Jesus is teaching at the Mount of Olives when a woman is caught in adultery and brought before him. The law commanded Moses to stone her! What do you say Jesus? The trap is set.
Then we find in John 8:6 that Jesus just writes on the ground with his finger. What did he write? One possibility of what he could have written to blow away those out to trap him is Hosea Chapter 3. The law demanded Hosea’s wife to be stoned. God’s love superseded the law. Those who tried to trap Jesus left one by one humiliated.
Israel has been shown that they too should be stoned for adultery. They completely trampled God’s love. God illustrated this by commanding the prophet Hosea to marry Gomer. Hosea’s obedient response was an illustration for Israel.
Hosea chapter 3 is heart of the book of Hosea and an important chapter in the Old Testament. It shows a picture that reminds Christians of the love of God who sent Christ to ransom us from our slavery and sin. To pay the price to redeem for us.
The theme is love. This is a picture of God’s love. The love that He calls us to show others. The love with which He first loved us.
God’s Call to love.
Hosea 3:1-5
1 The LORD said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”
2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. 3 Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will live with you.”
4 For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or idol. 5 Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the LORD and to his blessings in the last days.
Looking at Hosea chapter 1 we see the call of Hosea. The prophet is to take an adulterous wife and have children of unfaithfulness. He marries this adulterous woman named Gomer. She may have returned Hosea’s love at first. But soon Gomer begins to trample Hosea’s love. She stoops to adultery and prostitution.
Gomer has 2 children of unfaithfulness and their names mean not loved and not my people. There is a message to Israel. In Chapter 2 we can see how God dealt specifically, not with Hosea and Gomer but to Israel. The parallel is clear.
Now in Chapter 3 verse 1 God says go again and show love. Though she has betrayed you as an adulterous, show love.
God is asking a tremendous thing. To seek after and show love to the one who betrays. How do we love like that? Look to God. He is the only way. See that He shows that kind of love all the time. Love as the Lord loves the Israelites. A pursuing love. A love that is not based on merit. God didn’t show his love to us based on what we deserve.
God leaves the ninety-nine sheep to seek the one that strays away. God pursues the lost sheep and all heaven rejoices when God, joyfully puts him on his shoulder and carries him home.
Israel was as degraded as the adulterous prostitute Gomer that Hosea married. God is calling Hosea to the kind of redemptive love he reserves for the lost sheep that break his heart. God refused to abandon his bride, Israel.
Hosea Obeys God’s call to love verses 2-3
As is often the case, disobedience is costly. It costs Hosea to obey God. It meant he must open his arms to the woman that disgraced him, who instead of bearing his children brought illegitimate children into the marriage.
In her sin she sank to the lowest point of adultery and prostitution. Finally, Gomer becomes a concubine slave. For Hosea to show love to her meant he had to first buy her back.
It was the equivalent of 30 shekels of silver. There were 15 shekels of sliver and 15 in grain. The price of a slave in Exodus 21:32 was 30 shekels of silver. Some people think that because Hosea did not have the entire price in silver that he was scraping bottom giving everything he had to make the payment.
That is a lot of money for what could be described as a worthless harlot that only disgraced him. It highlights the costly price of redemption.
Here is where we really should think of the depth of love God extended to sinners at Calvary. You were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or spot (1 Peter 1:19). Therefore love one another deeply from the heart (1 Peter 1:22).
She is sentenced to discipline when she returns. Given an opportunity to repent and really turn from her sin. The message to Israel was a heavy one. Destruction of the nation.
Vs 4 is the message of coming destruction. Israel’s destruction would mean no king. They won’t have their religious system that they were holding on to in substitute of the relationship to the one and true God. They won’t have anything that even symbolizes the presence of the one and only true God.
A message of hope
In Vs 5 we read that there will be a time after the time of discipline. Israel will again turn to a king. They will seek the Lord. The king called David. The king who was the man after God’s own heart.
The Lord God will give him the throne of his Father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. (Luke 1:32-33)
For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, 19but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. (1 Peter 1:18-19)
This chapter says a lot about redemption. God seeks after the sinner. God’s love is faithful. If you have someone you are praying for don’t give up. God expects us to show love to others like He extended to us.
Responding to God’s love brings blessing in your life. In John 8 the woman caught in adultery was glad of God’s redemptive love. We should be too!
If you have not experienced salvation in Jesus Christ, you can. Put your faith in Jesus who while you were still a sinner, died for you. If you have experienced God’s deep love it calls you to show a great depth of love to others.
