I.　"When Israel was a child, I loved him, / And out of Egypt I called My son"—Hosea 11:1:

A.　This verse implies Christ in His union with Israel as the Son of God, who is loved by God and was called out of Egypt by God—Matt. 2:13-15.

B.　This indicates that although Israel became exceedingly evil, Christ still became organically one with Israel through incarnation to be a real Israelite; Christ joined Himself to Israel in the matter of being a son of God.

C.　Hosea 11:1 implies Christ as the Son of God; it also implies that all God's chosen people become sons of God by virtue of their being organically united with Christ—Rom. 11:17; Gal. 3:26:

1.　This is possible because Christ is the Son of God in two aspects: the aspect of His being the only begotten Son of God and the aspect of His being the firstborn Son of God.

2.　In eternity Christ was God's only begotten Son (John 3:16; 1 John 4:9), possessing only divinity without humanity; as such, He was unique.

3.　However, one day Christ was incarnated to be a man, entering into humanity and taking on human nature as a part of His being—John 1:14.

4.　He was not designated the Son of God in His humanity until His resurrection; this is the reason that Paul says in Acts 13:33, "God has fully fulfilled this promise to us their children in raising up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, ‘You are My Son; this day have I begotten You' "; this verse indicates that resurrection was a birth to the man Jesus.

5.　After dying an all-inclusive, vicarious death on the cross, He entered into resurrection; in resurrection and through resurrection He was begotten of God in His humanity and designated in His humanity to be the firstborn Son of God, possessing both divinity and humanity—Rom. 1:3-4; 8:29.

6.　Hence, in addition to His being the unique, only begotten Son of God from eternity, Christ, after His incarnation and through His resurrection, has become the Son of God in another sense, in the sense of being the firstborn Son of God—Heb. 1:5-6.

7.　Furthermore, in Christ's resurrection all His believers were begotten of God, regenerated (1 Pet. 1:3), to be the many sons of God (Heb. 2:10), Christ's many brothers (Rom. 8:29), to be His members for the constituting of His organic Body.

II.　"I drew them with cords of a man, / With bands of love"—Hosea 11:4a:

A.　Cords of a man and bands of love are in apposition; the bands of love are the cords of a man; this means that the cords mentioned in this verse have different segments and that each segment involves Christ's humanity in His incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension.

B.　This indicates that God loves us with His divine love, not on the level of divinity but on the level of humanity; God's love is divine, but it reaches us in the cords of a man, that is, through Christ's humanity.

C.　The cords of a man through which God draws us include Christ's incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension; it is by all these steps that God's love in His salvation reaches us—Rom. 5:8; 1 John 4:9-10:

1.　Christ's incarnation was to bring God into man by having God incarnated to be a man in the flesh (John 1:14; Gen. 3:15; 22:18; 2 Sam. 7:12-14a; Isa. 7:14; 9:6; Micah 5:2), to mingle divinity with humanity, to be born of the divine Spirit and of a human virgin (Matt. 1:20), and to produce a God-man—Emmanuel (v. 23), as the prototype for the mass reproduction of many God-men.

2.　Christ's human living for thirty-three and a half years was for Him to live a human life to express the divine attributes as human virtues, thus expressing God in humanity by living a crucified life to express the divine life in order to set up a model for the many upcoming God-men—a model of being crucified to live so that God might be expressed through humanity.

3.　Christ's all-inclusive death accomplished the following items:

a.　By His death He crucified the flesh of sin—Gal. 5:24; Rom. 8:3b.

b.　By His death He condemned sin (sin is in the flesh [7:18], and He was made sin by becoming the flesh of sin in its likeness [2 Cor. 5:21a]) and took away sin (including sins) by shedding His precious blood—Rom. 8:3b; John 1:29; Heb. 9:26b, 28a; John 19:34b.

c.　By His death He destroyed the devil, who has the might of death and who is related to the flesh of man—Heb. 2:14; John 12:31b.

d.　By His death He judged the world and cast out its ruler, the devil—v. 31; Gal. 6:14b.

e.　By His death He terminated the old creation by the crucifixion of the old man—Rom. 6:6.

f.　By His death He abolished the law of the commandments in ordinances—Eph. 2:15a.

g.　By His death He released the divine life from Himself as the one grain into many grains, signified by the f lowing water at the death of Christ—John 12:24; 19:34b.

