HOSEA 1 (NOTES OF A READING)
[p. 387] HOSEA 1 (NOTES OF A READING)
CAC The prophet’s name means ‘Deliverance’, which is a help to the understanding of the book, deliverance having a bearing on a very unfaithful state; and we are in a day when the affections of God’s people are very corrupted and turned away to other objects. We should desire deliverance from everything that would hinder our affections being wholly for the Lord and for God; that is, to have affections that are suitable to the relationships God has brought about.
Ques Were you referring to the relationships of “wife” and “sons”?
CAC Yes, the marital relationship with Christ and the family relationship as sons; and we get them both in this chapter. The marriage relationship is of the most intimate character. It ought to touch us profoundly, the thought of the intimacy that divine Persons would have with us. All that is true for Israel is true for the church, and we want to read it for ourselves. We should be in the fervent affections of these relations that have been established, though we had nothing to do with the establishment of them. If God is love, He can only be satisfied by love.
Rem Judgment came first to Israel.
CAC It came earlier for Israel. It never did come for Judah till they rejected Christ. He carried on His dealings with them until Christ came, “of whom Christ came”, it says.
Ques To what does verse 7 refer?
CAC It refers to what Jehovah did when Christ was on earth, by way of delivering power; it was all there for them in Jesus. Their condition is a whoredom of affection, which is set forth symbolically in the associations of the prophet. In [p. 388] christendom the relations are departed from, not in doctrine, but in affection. There is very little idea of the relations as married to Christ and as sons to God, and it comes home to each of us as to whether we are wanting in the devoted affection which is proper to the relationships in which we are set.
Ques What would help us in it?
CAC I think it would help us to consider the relationship which was manifested in absolute perfection in Christ Himself. John speaks of Him as “the bridegroom”, and the affections of the relationship are seen in integrity and fulness and fervency in Him. None of us would think of asking the Lord to love us more than He does! It is in considering the incorruptible affections of the Bridegroom that we are helped.
Ques What would the ‘sowing’ (Jizreel) refer to?
CAC Failure in affection always precedes failure in walk. A certain retributive sowing follows, for God never passes over unfaithful affections. Then there is a sowing that has in view all the purposes of God’s love. We need to be balanced in the two thoughts. If we accept the first and humble ourselves, He falls back on His purposes and works them out in His own sovereignty and love from His own side, which is a great comfort. The whole constituted relationship was gone — inwardly in affection. We have to search our hearts as to whether the incorruptible affections are there in fervency, so as to satisfy the heart of Christ.
“Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea”. “Great is the day of Jizreel” in the aspect of the purpose of God. There are two views altogether different in his chapter. All saints are going to be in the blessedness of the marriage relationship, also in the relationship of sons.
The departure in affection is far more serious than the departure in doctrine, because it is inward and connected with the state of the saints. An extreme point is reached when Jehovah will not show mercy upon them, or say they [p. 389] are His people, or be for them. These exercises are illustrated in a striking way in the prophets themselves, so that those paying attention could not very well miss what God was saying. Laodicea answers in the church period to what we get here.
Rem The failure appears in the remnant itself.
CAC The overcomer is only such in sovereign love and mercy, and each one would own that to be so.
Rem It shall come to pass in that place, it says. Affections are begotten in them there, in that condition of things.
CAC In the very place where it was said, “Not my people”, there it shall be said, “Sons of the living God” it says (verse 10). It extends to those who get blessing among the Gentiles; it comes down to us this afternoon.
We cannot revive our own affections. I suppose there is none of us but has had the experience of being cold and dead towards the Lord and being wholly unable to revive our affection to the Lord. I am sorry for the person that has not had a touch of it. Nothing has caused me more anguish than the knowledge that I was unresponsive to the love of Christ after all He had done and is, and that I had not the least bit of power to make myself so. Now that casts us on God; it needs a divine Person to come in for us, and it is a much more intense exercise than that of Romans 7. In Romans you cannot do what you would like to, but now it is a person who has known deliverance from the law, exercised to be wholly responsive to the love of Christ and of God, and he finds there is not the power in him. What is he to do? He is just as much cast upon God for that as the other. God would have us take up these relationships in real and fervent affection, so that they satisfy God, so that they satisfy divine Persons. This is what God has before Him and this will be so in eternity. Romans 8 unfolds how it is done. If God does not give His Spirit in my heart I am as helpless as a block of wood.
Rem We cannot work up a state.
CAC Well, let anybody try it! This shows how the divine deliverance supplies everything necessary, so that [p. 390] divine Persons may have Their satisfaction in us. It is most encouraging.
Rem As we get a little further on in Romans, “For of him, and through him, and for him, are all things” (Romans 11: 36).
CAC Yes.