This is the seventh and final post that I’m going to do on the book of Hosea. But seventh in the series though it may be, I want to treat it as though it is the first and the last.
Layered over the timeless theology of this minor Prophet’s book, and this series, has been a certain amount of poetic thought. I hope it’s been clear; I hope it’s been helpful.
But, in just a few paragraphs, what is the message of Hosea?
I Am Gomer
The book of Hosea exists to spectacularly display the loveliness of God – Yahweh, the God of Israel – Who, literally, is Love. He is a kind of love that we’re not very familiar with.
God loves us individually in such a mind-blowingly radical way that we simply don’t get it – hence the allusion in this blog series to the ascent of Everest in flip-flops.
In Hosea, Love is projected through the lens of our personal and corporate unfaithfulnesses. The Bible uses the word ‘adultery’ for good reasons that we’ve looked at:
Jesus loves us despite our daily ‘tendency to wander’ from a faithful heart posture before Him into rhythms of lukewarmness where we are at our most miserable; He loves us individually when we see Him split the sea for us to only grow impatient overnight and begin making golden idols to worship after breakfast the next day; He loves us individually when we sleep with others outside of our marriage covenant with Him.
But He still promises to woo us back into whole-heartedness despite the pain we cause His parental, Bridegroom heart.
We Are Gomer
Jesus is coming back for a Bride, for a church, a body who have made themselves ready. (Rev.19:7).
The worldwide church simply aren’t ready for Jesus as their Bidegroom:
We are corporately Gomer when we abandon the Bible for the sake of self-help ‘talks’; we are corporately Gomer when we build ‘ministries’ primarily around anything other than devotion to Jesus in the place of worship and prayer; we are corporately Gomer when we think ‘building His church’ is more important than worshipping as His church; we are corporately Gomer when we pigeon-hole lovesickness with Jesus into a specific personality type or Ephesians-4-calling; we are corporately Gomer when religious, denominational inflexibility and blinkeredness trumps the transcendent, explosive, life-giving reality of the Kingdom of King Jesus.
I am Gomer; you are Gomer; we are Gomer. Yet He is still wooing us into whole-hearted worship and likeness to Jesus.
We are softened and energised and permitted to increasingly love Him, as we should, in the knowledge of this.
I think this is the message of Hosea.
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