Restoring the True Bride and Creating True Children

Near the end of Romans 9, Paul makes a very controversial argument. It angered religious snobs, and probably Satanic spirits as well.  Paul uses references from the book of Hosea that were originally aimed at the errant Northern Kingdom of Israel. In the Hosea passages, God is making it known in a prophetic way by using a marriage metaphor that the Northern Kingdom had broken covenant with him, and because they had defiled their matrimony by prostituting themselves with other gods, they had been cut off from an intimate relationship with him as his people. But according to the Hosea narrative, God won’t let that tragedy last. As a loving God who keeps his promises, he will call them back into a divine relationship and recognize them once again as his people who are beloved and who will be called Children of the Living God (Hosea 1:1-10, Hosea 2:23).                              

Paul takes this Jewish prophecy originally intended for Jewish people and applies it to Gentiles (Romans 9:24-26)! The point Paul is making here is one that he echoes over and over again throughout all of his teaching – one that caused great discomfort among many of the Jewish religious elite. That point is that members of God’s family are not members because they belong to a genetic or ethnic people group. According to Paul, not everyone who is descended from Israel belongs to Israel (Romans 9:6). Paul goes on to argue that those people who actually belong to God through the Abrahamic promise  also don’t belong to him because of any works of the law they might do. Instead, their pedigree is one of righteousness, and that  righteousness comes from trusting Christ. Paul’s argument would have had a palpable negative impact on some of those religious elites! It meant that their self-serving, goal-directed religiosity counted for nothing. Instead of works, it was the trust that Gentiles expressed for Christ that counted – even though they were not given the patriarchs, the law, the worship, the covenants, the glory, the promises, or the original adoption that ethnic, political, or genetic Israel was given (Romans 9:4-5). Those Gentile dogs attained righteousness, by God’s grace, with nothing more than trust, while the Jewish nation missed it even though they (ostensibly) devoted their lives to works of the law (Romans 9:30-33). The nation who is truly married to God is the one with faith in her husband and who seeks through that faith to please her husband with sincerity for who he is.

God’s metaphor in Hosea was powerful, and the New Testament continues it in its own pages (Ephesians 5:25-32, 2 Corinthians 11:2-3,  John 3:25-30, Revelation 19:6-9, Revelation 21:2-3, Revelation 21:9, Revelation 22:17). In noticing the complexity and detailed tapestry of Paul’s argument, don’t confuse with metaphorical language one of the literal expressions captured in those quoted prophetic flourishes.  In referencing Hosea, Paul reminds us that whether we are Jews or Gentiles, when we are adopted into the divine family we will be called Children of the Living God (Romans 9:26). This title, or a variation of it, is repeated in multiple instances throughout the New Testament (John 1:12, Galatians 3:26, Romans 8:14-16, 1 John 3:1-2, Philippians 2:15). In the Old Testament, that kind of title was used almost exclusively for Spiritual Beings who were supposed to cooperate with God in his divine council. Paul is telling us that we are going to be made into something so much more than what we are now, and that when God completes that work, we will be like his righteous son, Jesus (Romans 8:28-29). There is coming a day when god-like angels who were supposed to judge human nations with righteousness, but didn’t (Psalm 82), will be judged by righteous humans they once corrupted, and who were originally created a little lower than they (Psalm 8:4-8, 1 Corinthians 6:3). Will you be on that council?