(Synoptics: Matthew 2:13-15)The wise men have returned home with hearts full of joy at what they have witnessed. They now understand that this child is the focus of Satan’s attention, and that Herod is Satan’s minister to destroy the child.
We do not have to worry about the fulfilment of the word of God, but only to obey the Lord in the things he has revealed to us. It is his business to fulfil his word, and we can have the most perfect peace of mind about this. We desire that the word of God should be fulfilled, and it must be so, even when its fulfilment affects events in our own lifetime. God works with a skill that is far beyond ours, and we have the privilege of watching events unfold in the full confidence that his plan cannot go astray.
Matthew quotes Hosea 11:1: ‘Out of Egypt have I called my son’, and applies this to Joseph taking the Christ child down into Egypt as the narrative describes. Modern writers are critical and protest that this use of the passage is not what Hosea had in mind, but Matthew’s inspired quotation from Hosea proves that they are wrong. Hosea’s prophecy did have this incident in mind. Hosea 11:1 is certainly a comment on Israel and you could take it in this way: it is about the history of the nation. Fairbairn says, ‘It pointed to God’s faithfulness and Love in delivering Israel from his place of temporary sojourn’ (Typology of Scripture, p 380). Is the New Testament therefore misusing the Old Testament? The critics say that it is, because they are inclined to believe this, but they overlook the fact that there is a conscious difference in Hosea between two different Israels. One is physical, the other is chosen. For example, the physical Israel is addressed in Hosea 1:6: ‘Call her name Loruhamah: for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away’, while the obedient Israel, the spiritual Israel, the remnant, is addressed in Hosea 1:10: ‘Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.’ When we look back we find that there was always an obedient Israel, and that was what was referred to so clearly by the prophet. The obedient Israel was Christ. This is not just hindsight, for the point being made was always there, however enigmatic. It is all there but hard to understand. Modern writers have no comment on the spiritual theology of the situation, but only on the history, and therefore they cannot see this.