Confirmation of the Prophets, No. 1
Romans 9:1-5
RO129-02

The highest point of wisdom in the human race is humble submission to the authority of the sovereign Creator God. The person who is willing to subject himself to God is the person who is really wise. That is the high point of personal wisdom.

Psalm 111:10 points that very fact out to us when it says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do His commandments: His praise endureth for ever." It is smart to be subject to the authority of God, and it is smart to obey His commandments.

In Proverbs 1:7, we read, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction." And when it says, "wisdom and instruction," you may convert that to the term "Bible doctrine." Proverbs 9:10 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding."

God's Punishment for Rebellion

How sad, indeed, to see rational human beings standing up and attacking the God who made them. There is today an all-out war in American society to discredit and silence biblical Christianity. Sinful people are in powerful positions of communication who are all-out to gain general acceptance for the principle that what God calls evil is really good.

This in an old device of the sin nature and was referred to as while back as the prophet Isaiah who in chapter 5, verses 20-21, pointed out this quality of the sin nature and this propensity of arrogant humanity in striking out against God. Isaiah says, "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!"

You keep your eyes and ears open, you will become aware that there is from all quarters a concerted effort to discredit the Bible, to discredit fundamental Christianity, to discredit all standards of morality that are proposed by scripture, to discredit everything that the Word of God stands for. The public media of communication and entertainment have descended to new levels of lewdness and perversion. American culture is actually rapidly moving toward a reproduction of the conditions that existed before the Noahic flood.

In Genesis 6:5, that condition in part is described in this way, "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." The thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. That's American society today.

The condition of the antediluvian civilization is further explained in Genesis 6:11-13, and I think you will see this again where we are today. "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence." I don't have to explain to you how true that is today. The earth was filled with violence - an earth which has abandoned the Word of God. And yet, the public media is determined to discredit Christianity, to throw off the restraints of biblical morality, to get rid of these fundamentalist Christians who are trying to make their voice known in political and economic and academic circles and to silence them once and for all. And there are plenty of Christians who are willing to help them to do it by buying their movies and listening to their programs and buying their products.

Verse 12 of Genesis 6 says, "And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, 'The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.'" And that is exactly what God proceeded to do. He did destroy the evil ones along with the earth.

So, a sovereign God is watching it all, and He is taking His deliberate steps to bring His terrible punishment on the arrogant creatures that He made who are in rebellion against Him. The Apostle Paul in Romans 9 has been exalting the right of a sovereign Creator God to show mercy or wrath to these doomed sinners.

God brings glory to Himself by the way He deals with those in rebellion against Him. The Jews mistakenly believed that they were all going to heaven because they were Jews. The Jews still think that today. Paul, however, warned the Jews that God selects only some for salvation, which can be secured through faith in Jesus Christ as Savior. God's glorious love is revealed in that He selects for salvation not only Jews but even Gentiles who have never been His special people. So, the Jews who were given first crack at salvation, Paul points out, have in their spiritual blindness rejected Jesus Christ, while the Gentiles who were second in line have been storming into heaven.

The History Behind the Book of Hosea

Beginning with verse 25, "As he saith also in Hosea." "As," is the Greek word "Hos." This is a relative adverb introducing an illustration of what Paul has just said in verse 24. In verse 24, Paul said, "Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?" Paul says, "God has called, by His simple good pleasure choice, not only the Jews that He had promised to bring into this salvation, but even some of the Gentiles as well."

Then, he illustrates from the Old Testament how this was even a previously-made known. "As saith:" the word is "lego." This is the word that stresses the content or the meaning of the words used. It is a constantly true statement. It's active voice; God does the saying. And it is a statement of fact. "As God says in the book of Hosea," is what he's saying. "He saith also." The word "also," "kai," a conjunction, introducing a comparison of Paul's analogy of vessels of wrath and mercy to his remarks about Hosea in the Old Testament. It's used to emphasize God's sovereignty in salvation.

So, "As he saith also in," the scripture he's referring to. And the scripture he's referring to is the prophet "Hosee." It looks like this: "Hosee." "Hosee." Hosea was a prophet who lived in the eighth century B.C. in the northern kingdom of Israel.

As you know, the Jewish people split into two kingdoms after Solomon died. It split with ten tribes in the north, the northern kingdom, that was called Israel. Sometimes, it was referred to as "Ephraim." And the southern kingdom, which was made up of two tribes, Benjamin and Judah, and was called the kingdom of Judah. So, here, when He uses the kingdom of Israel, he's talking about that northern kingdom of ten tribes.

