The text from Hosea that was read for us is a rich text (Hos. 2:14-23), one that calls for more extensive treatment than can be offered in the brief words of exhortation in a wedding ceremony. But we have it on the authority of the apostle Paul that the prophet here was speaking of Christ and the Church (Rom. 9:23-24), and he tells us in another place that every marriage speaks in some fashion of Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:23). There are therefore lessons here for us who called the Church, and there are lessons for every married couple in Hosea’s portrayal of the relationship of Christ and His bride.
The first thing to note is that the context of this portion of Hosea follows a section on judgment. The first half of this chapter deals with sin, and the consequences of sin. We live in a fallen and bent world, and this means that we marry in a fallen and bent world. This means that we need to listen. God judgment on sin is sharp and without compromise. If you were to read the first half of this chapter, and then closed your Bible asking if there was any hope at all, the answer you would offer would be no. But notice how God speaks here. He says, “Behold, I will allure her.” His words of forgiveness, His words of comfort, are attractive. Grace bestows, grace gives, grace comforts. God’s grace triumphs over His judgments. His judgments are right and true and necessary, but God’s purpose for His bride is that she be presented at the last day as Brooke is here—lovely and dressed in white.
Notice that God promises to take His bride into the wilderness—you should recall that the wilderness was where they had taken their first honeymoon. God had established His covenant with Israel at Sinai, and He had been her provider and protector in countless ways during their 40 years there. Where God is, the garden is. In the judgment passage that this follows (Hos. 2:3), many years later Israel had been made “as a wilderness.” She had been protected in the wilderness, was made as a wilderness, and now in the gospel the Lord returns as her husband, her provider and protector. He will protect her again. The garden will be restored. The vineyard would be established forever.
God does this by dealing with sin. The Valley of Achor mentioned here as a door of hope was the same valley in which the sin of Achan was dealt with (Josh. 7:26), and as a result God turned away from His fierce anger. But notice that God does not ignore sin—He deals with it, puts it away, and then He promises to allure His people with grace.
The names of the old gods will fade and be remembered no more. And even when their names are preserved in the etymologies of various words, no one remembers what they mean. Not one person in a million thinks of Thursday as Thor’s Day. Having dealt with sin, and having offered forgiveness through Christ, what sort of marriage does God propose? He says that through the gospel He will betroth His people to Himself in righteousness, judgment, lovingkindness, mercies, and faithfulness (vv. 19-20). The result of this will be that the land around God’s people will bloom. This is because God will use His people as seed, sowing them unto Himself in the earth, and the earth will therefore erupt in blessings. This is what the Church is called to; this is what the Church is promised.
And so what applications can we make by way of exhortation to Daniel and Brooke? The first is that every healthy marriage is built on the bedrock of forgiveness. This is not the same thing as letting things slide; it is not the same thing as growing apart to a distance where faults are less visible; it is not the same thing as stuffing issues and refusing to deal with them. God deals with sin as sin in our lives, and not so that He can have grounds for condemnation—He already had that. And of course, God deals with sin by means of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He deals with sin in our lives so that He might pour out His lovingkindness upon us. Our God is a God of forgiveness, and forgiveness presupposes the reality of sin.
If we think that forgiveness is only possible if what was done “wasn’t really sin,” then instead of a delightful and liberated life together, a man and a woman will drift into a realm of marital deceits and unrealities. The vineyard God is giving you here will become a wilderness. But if you see that selfishness is selfishness, pettiness is pettiness, a lack of love is a lack of love, and disrespect is disrespect, and you confess it for what it is in the presence of God, the wilderness around you will gradually turn green. The wilderness surrounding will become a lush vineyard, just like the vineyard that you have cultivated together. There is no truce between them, no middle way. Either the vineyard is being made into a wilderness, or the wilderness is being made into a vineyard.
Those who set themselves up as law deal with sin all the time. They do this to make the wilderness they inhabit into a bigger, drier, and craggier wilderness. Those who set themselves up to deal with grace all the time make a similar error, but with opposite results—they create a marsh of sentimentalism, a swamp of hurt feelings. But as we look at what God promises His people through Hosea, we see the right balance because we see the right order of law and gospel.
Now of course if you take this exhortation to be clear about sin as an exhortation to be clear about the other person’s sin, then you will create a perfect carnival of fault-finding. Don’t do that. Fault-finding is one of the sins you have to be clear about.
Daniel, in considering this theme of the transformation of a wilderness into a vineyard, you are happily named. You are a Newman, a new man, and the new man is placed in the wilderness, accompanied by Jesus Christ, the ultimate New Man, in order to be an instrument of transformation. Follow Jesus Christ. Love Him. Imitate Him. Sacrifice as He did. Our text says that God sows His seed into the ground, and Paul tells us elsewhere that a seed is not fruitful unless it dies.
Brooke, you are the bride of a new man, and you are called to participate in all that he is called to do. In just a few moments, you will be introduced for the first time as a Newman. As he cultivates the vineyard, he will need water—and so you must be a brook. Farmers need water. John the Baptist needed much water, as our text said. And husbands, given what they are called to be and do, need water. Christ is that water, but you are called under Him to minister refreshment to Daniel. So you also should follow Jesus Christ. Love Him. Imitate Him, and give as He did.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen.