In our study of Genesis, we come today to the story of Jacob’s ladder. I have titled my message, the gospel of Jacob’s ladder. And I hope you will see the presentation of the gospel as we work our way through this chapter.
But we should remind you of the context. Last time, we saw the deception Jacob played upon his father Isaac, which was masterminded by his mother Rebekah. He had previously bought the birthright from his brother Esau, and then when his father had planned to give Esau the blessing, he deceived his father and pretended to be Esau so he would get the blessing also.
Now Esau hated Jacob because he had stolen his blessing, and he promised to kill him. His mother heard of the plan, and she encouraged Jacob to go to her brother Laban to get a wife, but also to escape Esau’s plan to kill him. So she spoke to her husband Isaac saying that the wives of Esau were driving her crazy, and she didn’t want Jacob to marry a pagan woman, and didn’t he think that it would be a good idea if Jacob went to his relatives to find a wife. And Isaac agreed, not wanting to see his son marry a pagan woman.
And that’s where we pick up the story. [Gen 28: 1 So Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and charged him, and said to him, "You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. 2 "Arise, go to Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel your mother's father; and from there take to yourself a wife from the daughters of Laban your mother's brother. 3 "May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. 4 "May He also give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your descendants with you, that you may possess the land of your sojournings, which God gave to Abraham." 5 Then Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan-aram to Laban, son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau. 6 Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take to himself a wife from there, [and that] when he blessed him he charged him, saying, "You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan," 7 and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and had gone to Paddan-aram. 8 So Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan displeased his father Isaac; 9 and Esau went to Ishmael, and married, besides the wives that he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebaioth. 10 Then Jacob departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran. 11 He came to a certain place and spent the night there, because the sun had set; and he took one of the stones of the place and put it under his head, and lay down in that place. 12 He had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 And behold, the LORD stood above it and said, "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants. 14 "Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed. 15 "Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." 16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it." 17 He was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." 18 So Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on its top. 19 He called the name of that place Bethel; however, previously the name of the city had been Luz. 20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear, 21 and I return to my father's house in safety, then the LORD will be my God. 22 "This stone, which I have set up as a pillar, will be God's house, and of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You.”
Notice the promise given in vs 5 "Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." That promise is repeated in essence in Deut. 31:6 and then reiterated to those who believe in Hebrews 13:5; “I will never leave you or forsake you.” That is one of the greatest blessings of salvation. The continuing presence of Jesus with us forever. As Jesus said in Matt. 28:20, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” That is the blessing of salvation, that God is with us, in us, abiding with us, forever.
Now I am getting ahead of the story. But I do need to address the matter of this blessing that Jacob has received. In desiring the birthright, and desiring the blessing, did Jacob in effect become saved? Some Bible scholars see this stage of Jacob’s life as his path of sanctification. And sanctification comes after justification. We know that justification is by faith. Abraham believed God and He credited it to him as righteousness.
But have we seen Jacob believe God unto salvation? We have seen the predetermination of God to bless Jacob. We have seen the calling and election of God upon Jacob, even before he was born. But as I said last time, Jacob was not saved in the womb. Election does not save you. Believing saves you. And though Jacob desires the birthright and the blessing, and despite the fact that the birthright and the blessing have a spiritual quotient to them that Esau despised, despite all that, I don’t see that up to this point, Jacob has believed unto salvation. He wanted the blessing of God, but he did not want the Lordship of God.
So my position is that he is not saved yet. He is not a believer. And evidence of that I think is shown in this chapter, as well as in the last chapter when he said to his father “Because the LORD your God caused it to happen to me.” In other words, Jacob was claiming the help of the God of his father. He was not claiming the help of his God. Jehovah was not yet his God, He was his father’s god.
And that attitude doesn’t change even after this vision that he has, when God appears on a ladder to heaven. Even though he knows that God was in that place, that God had visited him, yet he says in vs 20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "IF God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear, and I return to my father's house in safety, THEN the LORD will be my God.” Even after all this special revelation that he had received, yet he still is not willing to say the Lord is my God. But he puts a conditional promise out there that God must fulfill to his satisfaction before he will say the Lord is MY God.
Now let’s get back to the story and work our way through it to see what was going on in this event. First notice that poor Isaac is being hoodwinked again by his wife and son to give his blessing to Isaac and urge him to leave the land that God had promised them. Abraham, you will remember, refused to let his servant consider taking Isaac back to the land of Haran because he knew that it would end up trapping him there. So Abraham had his servant go there and get Isaac a wife and bring her back to him in Canaan. And perhaps that is what Isaac should have done. I can’t say that this departure on Jacob’s part from the land is God’s perfect will. It wasn’t so with Isaac, so why should it be different for Jacob? And we will see that it ends up being a 20 year detour, which God promises to overturn and bring him back to Canaan.
