Strange Texts: The God You Don’t Know

I have been researching the Scriptures for many years for varied reasons: personal growth, understanding God, preaching and teaching needs, evidence for something I have been challenged with, etc., etc. Some of these purposes are for my own needs some of them for the direct benefit of others. During the past year and a half, however, I have been striving to present a book-length treatment of the God of Scripture which specifically answers the most popular model, i.e., that “God is Love,” and its delineated meaning that God loves us one and all without exception and that His sole purpose is to have us reciprocate that love. The love that God has expressed to mankind, without exception, has a redemptive component and is illustrated by giving His Son for our salvation. This mission of God’s love for some means that God will overcome all obstacles to our hardness and in the last account, even if it includes several lifetimes for many individuals, He will get His way and finally redeem everyone and all without exception will be saved, and thus receive and return God’s redemptive love. For those others who adhere to this model of God, but also want to allow for human freedom to resist God’s love, and refuse to be loved by God or love Him in return, will no doubt have to allow for the unpalatable truth that the finally impenitent must suffer the eternal consequences of their choice and forfeit salvation.

Now, you may be thinking, “What on earth is wrong with this generalization?” It sounds like what passes for Christianity in many churches across the land on any given Sunday. I understand that reaction. But I must beg your indulgence as I point out some passages from different portions of the Bible that will challenge this model. For a much more comprehensive proposal, you will have to wait till the book emerges. Till then, here are some Scriptures that just don’t fit the narrative!

As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird, from the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception. 12 Though they bring up their children, yet will I bereave them, that there shall not be a man left: yea, woe also to them when I depart from them! 13 Ephraim, as I saw Tyrus, is planted in a pleasant place: but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer. 14 Give them, O LORD: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. 15 All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them: for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house, I will love them no more: all their princes are revolters. 16 Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit: yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb. 17 My God will cast them away, because they did not hearken unto him: and they shall be wanderers among the nations.

The Holy Bible: King James Version. (electronic ed. of the 1769 edition of the 1611 Authorized Version., Ho 9:11–17). (1995). Logos Research Systems, Inc. (Emphasis added).

What is striking is that God is the subject that hates in this passage.

Calvin says this:

“Here again the Prophet condemns what men think to be their special holiness. Who indeed can
persuade hypocrites that their fictitious modes of worship are the greatest abominations? Nay, they
even extol and imagine themselves to be like angels, and, as it were, cover all their wickedness
with these disguises; as we see to be the case with the Papists who think, that when they obtrude
on God their many masses and other devised forms, every sort of wickedness is redeemed. Since
then hypocrites are thus wont to put on a disguise before God, and at the same time flatter themselves,
the Prophet here declares that they are the more hated by God for this very wickedness, of daring
to corrupt and adulterate his pure worship.”

The Swiss reformer sees it as a matter of course that some may be hated of God. Nothing startling here, of course! Unless you have bought into the party-line “God loves us all without exception.”

David Alan Hubbard opines:

“God again speaks, reaching back into history (cf. Gibeah, 9:9; Baal-
peor, 9:10) to show the continuity of Israel’s present crimes with those of
their fathers. Gilgal is targeted as the centre where all their evil (cf. on 7:2)
was concentrated. Of the three monumental events associated with that
town just north of Jericho (cf. on 4:15)—Joshua’s entry to Canaan (Josh.
4:19–20), the operation of the calf-shrine by Israel’s kings (cf. 4:15; Amos
4:4, 5:5), the inauguration (1 Sam. 11:15) and rejection of Saul’s
monarchy by Samuel (1 Sam. 15:12–26)—it is probably the last that
Hosea has in mind. The context suggests that the monarchy is viewed as
the heart of Israel’s evils: kings established the Baal cult (1 Kgs 12:28–30);
kings promulgated the foreign policy which resulted in the slaughter (v.
13); princes, the court officials (cf. 7:3, 5, 16; 8:4), are specifically
mentioned as the leaders of rebellion (v. 15; note the pun in Heb. between
śārîm, princes, and sōrĕîm, rebels). This may be Hosea’s sharpest blow
against the monarchy; its very birth began to incur God’s hatred.
The grounds for that hatred have so mounted with the wickedness (‘evil’;
Heb. rōa‘) of their deeds (cf. 7:2 for deeds) that he is about to expel them
(Heb. grš) from his house, i.e. from his land (cf. on 8:1; 9:4). There is a
quiet irony about Yahweh’s threat, I will drive them out, since it echoes the
promises given to Israel at the exodus and conquest (Exod. 23:29–30;
33:2; Josh. 24:18; Judg. 2:3; 6:9) and reverses them. The Canaanites were
driven out so that Israel could enjoy God’s gift of the land; now the
Israelites were to be driven out because of their assimilation to Canaanite
practices. Another use of ‘expel’ or drive out may be salient here; it is
found in the account of Abraham’s expulsion of Hagar, his slave-wife and
mother of his son Ishmael (Gen. 21:10). There may be a hint that Yahweh,
an aggrieved husband, is banishing his faithless wife (cf. on 9:1–3). Yet
another metaphor possibly implied in God’s ejection of Israel from my
house is that of an offended Host, who has offered impeccably generous
hospitality to his guest only to have the guest prove ungrateful, abusive
and disloyal (cf. Ps. 23:5–6 for a picture of Yahweh as Host).
The expulsion signals the withdrawal of God’s love and the threat never
to restore it. The relationship announced in the exodus (Hos. 11:1) and
continued even through the periods of apostasy in the land of Canaan (cf.
3:1) is to be broken off. The full weight of the threat expressed in Not-
pitied’s name (1:6) is now to descend on the nation. The reason suggested
for the timing is the ‘rebellion’ (Heb. srr; cf. ‘stubborn’ in 4:16) of the
princes. The whole cadre of political leaders whose task was to enforce the
covenant and see that God’s will was done had turned against him along
with the priests (cf. 4:4–6; 5:1–7; 6:7–10). All hope for significant
reformation had disappeared when the leaders now served in the ranks of
Yahweh’s foes”

(Emphasis added, David Allan Hubbard, Hosea, TOTC [Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1989, comments on v. 15]).

John Gill senses the unease with the language so distinguishes the eternal unchangeable love of God for His elect, and this “love” that is in a very different category. Note his view:

“I will love them no more; which is not to be understood of the special love
and favour the Lord bears to his own people in Christ, which is everlasting
and unchangeable; but of his general and providential favour and regard
unto these people, which he had manifested in bestowing many great and
good things upon them; but now would do so no more; he would do
nothing to them, or for them, that looked like love, or be interpreted of it,
but all the reverse; and, by his behaviour to them, show that they were the
objects of his aversion and hatred; and this was to continue, and has
continued, and will continue unto the time of their conversion in the latter
day, when “all Israel shall be saved”, (Romans 11:26)”

(John Gill, Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, Vol. 6: Ezekiel to Malachi [Paris, AS: Baptist Standard Bearer, reprint. 2006, 426]).

McComiskey Notes of 9.15:

The emphasis of the two clauses is thus not on
the whole of Israel’s sin (all), but on its localization
in Gilgal. . . . (I began to hate them):
has a sphere of meaning that ranges from an
attitude of extreme detestation to the milder attitude
of simply loving a person or object less than
another. . . . Here, however, the hatred is intense.
(Because) functions causally here as in 9:7″

(Emphasis Added, Thomas Edward McComiskey, ed. The Minor Prophets, A Commentary on Hosea, Joel, Amos, Vol. 1. [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1992], 154).

Notice that McComiskey allows no softening in this instance. He is being extremely honest with the text!