beginning, before the universe was ever created, he wanted us to know that kind of belonging and love, but the desire wouldn’t be fulfilled in any earthly husband.
God has provided this love for us and we’re going to see that through the devastating testimony of Hosea’s marriage: one of the most shocking and explicit pictures of sin and God’s tender grace that we see in the Bible.
But before we launch into Hosea 1.1, I thought it would be best to start with historical overview so we can get a little context: Genesis – in the beginning… Don’t worry – I’ll have you home by breakfast! But it’s important to start at the start – because that’s where Hosea’s story starts!
Hopefully, some of this will be a walk down memory lane, but it’s so critical to get your head around the context because it sets up the rest of the book of Hosea. But also, if you get this, you will also start to see all the other Old Testament books that come before Hosea fit together like jigsaw pieces!! So, stick with me through this history-whirlwind!
In the beginning, God created the world. He did it because of love. He did it because he’s going to offer a bride to his son. And, as God is eternally in communion as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, it’s my guess that as much as the Father enjoys lavishing the Son with glory, happiness, kindness, love —
he also wants the Son to experience that with his bride. And so, in Creation, God wants to draw out a bride for his Son to share his heart with.
But, in the garden, we rejected his love. He wanted us to know him, to be his people and to enjoy him, but we were unfaithful. We turned our backs on him and the result was that the world was cursed and came under God‘s judgement.
We completely wrecked our relationship with God – and with each other. But, God had a plan: he would renew the world with a transformed people!
He came to Abram and promised Abram he’d become a people who were blessed by God. God even changed his name to Abraham, which means father of many, and he promised that Abraham’s family would be incalculable – like the sand on the seashore!
Eventually Abraham had a son called Isaac, and Isaac had a son called Jacob, and Jacob had twelve sons. It was the descendants of Jacob’s twelve sons that became a nation. God gave Jacob a new name – ‘Israel’, and in time the whole nation was called Israel.
This happened when Jacob’s family was in Egypt where they’d gone to escape a horrific famine. At first, they were welcomed, but over time they had to sell themselves to the Egyptians as slaves just to pay for food. As the years went on, conditions became horrific, and the nation of Israel cried out to God for mercy and he rescued them – through Moses. God told the Israelites, ‘you will be my people and I will be your God’. And God gave Israel the land of Canaan.
Now, the greatest King to ever rule Israel was David and he had a son, Solomon. We all know Solomon for his incredible wisdom, but he did a foolish thing; he married loads of foreign wives who followed foreign gods. So, Solomon enslaved God’s people all over again – this time by making idol worship acceptable, and by forcing the people to work on his pet-building projects.
Eventually, Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, took over the throne and he put and end to his father’s slave labour program, but that provoked a power-hungry guy called Jeroboam to start a rebellion. So, in 930 BC, the 12 tribes of Israel divided into two separate kingdoms.
The ten Northern tribes formed one nation under Jeroboam, and the two Southern tribes (Judah / Benjamin) remained under the rule of David’s line. The ten Northern tribes were called Israel (or Ephraim) and their capital was Samaria while the two Southern tribes were called Judah and their capital was Jerusalem.
Now, let’s focus on the North where Jeroboam got the Northern nation off to a horrendous start! He didn’t want his people traveling to Jerusalem for sacrifices and festivals so he constructed 2 golden calves and made these idols the focus of the Israel’s worship.
The next five kings after Jeroboam all came to power through bloodshed. None of them tried to stop the idolatry in the kingdom and eventually Ahab came to power. Now, Ahab had a palace in a town called Jezreel but the palace wasn’t enough: he wanted the vineyard next door. The vineyard was owned by a man named Naboth and it wasn’t for sale. But Ahab wasn’t taking no for an answer, so he had Naboth murdered and this total abuse of power became the norm.
Ahab had a famous wife who’s name will be familiar to you: Jezebel. Her name is synonymous with idolatry and together Jezebel and Aham made Baal worship the state religion in the North. (Interestingly, Baal worship was a fertility religion – think children. They will have a part to play in this story…)
Eventually, Ahab was succeeded by his children but in time God raised up an officer called Jehu to bring down the house of Ahab. As you might expect by now, Jehu took power through extreme bloodshed. He slaughtered all the leading figures in Ahab’s family and he had the heads of all 70 of Ahab’s grandsons cut off and brought to Jezreel.
Four generations of Jehu’s family ruled over Israel, but they weren’t much better than Ahab. Jehu did removed the Baal worship, but he replaced it with other forms of idolatry and in time, the fertility cult of Baal made a mega comeback.
