Hosea is the story of God’s broken heart over man’s sin. Moses brought God’s covenant down from Sinai, and all God’s people acknowledged it. At the end of Deuteronomy, we see the nation saying “I do” as Moses read the moral laws to the people. They clamored that they would keep the commandments of God. But, people are not faithful to their promises as God is. They broke every one of the Ten Commandments. In Hosea 4, God points out specifically how the Israelites have violated the ten commandments and broke their marriage covenant with God. Hosea Chapter 4, Verses 1 & 2 say, “There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed.” Notice the perfect alignment with the ten commandments in this passage. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in Vain. Thou shalt not lie. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Then, the summary statement that God’s people have stepped outside of all God’s instructions for a healthy, happy, and wholesome life. They are completely unfaithful. While, In contrast, God is always completely faithful.
Psalm 136 has 21 verses, and every verse ends with the statement. “for his steadfast love endures forever.” Psalm 103 says, “As far as the heavens are above the earth, so great is God’s steadfast love.” This is the kind of love God has for us sinners. I know, according to science, we are very much like the animals. Webster writes, “Biology is awed that human beings are so closely related to fruits and vegetables and that more than 60 percent of human genes are the same as those in fruit flies. The scientific view of the human person is inevitably and understandably reductionistic, breaking down the person into component parts, reading DNA, mapping genomes, and discovering proteomes. This effort is true as far as it goes. The old biology aims to explain the what, where, when, and how, but it doesn’t come close to explaining the who.”[1] Unlike all other creations, we are the ones God created in His own image. And he will never stop loving us with everlasting love. Hosea establishes a scenario in which the sin of all mankind, even as vile as it is, does not diminish God’s love for us. Like the father of the prodigal son, God’s love never dims. This is hard to grasp.
A California newspaper carried a story about a discovery made by astronomers. The scientists picked up radio signals from a body in space that they estimated to be fifty million light years from the Earth. Prior to that, the most distant object known was ten million light years from Earth. Distances such as those are beyond our comprehension but illustrate well the infinite boundaries of God’s steadfast love. In contrast to man’s love, God’s love has no boundaries! It took Christ on the cross of Calvary to show us the depth of God’s love in a way we might comprehend it. Paul tells the Ephesians that God’s love is far above anyone’s understanding. But his prayer for them is not that they will understand it but experience it.
[1] Webster, Douglas D. 2023. The Psalms: Jesus’s Prayer Book. Vol. 4. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic.