Through the difficulties and trials that a person experiences in life, there is a tendency for him to spend much of his life trying to resort to whatever means necessary to gain in life. Sometimes, we find ourselves following the footsteps of such a man.
Reading the story of Jacob's life, we often see ourselves in him. God promised Jacob a blessing. God decided to set his heart on Jacob and yet, Jacob spent much of his life trying so hard to gain, by hook or by crook, to attain what God had already promised him. He resorted to trickery to obtain his goal. But the good news is, no matter how tricky Jacob was, no matter how deceitful he was, the grace of God made him a new man.
So it was the grace of God that changed Jacob, that cured all the hostilities that surrounded his life due to his deceptive character. The grace of God was there before his birth, worked as he grew up, and even aided him during his old age.
Likewise, the same grace manifested in Jesus through his death on the cross is still the same grace that is working at present in your life and will be working in the future. This grace remains the only solution to all forms of hostility.
At this point, I want to share with you another important biblical theme related to grace: loyalty, fidelity, or faithfulness. Yes, it is true that our salvation entirely depends on God's grace alone. However, the Bible also makes it clear that if you truly receive the grace of God, the Holy Spirit is transforming you, and you will seek to faithfully obey the commands of God. Such obedience is the result of God's work within you. As we consider the theme of loyalty, keep this truth in mind that it is God who is working in you.
Moses' intention in emphasizing this loyalty theme was to call his generation to be loyal to God. Moses did it by showing them how God transformed Jacob from a deceitful man into a loyal servant of God.
As you all know, Jacob's character is flawed and defective. At birth, he was already grasping his brother's heel. When they were already young adults, he took advantage of his brother's hunger to take the birthright for himself. In connivance with his mother, he also deceived his father to get his brother's blessing. This deceitful action on the part of Jacob resulted in his brother's fury, his mother's fear for both of them, and finally separation from his loved ones.
The years of separation taught Jacob difficult lessons in life. He was mistreated by his father-in-law, Laban. In a way, we could say that Jacob suffered the same fate at the hands of Laban as Esau his brother suffered from his hands. This suffering made Jacob a new man.
Moses showed us this transformation in the character of Jacob in at least two ways:
Jacob showed contrition toward Esau. In 32:4-5, Jacob instructed his servant to address Esau on his behalf as “my master.” And when Jacob himself finally met Esau in Genesis 33:8, he directly addressed him as “my lord.”
Jacob showed contrition toward God. In Genesis 32:10 Jacob confessed to God:
I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant (Genesis 32:10).
Today, many people have denied the existence of God. And so the idea of being faithful to Him is entirely insane for them. How can one be faithful to Someone that does not exist? Or to be more precise, how can one be faithful to Someone that is man's own making? And so we cannot talk about faithfulness for those who do not believe in the existence of God.
However, for Christians, the story of Jacob's life teaches us to consider how Christ remained loyal to His Father to give honor to him and for our sake. The faithfulness of Christ also calls us to a responsibility to remain loyal to God.
Jesus remained loyal to God when he started his kingdom during his earthly ministry here on earth. Hebrews 4:15 tells us that Christ was tempted just like we are, but he never sinned. Christ was so loyal to God’s commands that he willingly died on the cross under God’s judgment in the place of us who believe in him. And his perfect righteousness is now ours by faith. And so we see that Christ’s loyalty to God keeps us from reducing the application of Jacob's life into a set of rules, of do's and don'ts. This means that every moral implication of Jacob’s story should be viewed first in terms of Christ’s loyalty to God on our behalf.
If we add a third result in Jacob's life after his transformation, I think it was his sincere worship when he returned to Bethel. Jacob promised loyalty to God at Bethel in Genesis 28:20-21. Later in his life, he built an altar and worshipped the Lord in all sincerity at Bethel (Genesis 35:3).
At present, the kingdom of Christ is advancing. Christ's kingdom requires loyal servants. We are reminded of passages like Hebrews 12:1-2 that encourage us to imitate the faithfulness of those who have gone before us.
I think the fourth way Moses showed Jacob's transformation was the new name God gave him. This new name, "Israel" leads us to consider the importance of remaining faithful to God if we want to be victorious in our struggle with God and men.
In Genesis 32:22-32, Jacob wrestled with an angel. In verse 27, Jacob confessed to the angel that he’d been a “trickster” by admitting that his name was Jacob. But the angel responded to Jacob’s confession in Genesis 32:28 by saying:
Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome (Genesis 32:28).
The name Israel means “God struggles" or "fights.” It is taken from the Hebrew verb Sarah, which is translated in verse 28 as “you have struggled.” The angel explained that this name applied to Jacob in a special way because he had “struggled with God and with men and had overcome.”
Jacob’s struggle with God refers to his wrestling for a blessing. And Jacob’s struggle with men refers to his struggles with Esau and Laban. And so for Jacob to receive the name "Israel" indicated the fact of this struggle and victory. He was therefore a new man. Instead of remaining a "deceiver" or a "trickster," Jacob had become “Israel,” one who had struggled and had overcome.
God changed Jacob and gave him a new life. God gave him real purpose for his life, and that he would be the father of a nation. His fatherhood compared to his father Isaac and grandfather Abraham is more direct for a nation will be named after him.
Whenever therefore the Jews heard the name "Israel," it meant for them that they too like Jacob, struggled with God and men and were destined to overcome provided that they would remain faithful to their God.
In the New Testament, the church is the "New Israel." This name should remind us of that old struggle and our need for complete dependence and faithfulness to God for us to walk in victory over our struggles in life.
Jacob's transformation was important for his generation in two ways:
First, Israel as a nation was always inclined to depart from God and to follow its ways. Jacob's new name reminded them of the many ways they had been unfaithful to their God.
Second, Moses wanted to motivate the Jews to follow the example of Jacob. As they would face many struggles in the Promised Land, the only way for them to live under the blessing of God was to faithfully commit themselves to God.
This call to faithfulness remains until the last days of our lives here on earth, if not through death, then until Christ's Second Coming. We have been given the promise that we who follow Christ even to the last breath of our lives will one day be transformed into God’s perfected, faithful servants. The beloved apostle John said that when Christ returns, “we will be like him” (1 John 3:2).
Jacob's story of loyalty should direct our minds to Christ's loyalty to God which entails our responsibility to be faithful to God and to his service until the Second Coming of His Son. We should learn from the mistakes of Jacob and not strive so hard just to have our way using whatever means necessary including resorting to trickery and deceit. Let us always be reminded:
If God did not spare his own Son, how much more will he not give us all things in him? (Romans 8:32).
Through Christ, we can especially hear the words of Psalm 46:
Cease striving and know that I am God (NASB).
Note: Due to a lack of appropriate images from both AI and pexels.com, the blogger decided to use Wikipedia. As to the use of the image in this post, the blogger, after checking the source, the following description is indicated there:
This file has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights.
In case the hivewatcher considers this a violation of the chain rules, I am willing to edit this post and remove the above image.
