(S. Cox, D. D.)

I. THE GRACIOUS RELATION THUS ACKNOWLEDGED.

1. And first of all, it is a new covenant relation. Naturally, as is here intimated, we are "not" the people of God. When the covenant which He made with us in Adam, our representative, was broken, we ceased to be His people and He ceased to be our God. We, by wilful apostasy, have cast Him off; and He, in holy and righteous displeasure, has cast us off. Our carnal minds are enmity against Him, and His law has only condemnation and death for us. We are miserable outcasts from our Maker. We are "without God in the world." But He has made a covenant with His Chosen: and in that new and better covenant He has made provision that the gracious relation so fearfully ruptured shall be more than restored. He has covenanted with His only begotten Son, as the Head of an innumerable multitude of our outcast race, that on condition of His assuming their nature and doing all His will in their redemption He will, in a very special and gracious sense, be a God to Him, and in the same special and gracious sense be a God to them.

2. In this new covenant relation, as willing to be our God in Christ, God offers Himself to us unconditionally and individually in the Gospel. It was such an offer of Himself He made to the Israelites when, from the summit of the flaming mount, He proclaimed — "I am the Lord thy God, who have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." It was God in the person of Christ, as we learn from Stephen (Acts 7:38), who there announced His willingness to be the God of Abraham's seed. And to these sinners, deeply infected as they were soon to show, with the idolatry and moral corruption or Egypt, that was a most free offer; and it is expressed in absolute and unconditional terms, clogged with no condition of any sort whatever. It was also an individual offer, made to every Israelite in the camp without exception, so that, every soul in all that host, the vilest and most abject was warranted as much as Moses and Aaron, to close with it, and on the ground of it to take Jehovah as his own personal God. Now we are most earnest you should realise this day that God is making to each one of you, through Christ, the same absolutely free and gracious offer to be your God. Only with this great difference, "that He is making it not from the mount that might be touched and that burned with fire, and from blackness and darkness and tempest" — not from among that dark obscurity of type, and rigor of ordinance and law tending to bondage and fear, which beset the revelation of covenant mercy and love under the old economy, but in the clear sweet light of the risen Sun of Righteousness, and through the lips of ambassadors whom He has sent to beseech you in Christ's stead to be reconciled to Him. "Incline your ear, and come unto Me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David" (Isaiah 4:3).

3. For, be it remarked further, that while God offers Himself in this relation to all, He actually gives Himself in this relation to those who are made willing by His Spirit to close with the offer by faith. This highest and holiest of covenant unions, like every other covenant union, is formed by mutual consent. Thus the sons of the stranger are said to "join themselves to the Lord," in the way of "taking hold of His covenant": in doing which they first take hold of Christ the Surety of the Covenant with the grasp of a living and entire faith when brought near them in the Gospel; and then, in and through Christ, they take hold of the God of the covenant, and enter into all the fulness of His covenanted love and grace (Romans 3:29, 30). And mark how faith avails to bring the guiltiest and vilest into all the good and blessedness of this endearing relation to Jehovah. Faith, laying hold of Christ, unites us to Him. It makes us so vitally one with Him that we participate in all the boundless merit of His righteousness. And, having Christ's righteousness as our own, there is no more any legal obstacle to keep us outcasts from God.

4. For observe yet again, that in this relation God gives Himself to believing sinners in all He is and all He has. "He is not ashamed to be called their God" (Hebrews 11:16). And why not ashamed to be called their God? It is because He acts toward them with a Divine munificence worthy of Himself, glorifying the exceeding riches of His grace in giving them not this or that kind and measure of good, but in giving them Himself, the Fountain and Centre of all good. Think of the ineffable dignity and privilege of being able to say of Him whom angels count it their supreme happiness to adore, He is my God; mine in all His essential perfections: His wisdom mine, to enlighten and guide me; His power mine, to uphold and protect me; His holiness mine, to raise me to walk in the light as He is in the light; His justice mine, to guard me as one of Christ's ransomed ones, and to guarantee to me all the inheritance He has purchased with His blood; His truth mine, to fulfil to me every word He has spoken and every expectation and longing His Spirit has wakened within me; His love mine, to delight in me and rejoice over me to do me good; His infinitude mine, to be the measure of the good and the blessedness which I have in Him; and His eternity mine, to be the duration through which it shall all be enjoyed. "All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours, and ye are Christ's. and Christ is God's" (1 Corinthians 3:22, 23). Can you contemplate this, the inheritance of the saints in light, without exclaiming, " Happy is the people whose God is the Lord"?

