The Scandal of God’s Love
Hosea 1:2-9, 3:1-5
Steve Hanchett, pastor
Berry Road Baptist Church
January 14, 2001
Offended. That is how one feels when one first reads the story of Hosea and Gomer. God does not bother to ease us into to the story line. He doesn’t try to gloss over the facts. So we read it and we wonder if it really means what it says it means. The story of Hosea’s marriage to Gomer is so troubling that most commentaries, Bible studies and sermons about Hosea I have read spend a great deal of time debating whether or not there is some other explanation for what took place than what the text says happened.
Some people say that there was no Gomer and no children. They believe this was a parable, a made up story, to try to teach a spiritual lesson. They believe this, not because the text of Hosea indicates it, but because they just can’t believe that what it says happened really happened.
Other people have a stronger argument when they say that Gomer was not immoral before the marriage, but only became that way later. They believe this because they feel that God would never ask Hosea to marry a woman who had lived immorally before marriage. While this interpretation carries more weight than the first, I still don’t believe it to be the correct understanding of the text.
The plain reading of the text tells us that Gomer had a shady background before she ever married Hosea. One should also note that the marriage was meant to illustrate God’s relationship with his people. God does not marry himself to a people with a pure past. Just the opposite is true. “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
We should also point out that it seems self-evident that in marrying Hosea, Gomer was willfully giving up her sinful life and committing to live with Hosea in a pure relationship. So it was not as if Hosea was marrying someone who was living immorally at the time they were wed. I believe the text means exactly what it says.
So the question becomes, “Why did God command this marriage?” The marriage was going to serve as a living illustration of God’s relationship with Israel. The people of Israel were going to see acted out in front of them the diving drama of God’s love for them, their unfaithfulness toward God and the reason for the judgment that was about to befall them.
While this kind of living illustration seems unusual to us, it was not unusual for God to ask his prophets to do some radical things to get the message across. Isaiah’s children, like Hosea’s, were given names that communicated God’s judgment on Judah. Later Isaiah was told to walk through the streets naked as a vivid illustration of the horrors of the impending judgment on the land. Jeremiah was instructed to lie on his side and eat a starvation diet. He had to cook his food over animal dung. He did this to dramatize the difficulties the people would face in the days ahead. Ezekiel was commanded by God not to grieve the death of his wife. These were certainly strange requirements that God placed on his prophets, but their obedience gave the nation visible symbols and signs of what God was going to do.
The second reason for this marriage was that through his own bitter experiences Hosea could learn something about the heart of God toward Israel. He was allowed to have a firsthand taste of the heartbreak God felt as his people were unfaithful to Him. Because of his experiences Hosea’s preaching became much more than just learned lectures. They were infused with the very passion and feelings of God. You could say that through his marriage Hosea experienced the very heart of God.
So what was the story behind Hosea and Gomer’s relationship. God had commanded the marriage. I personally believe that Hosea already had a deep love for Gomer. God was not asking him to marry a woman he did not love. The reason I believe this is because that best pictures God’s relationship with His people. Maybe Hosea and Gomer knew each other in childhood and somewhere along the way their lives took different paths. Hosea followed God and Gomer followed the sinful pattern of the world. When he proposed marriage to her I think she was surprised that he would even consider taking her to be his wife. But she could clearly see his love for her and she left her immoral lifestyle and committed herself to him.
It wasn’t long into the marriage before they had their first son, Jezreel. And for the first few years things seemed to go well. But Gomer had wandering eyes. She also desired possessions that Hosea could not or would not give to her. So before long she fell back into her immoral practices.
You will notice as you read the text that it is clear that Jezreel is Hosea’s child. But the next two children may or may not be. The text is unclear. We simply don’t know if they were Hosea’s children or the children of an affair. And the ambiguity seems to be the point. In that kind of relationship you can’t really know for sure.
Things get worse until finally Hosea came home one day to find that Gomer had left. He and the children were abandoned by her and she had gone off to live with another man. I suspect that Gomer had a number of affairs with several different men. Her life continued to disintegrate physically, emotionally, and certain spiritually she became an absolute wreck. She finally became such a shell of a human being that no one really wanted her anymore and she was taken to a slave market to be sold to the highest bidder.
That is when God spoke to Hosea again. God told him to go and buy Gomer back to himself. You can imagine what she must have thought when she saw him coming down the street and into the market. I’m sure she imagined that he had come at best to mock her and vent his anger and bitterness or at worst to have her stoned for her immorality. And one would think that he would be glad to be rid of her. But he came to spend everything he had to buy her back, not as a slave, but as a wife. We know he spent all of his money because part of his payment had to be made with grain and not cash.
It is through the tragic story of this marriage that God lets us peer into his own heart and see things the way that He sees them.
In this story the first thing we see is The Shamefulness of Our Sin. In this drama Hosea portrays God and Gomer plays the part of God’s people. And just in case you think this is only about Israel and says nothing about us, you need to note that both Paul and Peter quote from the passage about Hosea’s children to describe our relationship with God.
Sin is lawbreaking. God is holy and just and we will have to account for our lawbreaking before the seat of throne. But what we learn about sin from this story is that while sin is the breaking of God’s law, it is also the breaking of God’s heart. The reason our sin is so heartbreaking to God is it is not only breaking a rule of God for our lives, but it is also an act of unfaithfulness. Sin is spiritual adultery.
