HOSEA 3
The prophet was told to love “an adulteress, according to the love of Jehovah for the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods, and love raisin-cakes”. That God should love a people in spite of the greatest unfaithfulness on their part is truly marvellous, and the thought of it bows the heart in wonder and worship. It is very necessary that we should know this character of divine love; a love which has its source and fountain in the very heart of God because of what He is, and which cannot be quenched or stayed by any unworthiness on the part of the creature. Jehovah’s controversy with the children of Israel in Hosea’s day was that there was no truth, nor goodness, nor knowledge of God in the land, chapter 4: 1. They did not know that Jehovah loved them in spite of their unfaithfulness; if they had known this it would have broken their hearts in repentance and turned them to Him. All the service of the prophets whom Jehovah sent carried with it the testimony that He still loved them, and desired their love, and when He came as Immanuel into their midst it was that this might be known in the most unmistakable way. “How often would I have gathered thy children as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” By the last of the Old Testament prophets Jehovah said, “I have loved you” (Malachi 1:2); and to the last phase of unfaithfulness in the assemblies the Lord says, “I rebuke and discipline as many as I love; be zealous therefore and repent”. Revelation 3: 19. What touching appeals on the part of divine Persons! In spite of all departure and unfaithfulness, though the loved one is an adulteress, the love remains.
Love has established its title to the unfaithful one by purchase (verse 2), and this title holds good even if the claim is not answered to. Jehovah has not given up His claim on Israel, or His title to [p. 7] possess her, though He has had to wait long for the claim to be acknowledged on her part. The last prophecy in Israel was that Jesus was going to die for the nation that it might not perish; John 11:50 - 52. He has established His title in love, and “at the end of the days” (verse 5) “shall the children of Israel return, and seek Jehovah their God, and David their king; and shall turn with fear toward Jehovah and toward his goodness”. They will recognise the blessed goodness that has been expressed in Jesus. The two thousand years that have elapsed have not changed Him, and when they turn to Him “at the end of the days” they will find that the love in which He died for them remains undiminished.
All in the Christian profession have been “bought with a price”; we are not our own; but it is a price which love has paid. Christ “died for all, that they who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who died for them and has been raised”, 2 Corinthians 5: 15. He is entitled to say to us, “Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be another man’s, and I will also be for thee”, verse 3. But as it was with Israel so has it been in Christianity; there have been “many days” during which the claim of divine love has been disregarded, with the result that God’s people have been deprived of all that is suitable to their ordering before Him, and they have not had even the miserable comfort which deceived hearts might have found in pure idolatry. Without divine love being known and responded to there is really nothing. No “teraphim” can be a substitute for God, and all who turn away from the love of God will find that they have nothing which they can put in its place. I think this is the meaning of being without “teraphim”, verse 4. All idols are really “nonentities” (see Isaiah 2: 8, margin), and will be proved to be so in the end.
But the husband love of Jehovah for Israel has in view their return to Him “at the end of the days”, and I believe the love of Christ has cherished this thought in regard of the assembly. All believers have some idea that the assembly will be the bride, the Lamb’s wife, in a future day, and that in the glorified conditions she will know His love, and respond to it in a way that will satisfy His heart. But all believers have not understood that God is giving a special ministry of Christ and the assembly now so that saints may turn in their affections to the precious reality of what Christ is for the assembly, and what the assembly is for Christ. No one can be in the current of the present working of [p. 8] God who does not understand this; it is coming about “at the end” of the assembly’s days.