Christ in Hosea

Week 9, Friday: A people for His glory
Israel was a hopeless, captive people before God “remembered” His covenant with their fathers and came to redeem them out of Egypt (Ex. 2.24, 25). His purpose in redeeming Israel was to establish a nation as a witness to the wisdom, greatness, and glory of God, to attract all nations to blessings of His covenant (Gen. 12.1-3; Deut. 4.4-8). Israel proved she was not such a people; thus she embraced the sanctions of God’s covenant, rather than the blessings.

Read Hosea 9 and 10

Meditate on the following passages from Hosea
1.  Hosea 4.1-6: “Know” here is used in a context in which God is “married” to Israel. What kind of relationship is implied in this verse? What did God intend for His people?

2.  Hosea 6.1-3: Hosea prescribes the words to use in returning to the Lord. Write these verses into a prayer that you might use for yourself and your Christian friends.

3.  Hosea 7.1-10: How can you see that Israel’s affections (desires, longings, hopes, aspirations) had become completely corrupt? How can a prayer like you wrote for question 2 help to keep this from happening to us?

4.  Hosea 10.1-14: It pleased God to bring His faithless people to judgment. Compare this with Isaiah 53.7-10. In what ways does the judgment of Israel look forward to the judgment of Christ?

5.  Meditate on Hosea 11.1 and Matthew 2.13-15. How does Jesus “embody” the people of Israel?

Summary
As the Son of God, Jesus is all the people of God in Himself. All believers are “elect in Him” and called by Him and saved through Him. Their lives are hidden with Him in God. He bears our judgment and fulfills all the righteousness God requires. He is life, our Savior, and our King.

Closing Prayer
My praise shall be of You in the great assembly;
I will pay My vows before those who fear Him.
The poor shall eat and be satisfied;
Those who seek Him will praise the LORD.
Let your heart live forever!
All the ends of the world
Shall remember and turn to the LORD,
And all the families of the nations
Shall worship before You.
For the kingdom is the LORD’s,
And He rules over the nations.
All the prosperous of the earth
Shall eat and worship;
All those who go down to the dust
Shall bow before Him,
Even he who cannot keep himself alive.
A posterity shall serve Him.
It will be recounted of the Lord to the next generation,
They will come and declare His righteousness to a people who will be born,
That He has done this.

Psalm 22.25-31

T. M. Moore

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Each week’s studies in our Scriptorium column are available in a free PDF form, suitable for personal or group use. For all available studies in Hosea, click here.

A primary theme of the book of Hosea is Israel’s failure to keep covenant with the Lord. God’s covenant is a central theme and provides the organizing motif for all of Scripture. Learn more about God’s covenant by ordering a copy of T. M.’s book, I Will Be Your God, from our online store (click here).
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.