Romans 9:24-28 – even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles. As He says also in Hosea,
“I WILL CALL THOSE WHO WERE NOT MY PEOPLE, ‘MY PEOPLE,’
AND HER WHO WAS NOT BELOVED, ‘BELOVED.’”
“AND IT SHALL BE THAT IN THE PLACE WHERE IT WAS SAID TO THEM, ‘YOU ARE NOT MY PEOPLE,’
THERE THEY SHALL BE CALLED SONS OF THE LIVING GOD.”
Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “THOUGH THE NUMBER OF THE SONS OF ISRAEL BE LIKE THE SAND OF THE SEA, IT IS THE REMNANT THAT WILL BE SAVED; FOR THE LORD WILL EXECUTE HIS WORD ON THE EARTH, THOROUGHLY AND QUICKLY.”
Paul uses one of the most shocking examples of redemption when speaking about the future salvation of Israel and the hated Gentiles. Hosea the prophet was commanded by the Lord to take his unfaithful wife who apparently had fallen into prostitution back as his wife. The implications are shocking as this holy man of God is restoring his wife that had fallen not only into immorality but most likely prostitution connected to the worship of idols.
Why would Paul use such a shocking example when referring to the final harvest of the Jews as well as the Gentiles? The reason is to display the incredible nature of redemption, Christ died to save sinners. According to Paul the Lord chose to select the worst cases of sinfulness to shock the world. Redemption is powerful and not the way most would expect the Lord to work. Jonathan Edwards spoke of the young woman who got saved in his town whose conversion proved to be the catalyst of the Great Awakening. Here is how Edwards described it.
“Now, a young woman, one of the greatest company-keepers in the whole town, told a surprised Edwards that God had given her a new heart, truly broken and sanctified. Once begun, the awakening was the greatest occasion of revival of anything that ever came to pass in town, the news of it like a flash of lightning, upon the hearts of young people, his treatise on justification vindicated by it. The world, then, was a thing only by the bye. The only thing in their view was to get the kingdom of God, and everyone appeared pressing into it.”
Redemption, the salvation of the least likely can change the world. Redemption may be happening right under your nose and you just haven’t recognized it yet.
