There is a very precious portion of a verse 4 in Hosea 11 which says, “I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love”. Even though we are evil, unchaste, unfaithful, and in apostasy, God drew us with cords of man and with bands of love.
He loves us with His divine love, and He became a man to draw us through His incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. Through all these “segments of the cords of a man” God draws us and loves us with His divine love NOT on the level of His divinity but on the level of humanity.
God’s love, so high and so divine, reaches us in the cords of a man, through Christ’s humanity. When we see this One, when we read about Him, when we enjoy Him and experience Him, we are drawn to God to be one with Him in the divine romance…
Being drawn by God with cords of a man
What a wonderful speaking with such a rich, deep, marvelous, and mysterious implication concerning Christ in this verse!
It is not one cord but many cords of a man that God used to draw us. These cords are in Christ’s humanity, involving many “segments”.
The cords of a man used by God to draw us are Christ’s incarnation, His perfect human living, His all-inclusive death on the cross, His life-releasing and church-producing resurrection, and His excelling ascension. With all these cords He draws us as the Son of Man, as God living in man, as the God-man!
Stephen saw Christ as the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:56), and when Christ returns, he will be the Son of Man (Matt. 26:64). What a Son of Man! What a God-man!
The bands of love coming to us through cords of a man
If God in His majesty and holiness would come to us, even with all His divine love, we would be wiped away and at least scared to death. But He came to us in His divine love through “cords of a man”, by becoming man.
The cords are of a man, coming to us in a human way, and the bands of love are divine. The bands of love – the divine love of God, His everlasting, unchanging, and subduing love – reach us and become to us cords of a man, in Christ’s humanity, to draw us to Himself.
How does God’s love reach us? It is in Christ, with Christ, and by Christ. If Christ had not been incarnated, lived on earth, died, resurrected, and ascended, we couldn’t have been drawn by God to be in the divine romance with Him for the consummation of the New Jerusalem!
God has come down to our human level to reach us – He loves us with His divine love, and He reached us on a human level. He wants to shepherd us, take us in His arms, and show us His love – but He does this by becoming a man and coming to us in Christ.
Even while we were yet sinners, weak, and in the flesh, dead in our sins and offenses, God loved us and He commended His love toward us by sending His Son to die for us, the sinners (see Rom. 5:8). What kind of love is this?
God’s love was manifested by Him sending His Only Begotten Son into the world (1 John 4:9-10). It’s not that we loved God first, but that He loved us and He came in His Son to pass through all the processes of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, to draw us to Himself in His humanity!
Three Examples: Cords of a Man and Bands of Love
Our whole life is a testimony of how God comes to us in Christ to reach us in His humanity, either through our reading of the Word, in the meetings, in our daily life, in our family life, in the church life, etc.
Again and again, He reaches to us in His humanity and causes us to have an uplifted and upgraded appreciation and enjoyment of Himself, to love Him more, and to advance in the divine romance!
This morning I was impressed particularly with three examples in the Gospels concerning the Lord reaching sinners in His divine love through His humanity – so tender, so sweet, so good…
- The Samaritan Woman (John 4) – she was really thirsty, and the water she drank of left her unsatisfied and full of vanity. The Lord Jesus didn’t condemn her or rebuke her, but He exposed her real situation and gave her to drink of the real water, the living water. While He was speaking to her there were cords of man and bands of love – the water that you drink will become “Christ as the Spirit in you”, and you will be brought into the divine romance consummating in / flowing into the New Jerusalem (paraphrasing the Lord’s words)! Later she testified, Come see a MAN! What a God-man this One is, touching people through cords of man and they get the bands of the divine love!
- Zaccheus (Luke 19) – he was a tax collector, despised by his countrymen, yet the Lord wanted to have dinner with him in his house! What a shepherding this was to Zaccheus! The cords of man and bands of love gained him and brought him into the divine romance to make him part of the universal couple! “Today salvation has come to this house!” – both Zaccheus and his tax collector friends were touched by the Lord’s love expressed in His humanity.
- The Woman Caught in the Act of Adultery (John 8) – she was caught in the act, guilty of sin punishable by stoning to death, and everyone wanted to know the Lord’s verdict/opinion on this. He didn’t debate, He didn’t expose her, and He didn’t express any judgemental opinion. He stopped, stooped, wrote on the ground, and shepherded her by rather exposing her angry and sinful accusers and then releasing her of the guilt of sin. The divine love reached out to this sinful woman through the cords of a man to save her!
Lord, we love You because You loved us first. Thank You for drawing us with cords of a man and with bands of love. Lord, continue to unveil us to see You in all Your wonderful processes. Cause us to really appreciate Your incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. Draw us again and again, Lord, until we never leave the divine romance but become the New Jerusalem for eternity!
References and Further Reading
- Sharing inspired from the Gospels and the life-study of Hosea (msg 8), as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of the Minor Prophets, week 3 (entitled, Three Implications concerning Christ).
- Hymns on this topic:
# You became a man — / Cord of love to me. / I am drawn with loving bands / And embraced by Thee.
# I’ve found a Friend, oh, such a Friend! / He loved me ere I knew Him; / He drew me with the cords of love, / And thus He bound me to Him.
# Dear Lord, Thou art so much to us, / Thou art our all in all; / What Thou art fully meets our needs, / Though they be great or small.
# O how I love Him! How I adore Him! / My breath, my sunshine, my all in all! / The great Creator became my Savior, / And all God’s fulness dwelleth in Him. - Picture source: Hosea 11:4.
amen, praise the Lord!