The Gospel and the Hebrew Scriptures (Hosea 4:1 - 3)

Short teachings from Hillcrest Church further exploring Sunday's teachings.

Transcript

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Hey, hope you're doing well. Tim here, and we are diving deep into the series Living Scent. So I wanted to continue to kind of talk about this, you know, what is the good news, the gospel, that we we talked about on Sunday. And you know, there's I didn't spend a ton of time on this idea that I want to talk about in this episode, but uh that's why, you know, that's what the podcast says. I get to spend a little more time on it. You know, um when I think biblically, when we think about the good news, when we think about the gospel, I think one of the ways uh that sometimes the good news gets reduced. Uh and I you could even say, hey, I did this a little bit on Sunday, and I, you know, that's that's fair, is that we s we skip straight from Genesis 3 to the book of Matthew, and uh the story of God's dealing with um uh the descendants of Abraham and the people of Israel isn't part of the the gospel, the story. Um and yet uh for the New Testament writers that they couldn't conceive of a good news, a gospel apart from God's dealings with Israel and uh Jesus' completion of this story. So I'll just, you know, um here this is Romans chapter 1. Um, Romans chapter 1. Uh Paul, a servant of Jesus of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel, good news of God. The gospel, the good news, he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures. So it's promised through the the prophets of the Hebrew scriptures, um, regarding his son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, of course, the the you know the literal uh you know descendant of King David, um, and who through the Spirit of Holiness was appointed son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord. Um and then it goes on. And so um, you know, and I and I think uh, you know, part of what you're seeing there is the same, you're seeing the same king and kingship language that I pointed to in the message, that the gospel fundamentally, it it has implications for us, um, but it's not in a sense about me. It's about Jesus. Uh, it's about God reasserting his kingship, his reign over this world through King Jesus. So, uh, but also what we see in this passage is how uh for Paul it's inextricably uh tied up, linked to God's dealings with the people of Israel in the Hebrew scriptures. Um and uh and I think um and I think that's just helpful for us as uh as followers of Jesus, students of scripture, to always have in our heads. I mean, even I you may not, but even on Sunday, you may not have caught it, but I said, you know, hey, as we move from uh that kind of the the the four relationships broken, um I tried to make mention of like God launched a rescue mission. First he called Abraham, and the descendants of Abraham became the people of Israel, and then the mission of Israel got focused down on one true Israelite, Jesus. And and I want to I want to try to even, and you know, just as a preacher-teacher, I you know, even in small ways, always linking people back to what is the bigger biblical truth here. Um and the and the and the the bib bigger biblical truth is that Jesus is the completion of of God's work all the way through the Hebrew scriptures. Um and I do think one way that that sometimes the gospel gets produced, it gets it gets, you might even say, dehistoricized. It gets taken out of its biblical story, it gets taken out of even human history and kind of becomes very abstract. And so linking it back into God's dealings uh with his people, um, that doesn't mean you need to, you know, uh, you know, I mean, even you know, Paul uh he Paul links it to the Hebrew uh scriptures by mentioning the prophets, mentioning David. Um he doesn't necessarily go through, you know, the book of Chronicles, uh, but says, hey, this is part, this is we have to understand the good the gospel this way. Um uh so with that in mind, I thought I would just talk a little bit about okay, um how we see this kind of this four relationships idea carried forward into those Hebrew scriptures. Um, you know, if that's true, if these four relationships are carried through, what might that what how does you know, how does that work? Um what and maybe I'll just make a few comments about that, you know, because in the last episode we said we we noticed how as a result of the fall, um, as a result of human rebellion against God, it fractures all these other relationships. And really, um you can see that in uh Genesis 3 through 11. I mean you see the whole scriptures, but Genesis 3 through 11 is really this this um kind of unpacking of the effects of human sin, um, violence. And then in Genesis 12, we get the call of Abraham, of course. Uh out of Abraham comes the whole people of Israel. And I think when you when you trace the the the story of Israel, you see these same four relationships coming up over and over again. Um, in you think about the Exodus, um, the people of Israel experience the rescue of God, and then they're taken out in the wilderness, and at Sinai they're given the Torah. And what um what is the Torah trying to put back together? Uh, well, these four relationships. And um, you know, at the center is a people rescued by God, learning to live in God's presence, learning to live under God as King. You can talk all about the tabernacle, uh, being in God's presence in the Torah and instructions that people's own selves, their heart, their right relationship with their selves. Um, and I think, you know, I didn't emphasize this on Sunday, but part of our right relationship with ourselves is what I would call growth and virtue. Um, you know, becoming people of integrity, uh, becoming people of honesty, becoming people who protect life. And we see, of course, we see this in Torah. We see also in the Torah uh right relationship with others, um, a community of virtue, uh, a community of justice, a community of fairness. Uh, this is what God is putting back together. And then in the Torah, right relationship with the created order. Um, it's you know, even you know, Leviticus 25, the way God wants the land to have its Sabbaths, um, the land to have its rest. And so um these things are all getting put back together. Um now, of course, as you go through the biblical story, this um, you know, Israel ends in failure. This biblical the that this part of the the story is that Israel fails at these tasks. And um, I think in a text, the one that comes to mind is a text like Hosea uh really captures, let me just flip there. Hosea chapter four. I think in Hosea chapter four, the first couple verses, you get a picture, one, of how Israel fails at these things, and two, again, these different relationships show up. And so just listen to Hosea 4. This is uh beginning in the second half of verse 1. Um Hosea says, There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgement of God in the land, so no acknowledgement of God, the broken relationship with God. Um, there's only cursing, lying. This is kind of our own relationship with ourselves, this lack of integrity in ourselves. Um, murder, stealing, adultery, uh break all bound, break all bonds, bloodshed falls, bloodshed. Of course, this is breakdown of relationships between people, and then um Hosea goes on, verse 3 because of this the land dries up, and all who live in it waste away. The beasts of the field, the birds of the sky, and the fish in the sea are swept away, and then creation itself groans. Um, and so here you go. You see this the story of Israel um itself ends in failure, and again, it's emphasized in how these different these different relationships are all fractured because of it. And so then I think um I think this really sets up, and and uh, and I'll do this, I'll do one more episode this week and talk about this. But this really sets up how then Jesus steps into this story and and is both the the the true Israelite taking on the calling of Israel and the true the true human, the true Adam, um which uh and taking on the the the you know um Jesus is being the Israel Israel is always meant to be, and the human one, humanity was always meant to be. Um and in this way um rescuing all uh through his life, death, and resurrection, all who would trust in him. So um, yeah. Uh this may, you know, deep dive, right? Deep dive. We're diving deep. But uh when we talk about the gospel, I do think uh for uh for Christian uh uh uh thinkers um holding the whole scripture in our minds to understand how uh the Hebrew scriptures fit into the gospel and how it's part of the good news and how Jesus fulfills that, and even how these same four relationships get reflected all the way through. Hopefully that encourages you and even encourages you when you're in those Hebrew scriptures that uh kind of a better sense of how God's rescue is working through those texts. So uh grace and peace, and we'll see you next time.