But they are all pretty carnal people and they don’t ask God what to do. They look at the situation around them and the hatred of Esau and they make a decision that this is what is needed. And yet for all the years of Abraham’s journeying, and Isaac’s wandering, God reiterated again and again that this was the land that he was giving them. That He would provide for them and protect them there. And yet again and again they leave the land.
And then Moses makes a side note about Esau, how he sees that his mother and dad did not like his pagan wives, and so he goes out and tries to accomplish what they wanted for Jacob, which was to marry a wife who was of the same ancestral background. But Esau goes to the family of Ishmael to find a wife, not realizing that he further confirms the choice that God had made to bless Jacob and not Esau. Ishmael was outside of the spiritual blessing that God had promised Abraham. But Esau doesn’t understand the difference between the spiritual and the physical and so further compounds his situation.
Do you see how Jacob and Esau are a type of the old man and the new man? Esau is a type of the old nature, and Jacob a picture of the new nature. We see that old man clearly in Esau I think up to this point, but we do not see any evidence yet of the new man in Jacob. Except that he was foreordained for salvation before he was born and that shows interest in acquiring God’s blessing. But he attempts to acquire it through the work of the flesh rather than the work of the Spirit.
But Jacob leaves his home and travels about 70 miles on his journey to Haran, which is about a 400 mile journey. Presumably he is traveling alone. And he comes to a place called Luz, where he decides to spend the night. And he makes a pillow for his head from a rock and goes to sleep. I’ve heard a lot of poor jokes preachers have made over the years about Jacob sleeping on a rock and none of them are worth repeating. But you do have to wonder if using a rock for a pillow affected his sleep.
So Jacob had a dream. Now I have to say that this experience of Jacob and other patriarchs who had conversations with God is not the primary experience of a believer today. Yet you might ask why is there a different way of God communicating with us today than there was in those days? And the answer is that they did not have the scriptures. They had no Bible, or any part of the Bible at that point. Moses writes this several hundred years after the fact and he writes the first five books of the Bible, known as the Pentateuch. Prior to that there was only the verbal traditions past down through generations of what God had said.
Furthermore, there are no real opportunities for hearing from any preacher or prophet in those days. In fact, the only people you could consider a prophet were Abraham and Isaac. Melchizedek we know was a priest of God, but he is probably long dead by this point as nothing further is said about him after Abraham’s visit. So if there is no scripture, and no prophet, no priest, then how is a person going to hear the gospel? God Himself will speak through the pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. It’s what is called a theophany. And that’s what we see here.
But I would say that we live in a different dispensation, when God speaks through preachers and His word. Heb 1:1-2 says, God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.” And His Son has spoken to us the Word of God which was written for us in the scriptures. And in Colossians 2:18 we are warned about giving heed to false prophets who base their doctrine on visions that they have seen, which are in violation of the word of God. So I urge you to beware of those who would claim visions and dreams with special revelation from God.
But God wants Jacob to hear the gospel. [Rom 10:13-14 says for "WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED." How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?” And so God gives Jacob a dream in which he sees a ladder stretching from heaven to earth, and angels ascending and defending the ladder and God standing at the top of the ladder. Now God verbally speaks to him, but we must ask ourselves what is symbolized in this vision. Because if God just wanted to speak to him He could have done so without this incredible vision. There must be some symbolism there that was also intended to illustrate the message to Jacob.
One commentator, H.C. Leupold, has said, “Such a clearcut dream must embody a deeper symbolism. Why a ladder? Why the angels? Why the Lord above it? Answer, in order to convey via visible sign what the words themselves also convey as Jehovah speaks.” In other words, this is designed to illustrate in symbolic fashion what is expressed by the words that are spoken at this theophany.
So if you have a ladder that reaches from earth to heaven, then you might deduce that it signifies communication from heaven to earth. And this communication is mediated by the angels. Hebrews 1:14 says that angels are ministering spirits sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation.
There is an old African American spiritual that I remember singing as a child which is called “We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder.” And the sense of that song indicates that there is a climbing towards heaven that is done on our part which is signified by the ladder. But that is not the intention of the vision of the ladder. Salvation is not achieved by climbing a ladder to heaven. The ladder symbolizes communication between God and man, or a bridge between God and man. But man doesn’t climb up to God, rather God comes down to man.
Now there is an interesting passage in the book of John in which this particular incident is referred to. It is at the time when Nathaniel was brought by Philip to the Lord Jesus. Now, Nathaniel, in that little incident at the end of John chapter 1, had evidently been meditating on Genesis chapter 28. It’s clear from a couple of things. It’s clear, because when he comes to the Lord Jesus, the Lord said to him, “Behold an Israelite, in whom there is no guile.”