Hosea was a prophet to that northern kingdom in the eighth century B.C. He prophesied during the reign of Jeroboam II. This was the time of great national moral and spiritual decay which Hosea was trying to correct. The people were warned concerning what they were doing, concerning where they were going, but times were prosperous. Things were going well for them in a material stance.

And instead of listening to their prophet, and instead of looking to God for their protection against a terrible force that was coming the scene up north in the form of the Assyrian empire, they were looking to other countries round about them like Egypt as a way to preserve them from what was imminently on the horizon. They simply could not come together with this prophet to hear what God was saying, and of course, he had the authentication of being a prophet.

This is not like some preacher who comes along today and says, "I believe that this is what God is saying to our society today." When you are a prophet, you had been authenticated as God's spokesman, so that when you came up and said, "This is what God says," the people were obligated at that time to listen to you. This was the era before the completion of the Old Testament scriptures, and God dealt with people through these prophets. So, to ignore a man like Hosea was a very grievous sin in itself.

A time of national moral and spiritual decay. False sense of material prosperity. In 722 B.C., Hosea himself went into captivity to Assyria with the ten northern tribes, and as you know, they were dispersed among the Syrian and other nations, and they never regathered to come back to the land again. When the two southern tribes went into captivity in Babylon, it was for a limited period of time for seventy years, and those two tribes came back. But these ten northern tribes that Hosea was desperately trying to salvage would not listen.

And I mean, the nation was corrupt in its worship. It was worshipping idols. It was deep into Baal worship, and Baal worship, you know, was a sex cult worship. It was a phallic cult. And the nation was completely, spiritually disoriented so that poor Hosea simply didn't have a point of contact to make any sense to these people at all.

Now, the Apostle Paul, illustrating this point of how God in sovereignty makes His choices and how God is free to make those choices, quotes Hosea 2:23. So, let's just read that first to get that in front of us. Hosea 2:23, "And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not My people, 'Thou art My people;' and they shall say, 'Thou art My God.'"

Paul says even as has been recorded in the prophet Hosea, and then he proceeds to quote this verse, which we have just read, where he says, "I will call." The word "call" is "kaleo." The word is really used in the sense here of naming them. I'm going to name them in a certain way. It is in the future tense, which means sometime when God's dealing with this nation Israel, which has turned against him. Active voice: God is going to do this.

And He is going to call them, "My people." The word "people" is the Greek word "laos." This refers here to a special group out of the mass of humanity. The Greek has the negative word "ou" along with it, so that we have, "I will call them not my people." Or we would translate this in this way. This is what the Greek Bible has, "I will call those who were not my people." "I will call those were not my people.

Now, who were His people? His people were the Jews. They are the ones who had the right. They are the ones who were first in line. Now, He says, "I'm going to call somebody, a group of human beings who were not Jews, who were not my people..." And in case of Hosea, he's actually talking about two groups of Jews. We should be accurate in point that out. A group of Jews who were my people. A group of Jews who were not my people. Now Paul, you remember, has already pointed out that everybody who is born into the Jewish race is not an Israelite. Only those who are born-again spiritually are Israelites. So not all they of Israel are of Israel.

So, here's the picture. Paul says in quote Hosea, Hosea says, "Call those who were not my people." What's he going to call them? He's going to call them, "my people." He's going to call those who were not my people, "that they are my people." And, furthermore, "I'm going to call her beloved." "Agapao," which means those in God's divine favor. "I'm going to call them beloved." This is that Greek perfect tense, which means it happened in the past when God chose Abraham, and it has continued at the group or His beloved ones. It was done by God for the Jews. They didn't select themselves, so it's passive voice. And we have a spiritual principle here being laid out.

"I will call them beloved." And again, the Greek has the negative "ou." So that we translate, "and her who is not beloved," "I'm going to call her was not beloved as beloved." So, verse 25. Here's the translation. "As he says also in Hosea. I will call those who are not my people my people. And her who was not beloved, beloved."

Israel as God's Unfaithful Wife

This is indicated, for example, in Isaiah 54:5-6, where God says "'For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is His name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall He be called. For the Lord hath called thee [that is Israel] like a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and the wife of youth, when thou wast refused,' saith thy God."

To this may we add Jeremiah 31:32, which reads, "'Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they broke, although I was an husband unto them,' saith the Lord." Israel turned to the worship of idols, and so she was an unfaithful wife.

Notice Hosea 2:2, "Contend with your mother, contend: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her harlotry out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts." Here, Hosea pointing out that Israel was God's wife, but she had turned into a prostitute wife.

