Hosea 3

The first thing God had told Hosea was to go and marry a wife of harlotry.  He now tells Hosea to go and retrieve her from the harlotry she has returned to.  Wow!  What would you say?  Could you control your emotions?  Whatever thoughts he had, Hosea is obedient to the LORD.

God’s words are specific and powerful: Go again (again, because true love is faithful, persistent), love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery (she still has lovers, she is still a prostitute, but it is time to draw her and it must be by your love).  Why?  The answer is in the first huge simile: just like the love of the LORD for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans.  Wow!  Do we not remember: this is how He loved and loves us?  But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8).  We love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).  Hosea must do this because it is what God does!

Hosea paid the price to buy her for himself.  Think about that.  He is paying for a prostitute, except that the prostitute is his wife.  And so God will make it possible for Israel to enjoy the New Covenant blessings by paying the price so that He can forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more (Jer. 31:34).  To do that God must pay the price of redemption.  And He did in Christ.

Hosea invites Gomer to return and stay with me many days.  Israel will be many days, from 70AD until who knows when, without a king, or an altar for sacrifice or a priesthood.  But afterward they will return to the LORD, to the Messiah, He who is the Son of God AND Son of David!  They will fear the LORD and enjoy His goodness.  This will happen in that day, in the latter days.  It has not yet happened.  But it will.  God loves Israel that much!!

Do you remember Jesus’ conversation with Peter in John 21?  Peter, after the cross and resurrection, but more importantly, after he had denied Jesus three times, had returned to Galilee and to his occupation.  Jesus had once called him from fishing for fish to fish for men (Mt. 4:19).  Jesus did it using a miraculous catch of fish.  Now He does it again.  And then He sits down with Peter (21:15-19), before the others, and asks him: Do you love Me more than these?  

Commentators often wonder what Jesus meant by these.  More than the other disciples who are there?  Not likely.  Jesus doesn’t believe in that kind of comparison.  To me it makes sense: do you love me more than these 153 fish you just caught with My help?  Perhaps that is how Hosea approached Gomer: do you love me more than these lovers who have failed you so miserably?  Do you remember how I loved you?  I will love you again if you will receive it?

Do we understand that Jesus loves us?  And do we understand that He wants to know that we love Him?  More than anything?  More than everything?  He wants to know that first, from us!