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.

Hosea has married an
adulterous woman, Gomer.

It’s a wake-up call and
a warning for Israel.

Israel needs to wake up to the
reality of her religious whoring—

or risk God refusing to 
call Israel his wife anymore.

Israel is called unfaithful because 
she has credited God’s provision of  

good harvests and good
health to a false god named Baal.

She’s like a wife who kisses another 
man for flowers bought by her husband.  

Israel has even subverted observances
like the Sabbath to show her love for Baal.

So, God says he will punish Israel.

He will remove them from their land and 
from the temple, the place of his presence.

Israel will no longer be able to approach
God because God will leave them.

But for the second time in Hosea, God 
extends hope to his adulterous bride.

He says that he will allure 
his people back to himself.

God will speak tenderly to his people 
so that they will love him again.

Just as a couple who may reenact their honeymoon 
and renew their vows, God will restore their  

relationship in the wilderness—the same place
he took Israel after he rescued her from Pharaoh.

Israel will once again call God her husband and
will never again confuse his provision with Baal’s.

God will renew his marriage vows with her,  
bring her back home, and live with 
her forever in peace and love.

This forgiveness and reconciliation is then 
acted out by Hosea and his adulterous wife.

Gomer fell back into her promiscuous 
ways, so Hosea finds her,  

pays her new captor’s ransom 
fee, and delivers her again.

Hosea then explains to Gomer that they 
will not be sexually intimate for a time.

It’s another living picture of 
Israel and God’s relationship.

It’s a prophetic symbol of the spiritual distance 
Israel must go through while they are without 
their temple and without access to God.

Hosea’s marriage shows 
Israel that God is taking her  

into the wilderness where there will be a time 
of waiting, but also a coming time of renewal.

[music]

Israel’s adultery persisted into Jesus’ day.

Like Hosea’s audience, Jesus spoke
to religious leaders who subverted  

observances like the Sabbath 
into services for other lovers.

They weren’t serving the false god Baal, but they
were obeying God out of love for the observance itself.

They loved the ritual, but not the
God who commanded it.

And Jesus pronounced similar judgments on Israel’s
temple for this spiritual adultery, just as Hosea did.

Jesus said the temple would be destroyed.

Like Hosea, Jesus even provides a
living picture of this destruction when he  

overturned tables and drove out money 
changers from within the temple’s walls.

But Jesus is also the good husband 
Hosea prefigured and promised.

In Jesus’ day, people flocked to the 
wilderness to meet their promised groom.

He taught that the temple would no longer 
be a place people would come to meet God.

Instead, we would meet God in Jesus.

He would be our new temple.

Throughout his life, Jesus wooed 
those needy like Gomer to himself.

And in his death, he spoke more
tenderly to us than any other lover could.

At the cost of his life, Jesus ransomed
his bride from false lovers and captors.

And in his resurrection, we have 
access to God even in the wilderness.

There is no more spiritual 
distance or season of wandering.

Through his Spirit, Jesus comes to dwell in us.

He makes us his temple, turning our
wilderness of waiting into a place of renewal.

I pray that the Holy Spirit will open your eyes 
to see the God who longs for intimacy with us.

And that you will see Jesus as 
the one who allures us to himself  

at the redemption price
of his body on the cross.