In verse 7, Hosea 2:7, "And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, 'I will go and return to my first husband [that is, God, instead of the idols of Baal that she's been following]; for then was it better with me than now.'" After God brings the Jews of the northern kingdom to such terrible grief and suffering, they'll say, "You know, we are really stupid for worshipping Baal instead of God who is our real, true husband. Let's go back."

And verse 16 of Hosea 2 adds to that, "'And it shall be at that day,' saith the Lord, 'that thou shalt call me Ishi [that is, "husband"]; and shalt call Me no more Baali.'" You will now call me husband instead of calling me "Baal." So, the picture here that you have in the background is that there is terrible spiritual degeneracy among the tribes of the northern kingdom. They are deep in Baal worship, and therefore, they are guilty of spiritual adultery, having abandoned their true husband, the living God.

Now, God warns His harlot wife Israel through Hosea of the divine discipline that He is going to impose on the ten northern tribes. That's why Hosea wrote this book. I want to warn you of what's going to happen if you don't stop what you're doing. This is very clearly declared in Hosea 2:13, "'And I will just her for the days of Baalim, unto which she burned incense, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgot me,' saith the Lord."

Here again, the people of Israel chasing the Baal worship, and in the process of worshipping Baal, you had to engage in illicit sex. That was how you worshipped Baal. And that's the point here. She decks herself with her earrings, her jewels, the individual women making themselves attractive, and then finding men with whom they may worship Baal through illicit sex. I mean, this is rampant in the society of the day. It is not only a violation of God's moral code, but it was abandoning of him as her true husband, because of the spiritual adultery that was involved in worshipping Baal. And God uses Hosea to set up a very powerful visual illustration of Israel's unfaithfulness to Jehovah, her husband, and the discipline that is about to be imposed.

Gomer and Her Children

So, Hosea marries a young woman named Gomer. And, sure enough, Gomer proves to be an unfaithful wife and becomes a prostitute who spends her time down at the local brothel. In the process of this marriage relationship, Gomer gives birth to a daughter, and God names this daughter. He gives her the name, "Loruhamah." "Loruhamah" means, "not having been loved." Hosea 1:6 tell us about that. She had had one previous child, a son named Jezreel, and we'll pass him by, because he is not pertinent at the moment to what we want to pursue.

Let's go to the second child. Verse 6 says, "And she conceived again, and bare a daughter. And God said unto him, 'Call her name Loruhamah: for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away.'" So that, when this child was born, and this child is running around in the neighborhood, and people are learning that the prophet has a daughter, and her name is "Loruhamah," meaning, "not having been loved," they begin wondering about that.

And Hosea explains to them, "This child is a warning to you concerning God's attitude towards you. This child is a special child that God has brought into existence and has named this daughter in this way so that you would be warned that God's love for you is going to have a terminal point in its expression. You're pushing to the limits. Even as an unfaithful wife who, in her adultery, in her fornications, would be tolerated by a gracious husband to a certain point, would come to the point where his love would no longer carry her through." His love would terminate in tolerating what she is doing.

So, this child proclaimed to the Jews that God's mercy would no longer be extended to them. And so, the child is described as "the non-loved." Instead of God's compassion, they would receive His discipline in the form of the Assyrian captivity. In time, Gomer gives birth to a second child - this time, a son. God says, "I want to name the boy, 'Loammi," meaning, "not my people."

Hosea 1:8-9. "Now when she had weaned Loruhamah [the girl], she conceived, and bare a son. Then said God, 'Call his name Loammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.'" Now, when this child came along, it's a big thing. The prophet in Israel has a child. He's got a boy this time. Big deal. And everybody's interested. What are you going to name him? God has told you what to name him. "Oh yeah? What?" "Loammi." "Loammi? You know what Loammi means?" "Not my people." That's right. This boy is God's message to you. It is to declare to you in a visual way that you are not My people anymore."

Now, the Jews did not take this kindly, for it proclaimed to them that they were no longer the special people of God. They were now the non-people. Jews had assumed their relationship to Abraham secured them a special relationship to God which would take them into heaven. So, here is a visual presentation of these two children: one declaring that they are no longer loved, they are a non-loved people; and secondly, they were not the people of God at all.

Well, the harlot Gomer and her children represents, you see, the idolatrous condition of the northern kingdom of Israel and God's judgment which is imminently coming upon the Jews. But this whole visual picture was to show how this prophet's sad personal experience there would be unfaithfulness to him, the husband as God found that Israel, his wife, was unfaithful to Him.

