False Love
Notes
Transcript
Bewilderment (4)
Bewilderment (4)
We know that God is unchanging, infinite and sovereign. Because He is these things, He is never moved. In other words, God’s being and character is unaffected by the creation.
The Westminster confession says that God is most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions.
Connected to this is an attribute of God often referred to as the impassibility of God. That God is impassible is the idea that God does not suffer and cannot be acted upon or moved by any source. This doctrine teaches that because God is unchanging, He does not have passions or emotional states that can be affected or changed by external forces.
It is important to know however, that the fact that God does not experience emotional change does not mean that He lacks affection or real relationships with His creatures. His attributes are perfect and are unchanged by His creation. His love for people is perfect.
We take time to consider this because of the frustration and bewilderment that is expressed in verse 4. How is it that God could be confused or at a loss?
Variableness from the right perspective
Variableness from the right perspective
There are many places in Scripture where God’s grief over man’s sin and rebellion.
5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
10 For forty years I loathed that generation
and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart,
and they have not known my ways.”
37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 38 See, your house is left to you desolate. 39 For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’ ”
The variableness of God’s reactions is based on changes not in Him, but in man. God is consistent: acts of faith yield His blessing and acts of sin yield His wrath.
So the apparent bewilderment that Hosea conveys in verse 4 is a commentary on Israel’s sin and rebellion and not on God.
Relatable
Relatable
Anthropomorphic
anthropos = man
morphon = form
That God is incomprehensible, He speaks to us in a way to which we can relate and understand.
Paul said:
12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
So, our knowledge of God is always analogical (based on analogy) to some extent, but the Bible’s analogies should be taken as concrete expressions of how God would have us think of Him.
OK, so what about verse 4 and God’s apparent confusion over Israel’s unwillingness to repent?
No confusion
No confusion
If verse 4 is not conveying God’s confusion, then what’s the point?
The foolish and absurd nature of Israel’s conduct. Think through what the people of Israel have been told:
1 “Come, let us return to the Lord;
for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
2 After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
3 Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;
his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth.”
A call to repent and assurance that God will receive them. They refused. How foolish!
Jesus had preached and performed miracles in cities that responded by rejecting Him.
What does the following pronouncement of judgement make clear about these people:
21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
Their disdain for the grace of God deserves God’s fiercest judgement, and this is the point here in Hosea regarding Israel.
John Calvin described the point of verse 4 from God’s perspective:
You are wholly incurable, you are inexcusable, and altogether past hope; for no means have been omitted by me, by which I could promote your salvation. - John Calvin
So, it is taught here, it is so for Israel
What’s the point of the last line of verse 4? your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away.
clouds the gather briefly then dissipate… dew that rests on grass but soon evaporates.
The point is that Israel did not really love God.
Judgement (5)
Judgement (5)
Covenant breakers
Covenant breakers
Israel was God’s covenant people. They had been delivered from bondage, provided for them in the wilderness, brought them to the Promised Land. They broke their covenant. And for this reason, verse 5:
5 Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets;
I have slain them by the words of my mouth,
and my judgment goes forth as the light.
Most immediately, this seems to be a reference to the impending Assyrian assault and captivity. But notice that God ascribes His judgement to His Word spoken by the prophets.
On the one hand, Israel’s judgement was not handed down by Assyria, but from the God whom they rejected.
On the other hand, God delivered His judgement through Assyrian in their captivity.
Verse 5 expresses the centrality of the ministry of the Word of God to impact people. Israel was hardened against the Lord, and God issues hard words to them.
And notice the end of verse 5. God’s word goes forth as light. The pronouncement of judgement exposes the sin of Israel. Shed light on the offense of their sin.
19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
Halfheartedness (6)
Halfheartedness (6)
Empty Worship
Empty Worship
What do the expressed desires of God make clear about worship?
