WIFE & WHORE: 2 Shocking Images from Hosea

Wife. Whore. These are two shocking images that God uses to describe his people. Both of these images are shocking in different ways.

WIFE OF GOD?

Unlike the god of Mormonism and the Roman gods of antiquity, the God of Christianity neither has sex, nor has a physical wife in heaven. God is spirit and an eternal being–one being in 3 persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). God creates by speaking (Genesis 1) and not by physical procreation. He has perfect love and relation within His own triune nature. But one shocking metaphor that Scripture uses to speak of his relationship to His people is that of marriage. God is the husband and his people are his wife.

God is not physically married to His people, but he has a union and intimacy with them that is analogous to marriage. Here we have unimaginable closeness to God along with an unparalleled committment. God loves and cherishes us, like a husband loves and cherishes his bride. This is amazing and wonderful.

A WHORE?

The book of Hosea uses the imagery of WHORE and WHOREDOM to speak of the radical unfaithfulness of God’s people. God’s people were meant to love God and not give their hearts to idols. Instead, God’s people have behaved like a whore, prostituting themselves out to other lovers.

What shocked the original audience–and us–is being compared to a prostitute. Are we really that bad? Is our behavior really comparable to whore? The Bible’s answer is yes! Our condition is that wretched.

Another shocking truth is that God would love his people, even though they behaved and acted like a whore. This is AMAZING GRACE, a grace that finds its fulfillment in the gospel.