Which brings us up to Jehu’s great grandson: Jeroboam II. He ruled the Northern Kingdom for 40 years and his reign seemed like a time of prosperity and peace – almost a golden age where life seemed good and peaceful….
But, one day, God called Hosea, a man no one had heard of before.
1.1 The Lord gave this message to Hosea son of Beeri during the years when Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah were kings of Judah, and Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel.
It seems like the time of prosperity in Israel led to spiritual laziness, which led to spiritual adultery and betrayal. So as Hosea starts, Assyria is budding in the North, growing in power and the Israelites are starting to feel a nervousness. Some thought they ought to make an alliance with Assyria, others favoured an alliance with Egypt – none of them chose to make an alliance with the Lord.
Tragically, Assyria would crush the Northern Kingdom and utterly destroy them, but Hosea’s prophecy happens right on the cusp of the close to that age of prosperity. It’s made me wonder: did Hosea’s prophecy seem like fantasy since Israel was so confident in their power and identity?
1.2 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.”
The impact of the Lord using the word ‘whoredom’ x3 is huge! He’s saying to them, ‘like a cheating wife – you’re two-timing me’!
How does that make you feel? I know that I find the Prophets are sometimes hard to read because I don’t feel like I have half the enthusiasm they do!
They use such passionate and vivid language! I think we come expecting we’re going to read about judgement, but this story reads more like a rom-tragedy where we start with a dreadful story of Gomer, a cheating, unfaithful wife — and we’re forced to face the fact that we are Gomer! God has offered us his love, kindness, protection, patience, mercy – and we sold ourselves to other gods.
Hosea’s heart-breaking marriage gives us a very true picture of sin where we realise that sin – at the very core – is spiritual adultery. It’s being unfaithful to God – in exactly the same way that sexual adultery is. So God warns the people: you think you have everything, but you’re immoral and ungodly people! You’re living in a dark, shattered world where you’ve forgotten me, abandoned me and gone running after other lovers. And the idolatry of Israel goes back through every generation —- until this point when God says ‘ENOUGH’!
The theme of this talk is a redeeming love, a love that redefines us: it’s really a redeemed identity! Throughout the book, we get a clear picture of two different identities:
The first is based in whoredom: we see this in Jehu – a guy that looks like a good king but Hosea’s insight gives us a different picture. It seems like Jehu was serving the Lord, but he was actually serving other lovers. We have the advantage of hindsight where we can look at Jehu’s sons, Jehoahaz and Josash, and see the evidence of generational sin at work in that family. We can see how generational idol worship drives a thick wedge between God and the people he dearly loves.
But the second identity is based in love: a God who loves you and will pursue you no matter what, who’s eager to draw us back in, to redeem us and to dwell with us – according to his faithful promise!
So, how about an easy question: Why would God tell Hosea to go marry a prostitute?!
And remember – this is the very beginning of Hosea’s ministry, day 1. God has just started to speak through him and the first order of business is to go marry a prostitute. I don’t know if you noticed, but Hosea’s not a mega church leader with a big, upright reputation. In actual fact, we hardly know anything about him. But we do know that God knows Hosea’s heart, and he entrusts Hosea with the calling of demonstrating his future plan of redemption, for his chosen people, through Hosea’s heart-breaking marriage and children.
How? Well, we know Gomer was a prostitute who was unfaithful and her children demonstrate to us a group of people who God said to them, ‘you are not my people, and I am not your God’!
But thanks to Paul, some 700 years or so later, we know Hosea isn’t just talking to Judah. He’s addressing people from Judah and Israel and beyond – people who the Lord would one day call, ‘children of the living God’!
That is Romans 8&9 and it’s why Paul quotes Hosea and Isaiah, because they both prophesied in the same period, the same message:
It is not children of the flesh (trapped in whoredom), but the children of the promise who are counted. And the children of the promise aren’t just Jews, they’re Gentiles too! It’s us! God would have mercy!
The whoredom of Gomer was inherited by her children to show us how we were once cut off from God and without relationship with him. We were born into a horrendous situation. Let’s take a look at the names of Hosea and Gomer’s children:
V4 Jezreel: BLOODSHED
V6 Lo-ruhama: NOT LOVED
V9 Lo-ammi: NOT MY CHILD
Can you even imagine taking your kids to soft play and hearing a mum call out across the area, ‘Massacre, Unloved, Bastard – time to go, daddy’s waiting!’
