God’s Patience and Human Sin

KEY VERSE: “For I desired mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.” —Hosea 6:6

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: Hosea 4:1, 2; 5:15; 6:1-6

IN THE Revised Standard Version, the first part of this text reads: “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice.” This does not mean that God was displeased with the efforts of his typical people who in sincerity brought their annual sacrifices to him in keeping with the prescribed arrangements of the Law. It is true as stated that often there was a lack of genuine sincerity in their offerings, and ultimately those typical ceremonies deteriorated into mere formalism, with which God was greatly displeased. But even at best, he received no pleasure in the realization that those animal sacrifices could not take away sins, and therefore could not effect a way for the sin-cursed and dying race of mankind to return to him and enjoy his fellowship and blessing.

The psalmist, speaking prophetically of our Lord Jesus at his first advent, wrote: “Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire, mine ears hast thou opened, burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.” (Ps. 40:6) The thought in this text is similar to our key verse. Jesus comprehended that the hundreds of thousands of animals sacrificed only served to prove the need of a more effective way for salvation. And this was made known to him—“mine ears thou hast opened.” The will of God did not require that he offer more burnt offerings and sin offerings according to the Law, but rather in understanding the typical meaning of these things of the Law, “the volume of the book,” he found what God’s will was for him. With this knowledge he possessed a steadfast love to accomplish his mission. “I delight to do thy will, O my God, yea thy law is within my heart.”—Ps. 40:8

Paul, in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews, expounding somewhat on the meaning of this prophecy, and repeating part of the psalm for emphasis, goes on to show that God’s will was the offering in sacrifice, once for all, of his only begotten Son, the man Christ Jesus. “Then said he, Lo I come to do thy will O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.” (Heb. 10:9) In the type, there was a dedication of the Tabernacle and of the priesthood which were to serve under the terms of the Law Covenant. That was the ‘first’ arrangement by which the sins of the people were expiated, and sinners reconciled to God. But it did not take away sin. It merely called attention to the real sacrifice that would make this possible, and to a New Covenant under which sinners redeemed by the blood of Christ would be restored to at-one-ment with God.

So far as God was concerned, that typical covenant and all the sacrifices associated with it came to an end with Jesus’ death. Beginning with Jesus’ ministry, preparation for the New Covenant arrangement began. First, the Head of the antitypical priesthood, Jesus, consecrated himself to God and to his service, and the work of consecrating the priesthood has continued throughout the entire age, and is still going on. This is not the work of the New Covenant, but the ‘preparation for it, “that he may establish the second.”

“By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Christ once for all.” (Heb. 10:10) This is’ the same will of God that Jesus understood. In the will of God for Jesus there was a provision for him to have a church, who would be sanctified as he was by the Spirit of truth. This would be possible based upon the ransoming merit of his blood provided first for them, that they, too, might be prepared to serve in the interests of the New Covenant.

As with Jesus, so our ‘ears’ have been opened, God’s will In the “volume of the book” has been made known, and like Jesus, with this knowledge we should have a steadfast love for our mission and its accomplishment. For through it, the world, under the New Covenant, will come to say, in the words of Hosea: “Come and let us return unto the Lord … he will heal us … he will bind us up … he will raise us up and we shall live in his sight. Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord. His going forth is prepared as the morning, and he shall come to us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.”—Hos. 6:1-3

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