Section 253
138Quoted from Hos. 2:23 and 1:10. These passages from Hosea, originally directed to a situation within Israel, are similarly applied to Gentile converts in 1 Pet. 2:10. The principle embodied in Hosea’s message was being worked out on a worldwide scale in apostolic days, when people who had no previous claim on God’s covenant-mercy were being adopted into his family. See F. F. Bruce, This is That: The New Testament Development of Some Old Testament Themes (Exeter/Grand Rapids, 1968), pp. 66-67.