The ten tribes committed spiritual adultery by worshiping Baal, so God withdrew His love from them and terminated their special place as His people. These ten tribes were then disciplined by being taken into Assyria where they were scattered, and they lost their Jewish identity. They, indeed, became the vessels of God's wrath. So, the Apostle Paul has made a very powerful point. The prophet Hosea has pointed out that a people who were God's people became His non-people. A people who were loved became non-loved.

But then, [Romans 9] verse 26 adds an important factor. Hosea says, "And it shall come to pass ["come to pass" is the Greek word "eimi;" this is the word that means, "to be." And what this is really saying is, "and it shall be, in the future sometime, an actual event."

It shall be that "in the place." "Place" is the Greek word, "topos," "in the place," and this refers to where these Jews have been dispersed to. In the place where they have been scattered when they were taking into Assyria, all over Gentile territory everywhere in the world. Wherever outside of the Promised Land they are found. It shall come to pass that ".In the place where it was said." This is the Greek word "eipon." It refers to Hosea 1:10, that statement that we read in Hosea 1:10 to Israel.

Hosea 1:10, "Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them [that very place in Gentile territory where it was said to them], 'Ye are not my people,' there it shall be said unto them, 'Ye are the sons of the living God.'" In that very place where it was said that you are not My people, there. And he uses the word, "ekei."

Now, the Apostle Paul here in quoting this verse from Hosea is quoting it from the Septuagint version of the Bible, which was a Greek translation of the Hebrew. And the Apostle Paul is quoting this verse exactly. Sometimes, as in verse 25, the Holy Spirit leads him to give the general gist of the verse that Hosea has stated. The Holy Spirit is readjusting this statement for the emphasis He wants to make. But here, verse 26, Paul is quoting it right smack out of the Septuagint version exactly, except that he throws this word in.

This word, "ekei," which means, "there," which is Paul's way of emphasizing that right there, wherever you've been scattered, wherever you are finding yourself down in the dirt, right there, you're the wife who has been guilty of the worst kinds of immorality. You've grieved and wounded your husband. You've cut yourself down to the lowest level possible. He has turned away from you. Right there, in the depths of your degradation, that's where this husband is going to turn around and look at you again, and he is going to come back into the picture to lift you up out of your fallen condition. So that, the "ekei," means, "right there," wherever they were dispersed.

"And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, 'Ye are not my people, there [in that very place] shall they be called." And the word is "kaleo," which means, again, "to name or describe." Sometime in the future, this will be done for the Jews by God. They're going to be called, of all things, "sons," "whios," referring here to those who are born again Jews, those who are truly the people of God, those who are the ones He really loves. You are again going to be called, "the people of the living God," not the dead God, the "zao" God - the God who is alive in contrast to all the dead idols, the one who's constant position is the one who rules the universe, and the one to whom man must give an account.

This is what the people of our day in American society are making a mistake about. They do not think that God is the living God. And many Christians act that way. They would not take issue with how Christians should act. They would not take issue with the fact that Christians should have a certain moral standard, that their mouths ought to talk another kind of language, and not other kinds of words, that the eye should look at certain things and not other things, that the ears should listen to certain things and not other things, that they should go physically to certain places and not other places. But, they don't mind violating what they know. Because, you don't see God. And He becomes unreal unless you're walking in the Word.

But He is the Living God. He is completely aware. We looked at His essence last week. You know exactly what He's like. You know that He knows everything that's going on, and He's fully in charge. And it is He who is going to take these fallen in their adulterous relationships spiritually, and He's going to lift them up and make them again His people. They are going to again be made the sons of God. God is going to pick up the Jews again, and He will again make them His people. So, God has not permanently abandoned His unfaithful wife, Israel, but He will one day restore her in love.

We have that again stressed by Hosea himself. Let's look there once more in the first chapter, in verse 10, and then through chapter 2:1. Let's read it again. "Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, 'Ye are not my people,' there it shall be said unto them, 'Ye are the sons of the living God.' Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together [northern and southern tribes reunited], and appoint themselves one head [David would be their leader, the resurrected David], and they shall come up out of the land: for it shall the day of Jezreel. Say ye unto your brethren, 'Ammi ["Ammi" means, "my people"];' and to your sisters, 'Ruhamah [loved one].'"

So that, these who have been rejected as non-people and non-loved become the people of God and the people who have love. The Gospel would one day, in other words, reach these ten tribes, and many would be converted so that they would become the people that God again loves. But, it would take that Gospel, and it would take God Himself to bring that to them.