II. WHAT IS IMPLIED IN THE ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THIS RELATION WHICH OUR TEXT FORETELLS? It is, as we have hinted, a divinely wrought acknowledgment. Neither reason, nor conscience, nor moral suasion, though that were put forth with the tongue of an angel, will persuade the soul in its natural hatred and fear and distrust of God to make it. It is the response of the newborn nature to the call of the Spirit of God within.

I. It implies, first of all, the believing personal acceptance of the offer which God makes of Himself to sinners indefinitely and individually in the Gospel. Proud unbelief, putting on the deceitful guise of humility, may tell you that it is presumption for such as you to claim Jehovah as your God. You virtually say by that refusal that all His professed love and goodwill toward you is insincere, that His word is not faithful and worthy of all acceptation.

2. This acknowledgment implies, further, the taking of God as our only and all-sufficing portion. Naturally, our carnal hearts will not have God for their portion. They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh. But these earthly things can no more satisfy the nature and cravings of the spiritual essence within us than the husks that the swine did eat could satisfy the prodigal. Deeply and unfeignedly that sinner grieves that, in following lying vanities, he should so long have forsaken his own mercies. But in proportion to the shame and sorrow of his penitence is his satisfaction that in Christ, and God in Him, he has found at last the good, the rest, the home of his heart.

3. Again, this acknowledgment implies the surrender of ourselves to God as our Lawgiver and King and the great End of our being. If we naturally dislike God as our portion, we still more dislike the thought of entire subjection to Him as our King. Many, indeed, would wish to enjoy His favour and His benefits, provided that, free from His holy authority and control, they could get following their carnal inclinations and living aa they list. But this will not do. It is an eternal moral impossibility. God must change His nature and reverse all the laws of His moral government ere He can make you happy while you are unwilling to be holy, and ere you can enjoy Him as your portion while you will not know, obey, and submit to His will, in all things, as your Lawgiver and King. And most certainly on these terms you can never enter the bond of His covenant (Hebrews 8:10). The true-hearted covenanter is well pleased with God's covenant in all respects. He delights in the law of the Lord after the inward man (Psalm 119:140). He feels that God has infinite claims upon the love and loyalty of his heart and the perfect obedience of his life. As He who made him, and made him a rational and immortal being responsible to Himself; as He who has made goodness and mercy to follow him through all his sinful (lays when he would have been honoured in shutting him up in hell; as He who has redeemed his life from destruction with the blood of His Own Son, and hid his life with Christ in Himself forever — he feels that He has claims upon him which the love and never-ceasing service of eternity shall fail to discharge, but which shall rather ever grow in a still accumulating debt.

4. In a word, this acknowledgment implies the explicit and formal devotement of ourselves to God. They "shall say, Thou art my God." Not merely think it or feel it, but say it. Say it explicitly, formally, solemnly. With the heart he believeth, unto righteousness, and with the mouth he makes confession unto salvation. Such an avowed devotement of ourselves to God is really made in all spiritual worship. In all true prayer there is an owning of God s sovereignty and of our dependence which says, "Thou art my God." In all true praise there is an owning of God's goodness and of our obligations which says, "Thou art my God." But the honour of God, the promptings of the new nature, and the necessity of binding our wayward hearts by the firmest and closest of bonds, demand that this avouching of the Lord to be our God should be made in the most explicit and public manner possible to man (Isaiah 44:3-6).

(Original Secession Magazine.).

     6730   reinstatement
     7021   church, OT anticipations
     7233   Israel, northern kingdom
     7511   Gentiles, in OT
     7545   outsiders

Hosea 2:18-23

     1352   covenant, the new

The Unknown Giver and the Misused Gifts
"For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax."--Hosea 2:8-9. In reading any of the records concerning the people of Israel and the people of Judah, one stands amazed at two things, and scarcely knows which to wonder at most. The first thing which causes astonishment is the great …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 38: 1892

27TH DAY. Everlasting Espousals.
"He is Faithful that Promised." "And I will betroth thee unto Me for ever."--HOSEA ii. 19. Everlasting Espousals. How wondrous and varied are the figures which Jesus employs to express the tenderness of His covenant love! My soul! thy Saviour-God hath "married thee!" Wouldst thou know the hour of thy betrothment? Go back into the depths of a by-past eternity, before the world was; then and there, thine espousals were contracted: "I have loved thee with an everlasting love." Soon shall the bridal-hour …
John Ross Macduff—The Faithful Promiser