4.　Christ's all-conquering resurrection accomplished the following items:

a.　His resurrection produced the firstborn Son of God by uplifting the humanity of Christ into His divinity and by having Christ born of God (Acts 13:33; Psa. 2:7), that is, by designating the seed of David by the divinity (the Spirit of holiness) of Christ in the power of resurrection to be the firstborn Son of God (Rom. 1:4; 8:29; Heb. 1:3-6).

b.　His resurrection regenerated all God's chosen people to be the many sons of God and the many brothers of the firstborn Son of God—the resurrected God-man, Christ—1 Pet. 1:3; Heb. 2:10; Rom. 8:29.

c.　His resurrection consummated the Spirit of God to be the life-giving Spirit—1 Cor. 15:45b.

5.　Christ's all-transcending ascension accomplished the following items:

a.　Christ in His all-transcending ascension transcended Hades (where the dead people are being held), the earth (where the fallen men are moving against God), the air (where Satan and his power of darkness are acting against God), and all the heavens (where Satan can go)—Eph. 1:20-21; 4:8-10; Heb. 4:14; 7:26.

b.　Christ's ascension was for Him to be transmitted into the church, which is the Body of Christ, the fullness of the One who f ills all in all—Eph. 1:22-23.

c.　In His ascension He is the Head of the Body, the church, having the first place in all things—Col. 1:18.

d.　In His ascension He was made both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36) and the Leader (of all the kings) and Savior (5:31).

e.　In His ascension He is our High Priest in God's New Testament economy (Heb. 4:14; 7:26; 9:11) to be the Mediator and surety of the new covenant (v. 15; 7:22), to be the Minister in the heavenly Holy of Holies (8:2), to be the Paraclete (Advocate) of the New Testament believers (1 John 2:1; John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7), and to be the New Testament believers' Intercessor at the right hand of God and within them as well (Rom. 8:34, 26).

D.　Apart from Christ, God's everlasting love, His unchanging, subduing love, could not be prevailing in relation to us; God's unchanging love is prevailing because it is a love in Christ, with Christ, by Christ, and for Christ.

III.　"I was to them like those / Who lift off the yoke on their jaws; / And I gently caused them to eat"—Hosea 11:4b:

A.　This yoke was Pharaoh's yoke in Egypt, and this eating was the eating of manna, a type of Christ as our heavenly food in the wilderness—John 6:31-35, 57.

B.　When we were saved, God drew us with the cords of a man, with bands of love, and now He is feeding us with Christ; sometimes we may want to eat too much or eat in haste, but God wants us to eat slowly and gently with patience and endurance; this is the way God feeds us.

C.　Pharaoh had put a strong yoke on Israel, but God took off that yoke and gently caused them to eat by bringing them into the wilderness, where God fed them with manna in a gentle way morning by morning—Exo. 16:14-18:

1.　When the children of Israel saw the manna, they said to one another, "What is it?" (v. 15); this is the Hebrew word man hu, from which the word manna derives; this indicates that Christ as our unique, heavenly food is a mystery, the real "what is it?"

2.　The deep truth in Exodus 16 is that God wants to change our diet to a diet of Christ as the real manna sent by God the Father for God's chosen people to live because of Christ—John 6:31-35, 48-51, 57-58:

a.　By giving God's people manna to eat, God indicated that His intention was to change the nature of His people, to change their very constitution, for the accomplishing of His purpose.

b.　God's intention in His salvation is to work Himself into the believers in Christ and to change their constitution by feeding them with Christ as their heavenly food, thereby reconstituting them with Christ in order for them to become the dwelling place of God—cf. Matt. 4:4; Jer. 15:16.

3.　The open manna is manna that we have not eaten, whereas the hidden manna refers to manna that we have eaten, digested, and assimilated—Rev. 2:17:

a.　"Do not think that it is impossible for you to be an overcomer. You can become an overcomer by enjoying Christ as manna. Eat the open manna, and Christ will become the hidden manna. This hidden manna will constitute you into an overcomer" (Life-study of Exodus, pp. 459-460).

b.　Whatever we eat of Christ to be our reconstituting element and our supply to make us God's dwelling place in this universe will be an eternal memorial—Exo. 16:16, 32.

c.　Just as the manna in the golden pot was the focal point of God's dwelling place, so Christ as the manna eaten by us is the focal point of God's building today—Heb. 9:3-4; John 6:57, 63; cf. Rev. 2:7, 17.