Read Hosea 11:1–11
Questions from the Scripture text: To what time does Hosea 11:1 refer? What was God’s disposition toward Israel then? What did He do for them? How did Israel end up doing what (Hosea 11:2)? But what had the Lord been doing for them this time (Hosea 11:3a–b)? With what irony (verse 3c)? How was the Lord dealing with them, during this time (Hosea 11:4)? What will now happen to Israel (Hosea 11:5a–b)? Why? What will this event be like (Hosea 11:6a–c)? Why (verse 6d)? Why do they keep doing this (Hosea 11:7a)? What are they doing on the surface (verse 7b)? But what are they not doing in reality (verse 7c)? What is the implied answer to each of the four rhetorical questions in Hosea 11:8a–d)? What emotional language does the Lord use to describe the intensity and intimacy of His commitment to reconciling Israel to Himself (verse v8e–f)? What will He not do (Hosea 11:9a–b, e)? Why not (verse 9c–d)? What will they do as a result of His coming to them (Hosea 11:10a, d; Hosea 11:11a–b)? How will He accomplish this (Hosea 11:10b–c)? What, ultimately, will He accomplish (Hosea 11:11c)? Why/how is this sure (verse 11d)?
How can inveterate sinners be saved? Hosea 11:1–11 looks forward to the hearing of God’s Word, publicly read, in the holy assembly on the coming Lord’s Day. In these eleven verses of Holy Scripture, the Holy Spirit teaches us that God’s purpose, pleasure, and power ensure the salvation of all of His elect.
The initiative of grace, Hosea 11:1-4. There are many wicked peoples. Why is this one going to be saved? Because the Lord decided to love them (Hosea 11:1). This love ultimately belongs to His only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus (cf. Matthew 2:15). For His sake, the Lord chose Israel. In Him, the Lord has chosen particular beloved children from all eternity (cf. Ephesians 1:3–5). Through Israel, God would bring His Son into the world, and He would eternally save His elect children. And many of these elect children formed a remnant even with Israel at the time of Hosea (cf. Romans 9:6–8, Romans 9:22–27; Romans 11:1–4). God’s loving dealings with Israel, from their very beginning, has always been with a view to those elect within Israel, and those elect whom He would graft into Israel. We must always see the electing, redeeming, adopting love of God driving everything that happens in history.
But Israel did not see this (Hosea 11:3c). While the Lord was establishing them (verse 3a–b) with great and gentle love (Hosea 11:4), they very easily went after any idol to which men or demons called them (Hosea 11:2). What a danger is blindness to the electing, life-giving, light-giving, faith-giving, reconciling, redeeming love of God! This is a serious danger with what is called Arminianism. In it, men have hidden from their sight the great initiative of grace. And, rather than responding to this initiative by clinging fiercely to the Lord Who has elected and initiated in this way, they become prone to go after any spiritual thing to which men call them—all because so much of the initiating, intimate love of God has been hidden from their eyes.
But even someone with a very accurate doctrine of sovereign election may be quite forgetful of electing love. Dear reader, let the Spirit’s words sink embed in your thoughts and prick your heart with fatherly love-at-first sight (Hosea 11:1a), and fatherly beckoning (verse 1b), and the tenderness of a Daddy with His toddler’s hands in His as He teaches him to walk (Hosea 11:3a–b), and persistent wooing and drawing in love (Hosea 11:4a–b). Fortify yourself against idolatry by dwelling upon the tender love of your heavenly Father.
The necessity of grace, Hosea 11:5-7. We see just how necessary this electing and regenerating love is, when we consider the effect that God’s deliverances had upon Israel as a whole. For, as Romans 9–11 remind us, the savingly elected within Israel have always been but a remnant, without which Israel would have been as Sodom and Gomorrah (cf. Romans 9:25–29). And we can see just how necessary the transforming work of sovereign grace is, if we consider how Israel as a whole responded to God’s deliverance and covenant. “They refused to repent” (Hosea 11:5c). Not only did they live by “their own counsels” (Hosea 11:6d), but they did so because they had a nature that was “bent on backsliding from Me” (Hosea 11:7a). They had a religion in which they called to the Most High (verse 7b), but they were not genuinely exalting Him (verse 7c).
If it were possible to look into a mirror that could “erase grace,” this is what we would see in it. Here is the ugly reality of what every single one of us would be if there were no sovereign grace to give man a new nature: bent on turning from the Lord, committed to our own counsels over-against His Word, staunchly refusing to repent, and offering only superficial and hypocritical worship. How desperately we needed grace to transform us! How desperately, still, we need that grace to restrain and overcome all that remains in us from what we were before we were regenerated!
The freedom of grace, Hosea 11:8-9. So, shall original sin win? Shall remaining sin win? God forbid! Indeed, He literally does forbid. He is “God and not man” (Hosea 11:9c). He is so supremely powerful and wise that He is not confined by our bent unto backsliding. Rather, He does according to His eternal, electing love (Hosea 11:8), because He has the wisdom and power to satisfy His holiness without giving up His people (verse 8a–b), or destroying them (Hosea 11:9b), or coming to them with terror (verse 9e). Whether you are an unbeliever who is realizing that you are enslaved to your sin altogether, or a believer who is alarmed at how entrenched your remaining sin is, behold the power of God almighty to save! His wisdom and power are so perfect that He is at complete freedom to save whomever He will!
The success of grace, Hosea 11:10-11. Thus, we see that His purpose to save will always be realized. Let us be done with that foul and offensive view of the limitation of God’s salvation that says there are many (or any!) for whom Christ came, or for whom Christ died, who will yet perish in their sins. No! His Word has uttered that He will save (Hosea 11:11d). And His Word goes out to do that saving like that roar of a lion that cannot possible be denied (Hosea 11:10b–c). To whomever His saving Word goes out, He will give that salvation that secures their walking after Him (verse 10a), coming as beloved children in holy reverence and submission (Hosea 11:10-11b), to live in their homes as those among whom their Lord dwells (Hosea 11:11c). Fret not, when your working out of your salvation is with fear and trembling (cf. Philippians 2:12), for it is this Almighty Lion Who works in you both to will and to work according to His good pleasure (cf. Philippians 2:13).
What is your habit for dwelling upon the tender, resolved determination of God to save you? How has remaining sin continued to reveal itself as entrenched in you? What is your hope against such entrenched sin? What place do God’s power and freedom have in your praises of Him?
Sample prayer: Lord, thank You for loving and choosing to save from before the world began. Forgive us for how unmindful we are of that love, and how easily we go after what other men call us to, or after our own counsels. And thank You for how sure Your salvation is. Forgive us for when we are discouraged or anxious about how things are going with us spiritually—and forgive us for when we are not wholly devoted to that sanctifying work in us that You Yourself have devoted Yourself to. Grant that, by Your Spirit, Your Word would roar unto us and bring us home to Yourself, in Your Son, which we ask through His Name, AMEN!
Suggested Songs: ARP130 “Lord, from the Depths, to You I Cried” or TPH434 “A Debtor to Mercy Alone”
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