HOSEA 5 (NOTES OF A READING)
HOSEA 5 (NOTES OF A READING)
CAC We were saying last week we see figuratively in chapter 3 that Jehovah establishes a claim by purchase upon His idolatrous people. In spite of their unfaithfulness His claim is established by purchase, though He may have to wait many days. And this is true in our case. His title to Israel and His title to us is established by purchase. There may not be much affection on our side, but that does not alter Him.
The last prophecy given in Israel was that Jesus was about to die for that nation that they might not perish, that is, He has established His claim whatever might be on their side. “Ye are bought with a price”, it says. It does not matter if there is any response or not, the Lord’s title is established by purchase. As regards Israel it is at the end of the days. It is something like two thousand five hundred years since the prophecy was given.
Rem They will be afflicted and afterwards return to Jehovah.
Ques I was thinking of Luke 15. Does it correspond with the return of sons in these closing days?
CAC Yes, I was thinking that. The claim established by purchase must have a response. We cannot think of God [p. 394] or of the Lord Jesus giving up the claim of love. There is no change on the Lord’s side as to Israel, nor on the divine side as to the assembly. The change is needed on our side, and this book shows how this change is brought about — has been, I trust with many of us — and will be brought about in any whose hearts are moved under the dealings of God.
Ques It says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4: 6). Is the question of knowledge important?
CAC I should think it is most important, because the knowledge referred to is the knowledge of the first verse, really “the knowledge”, that is, it is the specific knowledge. The controversy of God was because there was no knowledge of God in the land. And really everything turns on that; and it is the only thing that affords any satisfaction to God, that there should be the knowledge of Him. It puts everything right.
Ques Does chapter 6: 3 refer to Jerusalem?
CAC Well, that is in view, but we are thinking of it as applying to ourselves. “For I delight in loving-kindness, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings” (verse 6). It is what God delights in. Our thought is to do something for Him. “They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek Jehovah; but they shall not find Him” (chapter 5: 6). He has withdrawn Himself from them; that is, we shall never find Him on that line. If we go with our flocks and herds, that is bringing something to God. God says, Now, that is not what I am after. I think chapter 6: 6 must be a very favourite scripture with the Lord. I do not know that there is any other scripture that He quoted twice. The Jew was always on the line of works; it is the danger with us too, and it ends up with the withering of the soul.
Ques Is it not the difference between the old and new covenants? In Hebrews 8 you get, “They shall not teach each his fellow-citizen, and each his brother, saying, Know the Lord; because all shall know me in themselves, from the little one among them unto the great among them”.
CAC The great pleasure to God is that we should know Him. It is not what we bring — that will be all right if we know Him. The Pharisees used the law in a legal way upon the tax-gatherers and sinners. But the latter sat at table with Jesus and His disciples. His presence altered the whole thing. It was not, What can I get? but, What can I bring to these tax-gatherers and sinners? It alters all on man’s side. If God is known in goodness and loving-kindness, it brings about what is corresponding in His people.
Paul said to the Corinthians, Some of you are ignorant of God. They were saying there was no resurrection. It is a very primary matter that God should be known as the God of resurrection. If you do not know Him thus, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. So the greatest thing is the knowledge of God.
Rem John 17 says, “This is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent”.
CAC So the reference here is to eternal life. And do you not think the whole of this book (one of the most instructive books there is) is for that purpose? It shows the knowledge of God is only reached through affliction. That is the purpose of His dealings; and behind all His dealings is the thought of His love. He means us to come into the truth of wifely relations, sonship and eternal life, and all that is bound up in His thoughts of love. All that is bound up in His dealings with us. What pains He took to produce in us conviction of sin. Millions of our fellow-beings live and die without any pangs of conviction. No child of God ever does.
Rem It says twice that they “dealt treacherously” (chapter 5: 7 and 6: 7).
CAC That was true of us all; we have been unfaithful to what God has made known, all the light He has given; and God deals with us to bring us to a sense of how unfaithful we have been. It is a breakdown in affections that is chiefly in view in this book — that is where the assembly has broken down. But the Lord chastens and disciplines. “As many as [p. 396] I love, I rebuke and chasten; be zealous therefore and repent” (Revelation 3: 19). He disciplines and waits until there is an acknowledgment of their trespass (Hosea 5: 15). He cannot do anything with us before. When there is acknowledgment, He says: I will undertake everything for you. It is afflicted persons that seek God. Is any other acceptable? “Is any ... afflicted, let him pray” (James 5: 13). God is waiting for that, and we see His dealings are to bring us to the point that we must cease from all confidence in ourselves and turn to Him.
Then He will undertake everything for us. It runs through the whole life of the believer. Satan always tells us to keep quiet like the psalmist. He was shutting it up in his own breast and had no relief until, “I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity I covered not; I said, I will confess my transgressions unto Jehovah, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin” (Psalm 32: 5). Then God will do all that is necessary for those who accept His dealings and His smiting.
As it says, “He hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live before his face”. So we had better return to Him. There is the sense in the soul that God is for us. We have only to turn to Him in the truth of the conditions, whatever they may be, and He will do everything for us. And if we are not firmly fixed on that ground, we have not the knowledge of God. Fancy the blessed God making known to us what He is in His goodness! That is the importance of owning God in what has made me smart, because I learn Him. It is God that has made me smart, but that I might know Him. ‘Oh, I do want you to know Me’, He says. ‘I have given you that stroke because I want you to know Me’. It is grand.
