Hosea and Redeeming Love: The Story Behind the Story

Based on the bestselling novel by Francine Rivers, REDEEMING LOVE is a powerful story of love and perseverance as a young couple’s relationship clashes with the harsh realities of the California Gold Rush of 1850. The story is inspired by the Book of Hosea, and its central theme is the redeeming love of God towards sinners. The story centers on Angel (Abigail Cowen), who was sold into prostitution as a child. She has survived through hatred and self-loathing, until she meets Michael Hosea (Tom Lewis) and discovers there is no brokenness that love can’t heal. The story reflects the redemptive power of unconditional and sacrificial love with characters and circumstances relevant to the contemporary world.

How is Hosea similar to the fictional story in this movie?

The Backstory of Hosea

The Bible story Hosea takes place before the Northern Tribes of Israel were taken into captivity. God chose to love Israel. He made covenant promises to them in the early covenants of the Old Testament. Although throughout the Old Testament Israel often pivoted back and forth between faithfulness and unfaithfulness to God, God never waivered. God’s never-ending and never-tiring faithfulness to Israel is known in the Old Testament as His hesed. This word refers to God’s covenant faithfulness.

The Northern Tribes of Israel chose to be unfaithful to God. As they did, God used prophets to call them back to repentance. As a prophet, Hosea ministers to the Northern Tribes alongside the prophet Amos, as well as a contemporary to Isaiah. Hosea’s goal was to call Israel back to repentance and faithful living with God.

God says to Israel:

“I will betroth you to Me forever;
Yes, I will betroth you to Me
In righteousness and justice,
In lovingkindness [hesed] and mercy;
I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness,
And you shall know the Lord. (Hosea 2:19-20)

While calling Israel back to God, Hosea shares encouragement from God to them:

Sow for yourselves righteousness;
Reap in mercy; [hesed]
Break up your fallow ground,
For it is time to seek the Lord,
Till He comes and rains righteousness on you. (Hosea 10:12)

God invites Israel to repent. He invites her to come back to Him. He explains that she will reap His covenant faithfulness. Or, in other words, she will experience His covenant love.

Hosea, Gomer, Prostitution, Love, and Faithfulness

As a living picture of God’s covenant faithfulness to Israel, God tells Hosea to marry Gomer, a prostitute.

“Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry
And children of harlotry,
For the land has committed great harlotry
By departing from the Lord.” (Hosea 1:3).

Hosea married Gomer. They had three children (boys) together.

Gomer leaves Hosea. She returns to prostitution.

God tells Hosea to go after her again. In fact, he buys her back out of prostitution. Notice what Hosea writes:

Then the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans.”

So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver, and one and one-half homers of barley. And I said to her, “You shall stay with me many days; you shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man—so, too, will I be toward you.” (Hosea 3:1-3)

Hosea buys her with silver and barley. He takes her in and commits himself to love her faithfully for many days as she will do for him.

This beautiful picture of Hosea’s redeeming love pictures God’s redeeming love, His covenant faithfulness. Hosea continues:

For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim. Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days. (Hosea 3:4-5)

Just as Hosea takes back Gomer, God promises to take back Israel as well. To guarantee this, ultimately Jesus paid with His body and blood as He died on the cross to guarantee the forgiveness of sinners by redeeming love.

Hosea is a picture of God who is covenant faithful through Jesus Christ.

Hosea’s commitment to his marriage covenant demonstrates God’s faithfulness to His covenant with Israel. Bigger than simply His covenant with Israel, as part of His character, God is simply covenant faithful.

This is great news for us. Let me suggest three implications:

First, God never breaks a covenant.

God’s love never ends. Even when you are unfaithful to God, He is never unfaithful to you. As evidenced in Hosea’s love and commitment for Gomer and God’s love for Israel, God does not break covenants. A significant element of God’s love is His covenant faithfulness. God promises to take those who have a personal relationship with Him to heaven because His love never fails.

³⁰ Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

³¹ What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? ³³ Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶ As it is written:

³⁷ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 8:30-39)

Second, forgiveness is always found in Jesus Christ.

No matter who you are, no matter what you have done, no matter your past, no matter your present, God chooses to love you and maintain His covenant faithfulness toward you. For salvation:

⁹ that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. ¹¹ For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”¹² For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. ¹³ For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Rom 10:9-13)

For those who are already saved:

⁹ If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

No matter who you are or what you have done, God offers you forgiveness of your sins. God is faithful even when you are not. He is covenant faithful.

Third, we need to demonstrate covenant faithfulness as faithful followers of Jesus Christ.

What about you and me? We need to also demonstrate covenant faithfulness as faithful followers of Jesus Christ. We do this two ways. First, we seek to faithfully love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and body. Second, we seek to love others as ourselves, putting their needs before our own as those who have experienced the covenant faithfulness of God. This begins with those of us who are married; however, it extends to all relationships. When people sin against us, are unfaithful, essentially are harlots in our relationship, we seek to remain covenant faithful.

As Hosea to Gomer

God to us through Jesus Christ

Us to others through Jesus Christ

The biblical story of Hosea is the compelling story of God, Israel, true Redeeming Love, Covenant Faithfulness, and forgiveness.