The Prophetic Wisdom Of HoseaSýnishorn

God's Lawsuits: Hosea 4:1-19

In Hosea’s first three chapters, the story of Hosea’s marriage to Gomer symbolizes God’s relationship with his Old Testament people, Israel and Judah. Hosea and Gomer were bound together by their marital covenant; God and his people were bound together by God’s covenant. Gomer broke her covenant with Hosea; Israel and Judah broke their covenant with God. Hosea renewed his love and marital covenant with Gomer; God promised to renew his love and covenant with his people in the latter days. These parallels intentionally compared God’s relationship with Israel and Judah to human marriage.

Other prophets also referred to God’s relationship with Israel and Judah as a marriage along similar, although less personal, lines. We see this in passages like Isaiah 62:5 and Jeremiah 2:2, 32 and chapter 31:32.

The New Testament builds on this Old Testament theme by speaking of the church as the bride of Christ, much like Hosea presented God as the husband of Israel and Judah. This metaphor appears in passages like 2 Corinthians 11:2, Ephesians 5:25-33, Revelation 19:7 and chapter 21:2, 9. 

This New Testament perspective reflects the fact that the Christian church grew out of the people of God in the Old Testament. Throughout biblical history God has had only one bride. So Christ’s relationship with the Christian church isn’t completely new. Rather, it’s an extension of God’s relationship with his people in the Old Testament. Of course, there are many more Gentiles in the New Testament church. But New Testament authors made it clear that, even in the Old Testament, Gentiles could become part of the people of God by being adopted or grafted into the family of Abraham. For this reason, Hosea’s revelations for God’s Old Testament bride, Israel and Judah, apply to us as the bride of Christ, no matter what our natural ethnicity may be.