Now remember an Israelite is a descendant of Jacob. So it’s almost as if he were saying, “Behold an Israelite in whom there is no Jacob.” Now Nathaniel was a man like that, he was a man who was guileless. He was a very frank man. He said, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” He did not realize, of course, that The Good Shepherd comes out of Nazareth. But when he comes to Jesus, the Lord said to him, “Nathaniel, before you saw me, I saw you sitting under the fig tree.” And sitting under the fig tree was, according to rabbinic thought, the proper place to sit when you wanted to meditate on the Bible.
So he was meditating, and furthermore, he was obviously meditating on Genesis chapter 28, because Jesus refers to this specific incident. And he says in his conversation with Nathaniel, “Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? Why you’ll see greater things than these.” Then He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you shall see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
So he’s been meditating on Genesis chapter 28 and Jesus says, “Look, you want to see greater things than you have seen when you were meditating on Genesis chapter 28? You’re going to see the heavens opened.” That’s interesting isn’t it? The heavens opened as if there was suddenly access to heaven for sinful men. And you’re going to see the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. There is going to be a communion between the opened heavens and this earth down here. And you’re going to see the angels ascending and descending not upon a ladder, but upon the Son of Man.
Did you notice that substitution? That’s what you call interpreting the Old Testament by the New Testament. He was, in effect, saying the ladder in the Old Testament is symbolic of the Son of Man. It is by virtue of the Son of Man, who has opened the way to heaven. It’s by virtue of his mediation that the heavens are opened and there is communion between God and man. That is, those who approach heaven through the ladder of the Son of Man, who is the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, except by Him. So, the ladder is symbolic of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well that’s a magnificent symbolic illustration of the gospel, but the words that follow are just as great. Now notice the promises. First of all, he begins by identifying Himself, “I am the Lord. I am Jehovah. I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. The same God who had called out Abraham, who had given him the promises of which Jacob was the beneficiary. He says, “the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants.” That very piece of land on which Jacob was putting his head is to be given to him. So, he is talking about something very specific, but listen to the other promises. "Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”
And then the great climatic promise; “Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” You know, our salvation is predicated on our belief in the promises of God. We don’t see our sins forgiven. We don’t enter into heaven immediately. We do not yet sense eternal life that is given to us. But we believe in the promises of God concerning these things. And that is faith, saving faith. Jacob is given all these magnificent promises of God’s blessing. And yet though he is awed by the experience of the vision, he doesn’t really believe the promises completely. He wants proof.
Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the assurance of [things] hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval.” Faith is not getting proof, it’s being convinced about things not seen. Jacob is impressed, but not convinced.
Jacob’s response is very interesting. You notice in verse 16 that the text says he awakened from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” How true that is of our experience. You know I have a hunch that there are lots of people sitting in this audience right now who do not realize that the Lord is in our midst. Perhaps you would rather think that the Lord is in heaven but not that He is standing in the midst of this congregation.
And the thought of the nearness of God induced fear in him. The KJV says “How dreadful is this place.” Now we do not want to be confused by the term “dreadful.” The New American Standard Bible has rendered it, “How awesome is this place.” It’s kind of like the way us southerners use the term awful. We say awfully when we actually mean “very.” Like for instance, I am awfully hungry. It should be I”m very hungry. “It would be awfully nice if you would give me some ice cream.” I don’t know why we say that. I’m awfully sorry. Well, in the KJV they say dreadful when they mean awesome.
You know, Solomon says in Proverbs that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I suggest that the fear of the Lord is necessary before we can experience the grace of the Lord. You have to know you are condemned to death before you can value being given eternal life.
The next morning in response to his dream Jacob got up and put a memorial pillar of rocks there. He called the place Bethel; the house of God. It was his way of responding to the experience that he had had. But it was a misplaced reverence. God had not said that He abided there, and Jacob could meet with Him there. God had said I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
The promise of God is to be with us, to indwell us, to keep us, wherever we go. That is the promise of salvation. That is the blessing that we should seek. To have communion with God.
Vs 20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear, and I return to my father's house in safety, then the LORD will be my God. "This stone, which I have set up as a pillar, will be God's house, and of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You.” That’s all very nice, but he is making a conditional promise to God. And the condition is that he will wait and see if God really is with him, and really does keep him on his journey, and if He actually provides for him. And IF God really does all that, THEN Jehovah will be his God. Until He proves Himself, Jehovah is Abraham’s and Isaac’s God. Until then, Jacob thinks he is his own master.
Rom 10:9-11 says, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus [as] Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, "WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.”
Though God is under no obligation to prove Himself to anyone, yet by His grace He will prove His faithfulness to Jacob for the next 20 years. But Jacob will not confess the Lord as His God until he finally wrestles with the Lord and bows in submission to Him.
It’s possible to be called by God, to have an interest in spiritual things, to even be presented the gospel of God and yet not be saved. To be saved is to confess your sins, to believe in what God has done through Jesus on the cross to forgive you for your sins and to give you eternal life. I trust that you do not resist submitting to Jesus Christ as Lord, as your God, like Jacob did. That you do not test the Lord’s patience. God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
No comments:
Post a Comment