This is Spoken Gospel.

We are dedicated to seeing 
Jesus in all of scripture.

In each episode, we see what’s 
happening in a Biblical text

and how it sheds light
on Jesus and his gospel.

Let’s jump in.

Israel is experiencing a golden 
age under the evil king Jeroboam.

But God used this king to
save Israel from their enemies,  

restore their borders, and 
strengthen their economy.

Heartbreakingly, even though God
cared for his people like a good husband,  

they gave their loyalty to false gods from foreign 
countries, crediting them for their success.

That’s why God refers to his people throughout Hosea as
an adulterous wife—or more honestly, a whore.

In response to Israel’s spiritual adultery, 
God raises up a prophet named Hosea.

He tells Hosea to marry a promiscuous and adulterous
woman named Gomer and have children with her.

This marriage is a prophetic mirror—a living 
picture—of God’s relationship with Israel.

God, like Hosea, is a faithful husband. 
Israel, like Gomer, is the adulterous wife.

But this living picture 
doesn’t stop with the marriage.

It extends to the children
Hosea has with Gomer.

They have three children, and each is given a symbolic
name meant as a sign of God’s rejection of Israel.

The first child is called Jezreel.

Jezreel was a region
synonymous with death.

It had long been a place of political bloodshed, 
where kings and queens were assassinated.

Hosea’s first child told 
Israel that he was about to put  

an end to king Jeroboam's line by making 
them a place of bloodshed like Jezreel.

Hosea’s second child is named 
“no mercy” or “not loved”.

Her name signals a grim warning that God will no longer
be merciful or show saving acts of love toward Israel.

Hosea’s third child is given perhaps
the most pointed name—not my people.

Israel will no longer be God’s 
people and he will not be their God.

The names of Hosea’s children prophesy that God will
destroy Israel without mercy because 
he is no longer their God.

But right after this shocking proclamation, 
God promises to be merciful once again.

He will not ultimately exterminate his people but 
will multiply them as he swore to their ancestors.

He will call them his people again.

This will happen when God appoints
one leader to unite his people and

bring them out of Jezreel, turning a
place of death into a place of salvation.

[music]

This leader Hosea spoke of is Jesus.

He is the one who takes those who are
not his people, and makes them his people.

He is the one who takes those who
need mercy and lavishes them with it.

Jesus is the one who comes to our 
places of death and brings life.

Jesus does this by fulfilling the 
marriage prefigured in Hosea and Gomer.

Jesus called himself Israel’s groom.

Though she was promiscuous and adulterous, 
Jesus proved that his love for Israel had

persevered by showing mercy to the 
promiscuous and adulterers in his ministry.

Jesus was faithful to the people when they were
faithless toward him, even when they put him to death.

Like Hosea, Jesus’
ministry is also a living mirror.

It shows us that we are 
the whores who need saving.

We have given our hearts to providers 
other than God, so we deserve to inherit  

the names of Gomer’s children—
Unloved, Unclaimed, and Place of Death.

But just as God vowed to make Israel’s king like
Jezreel, heaven’s king went from the cross to the grave.

Jesus turned the place of death into
the place of salvation

by dying the death his bride earned.

And because our husband died in our place, 
we can be called God’s people once again.

We can become beloved children of God.

The only hope for spiritual prostitutes like us
is for a good husband to come and marry us.

Jesus has married an adulterous bride and
is turning her into a spotless and loved wife.

I pray that the Holy Spirit will open your eyes to see the
God who loves his people like a husband loves his wife. 

And may you see Jesus as our ultimate husband, 
who died to make adulterers like us his own.