February 13: How much does sin cost?

Wiley Richards is a retired professor of theology and philosophy at The Baptist College of Florida in Graceville.

If we try to calculate the cost of sin, we might turn our attention to financial costs. Alcohol abuse costs citizens of the United States more than $147 billion annually. We might even consider costs to the home in broken marriages and parent-less children. However, the costs of sin which affect all of us are those which impact the inner person.

• Sin results in broken souls (4:1-2). The personal decay of the Israelites can be inferred from God’s indictment of their religion. Hosea calls on the people to be both defendant and jury to answer the charges and accept the verdict. The threefold repetition throughout these sections reflects the parallel message as embodied in Jezreel, Lo-ruhamah, and Lo-ammi.

Their lack of faithfulness was proved by their abandonment of personal integrity and truth. They were corrupted souls, living a lie. By exhibiting no faithful love, they no longer practiced mercy and grace toward others. Hosea traced their lack of knowledge to the priests who taught false doctrine. The people had “head” knowledge but no “heart” knowledge. The society deteriorated into cursing, lying, murder, stealing, and adultery. As a result, bloodshed followed bloodshed.

• Inevitably, sin produces a broken environment (vv. 3-5). A pall of despair hung over the land in which the earth seemed to mourn. Perhaps a drought reduced the source of income. Animals (earth), birds (sky), and fish (oceans) suffered God’s wrath. These represent a reversal of the good pronounced on the creation in the first chapter of Genesis.

In spite of these natural calamities, God spoke through Hosea to identify the source of the problem. It lay with the priests and prophets. Both groups of leaders stumbled by day and night. Their problem resulted from their drunkenness (v. 11). God declared the verdict. He would destroy their “mother,” Israel.

• The prophet then isolates another result, or cause, of sin, a broken covenant (vv. 6-9). Scan through the list of sins in verse two and note five sins which violate some of the Ten Commandments: cursing (3), lying (9), murder (6), stealing (8), and adultery (7). The people could blame the priests for not teaching the Law (“lack of knowledge”), but their problem went deeper. The priest had rejected knowledge, and God had rejected him. The next verses show God had in mind more than one particular priest. He also would “forget” the sons.

Israel found no safety in numbers. As the population increased, so did the enormity of their sins. As the priesthood increased God would change their honor into disgrace. They had fed on the sins of the people by corrupting the sacrificial system which God had ordained for their support. Both priests and people stood equally under God’s judgment. Both would be punished for their deeds (v.9).

• The continuous breach of the covenant put the people in the tragic state of a broken contract (5:13-15). Suppose you had God on the line and your phone service was disconnected. Israel was facing that prospect. God announced, “I will depart and return to My place until they recognize their guilt and seek My face (v. 15a). Israel would experience the effect of God’s withdrawal of mercy as He judged the nation. As a direct insult to God’s care for the nation, its leaders appealed to Assyria to heal their spiritual wound (6:13). God’s certain judgment would be more akin to a flesh-eating lion (v. 14) rather than from gradual decay (v. 13).