Genesis, we’ve seen, is the vital book of foundations. What is God like (ch1)? What does it mean to be human (ch2)? Why is the world in such a state (ch3)? What is faith (Abram’s story)? What is grace (Isaac’s)?
And now: how does God rescue people – people with huge character flaws, like Jacob and Joseph; and ultimately, how does He set people free in general (Exodus)?
How do you rescue a Jacob from himself? Because he needs it. He tricks and manipulates everyone. In chs 25 and 27 it’s his brother, in ch27 his dad, from ch30 his uncle. A very skilful trickster – and yet all of that just makes his life miserable. He’s a home-lover (25:27), but ends up having to flee both his homes in serious danger, on the run (and without anything to use as a comfy pillow, 28:11). (His mum Rebekah also got what she wanted by trickery in ch27 – with the result that she never saw her favourite son again.) How do you `rescue`, change, a man like that?
(And notice how in all this God shows us how His sovereignty works – through, not against, human freedom. In ch27 everybody makes a sinful choice – Isaac tries to give Esau the blessing he knows is Jacob’s, Esau joins fully in that, Rebekah and Jacob both lie to grab the blessing… and God is so good at this that, through all these wrong free choices, the right thing happens. (Tolkien fans may recall a fictional parallel: Gollum is on mount Doom to fulfil his prophesied role in saving middle earth, only because of a number of free choices people have made, and most especially his own free choices of evil.) Human freedom and God’s craftsmanlike sovereignty go together, as He weaves both our good and bad decisions brilliantly into His purposes!)
So after ch27’s ugly piece of guile and deception, Jacob ends up on the run, and falls asleep on the rocks (ch28). And there God speaks. God doesn’t take him back to what he’s just been doing, stealing Esau’s name to get a blessing (the time will come for this, 32:27); the cure starts simply with God revealing to Jacob his huge, undeserved grace. Later, as with any child of God, there will be a time for Jacob’s training (like Exodus: first God gets the people out of Egypt, then He can start getting Egypt out of the people). And that will take twenty difficult years. But the rescue starts now with God’s revelation of His love, and with Jacob’s astonishment at this amazing, undeserved grace.
And there’s something else about the way this rescue works: Jacob wakes up from his dream in horrified realization (v17): heaven is right here, this is the `gate of heaven`! Now Genesis is a wonderful book, and it’s told us already about the tower people built to try to `reach the heavens` (11:4), Bab-el, which in Babylonian means `gate of God`. It couldn’t, of course: you’ll only get a gateway to heaven when God himself in grace sends a ladder down. Which is what’s happened here, and Jacob’s seen the angels of God ascending and descending on it; and, hello – this is John 1:51 isn’t it, look it up, Nathanael the true Israelite in whom there is `no guile` will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on — Jesus…
So how does this wonderful book tell us the vital rescue starts? Only when God sends a ladder to heaven down… And Jesus (let’s worship Him for it!) is that real, that only, `gate of God`, that real, that only, stairway to heaven…
PS Given how much it helps us understand Genesis (and some other OT books) if we grasp that the `Angel of the Lord` is often God in visible form (so presumably Jesus) – I thought it might be worth listing some verses that confirm this: Gen 16:9-13; 31:11-13; 48:15-16. And Hosea 12:3-5 about this story.