"I Know, O Lord, that Thy Judgments are Right, and that Thou in Faithfulness Hast Afflicted Me. " -- Psalm 119:75.
"I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she shall sing there." -- Hosea 2:14,15. "I know, O Lord, that Thy judgments are right, and that Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me." -- Psalm 119:75. I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength -- Thee shall my rescued heart embrace; Thy love, in all its breadth and length, Shall be my peaceful dwelling place. Whom have …
Miss A. L. Waring—Hymns and Meditations

The Secret of his Pavilion
Gerhard Ter Steegen Hos. ii. 14 Allured into the desert, with God alone, apart, There spirit meeteth spirit, there speaketh heart to heart. Far, far on that untrodden shore, God's secret place I find, Alone I pass the golden door, the dearest left behind. There God and I--none other; oh far from men to be! Nay, midst the crowd and tumult, still, Lord, alone with Thee. Still folded close upon Thy breast, in field, and mart, and street, Untroubled in that perfect rest, that isolation sweet. O God, …
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen, Suso, and Others

And After. (xxx, xxxi, xxxix-Xliv. )
There are two separated accounts of what befel Jeremiah when the city was taken. Ch. XXXIX. 3, 14 tells us that he was fetched from the guard-court by Babylonian officers,(609) and given to Gedaliah, the son of his old befriender Ahikam, to be taken home.(610) At last!--but for only a brief interval in the life of this homeless and harried man. When a few months later Nebusaradan arrived on his mission to burn the city and deport the inhabitants Jeremiah is said by Ch. XL to have been carried off …
George Adam Smith—Jeremiah

And that this Race was to Become an Holy People was Declared in the Twelve...
And that this race was to become an holy people was declared in the Twelve Prophets [283] by Hosea, thus: I will call that which was not (my) people, my people; and her that was not beloved, beloved. It shall come to pass that in the place where it was called not my people, there shall they be called sons of the Living God. (Hos. ii. 23, i. 10) This also is that which was said by John the Baptist: That God is able of these stones to raise up sons to Abraham. For our hearts being withdrawn and taken …
Irenæus—The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching

Entire Sanctification in Prophecy.
The Major Prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. The twelve prophetic books in the Old Testament following the book of Daniel are called the Minor Prophets. In the writings of both classes we find many allusions and predictions as to the entire sanctification of believers in the gospel dispensation and under the reign of Messiah or Christ. The sixth chapter of Isaiah is usually regarded as his call to the prophetic office. Whether this be so or not, it records a very wonderful experience …
Dougan Clark—The Theology of Holiness

The Prophecy of Obadiah.
We need not enter into details regarding the question as to the time when the prophet wrote. By a thorough argumentation, Caspari has proved, that he occupies his right position in the Canon, and hence belongs to the earliest age of written prophecy, i.e., to the time of Jeroboam II. and Uzziah. As bearing conclusively against those who would assign to him a far later date, viz., the time of the exile, there is not only the indirect testimony borne by the place which this prophecy occupies in …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

The Controversy Concerning Fasting
"And John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting: and they come and say unto Him, Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but Thy disciples fast not?" MARK 2:18 (R.V.) THE Pharisees had just complained to the disciples that Jesus ate and drank in questionable company. Now they join with the followers of the ascetic Baptist in complaining to Jesus that His disciples eat and drink at improper seasons, when others fast. And as Jesus had then replied, that being a Physician, …
G. A. Chadwick—The Gospel of St. Mark

'Fruit which is Death'
'Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself: according to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images. 2. Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty: He shall break down their altars, He shall spoil their images. 3. For now they shall say, We have no king, because we feared not the Lord; what then should a king do to us? 4. They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant: thus …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Wilderness State
"Ye now have sorrow: But I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you." John 16:22. 1. After God had wrought a great deliverance for Israel, by bringing them out of the house of bondage, they did not immediately enter into the land which he had promised to their fathers; but "wandered out of the way in the wilderness," and were variously tempted and distressed. In like manner, after God has delivered them that fear him from the bondage of sin and Satan; …
John Wesley—Sermons on Several Occasions

