Semper Ubi Sub Ubi

Notes on Hosea, X: Obey God rather than Men

In verse 11 of chapter 5, God pronounces judgment against Israel for their acceptance of the king's commandments:

Hosea 5:11 Ephraim is oppressed [and] broken in judgment, because he willingly walked after the commandment.

They had taken the word of Jeroboam and his successors, who commanded syncretistic worship of Jehovah alongside other gods, and called the priests to offer unholy sacrifices in places that God had not set aside for the purpose of sacrifices for sin to HIM (though the Israelite priests made pretense of sacrificing to Jehovah). The people followed their king willingly in defiance of God's command. In other words, they feared man more than they feared God.

We today should hear this lesson. Paul in Romans 13 indeed commands submission to our authorities, but it is not said outside the context that Christ is our head, and that we must obey God rather than men (see the discussion in Acts in which the apostles disobey the order of the Sanhedrin in order to proclaim the gospel). Israel was rightly condemned because they obeyed the commandments of men, specifically those commands that contradict God's word, and defy the clear precept of God.

We must avoid such horrible sins as this - we are to obey our authorities... but that obedience has limits. Where the government commands us to sin, we cannot obey them, and must be willing to face the consequences, for God's glory.

Calvin's take on this verse follows:

the Prophet no doubt means here, that the Israelites had not been compelled by force and fear to go astray after superstitions; but that they were prompt and ready to obey, for there was in them no fear of God, no religion. If any one should now ask, whether they are excusable, who are tyrannically drawn away into superstitions, as we see to be done under the Papacy, the answer is ready, that those are not here absolved who regarded men more than God: nor is terror, as we know, a sufficient excuse, when we prefer our own life to the glory of God, and when, anxious to provide for ourselves and to avoid the cross, we deny God, or turn aside from making a confession of the right and pure faith...

He says that God would justly punish all the Israelites, yea, even all the common people; for though Jeroboam alone had commanded them to worship God corruptly, yet all of them willingly embraced what he wished to be done: and thus it became manifest that they had in them no fear of God. We now see how vain is the excuse of those who say that they ought to obey kings, and at the same time forsake the word of God: for what does the Prophet reprove here, but that the Israelites had been too submissive to their king? "But this in itself was worthy of praise." True, when the king commanded nothing contrary to God's word; but when he perverted God's worship, when he set up corrupt superstitions, then the people ought to have firmly resisted him: but as they were too pliant, nay, willingly allowed themselves to be drawn away from the true worship of God, the Prophet says here, that they had no reason to complain, that they were too sharply and too severely chastised by the Lord.

Posted by toddpedlar at August 4, 2004 09:23 AM | TrackBack