Hos. 11:1
Prayer: Father, we know that the modern evangelical church is so weak and impotent because we do not read and study your word like we ought. For so many it is like a sword lodged in a stone. So we ask for Your Holy Spirit now to open our eyes so that we me see the glory of Christ in Your Word and so be able to wield this sword against all evil. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
Matthew’s quotation of Hosea’s prophecy has often confused Christians. How is this faithful exegesis? But what we find in what might seem like almost a casual reference in passing in Matthew’s gospel is something that underlines even more of the glory of Christmas. Matthew is not free-associating in some kind of random free-wheeling exegesis. No, Matthew is deliberately teaching us how to read the Bible correctly so that we see the plan of salvation from the beginning, so that we see the glory of Jesus Christ and worship Him.
The Text: “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt” (Hos. 11:1).
Summary of the Text
The central theme of Hosea is that Israel has played the harlot by turning away from the knowledge of God and has sought security and freedom and pleasure from other gods (other lovers), but the message is that God will come after them and afflict them until they turn back to Him. This “affliction” is often pictured in the prophets both as simple hardship but also like a furnace that is purifying them like gold (cf. Ez. 22:15-22).
Here in Hosea 11, the image shifts from a bereaved husband to a bereaved father, and the Lord recalls Israel’s childhood fondly, particularly the love He had for Israel in bondage in Egypt, and how He called him out of that land (11:1). The passage goes on to say that they continued to call on idols and Baals, even though God held them by the hands and taught them to walk (Hos. 11:2-3). God says He drew them gently, showing them great love, easing their burdens, even feeding them (Hos. 11:4).
Matthew & Hosea
In Matthew’s gospel, after the wise men worshiped Christ in Bethlehem, they were warned not to return to Herod (Mt. 2:12), and Joseph was likewise warned in a dream to flee into Egypt, since Herod would seek to kill baby Jesus (Mt. 2:13). And Matthew says, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet saying, ‘Out of Egypt have I called my son.’” (Mt. 2:15). But many have noted that Hosea is clearly talking about the nation of Israel, and the rebellious history of that nation. The Catholic Erasmus alleged that this was included as one of Julian the Apostate’s charges against Christianity, that Matthew had abused the Old Testament text. Jewish commentators have accused Matthew of the same.
However, Matthew is practicing solid exegesis through what is called “typology,” which is the study of “types.” We use the word “type” somewhat synonymously with “kind,” and it is related because the Greek means an image, pattern, example, form, shape, or mark. In Acts the word is used twice in one place: first to refer to how Israel worshiped idolatrous “images” and then how God instructed Moses to build the tabernacle according to the “pattern” he saw on the mountain (Acts 7:43-44). Thomas used the same word when he said that he would not believe that Jesus was risen from the dead unless he saw the “marks” of the nails and put his finger in the “marks” in His hands (Jn. 20:25). The word is derived from a verb which means “to strike or beat repeatedly” (e.g. Mt. 24:49, 27:30, Mk. 15:19, Lk. 18:13). You might think of ancient coins which were “struck” with an image or pattern.
New Testament Typology
In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul says that what happened to Israel was written down as examples/types for us (1 Cor. 10:6, 11). That might make more sense to see an analogy between the people of God in the Old Testament and the people of God in the New Testament. But add to this the fact that Peter says that baptism is the “antitype” of Noah’s flood (1 Pet. 3:21). In other words, the Bible teaches that Noah’s flood was a “type” that was prefiguring, foreshadowing, or even an historic prophecy of Christian baptism. Finally, add one more piece to this puzzle: Paul in Romans says that Adam was a “type” of Christ (Rom. 5:14). Paul is saying that Adam was a pattern or mark that was prefiguring Jesus. Adam was the type; Jesus is the antitype. But it’s like an inverted carbon copy: the original is prefigured, like a tiny grain of sand that that pushes up through the pages of a fine leaf book.
So typology studies how the New Testament authoritatively teaches us how to see these “types” in the Old Testament. These types are historical persons or events that prefigured what God was going to do in the gospel.
God’s Own Son
Genesis alludes to the notion of God having a “son” simply in the language of man being created in the “image and likeness” of God, and then Adam begot Seth “in his own likeness, after his image” (Gen. 5:3). Image and likeness imply family resemblance and sonship. Genesis 5 continues tracing that “image and likeness” in the descendants of Adam (the “son of God,” Lk. 1:38), which is why I tend to think that the “sons of God” in Genesis 6 are those descendants.
All of this matters for the story of the Bible because God has promised a “seed” of the woman who will crush the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15). Adam’s family grew into Abraham’s family, and his grandson Jacob, went down into Egypt, having been given the name “Israel” (Gen. 32:28). Israel became the name of the nation because it was the name of their father, who was from the line of the sons of God. So when Moses was called by God at the burning bush, He said, “Israel is my son, even my firstborn; And I say unto thee [Pharaoh], Let my son go, that he may serve me” (Ex. 4:22-23).
In other words, there was always a corporate/singular connotation to the people of Israel: there were “heads” of Israel (going back to Adam, the head of the human race) and the “body” of the people. This is still true of families today: the John Smith Family – “As for me and my house…”. But because of Adam’s sin, the heads were sinful and therefore the people were rebellious. The story of the Old Testament is the story of the need for a new head, a new Adam, a new “son,” and therefore a new Israel.
Conclusion
Of course, the Old Testament story underlines the fact that no such son could come from purely human descent: all have sinned, all have failed because all are descended from Adam. And so Christ is the new Adam born of a virgin without a human father, fully God and fully man, God’s true and eternal Son, but as a perfect man, He is the true and faithful Israel.
Where Adam and the Israel failed, Jesus was faithful to the end. But in order to be faithful Adam and faithful Israel, He had to face what they faced. And so He did: He was tempted in every way just as we are, yet without sin. And then on top of that, He not only went down into Egypt just like Israel of old (literally, as a baby), He went down into the darkest Egypt of all: the God-forsaken death of the Cross in our place. And when our sins were fully paid for, the Father once more called forth His Son from the grave because He was always the faithful Israel that He loved.
Only this explains God’s unrelenting love. Before time began, God determined to send forth His Son, and so even in the failure of Adam and the failures of Israel, God saw in them and through them His own perfect Son, whose image He was striking into them. And so it is with us.
How do you know that God will never leave you or forsake you? Because He will never leave or forsake His own beloved Son. And you are in the Son.
This is also the ground of your sanctification. God is determined to form the image of His Son in you: “For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Rom. 8:29).
He is fitting you for eternity, and there’s a bunch of the old Adam still in you that needs to be stripped away: “Adam’s likeness now efface; stamp thine image in its place…”
As we continue to meditate on Christmas and look forward to the New Year, marvel at the love of God determined before the foundation of the world to save you and make you like His Son and determine to take up your cross and follow Jesus. What part of Adam needs to die in you? What needs to change? What part of Christ is God pressing into you? Ask God for eyes to see. Don’t resist. He is making gold.
Prayer: Father, teach us to read Your Word rightly, to see Christ in all of it, and to wield it in our lives like mighty men full of Your Spirit. We ask for the sake of Jesus, who taught us to pray, singing…
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