How Jesus Sees Sin and Sinners
The Heart of Christ • Sermon • Submitted
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How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.
Why This Text
Why This Text
The context of verse 8 can be found in Hosea 11:1-7
“When Israel was a child, I loved him, And out of Egypt I called My son. As they called them, So they went from them; They sacrificed to the Baals, And burned incense to carved images. “I taught Ephraim to walk, Taking them by their arms; But they did not know that I healed them. I drew them with gentle cords, With bands of love, And I was to them as those who take the yoke from their neck. I stooped and fed them. “He shall not return to the land of Egypt; But the Assyrian shall be his king, Because they refused to repent. And the sword shall slash in his cities, Devour his districts, And consume them, Because of their own counsels. My people are bent on backsliding from Me. Though they call to the Most High, None at all exalt Him.
Note the imagery here: Israel was a child - evoking images of a Father and Son relationship - in verse 1.
We have a verse quoted in Matthew 2:15, regarding Jesus. This passage speaks to Israel, who could not keep the covenant, and of Christ, who fully kept the covenant.
and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, “Out of Egypt I called My Son.”
It speaks of Israel’s idolatry in v. 2-3.
Capture these important words in Hosea 11:3b-4
“I taught Ephraim to walk, Taking them by their arms; But they did not know that I healed them. I drew them with gentle cords, With bands of love, And I was to them as those who take the yoke from their neck. I stooped and fed them.
Hosea 11:5-6 speaks of the judgment of God on Israel
“He shall not return to the land of Egypt; But the Assyrian shall be his king, Because they refused to repent. And the sword shall slash in his cities, Devour his districts, And consume them, Because of their own counsels.
Then Hosea 11:7, where God speaks of their backslidden condition
My people are bent on backsliding from Me. Though they call to the Most High, None at all exalt Him.
We come to verse 8 - where we captures dialogue of God within Himself: we see the truths of justice and mercy.
We want to focus on the statement where the ESV renders the text, “My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender.”
This text Matthew Henry states about this verse,
God’s gracious debate within himself concerning Israel’s case, a debate between justice and mercy, in which victory plainly inclines to mercy’s side. Be astonished, O heavens! at this, and wonder, O earth! at the glory of God’s goodness. Not that there are any such struggles in God as there are in us, or that he is ever fluctuating or unresolved; no, he is in one mind, and knows it; but they are expressions after the manner of men, designed to show what severity the sin of Israel had deserved, and yet how divine grace would be glorified in sparing them notwithstanding.
This familial relationship is crucial to understanding the truths tonight, anything outside of that will lead you to error.
What Truths Are Taught?
What Truths Are Taught?
God hates sin, it causes Him to recoil
This word recoil means to churn, like your stomach churning over and over.
Martyn Lloyd Jones says this about sin
You will never make yourself feel that you are a sinner, because there is a mechanism in you as a result of sin that will always be defending you against every accusation. We are all on very good terms with ourselves, and we can always put up a good case for ourselves. Even if we try to make ourselves feel that we are sinners, we will never do it. There is only one way to know that we are sinners, and that is to have some dim, glimmering conception of God.
But we must realize that God reveals His hatred of sin in Hell, there is no conflict within God for those outside of Christ.
Romans 5:20 tells us that contrast for those who are in Christ.
Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more,
We find grace from God, but it is found ONLY in Jesus Christ.
The Puritans focused on this truth, when we sin, the very heart of Christ is drawn out to us.
Last time I preached on the truth that when we sin Jesus is drawn to us.
We must believe this truth, as it causes us to run to Christ, but it also can cause it to regard sin as something to be trifled with.
Paul flows from this verse in Romans 5 to Romans 6, where he starts with, What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
Ortlund makes this statement,
Here we enter in to one of the profoundest mysteries of who God in Christ is. Not only are holiness and sinfulness mutually exclusive, but Christ, being perfectly holy, knows and feels the horror and weight of sin more deeply than any of us sinful ones could.
Later Ortlund has another statement I must quote,
His holiness finds evil revolting, more revolting than any of us ever could feel. But it is that very holiness that also draws his heart out to help and relieve and protect and comfort.
While this statement is true, it is only for those whom He is linked to in faith.
For all those outside of Christ sins evoke holy wrath
For all those in Christ sins evoke a holy, longing love, a divine tenderness, a nearness of Christ.
Thomas Goodwin put it
There is comfort concerning such infirmities, in that your very sins move him to pity more than to anger. . . . For he suffers with us under our infirmities, and by infirmities are meant sins, as well as other miseries. . . . Christ takes part with you, and is so far from being provoked against you, as all his anger is turned upon your sin to ruin it; yes, his pity is increased the more towards you, even as the heart of a father is to a child that has some loathsome disease, or as one is to a member of his body that has leprosy, he hates not the member, for it is his flesh, but the disease, and that provokes him to pity the part affected the more. What shall not make for us,3 when our sins, that are both against Christ and us, shall be turned as motives to him to pity us the more? The greater the misery is, the more is the pity when the party is beloved. Now of all miseries, sin is the greatest; and while you look at it as such, Christ will look upon it as such also. And he, loving your persons, and hating only the sin, his hatred shall all fall, and that only upon the sin, to free you of it by its ruin and destruction, but his affections shall be the more drawn out to you; and this as much when you lie under sin as under any other affliction. Therefore fear not.
When you sin, and Scripture shines the light of the law upon it, where do you run? Do you run to your righteousness? Do you run to your decision made years ago? Or do you run to Christ?
God does not deal with me according to my sins, He deals according to grace.
This text shows the mind of God towards His people, and it shows emotion that we can either extend too far or mute too short.
We must tread carefully here; God is God, and is not at the mercy of passing emotions in the way that we embodied creatures are, much less we sinful embodied creatures.
But what does the text say? We are given a rare glimpse into the very center of who God is, and we see and feel the deeply affectional convulsing within the very being of God.
His heart is inflamed with pity and compassion for his people. He simply cannot give them up. Nothing could cause Him to abandon them. They are His.
God is transcendent and we cannot make Him equal to our emotions. God is free from our fallen emotions but not all emotion.
Consider Hosea 11:9,
I will not execute my burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.
We would understand far better if it read, I will execute my burning anger; I will destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will come in wrath.
However, God says something so transcendent to us.
How Should This Change My Life?
How Should This Change My Life?
To the backslider who is playing with sin - behold the heart of God towards you!
He does not deal with you according to your sin, that should make you hate your sin more.
Paul’s words ring loudly here, How can we who are dead to sin live any longer in it.
To those outside of Christ, while you read words dripping with grace, you will find no grace outside of Christ.
Look upon Him who your sins pierced and fall before Him in repentance and faith.
Do not believe God will be lax in judging your sins - as gracious as He is towards those in Christ His anger is unleashed on all those outside of Christ.
Let me close with this quote by Ortlund:
Just as we so easily live with a diminished view of the punitive judgment of God that will sweep over those out of Christ, so we easily live with a diminished view of the compassionate heart of God sweeping over those in Christ. Thomas Goodwin and Hosea 11 and the sweep of the entire biblical storyline cause us to catch our breath. The sins of those who belong to God open the floodgates of his heart of compassion for us. The dam breaks. It is not our loveliness that wins his love. It is our unloveliness. Our hearts gasp to catch up with this. It is not how the world around us works. It is not how our own hearts work. But we bow in humble submission, letting God set the terms by which he will love us.