How the Rude in Sacred Learning, and those who are Learned but not Humble, are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 25.) Differently to be admonished are those who do not understand aright the words of the sacred Law, and those who understand them indeed aright, but speak them not humbly. For those who understand not aright the words of sacred Law are to be admonished to consider that they turn for themselves a most wholesome drought of wine into a cup of poison, and with a medicinal knife inflict on themselves a mortal wound, when they destroy in themselves what was sound by that whereby they ought, …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

Of Inward Silence
Of Inward Silence "The Lord is in His Holy Temple, let all the earth keep silence before him" (Hab. ii. 20). Inward silence is absolutely indispensable, because the Word is essential and eternal, and necessarily requires dispositions in the soul in some degree correspondent to His nature, as a capacity for the reception of Himself. Hearing is a sense formed to receive sounds, and is rather passive than active, admitting, but not communicating sensation; and if we would hear, we must lend the ear …
Madame Guyon—A Short and Easy Method of Prayer

"Thou Shalt Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother. "
From this Commandment we learn that after the excellent works of the first three Commandments there are no better works than to obey and serve all those who are set over us as superiors. For this reason also disobedience is a greater sin than murder, unchastity, theft and dishonesty, and all that these may include. For we can in no better way learn how to distinguish between greater and lesser sins than by noting the order of the Commandments of God, although there are distinctions also within the …
Dr. Martin Luther—A Treatise on Good Works

Nature of Covenanting.
A covenant is a mutual voluntary compact between two parties on given terms or conditions. It may be made between superiors and inferiors, or between equals. The sentiment that a covenant can be made only between parties respectively independent of one another is inconsistent with the testimony of Scripture. Parties to covenants in a great variety of relative circumstances, are there introduced. There, covenant relations among men are represented as obtaining not merely between nation and nation, …
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

Of Rest in the Presence of God --Its Fruits --Inward Silence --God Commands it --Outward Silence.
The soul, being brought to this place, needs no other preparation than that of repose: for the presence of God during the day, which is the great result of prayer, or rather prayer itself, begins to be intuitive and almost continual. The soul is conscious of a deep inward happiness, and feels that God is in it more truly than it is in itself. It has only one thing to do in order to find God, which is to retire within itself. As soon as the eyes are closed, it finds itself in prayer. It is astonished …
Jeanne Marie Bouvières—A Short Method Of Prayer And Spiritual Torrents

The Beginning of Justification. In what Sense Progressive.
1. Men either idolatrous, profane, hypocritical, or regenerate. 1. Idolaters void of righteousness, full of unrighteousness, and hence in the sight of God altogether wretched and undone. 2. Still a great difference in the characters of men. This difference manifested. 1. In the gifts of God. 2. In the distinction between honorable and base. 3. In the blessings of he present life. 3. All human virtue, how praiseworthy soever it may appear, is corrupted. 1. By impurity of heart. 2. By the absence of …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Covenanting According to the Purposes of God.
Since every revealed purpose of God, implying that obedience to his law will be given, is a demand of that obedience, the announcement of his Covenant, as in his sovereignty decreed, claims, not less effectively than an explicit law, the fulfilment of its duties. A representation of a system of things pre-determined in order that the obligations of the Covenant might be discharged; various exhibitions of the Covenant as ordained; and a description of the children of the Covenant as predestinated …
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

The Gospel Feast
"When Jesus then lifted up His eyes, and saw a great company come unto Him, He saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat?"--John vi. 5. After these words the Evangelist adds, "And this He said to prove him, for He Himself knew what He would do." Thus, you see, our Lord had secret meanings when He spoke, and did not bring forth openly all His divine sense at once. He knew what He was about to do from the first, but He wished to lead forward His disciples, and to arrest and …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII

The Worst Things Work for Good to the Godly
DO not mistake me, I do not say that of their own nature the worst things are good, for they are a fruit of the curse; but though they are naturally evil, yet the wise overruling hand of God disposing and sanctifying them, they are morally good. As the elements, though of contrary qualities, yet God has so tempered them, that they all work in a harmonious manner for the good of the universe. Or as in a watch, the wheels seem to move contrary one to another, but all carry on the motions of the watch: …
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial

The Prophet Hosea.
GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. That the kingdom of Israel was the object of the prophet's ministry is so evident, that upon this point all are, and cannot but be, agreed. But there is a difference of opinion as to whether the prophet was a fellow-countryman of those to whom he preached, or was called by God out of the kingdom of Judah. The latter has been asserted with great confidence by Maurer, among others, in his Observ. in Hos., in the Commentat. Theol. ii. i. p. 293. But the arguments …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament