CRITICAL NOTES.]
Hosea 14:4.] Promise of mercy follows. First heal all injury caused by apostasy. Freely] Gratuitously and with perfect spontaneity (Ezekiel 16:60-63). “The word means impelled thereto by Himself alone, and so moved by His own essential bountifulness, the exceeding greatness of His goodness, largely, bountifully” [Puscy].
HOMILETICS
HEALTH AND DIVINE FAVOUR.—Hosea 14:4
In response to penitential return to God, he will heal the wounds of his people and bestow upon them the blessings of his grace.
I. We have health. “I will heal their backsliding.”
1. The disease. “Backsliding.” All sin is a disease; backsliding is the most dangerous. It endangers present holiness, joy, and usefulness, and imperils the future. It begins almost imperceptibly, first in the heart, then in the closet, and then in the Church. Private prayer loses its relish, spiritual enjoyments cease, and then the means of grace are neglected. As a sheep that wanders from the fold never seeks to return, so the backslider “wanders on still more and more astray,” till the Divine shepherd brings him back. “If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.”
2. The cure. “I will heal.” Apostasy is no ordinary wound, but God can heal it. (a) By the pardon of sin. The blood of Christ cleanses from all sin. (b) By removing the effects of sin. Taking away its guilt, power, and dominion; destroying the bent, the tendency within us to go back. (c) By restoring to all good. God himself and lost comfort are regained. The cure is efficient. It is restoration to perfect soundness. The cure is certain. “I will heal.” God is a physician that never fails. Cases helpless and hopeless can be healed by him. Christ cured most desperate diseases, so backsliding children may be restored, “For I am the Lord that healeth thee.” II. We have Divine favour. “I will love them.”
1. Anger is turned away! “Mine anger is turned away from him.” God is displeased with sin, but his anger will be turned away from those who repent. This is a proof and an assurance of his love. The clouds with which a guilty conscience covers God shall disperse, and sunshine beam forth in brightness and beauty again.
2. Love is manifest. “I will love them.” (a) Love in its widest scope. “Them.” Who? Moralists and worldly respectable? No! but those who have despised his authority and trifled with former mercies. Backsliders from God. (b) Love in its gracious nature. “Freely.” Spontaneously and liberally, because he will love. Freely, without money and without price; freely, without inducement and without merit; freely, without reluctance and stint. (c) Love in its loftiest source. “I will love them.” God is love—pure, unchanging benignity, the fountain, the fulness of love. A word to the sinner—God loves thee. A direction to the penitent—believe and return to God. To the Christian—“love so amazing, so Divine, demands thy soul, thy life, thy all.”
GRACE ABOUNDING.—Hosea 14:4
This sentence is a body of divinity in miniature. The sense hinges upon the word “freely.” Here is the glorious, the suitable, the Divine way by which love streams from heaven to earth. In the text we have two great doctrines. I will announce, establish, and apply the first.
I. The first great doctrine is this, that there is nothing in man to attract the love of God to him. We have to establish this doctrine. Our first argument is found in the origin of that love. Our second, that the whole plan of Divine goodness is entirely opposed to the old covenant of works. Thirdly, the substance of God’s love, clearly proves that it cannot be man’s goodness which makes God love him. Remember, further, the objects of God’s love, and we shall soon see that it could not be anything in them which constrains God to love them. We are informed in Scripture that the love of God and the fruit of the love of God are a gift. But what practical use of this doctrine? It offers comfort to those who do not feel fit to come to Christ. The text is a death-blow to all kinds of fitness and unworthiness. It invites backsliders to return. The text specially written for them.
II. Nothing in man can be an effectual bar to God’s love. If anything in man to bar God’s grace, then this would have been a hindrance to its coming to any of the human race, it would have prevented the salvation of those undoubtedly saved, it would mar the sovereignty of God, be a great slur upon the grace of God, and detract glory from the gospel. The love of God has provided means to meet the extremest case. They are twofold—the power of Christ and the power of the Spirit Spurgeon].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 14
Hosea 14:4. “We would always look hopefully at a sinner under correction. For surely so long as the physician administers the medicine there is no ground for despondency” [Bridges]. “Consumption, when it once comes to be really consumption, is beyond all doubt utterly incurable by ordinary medicine; and though many remedies may assist the sufferer and prolong his life, yet, as a rule, consumption is the herald of death; and so backsliding is incurable by any human means, and would be the forerunner of total apostasy were it not for Divine grace” [Spurgeon].