Hosea, A Type

It is not uncommon for the Lord to give a big picture scenario in Scripture and then break it down, detail by detail, in fact, you could say that is His style in writing and teaching. 

Hosea is one of those books. In the first three chapters of Hosea, God speaks of the entire history of Israel. He then reveals, age by age, their tenure through exile, their return, and even a time of waiting back at home until they resumed their marital relations – it’s all there!  It is important to realize and hold fast to the fact that God repeatedly foretold of the mystery that Israel would be exiled and at an appointed time be restored – and at the time of their restoration would be the grand finally of end-time events!

However, having this mystery revealed (past tense) to the Church, we should be (present tense) looking for the hour of Israel’s full marital restoration! It is at this very point where we, as Gentile believers, have a subtle and unspoken contrition in our psyche. Somehow, we have separated from Israel, the family of God, and evolved as a separate bride.

In fact, God brought salvation to the Gentiles to provoke His betrothed Jewish bride to jealousy. The Jew is His firstborn and we, the Gentile believers, are His adopted second born. We are equal in value because of His Name and Blood upon both of us – and one in the same family. We are not to hold His love for us as somehow superior to that of the Jews.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. Rom 1:16

God’s point through the prophet Hosea:

(1) God’s plan of salvation is revealed to us in marital terms.

(2) God would marry Israel and mysteriously prefigure a separation from her due to her unfaithfulness.

(3) In the latter days, God would absolutely bring His Jewish bride home to Him and restore her in their full marital covenant!

What we begin to see, and hopefully more clearly as we go through this study, is that there are not two brides wandering the earth, but ONE and she is His own New Creation, what the Bible calls the One New Man, made up of both Jews and Gentiles! This being true, why and where did we as the Gentile Christians get confused that we are the Bride of Christ, separate from Israel? We will first clearly understand our engrafted identity in Section Three and then understand our need to address wrong suppositions in Section Four.