Hosea 1:8-11 - Not my people

1:8,9

Then Gomer had another son, called Lo-Ammi, which means not my people. He was called this because God declared that “you are not my people, and I am not your God”. We need to consider the enormity of this judgement upon Israel. We also need to consider it in relation to ourselves. We also need to look at Scripture as a whole, and we find many severe warnings from God, indeed Paul speaks about the kindness and severity of God (Rom 11:22). People sometimes speak about “once saved always saved”. The way this is often spoken of is in a very sterile, non life-giving manner. Now, I have absolute certainty in my own salvation, but that certainty is founded on the love of God, and His saving work. It is also coupled with a conviction that how we live matters. So often “once saved always saved” seems to result in some dry, dead belief that since someone once made a profession of faith then that means they go to heaven regardless of what they do with their life. That is not something we find anywhere in the Bible. Faith without actions is dead. Biblical faith produces life, it produces actions.

Now let’s look at the situation where perhaps “once saved always saved” is most acute, the case of a loved one who once made a profession of faith but has since fallen away. Do we take comfort in a belief that since they once professed faith they will go to heaven? I think that that is a sterile belief. Far better to pray, with faith, that God brings that loved one to repentance and faith, that Christ will truly live in that person.