Hosea 2:23, therefore says, "''And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy [that's another way of saying, 'I will love her.']; and I will say to them who were not my people, 'Thou art my people;' and they shall say, 'Thou art my God.''" So, Hosea again stressing that God is going to restore this fallen life.

God then, in order to carry out the analogy to Israel, He's already brought these children with these special names, He's already put Hosea in the position where he's married to an adulterous wife. And Hosea has been wounded and bruised by that kind of treatment, as any man would be. Now, God comes and says, "Uh, Hosea, I want you to go down to the brothel. I want you to redeem her. I want you to bring her back home, and I want you to set her up again in your house as your wife." So, Hosea gulps, and says, "Ok."

He goes down there. He gets Gomer, takes her out, tenderly restores her into his home, and thereby illustrates visually to the leadership of Israel and to the people of Israel that God is going to restore them in spite of their unfaithfulness to Him. God's love for unfaithful Israel whom He plans to restore as His wife in unity with the southern kingdom, as we read.

Israel Ignores God's Visual Illustration

They said, "One more good time. One more violation, then we stop. One more time, and we'll never do it again. One more arrogance, one more busting, pounding, slashing away at the people who are telling us the truth and who are putting us downwind of ourselves and who are calling us to account to God to what we really are and not permitting us to con ourselves as if we could con God."

The hatred of the preacher who does you the service that nobody else is willing to do for you. They ignored Hosea. They refused to take the visual illustration, terrible as it was, to heart. The Jews failed to grasp, you see, the simple thing of the holiness of God. That's what they didn't grasp. They did not grasp the holiness of God and what God would do to them for their evil ways.

And that's the problem we face: not appreciating the holiness of God, the integrity of God which will not be compromised. It's wonderful to know that, because those who are compatible to the integrity of God are going to be in His blessing. It's a two-way street. Compatibility to the integrity of God, to His holiness, will carry you through the worst crises of life, and it will bring multiplied blessings of every kind into your life. As compromising His integrity will eventually turn everything to ashes in your mouth.

The Church as the Bride of Christ

You may pursue this further on your own in Acts 15:14-18 and Ephesians 3:1-12. God is free to treat the Gentiles so if He wishes. Again, the sovereignty of God driven home in this passage. God is free to do this for the Gentiles, and indeed, He has determined to do that.

1 Peter 2:10 points out the same thing, because Peter applies the Hosea passage very explicitly to the Gentiles in this same way. 1 Peter 2:10, Peter says, "Who in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: who had not obtained mercy [another variation for love], but now have obtained mercy [or love]."

So, Peter, there in that context is speaking about Gentiles who did not have God's love, who did not have God's family relationship, and they had become His people and His beloved ones. God sovereignly acts in all of this as He exercises His grace toward the undeserving, motivated by His love, governed by His holiness.

So, when Paul quotes Hosea, and you know the background of what was taking place, it's a very powerful example of the sovereignty of God and of His determination to save some from the mass of wretched humanity in to which all have fallen because of Adam's sin. Because we Christians are the people of God, we ought to act in a way that is distinctively different from the world.

There is an awful lot of evil-acting among believers, and there is an awful lot of chasing after the world by Christians. There is an awful lot of wasting your life as a Christian instead of investing it for eternity. There is an awful lot of not appreciating how holy our God is.

Well, the ten northern tribes learned it the hard way when they went into the misery of that Assyrian captivity. It was the end of the line. It would be a pity if we Christians who have infinitely greater privileges and are the people of God as the Jews never were and are in the love of God as the Jews never were, because we are in Christ. Therefore, we are loved by God with the intensity with which He loves His Son. That was never true of the Jew. It would be a pity that we who have that privileged position of being His people and His beloved should not rise to that royal status that is ours as the royal family of God, and that instead, we act with the same spiritual adultery of a slut-like Gomer instead of rising to the position to which we have been called as the virgin bride of Jesus Christ.

You see, the New Testament church is without spot or wrinkle, and He is going to clean us up one way or another. The Old Testament relationship of Israel to God was as a wife to a husband, but it's different with the relationship between Jesus Christ and His bride. She is a virgin bride. She is uncontaminated from all the foulness that characterized Israel as the wife of Jehovah. And, I can assure you that the Lord Jesus Christ is not going to tolerate the immoralities and the evils that poor Hosea watched His wife Gomer go through. Our God is a God of discipline. He is a God who rewards godliness, and the choice is ours.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1977

Back to the Romans index