Imagine, if you can, for a moment how you would feel if this morning you discovered that your spouse was being unfaithful to you. I you can imagine the sense of betrayal and hurt you would feel, you can imagine how God feels when we sin against him.
We love to sugar coat our sin and spiritual condition, but take a good hard look at Gomer. If you do you will be looking into a mirror at your own soul. In her e see ourselves. Sin, at its root, is about love and relationship. Sin is a failure to love God. But it is even worse than that it is giving the love that belongs to Him to someone or something else. Sin is breaking faith with God. It is an abandonment of the relationship He created us for.
This story shows us The Shamefulness of Our Sin. It also shows us The Scandalousness of God’s Love. We don’t normally think of God’s love as being scandalous do we? But in a very real sense it is. The scandal of it all is seen in the ways we try to get God out of a jam when we read Hosea. “It is an allegory.” “It never really happened.” “God didn’t tell Hosea to marry a prostitute, but he messed up and God decided to make the best of a bad situation by teaching a lesson through it.” “Hosea didn’t know what was going to happen.” Why do we work so hard at trying to give God a way out of what he says happened? Because it seems so shocking and scandalous.
I suppose it does. It shocks us to think that Hosea could love a woman like Gomer. But that is exactly the point of the story isn’t it? Isn’t shocking that God could love someone like me? God has always been scandalizing people with His love. When God came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ he was in full scandal mode.
Jesus’ scandalized the crowds when he touched the untouchables -the lepers. He scandalized the religious leaders as he enjoyed a meal and fellowship with known sinners and the hated tax-collectors.
In Luke chapter seven we find that Jesus Scandalized Simon the Pharisee in his own home. A sinful, immoral woman came into the home and broke an alabaster flask of ointment over Jesus to anoint him. She stood behind Jesus, her hot tears coursing down her cheeks and dropping ever so softly on the feet of Jesus. Kneeling she took her long dark hair into her hands and began to use those soft strands as a rag with which wipe the feet of Jesus.
Simon reasoned in his own mind that there was no way Jesus could be a man of God. Had he been a real prophet he would have known what kind of woman this was. The implication being that no true man of god would have anything to do with a woman like that.
We ought to be careful about the assumptions we make about God. Jesus was more than a man of God and a prophet, He was and is God Himself. Not only did he know everything about this woman, He knew far more about her than Simon could have possibly imagined. But he loved her anyway. As a matter of fact he loved her so much that while she wept over Him, He was making plans to die for her. What a scandal the whole scene was to Simon. How could God love a woman like that so intensely? The whole thing shocked him to the core of his being.
Jesus even scandalized his own disciples with His love outside the city of Samaria. There He talked with a woman. But she was not just a woman, she was a Samaritan woman. But not only was she a Samaritan woman, she was a five-times-divorced woman. She was not only a five-times-divorced Samaritan woman, she was also living with a man out of wedlock. Not exactly cover-girl material for “Holiness Weekly.” Yet there Jesus was engaging her in spiritual conversation about her soul. They stood there together the Son of God and the sinful woman and Jesus was not the least bit embarrassed to be seen in her company. There by that well outside the city of Samaria, Jesus offered Himself to her as the water of life. To the shock of even His closest friends, Jesus loved the sinful woman of Samaria.
Do you know what the real scandal is today? The real scandal is that God would get involved in a relationship with a man like me. The real shocker is that He would love me. That is the scandal of God’s love.
My life has been filled with spiritual adultery. I have loved other things and other people more than God. I have at times rejected His love for me. Some days I have completely ignored Him and other days I have accused Him of not loving me. He has found me time and again being unfaithful to him. How it must break His loving heart. The astonishing thing is that He still loves me. That is the real scandal. He is not ashamed to call me His son.
This relationship between Hosea and Gomer not only reveals The Shamefulness of Our Sin, and The Scandal of God’s Love, it also shows us The Steadfastness of God’s Love. In chapter three after Hosea’s heart has been broken, after he has been deceived and misled, after he has been abandoned to raise his children on his own - after all of that - God tells him to start over again with Gomer.
Through this act God demonstrated the depth of his love and the steadfastness of His love for His people. Listen to the heart cry of God concerning Israel, His people: “How, oh how, can I give you up, Ephraim. How, oh how, can I hand you over, Israel. How can I turn you into a Sodom. How can I treat you like a Gomorrah. My heart recoils within me, all my compassion is kindled” {Hosea 11:8 J.B. Phillips translation}.
Hosea obeys god and pays the price to purchase Gomer out of the slave market. No one would have faulted him had he left her to suffer her chosen fate. He could have washed his hands of her and let her get what she had coming. Most people would have thought that was the right thing to do. But God’s love is not about getting what we’ve got coming to us, it is about being given what we don’t deserve.
Hosea does the pursuing. He is the one who keeps up with her whereabouts and without her even knowing it makes sure she is provided for. He is the one who tracks her down in the slave market. He is the one who gives all of his money to buy her back.
What a grand picture of our God and Savior. Jesus came into this world as the Great Shepherd to track down the lost sheep. He pursues us and pays the price to redeem us. What a price he paid! He gave His all in the suffering and death of the cross.
Today the Spirit of God is pursuing others. He is wooing them into a love relationship with God himself. Is He calling you? Is He coming to capture you for Himself to free you from the slavery to sin and to set you free? Would you repent of your spiritual adulteries and turn to Him in faith?
