November 19, 2024 - 1 Peter 2

“Once not a people, we are now the people of God.  Once receiving no mercy, now we have received mercy” (2:10).  Surely, Peter is remembering the words of the prophet Hosea:  “I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God.  I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen” (Hosea 1:7).  Hosea’s wife, Gomer, had borne a daughter given the name “No Mercy.”  Then, she bore a son of whom the Lord instructed, “Call his name Not My People, for you are not my people, and I am not your God” (Hosea 1:9).  But these names and their significations were not the end of the story:  “Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ it shall be said to them, ‘Children of the living God’” (Hosea 1:10).  God’s mercy is great.  His mercy is amazing.  We “who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13).  Oh, my!

How sweet the name of Jesus sounds

in a believer’s ear!

It soothes our sorrows, heals our wounds,

and drives away our fear.

It makes the wounded spirit whole

and calms the troubled breast;

‘tis manna to the hungry soul,

and to the weary, rest.   –John Newton (1779)