Bible Commentaries

An Open Door

Hosea 14:3).

It comes to this, that a man must at some point say Good-bye to his old ruined self. There were cleansing days in the moral life—days when Assyria must be warned away as a helper that is helpless, as only a name of pride without being an arm of power. Asshur must go. "We will not ride upon horses": the stables must be cleansed. The horse has always in ancient history, as given in the Old Testament, been regarded as an emblem of pride. Israel at one period bought horses; Solomon committed the folly of having a boundless stable, he would have horses like the Egyptians. The Lord will not have anything to do with such horses in such relations. Men must ride upon his almightiness, and not upon the bared back of some steed of the wilderness; though he fly with the wind, and tear up the desert in the passion of his urgency, it is running itself to death.

"Neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods." Here is the day of good-bye, life-cleansing, a renewal that is complete, all old companionships dismissed, old habitudes given up, the Ethiopian's skin torn away, the spots or the leper taken out by some divine action. "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new": old trusts, old superstitions, old hopes, old sacrifices, all old things have gone, and life enjoys a newness that is not without a touch of the venerableness of eternity; not a paltry superficial newness as of polish just put on, but a newness that connects itself with eternal origins, with eternal springs. This is the mystery of the gospel, this is the mystery of grace, that a man shall grow newer as he grows older; he shall become younger with the flying years, he shall use time as a ladder by which he scales the ramparts of eternity. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and his Church; this is a mystery only to the dense understanding that has never felt the splendour and the warmth of the new morning.

We now come upon words never excelled by John or by Paul for sweep of thought and tenderness of pathos:—

"I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him" ( Hosea 14:4).

"I will love them freely" is an expression which literally means, I am impelled to love them; some old memory is awakened, some long-disused energy comes into play, considerations that have fallen into desuetude arise, awaken, and operate, and I the Eternal am impelled to love the returning prodigal. Here is another profound mystery; when God meets man it is on both sides as the result of an impulsion not to be fully described in words. They know one another, they have been seeking one another; across the darkness of the foulest apostasy there have shot occasional gleams as if from the lamp that made the old home bright with love; in the revel of midnight, in the debauch of darkness, there have been heard broken tones as of a voice that once filled the soul with ineffable music. When God sees the returned prodigal he sees more than the sin—he sees the sinner within the sin, the man within the sinner, the God within the man; old memories, so to say—for we must use a language that will accommodate itself to human conceptions—are aroused on both sides, and when the sinner and the offended Father meet it is by impulsion, constraint; it is a recognition of the fitness of things, a restoration of suspended harmonies; it is in very deed, in apostolic language, a "reconciliation."

Now the Lord will betake himself to poetry. To what else could he betake himself? He is all sublimity; his tears are jewels; his words are eternities; his glance is the glory that lights up the universe—"I will be as the dew unto Israel." It would seem as if the Lord had something to make up to the sinner. This is the view which he always takes of the case of repentance; no sooner does the prodigal return than he seems to say, What can I do for him? Bring forth the best robe, the ring, the fatted calf, and instrument of music: let it be heard in vibrant sound or in tender winsomeness of tone: for my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found. "I will be as the dew unto Israel,"—a great beauty, but nothing to carry in the way of burdensomeness. What flower ever said, O thou Maker of flowers, this dewdrop is too heavy a load for my poor strength to carry? An infinite jewellery, but quite unburdensome, without one touch of oppression. "He shall grow as the lily,"—an image referring to the pureness of God himself. The lily was a flower of dazzling whiteness, the very summation of all colour, caught in a velocity which reconciled and united the colours in one brilliant white. But the lily may be cut down: does the figure terminate with frailty and evanescence? No; for the Lord says, "and cast forth his roots as Lebanon." The roots shall be as long as the branches. The Chinese proverb Hosea 14:5-6).

And so the wind around him shall be odoriferous. Let your light so shine before men, that they may know your Father; let your fragrance be as the odour of many choice spices that men may know ye belong to the garden of the Lord. Do not have a limited piety. All the little flowers in the well-concealed garden are struggling to get out. Some men—how dare they live?—wall their gardens round, and there is not a violet in the estate that is not trying to escape; the little thing is saying, I can"t get over that wall, but I can send a kiss over it to some little child that may happen to be chalking the wall on the other side. Children will chalk walls as long as there are walls to be chalked. And every little rose is saying, This is too small a place for me; I can"t get out, but I will breathe a benediction, and perhaps some poor o"er-laboured wight, some burden-carrying old woman, may get a waft of the fragrance, and know that there is a garden on this side the wall. The Church is to be fragrant; the Church is to make itself known. There is no violence here, but the tender violence of love, the aggression of a pity that would save the world.

"Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols?" ( Hosea 14:8.)

Ephraim has seen his folly; Ephraim has sounded the depths of superstition; Ephraim does not give up his idols without a reason. He says, I have tried you, and you are vain; I have leaned upon you, and you are broken staves; I have consulted you, and you had no answer; I have looked to you, but you never turned a kind eye upon me. The great apostle says, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols"; the old Scotch version says, "Wee bairns, keep yourselves frae dolls": the meaning is the same. I like the quaintness of the Scotch version. There is a caressing tenderness in that gruff old tone; listen to it; it is the kind of tone that grows upon the heart; at first it is very singular, and not wholly desirable, but there is in it a latent music; if you say the words over and over again, you will come to like them. The time is on the surface; open it, and you find eternity.