Hosea 6:1-2 (ESV) Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. 2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.
Luke 24:27 (ESV) And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
Luke 24:44 (ESV) Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”
Exodus 4:22 (ESV) Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD, Israel is my firstborn son,
Mark 1:1 (ESV) The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Jesus did not come in a vacuum disconnected from God’s eternal redemptive plan. God has borne witness to his plan since Genesis 3:15 in all manner of ways.
Jesus taught us how to mine the glories of God’s redemptive plan out his word when he taught his disciples in Luke 24 how to see it.
Right in the middle of Hosea, there is the statement about God tearing in order to heal and then raising his people up in three days.
God calls Israel, his firstborn son. The Lord said of himself, and the gospel writers captured his words, that he is God’s son. Jesus claims to be the faithful and obedient Israel of God.
Keep following me. When Hosea prophetically says that God tears Israel and strikes him down, and raises him to life, we should look to Jesus who is the fulfillment of that prophetic word. All things written about Jesus in the law, prophets, and Psalms had to be fulfilled.
Jesus’ claim? He is the one struck down by God the Father in the place of his people so they would not have to be stuck down for their sins, and he is raised to life as the victor over sin and death.
Crazy thing? He invites us into his life to have life as sons and daughters of God.
Advent. Jesus comes and fulfills God’s word in being struck down for our sins and raised to life for our salvation.
Theology in the Dirt 