"When Israel was a child, then I loved him, And called my son out of Egypt.
A tremendous weight of importance rides upon the necessary identification of the old Israel as a type of the new, Christ himself also being in reality positively identified with both, and making the old Israel, therefore, a type of the church.  Harper, as might have been expected, rejected this interpretation of Hosea on the basis of his prior assumptions, admitting at the same time that this place has been understood: "As predictive of the Messiah, to interpret Israel as a type of Christ."[4]  This very ancient understanding of the Scriptures should not be abandoned.