Hosea 2:19-20 NASB
“I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, In lovingkindness and in compassion, And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. Then you will know the Lord .
Sometimes I wish I wrote here more often. Other times I’m happy my online public signature is more low-profile. Nevertheless, today I just wantes to share some thoughts on this passage. I love how this is giving us the essence of the gospel in such a direct way, hundreds of years before Yeshua came.
Just take a moment and think of it. How could he betroth us in righteousness and justice? We could never live up to the standards of His righteousness and justice. In lovingkindness and compassion he could. Just forgive our sins and justify us, even if we are wicked. Many religions, and even some Christians, believe that. That he “could have been just with us but chose to be compassionate”. No, I’m sorry, but that’s heresy.
Proverbs 17:15 NASB
He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous, Both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord.
So unless you think of God as someone who would be an abomination to himself, you need to rethink this. The passage in Hosea says clearly thay he will be BOTH – both righteous and just and also lovingkind and compassionate. How is that possible?
God gives us the answer in how the Messiah will solve this in Jeremiah 31, Isaiah 53, and various other passages. But right here he explains how this will come about – in faith. Faith and faithfulness is the same word in Biblical Hebrew. The translator always nees to make a judgement. Right here I think it should rather be FAITH.
God tells us that he will betroth us in both righteousness and justice and lovingkindness and compassion. Impossible. How will this happen? Through faith! And that is how we will know the Lord. This is exactly what he says will happen in Jeremiah 31, once the New covenant has been established.
Jeremiah 31:31-34 NASB
“Behold, days are coming,” declares the L ord , “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the L ord . “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the L ord , “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the L ord ,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the L ord , “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
To HIM be the glory! 