Is John 3:16 the New Testament's Hosea?
How do these biblical stories mirror God's unconditional love?
One of the most beautiful, most recognized Bible verses is John 3:16.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Have you considered that the book of Hosea is like the Old Testament version of John 3:16? Think through it with me:
God loves first
Hosea is told to take a wife who is a whore. She will represent how Israel, God’s people, have been unfaithful to God, but God still loves them. God will go after Israel like we see Hosea constantly going after Gomer as she cheats on him, leaves him, chooses others over him, and just totally disrespects him.
That is a description of our sinful state, but God, in John 3:16, says that He so loves all of humanity that He gives His only Son to rescue people from their sins who have no love for Him.
Jesus the Son gave His life to bear the sins of the world and suffer the suffering of their sins on the cross to provide salvation.
The Holy Spirit chases the lost in pursuit of their salvation. He finds them in the worst and most moral places and shows them that God so loved them He gave His Son to suffer their wrongs and wickedness.
Both Hosea and John 3:16 show God’s love.
God’s love is an active, intentional love. He gives. Hosea pursues his unfaithful wife and rescues her when she finally reaches the bottom of her brokenness.
In John 3:16, God loves whosoever. He loves the weak, helpless, wicked, still sinning person enough to give His Son to rescue from death to life.
The love of God in both stories transforms lives.
We see God’s unconditional love in loving the world, “whosoever,” and loving an unfaithful spouse.
God’s love is sacrificial: God gives His Son, Jesus gives His life, Hosea gives time after time, giving His reputation and His resources in loving an unresponsive sinner.
Consider the Cost of Love
The death of your only Son, really your death as God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. God gave His Son. Jesus gave His life; he suffered, bled, was humiliated, cursed, but still loving and forgiving.
Hosea suffers emotionally, as all of those who love them can feel. The person he gave himself to was unfaithful and disloyal and mocked and humiliated him publicly and unjustly.
Small towns where people like Hosea and Gomer lived were big gossip cities. Can you imagine the talk, the accusations, the whispers as they saw the fool Hosea loving a cheating wife?
Hosea symbolizes the suffering that the Lord Jesus, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit, the Holy Three, the Trinity, would suffer to reach a lost, broken, and dying world.
Tomorrow
I hope you will come back tomorrow for more information. God loves you and sees past your sin, skin, scorn, and shame to your salvation.
Bible Verses
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13
For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. 8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:6-8
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. I John 3:1
Quotes
"God's love is unchangeable; He knows exactly what we are and loves us anyway."
Billy Graham
"Though we are incomplete, God loves us completely. Though we are imperfect, He loves us perfectly." Unknown
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