Ques Why does it say, “like Adam” in verse 7?
CAC It goes back to Adam, the very root, which was lack of confidence in God.
Ques To what do the three days in chapter 6: 2 refer?
CAC There are certain experiences to be gone [p. 397] through preparatory to our getting the knowledge of God in Christ.
Ques Would it cover the thought of death and burial?
CAC No doubt. In the great general ways of God, which apply in miniature to the believer, the law came in first. It was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. It brought the conviction of sin and powerlessness. It is the way all souls have to pass through to get blessing in Christ. It is Romans 7 for us.
Then the day of the prophets deepened the lesson taught under the law, and brought in the promises of what God would do. But the prophets made certain that the blessing could only come in through Christ.
Ques What is the third day, “On the third day he will raise us up”?
CAC I think the third day was like Christ’s day. “And we shall live before his face”. The third day brings in Christ. Think what the disciples had in the Lord. They found the claims of the law were all there in perfect fulfilment in Him. As to the prophets, they were all there in a blessed Man in perfect fulfilment. And they came into the shining of Christ. All the goodness of God was there in Him, and is there in Him for us. That is what revives the soul.
Ques Would you say a word as to His going forth as the morning dawn?
CAC Is that not what we come to as following on? That is, it is first raising us up and making us live before His face; and then from that standpoint we follow on to know Jehovah, and His going forth is as assured as the morning dawn; His blessedness is as the eternal day.
It is very much like John 20. He goes forth to lead really into the knowledge of His Father and His God, known as the Father and God of His brethren, all in view of association with Him in ascension. He comes out of death and goes into resurrection, and is going forth into all that blessedness. What an experience it must have been to the disciples to find [p. 398] He was risen, and that He could be near to them as risen, and that was really on the ground that they were risen with Him.
It could not have been as natural men in the flesh. I do not mean that they entered into it, but He did. The knowledge of God enters into all that. If we do not know it, we are lacking in the knowledge of God. The third day He will raise us up, so we shall live before His face. It is a question whether we have taken in His great thought, which is absolutely true in His mind, that we are raised. Now I want you to know My thought of you, He would say.
The disciples in those forty days had a very blessed experience of what it is to be suitable to Him as His companions. It was not doctrine — they did not know the doctrine — but experience with them. And we are not ready for the assembly on its privilege side if we do not know it. He goes forth there to bring to pass all that before the world’s foundation was in the divine mind and counsel. He goes out of death for us to go out of death along with Him, that we might be participators in His life.
Ques What is “the latter rain”?
CAC The latter rain is the Spirit. It is to bring the crop to maturity. We are in that now; the Spirit is working to bring to maturity the great thoughts of God and His love. We are in it now. The Spirit brings that to maturity in the saints, that is, the complete thought of God. It is the climax of the book, showing the thoughts of divine love in their fruition.
It involves Christ being glorified, His having gone forth to be glorified. And His going forth is assured as the morning dawn. It is that He might come to us Spirit-wise to refresh us.
What a lot we should have to pray about. It is John 14, “I will not leave you orphans, I am coming to you”. He comes to minister comfort to us. In the Supper we should look first to be comforted in the great thoughts of divine love. That is before He leads us in praise, because He has got to qualify us, so to speak.
Rem When He came to them in John 20 He said, “Peace be to you”.
CAC There must be conditions of peace for Him to unfold the Father’s great things. So He says, “Peace”, that is the first thing. The first result is a great pervading sense of divine peace. We get too much occupied with our flocks and herds. But the Lord says, I shall tell you wonderful things if you will listen to Me. I shall furnish you with everything.
And so the headship of Christ comes in. “The head, from whom all the body ... increases with the increase of God”
(Colossians 2: 19). So you get increase in the knowledge of God.
That is the first operation of the headship of Christ. So a brother will pray before the meeting, ‘O, that I might be a vessel used for increase in the knowledge of God’. There will be no difficulty about the praise then.
Rem “And this man shall be Peace”, it says (Micah 5: 5).
CAC That is beautiful. That will be true in a coming day. Israel will know Christ as risen; that will qualify them to enter into eternal life on the earth. And there will be no armaments then, but peace.
This book is taken up by the Lord, by Paul and by Peter; so that we are not at all wrong in taking this up as applying to us now. Peter says that no prophecy of Scripture is had from its own particular interpretation. You cannot tie up to Israel what is said in the prophetic word, but it is true of the assembly.
“For I delight in loving-kindness, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings”. It is as we are filled with loving-kindness as known in God that God has delight in us. He is not concerned about sacrifice, though that has its place. Well, God is wonderful and His ways are wonderful. And this book is largely the unfolding of His chastening ways, involving His smiting and wounding. It is like the outpouring of the grief of Christ over Jerusalem. It is the Spirit of Christ mourning over the condition of the people. Does it make us weep over the condition of the christian profession, or do we have hard thoughts about people? Do we feel ready to weep as feeling all they are missing and what God is missing?