A Love Reclaimed
A Reflection on Hosea 3
How long should you persevere with a broken relationship?
It’s complicated, isn’t it? We want to give careful answers because we know that not all relationships are the same, and not all brokenness is the same. We have passing acquaintances that come and are a blessing, but also may end without much grief. But we also have deep soul relationships, tied together by time and intimacy—these aren’t easily abandoned, and even when they are, they leave scares that may never fade.
This relational complexity is further ‘muddled’ by the types of pain we inflict on one another. Small griefs are more easily overlooked for the sake of the friendship, but there are a whole host of darker pains people inflict on one another. Should they be as easily overlooked?
Maybe the complexities of these issues should be explored on another day, but from Hosea 3, I want to show you how God responds to his relationship with us, and the lengths to which he has gone to redeem and restore a relationship that many of us (if we had been in God’s position) would have been tempted to throw away.
To do that, I simply want to break these five verses into three big ideas (you can see them in the text), then make a few observations about these ideas, and then a few implications for our life of faith today.
Redemption’s Undaunted Love
“Then the LORD said to me, “Go again; show love to a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, just as the LORD loves the Israelites though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.” So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and five bushels of barley.” (Hosea 3:1–2, CSB)
“Go again.” These two words are a devastating picture of the state of the relationship between Hosea and Gomer. An unfaithful wife has not abandoned her ways, has ignored her vows, and has pursued a lifestyle of intimacy with another. Hosea knew that this is what she was like before he married her, but the marriage vows were not strong enough to reform her pattern of life.
“Show love.” This is the opposite of what we assume should happen in this scenario. Despite the heartbreak, despite the pain, despite the shame, God instructs Hosea to “Go again; show love”. The persistent love of Hosea forms a powerful illustration of the persistent and undaunted love of God toward his people. The ‘raisin cakes’ mentioned here are thought to be associated with ritual worship of Canaanite gods.
“So I bought her.” Hosea would have already ‘paid’ for Gomer in the form of a bride-price (common in this culture and time), yet here he buys her again. This came at a cost for Hosea. Redemption always costs something, it is never free. The price is interesting: not as much as a bride-price (that would usually be significantly more), and the price looks similar to the price usually paid for a slave (30 pieces of silver and some barley), but here it only 15 pieces of silver, which may indicate the price to buy someone out of temple ‘service’ (a Canaanite religious ritual that involved sexual practices as a form of worship to Baal).
God is not daunted by your lack of faithfulness. His love pursues the wandering heart and woos it back into his embrace. You sin and unfaithfulness may fill your heart with shame, but it fills God’s heart with resolve to purchase you at great cost to himself.
“Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:10, CSB)
God is a jilted lover unlike the world has ever seen. Rather than throw us to the street with our possessions following behind in a spectacle of shame, he pursues and wins back the heart of the unfaithful. In Christ, he offers his hand once again, renews his vows to make us spotless and without blemish, and clothes us in white to be received into the presence of a king.
Restoration Requires Purification
“I said to her, “You are to live with me many days. You must not be promiscuous or belong to any man, and I will act the same way toward you.” For the Israelites must live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, and without ephod or household idols.” (Hosea 3:3–4, CSB)
Redemption doesn’t come cheap. It didn’t come without cost to Hosea, or to God (we’ve just seen that in v2). But this is a different type of ‘cheap’ I’m talking about. This says that there is no such thing as ‘cheap grace’. God is making clear here, and right throughout Scripture, that grace comes with responsibility on behalf of the one who has received it. I can’t earn grace, nor can I ‘pay grace back’ with good works, but I should live differently because of grace. God says here, “I’ve redeemed you back to myself. Now I want you to relate to me in a certain way, I will relate to you in the same way.” Gomer couldn’t keep living the same way, just as the woman caught in adultery was asked to “Go, and sin no more” (John 8:11).
“Go, and sin no more.” That’s what grace does. Grace isn’t a licence to continue to live how I want, without any regard for the holiness of God or the heart of God. Grace is a gift that comes with a responsibility.
“Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20, CSB)
Grace is meant to produce glory. God’s kindness is designed to produce repentance. God’s patience works purification in his people.
Redeemed People Are Worshiping People
“Afterward, the people of Israel will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They will come with awe to the LORD and to his goodness in the last days.” (Hosea 3:5, CSB)
This chapter finishes with such beauty. God woos the wandering heart of his people and leads them to worship. Rather than a rebel people who have rejected the kingship (and promises) of David for more than two centuries, God says they will once agin be grafted back into all that he has in store as a part of his covenant. Here, God points forward to the latter days and holds out hope that we will once again approach him in true worship.
The salvation of God is no mere truth to be reduced to dry doctrine argued about in classrooms. All the doctrines of God—his person, his character, his incarnation, his divinity, his redemption, his sacrifice, his pursuit of sinners, his holiness, his purpose, his plan, his sovereignty, his power, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, his spirit, his bride—everything—it is all meant to lead us to worship!
“Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (1 Peter 2:10, CSB)
Did you recognise those words? Peter is drawing on the language of Hosea where he said,
“And in the place where they were told: You are not my people, they will be called: Sons of the living God.” (Hosea 1:10, CSB)
Everything that God has done in Christ for us, all that redemption has purchased for us, everything that we has received as a gift of grace is meant to produce a people who live in awe of their God. “They will come with awe to the LORD and to his goodness in the last days.” Or as Peter says,
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.
Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (1 Peter 2:9–10, CSB)
Have you heard of Kintsugi?
When a bowl, teapot or precious vase falls and breaks into a thousand pieces, we throw them away angrily and regretfully. Yet there is an alternative, a Japanese practice that highlights and enhances the breaks thus adding value to the broken object. This traditional Japanese art uses a precious metal – liquid gold, or liquid silver – to bring together the pieces of a broken pottery item and at the same time enhance the breaks. Every repaired piece is unique because of the randomness with which ceramics shatters and the irregular patterns formed that are enhanced with the use of metals.
Your broken life, scarred by sin (wounds inflicted by your own sin, and often the sin of others), is not a disposable item in God’s economy. You are no cheap thing to be used and discarded. He gathers up the shattered pieces, joins them together with something far more precious than gold, and displays them in the trophy room of his grace for all to see. Not all scars are shameful. Consider the scars Jesus carries on your behalf.
