{"id":3596,"date":"2016-06-17T17:57:58","date_gmt":"2016-06-17T17:57:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christian-gospel.info\/?p=3596"},"modified":"2016-06-17T17:57:58","modified_gmt":"2016-06-17T17:57:58","slug":"jacob-wrestling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christiangospel.online\/?p=3596","title":{"rendered":"Jacob wrestling"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jacob’s mother produced twins, Genesis 25:21-26.\u00a0 The first twin born was called Esau because he was hairy, and the word Esau means that.\u00a0 The second son was\u00a0 called Jacob, becuase he had held on to his brother’s heel, and Jacob means “heel-holder”, in reference to this event, but the word also means “he will supplant”, in reference to his life.\u00a0 For Jacob was a schemer, ever ready to devise some plan for his own advantage.\u00a0 Hence, when he and his brother were grown, and his brother came home exhausted from a hunting expedition and thought he was going to die, Jacob saw and seized his opportunity, and persuaded Esau to part with his birthright, Genesis 25:27-34; Hebrews 12:14-17.\u00a0 This birthright guaranteed him special privileges as the firstborn son, but now Jacob, the second born, has the right by deception.\u00a0 He has supplanted Esau as the firstborn son<\/span>
\n Later, too, Jacob deceived his father Isaac, who had very poor eyesight, and gained his father’s patriarchal blessing, Genesis 27.\u00a0 His father thought he was granting it to Esau, but Jacob supplanted him this time also. .\u00a0 He is living up to his name.\u00a0 As Esau said, “Is he not rightly called Jacob?\u00a0 For he hath supplanted me these two times”, Genesis 27:36.<\/span><\/p>\n

So it was that Esau hated Jacob, (and still does!), Genesis 27:41.\u00a0 He vowed to kill him when his father was dead.\u00a0 To avoid this Jacob fled to his relation Laban in Padan-Aram.\u00a0 Here he worked for Laban for 20 years, and married both of Laban’s daughters.\u00a0 The Lord then commanded him to return to Canaan, Genesis 31:3, promising to be with him.\u00a0 This was important, for Jacob had no reason to believe that Esau was any less angry with him than he had been 20 years before.\u00a0 In fact, he might have 20 years’ worth of anger inside him.<\/span><\/p>\n

To reassure Jacob, he was met by a host of angels, and this was God’s sign to him that heaven was watching over him.\u00a0 Despite these assurances by word and by sign, however, Jacob still sought to scheme his way out of his difficulties, for in Genesis 32:13-21 he sent a present on before him with which to pacify his brother.\u00a0 He divided this present up so that by the time Jacob actually met up with Esau again, he would have had several indications of Jacob’s desire to be reconciled to him, (in fact the word “appease” in Genesis 32:20 is the word “atone”).<\/span><\/p>\n

It is at this point that God teaches Jacob a valuable and necessary lesson. It is that human strength is of no worth in the spiritual life.\u00a0 The words of 1 Samuel 2:9 are relevant here, “For by strength shall no man prevail”.\u00a0 As far as God was concerned, it was His purpose to bring Jacob and his family safely back to Canaan, to there become a great nation.\u00a0 Through this nation God would dispense blessing to the world, as He had promised to Abraham, “In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed”, Genesis 12:3.<\/p>\n

This blessing would consist of the following things:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
1.<\/span><\/td>\nThe knowledge of the true God amidst heathen idolatry.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2.<\/span><\/td>\nThe joy of communion with Him by faith.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3.<\/span><\/td>\nThe system of sacrifices to show how God may be approached.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4.<\/span><\/td>\nThe presence of God in the Tabernacle and Temple to encourage and protect.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5.<\/span><\/td>\nThe Law to restrain evil and expose the sinfulness of man.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
6.<\/span><\/td>\nThe prophets to encourage and warn the people.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
7.<\/span><\/td>\nThe Scriptures of the Old Testament as a permanent record of God’s demands and purpose.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
8.<\/span><\/td>\nThe privilege of being the nation from whom the Messiah came.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
9.<\/span><\/td>\nThe apostles, who preached and taught New Testament truth.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
10.<\/span><\/td>\nThe New Testament, God’s completed revelation.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

All these things combined together in the nation of Israel, so that great blessing might be known in the world around.\u00a0 The Lord Jesus summed these things up in the words, “Salvation is of the Jews”, John 4:22.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite God’s assurances, and the sight of the angel-army, Jacob is still fearful of Esau, so God gives him an experience which will teach him to rely on God, not his scheming self.\u00a0 An angel will wrestle with him, and enable him to almost prevail over him, but will then show his superior power by affecting his ability to walk so that he is constantly reminded of the lesson.<\/span>
\n Hosea refers to this incident many centuries later, (so the lesson is for others as well as for Jacob), in Hosea 12:3,4.\u00a0 The prophet links together the following things:<\/span>
\n 1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That he took his brother by the heel in the womb.\u00a0 This is his natural character.\u00a0 The “heel-holder” loses no time to take advantage.<\/span>
\n 2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 By his strength he had power with God, which was shown in that he had power over the angel and at first prevailed against him.\u00a0 This is God’s way of showing him he could be different.<\/span>
\n 3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He wept and made supplication to Him.\u00a0 By his earnest prayer Jacob shows he has learnt to lean upon God for victory and not his own strength.<\/span><\/p>\n

At this point in his life Jacob’s name is changed to Israel.\u00a0 He is being taught what in the New Testament is the doctrine of the two natures.\u00a0 As born into the world we are sinners of Adam’s line, but as those crucified with Christ and risen with Him we are reckoned to no longer be in the flesh but in the Spirit, Romans 8:9.\u00a0 Because, however, we still have the same body we had before we were saved, and that body is the headquarters of the sin-principle within us, we have to ability to act like Jacob, even though God has made us “Israel”.\u00a0 Now the word Israel may be translated both “Prince with God”, and “Governed by God”.\u00a0 And Jacob by his experience came to know both meanings.\u00a0 He was brought to the point of crying desperately to God to help him as he wrestled, so recognising he must be governed and controlled by God if he is to succeed spiritually.\u00a0 But he was also allowed to prevail over the angel, to open up the possibility to him of being a prince with God as an overcomer.<\/span><\/p>\n

So it is that the angel touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh, so that he halted from that day forward, a constant reminder to him of his experience.\u00a0 We need to constantly remind ourselves that we dare not try to walk the Christian pathway without the energy of the Spirit of God.\u00a0 We are not in the flesh but we can walk after the flesh, Romans 8:4, and we shall only be overcomers, true “Israels”, princes with God, if we walk after the Spirit.\u00a0 We read two things in Genesis 32:31; the sun rose upon Jacob, and he halted on his thigh.\u00a0 The light of the resurrection day has dawned upon us, for we have been raised with Christ to walk in newness of life, Romans 6:4, but we have the constant reminder that our natural walk is a limping, halting, faulty walk, and if we wish to truly overcome, we shall walk by the Spirit’s power, and not the energy of the flesh.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jacob’s mother produced twins, Genesis 25:21-26.\u00a0 The first twin born was called Esau because he was hairy, and the word Esau means that.\u00a0 The second son was\u00a0 called Jacob, becuase he had held on to his brother’s heel, and Jacob means “heel-holder”, in reference to this event, but the word also means “he will supplant”, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[110],"tags":[286,411,508,510,644],"class_list":["post-3596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jacob-wrestling","tag-angel","tag-esau","tag-israel","tag-jacob","tag-prince-with-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiangospel.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiangospel.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiangospel.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiangospel.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiangospel.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christiangospel.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiangospel.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiangospel.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiangospel.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}