Instead of children, born into a healthy, loving home, we were born into dysfunction and brokenness and we inherited shame and separation from God — but Mercy would chase us! Not because of anything we’ve done – or will do, but because of God ‘s love that isn’t going to give up on us (Romans 9).
V10 Yet, “Yet the time will come when Israel’s people will be like the sands of the seashore— too many to count! Then, at the place where they were told, ‘You are not my people,’ it will be said, ‘You are children of the living God.’ (Hosea 1:10 / Romans: 9:25-26 / Isaiah 10:22)
What a dramatic shift! Something major just happened between v9 and v10! In 9, were we’re fatherless, unloved, sat playing in a pool of blood. But in v10 we’re redeemed – adopted – and deeply loved! We went from a place where ugly self-love was all we had – to a place where we’re redeemed in every way.
In 1 Cor 5, Paul is addressing something similar and he says, ‘It’s reported that there’s sexual immorality among you, the kind that is not even tolerated among the pagans…’ He goes on to rebuke them saying, ‘you’re thinking you’re proud because you’re so open-minded and allowing this, but — God forbid! Stop it! That person has to be put out of the church or repent!’ The fact that we think we’re open-minded when we’re open to sin and sexual immorality — oh my goodness! God says, NO! Your sexuality is core to who you are. You must stop! You’re not living in light of God’s ways and living out the life we’re meant to. We’re meant to be the bride of Christ, holy and blameless.
When you catch a glimpse of God’s beauty and you see yourself in the glow of his glory, you start to realise you are his invaluable bride, set aside for the Son – and then your heart ought to melt!
But do you ever get these twinges of doubt, from somewhere deep-down, like – God might not want me as I actually am? Know this: this is what God, in Christ, was doing when he redeemed us on the cross! Jesus took away our shame so that we could come with boldness into his father‘s presence and his warm embrace!
The children of Gomer show us the inheritance of the whole human race, and it’s ugly. We didn’t get money, a big house or even a good name! Adam and Eve left us a messed-up identity that looks nothing like what God created us for. And I won’t speak for you, but I feel the pain of that reality: so I respond by trying to re-create myself by being clothed in acceptance, affirmation and love of others – because I’m desperate for you to find anything lovely or valuable about me!
Our sin (our messed up love) that separated us from God, means we go out seeking love in all the wrong places because we don’t know we’re already perfectly loved. Like you might remember me mentioning last year how love is both the cause and the cure for our sin!!
When we know how much we’re loved by our perfect father in heaven, then sinning – chasing other loves that fill our hearts and minds – it loses its charm! Our hearts instead are melted by the pain it causes the Lord when we betray his love.
‘So, keep in step with the Spirit’ Gal 5. Ask him, ‘Lord, would this please you? Is this something I can do today that will bring you joy?’ And as we do this, we start to sift and sort out all our affections and we start to discover more about his love and know him deeper.
Knowing and loving Christ is the only place we can put off old identity. We have been redeemed by love – and bought back! But, maybe like me, you’ve been at this a while: do you ever struggle with putting off the old identity? As believers, we still hold on to our old selves. There are things I know need to get rid of, to have a more intimate relationship with God, but I struggle.
Paul said, ‘renew your mind’:
In spiritual sense – with Christ, this is DONE. He’s replaced our hearts of stone (Ezekiel 36) and given us new tender hearts.
But in a physical sense – our bodies need to catch up with what God has already done. That’s why we struggle today. Our minds are still being renewed, we’re still chasing after idols and we’re a work in progress. But don’t listen to the voice of Gomer. Instead, let the love of Christ control you (2 Cor 5.14) by the love of God, poured out in our hearts (Rom 5.5) with the Holy Spirit doing his best work in us.
Hosea is a lens for us to see the bigger picture of what God is like, and to see his plan of redemption. His key message is this: Love him. Take the love that God offers you!
It’s so relevant to us today in Corsham because when we get this – guess what? The Love of God pours out through you, to everyone around you, and your community! That is evangelism! Every day we get to be with people who need to be loved – and when God’s love is poured out into our hearts, we respond by asking him to search us, lead us, and keep us in step with the Spirit.
What does God want to do with us? You know, he just wants us to come to him and say, ‘God, I don’t know if your love is really poured out in my heart, but I want to be a lover of you. Will you help me?’
And if you’re unsure, why not ask him and receive the Spirit’s invitation to pour out God’s love into your heart! He won’t force himself – but he stands at the door of your heart and knocks!
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in. Rev 3.20
Let’s pray