Like Adam and Eve in the garden, I found myself scrambling for the nearest fig leaves to cover my nakedness. But being in the hand of the Lord is the safest place. It is God’s disciplining grace that exposes our sinfulness so that we will be cleansed, purified, and conformed into the image of Christ. This is why Jesus died. On the cross, he exposed the world’s sin through what he suffered, and when he rose again, he showed what we all shall be like when he finally gathers us home at the resurrection.

This blog was written by a man who finished the group discipleship ministry at Harvest USA.

The first time I read the book of Hosea, I was struck by just how related my struggles with sexual sin were to eighth-century Israelite idolatry. In Hosea, the Lord takes his people to court for their disordered, idolatrous worship, which amounted to spiritual adultery. But in that process, they experience the grace of exposed sin.

Whether single, dating, or married, sexual sin is an outward manifestation of inward spiritual brokenness. Like Israel, when we bend the knee to sexual idolatry (pornography, fornication, homosexuality, adultery, and so on), we are saying that God himself is not worthy of our full devotion and worship. Our worship is disordered. But the message of Hosea is indeed one of hope for the weary sinner.

The Sinfulness of Sin

In Hosea’s day, idolatry was rampant in Israel. They had broken the first commandment: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:3). Thus, as a sign against his people and their adulterous worship, God commands Hosea to call his second child “No Mercy” and his third child “Not My People” (Hos. 1:6–9). This was a declaration that God’s presence had departed from his people and judgment was imminent. 

This is the state you and I were born into. We were born in sin, separated from God, without mercy, and a people not his own. Our disordered desire for sexual sin, expressed in its various forms, is an outward expression of an inward idolatry of the heart. We are actively choosing that which is not God himself. We were born worshiping the creature rather than the Creator.

But for those who have a relationship with Christ, consider Paul’s words, “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?” (I Cor. 6:15). Paul is saying that we are so united to Jesus by faith that when we give ourselves over to sexual sin, it’s as if we are implicating Jesus in the very same sin. This is why a wife whose husband has cheated on her is so grievously harmed. Her husband, who belonged to her in their one flesh union, has shared that union with another. It’s the same when we as Christians sin against our Lord Jesus. In fact, it is worse. 

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