Houma Bible Study Notes: Salvation History #3
/Genesis 25-32
Abraham’s life revealed the New Testament truths of righteousness and justification. Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness. God responds only to faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). Once a person receives the righteousness of Jesus as a gift (Romans 5:17), the Father is able to pronounce the verdict, “Righteousness is your position. You are not guilty. You are justified.” Having the verdict of justification over our lives, we can be assured that we can enter the presence of God without reservation (Romans 5:1,2).
Justification means God says we’re righteous. Sanctification means that our behavior starts reflecting what God says about us.
Sanctified- to be separated. To be made holy
Sanctification is both immediate but also progressive. The Bible teaches that immediately upon faith in Jesus and His sacrifice for sin, salvation takes place. Once true salvation occurs, the Holy Spirit takes residence in the believer’s spirit (JN14:17; 1COR 6:17) and in God’s mind, that person is made holy by the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit. In God’s mind, the blood applied to the life and presence of the Holy Spirit in the Christian makes the believer clean and separate from the world around them. That is their position: saved, sanctified, holy and separated unto God; However, this is just the beginning of the change to the life of the believer; unfortunately, the believer’s spiritual condition is not equal with his spiritual position. Sanctification is both an immediate and a progressive work. Sanctification is the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit where He molds the believer into the image of Christ (Rom 8:29).
Remember that the object of faith was Jesus and his finished work on the cross. The meaning of this is that man was created without sin in Adam, but Adam fell and all of Adam’s offspring was born in his image and likeness and now man must be born again into the life giving power of the last Adam who offered His righteousness as a ransom to redeem fallen man from the debt of sin. On the cross, the Great transference took place in the mind of the Father, mankind’s guilt was placed on Jesus on the cross and Jesus’ righteousness can be accessed by man through faith.
Abraham’s character represents Justification, and his grandson Jacob represents sanctification. I heard one preacher mention that the writings about Jacob are double the writings about Abraham and the point made was that the work of the Holy Spirit in Justification is a rapid work; whereas, the work of sanctification is a life long endeavor. Both Justification and sanctification are accomplished in the believer’s life by the work of the Holy Spirit. However, the ongoing work of sanctification requires the believer to yield his own will to the will of God, it requires that the believer die to self:
Matthew 16:24-25
24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
Jesus stated in John 16:7-8 that the comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, would come to the earth, and He would reprove KJV or convict ESV the world of sin. The definition of conviction is to find at fault, to convince one that they are wrong. In the Oxford English Dictionary the formal definition is to declare a guilty verdict. The way conviction works with the Holy Spirit is that His presence reveals to us that something is wrong. The more we listen and yield, the more He works in our lives and progressively changes us, making us look more like Jesus. On the other hand, the more we ignore the whisper of the Holy Spirit, the more our conscience will become seared (1 Timothy 4:2) to the voice of the Holy Spirit and this causes God’s work to be hindered in our lives.
There are several points of interest in the life of Jacob that reflect sanctification, but the first step in the journey requires the consideration that Jacob was a twin. The scripture says that Isaac and Rebekah had twins. The Lord said that there were two nations in Rebekah’s womb. Furthermore, the Lord said that the older would serve the younger. This is a really big deal spiritually.
The firstborn has great spiritual significance going all the way back to when God killed the firstborn of Egypt during the Passover and saved Israel from Egypt. God referred to Israel as His firstborn. The firstborn of all animals belonged to God as a reminder that God had delivered Israel, His firstborn, out of Egyptian bondage. The firstborn received the birth rite, which was connected to taking on the leadership role of the family and also receiving a double portion of the inheritance.
Again, the importance of the position of the firstborn was that through the firstborn came the responsibility of continuing the leadership of the family and continuing the heritage of making sure that the family moved towards the promises of God.
Israel was founded as a nation by God Himself for the purpose that the whole world would know God.
Genesis 18:18-19
18 since Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed? 19 For I have chosen him, so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.
The nation of Israel had a purpose like no other nation. God’s plan to establish His glory throughout the earth starts with His promise to Abraham, through this nation, the whole earth will be blessed when God sends Jesus as redeemer for the sins of man. We must remember that at Babel humanity rejected God’s rule over their lives. Therefore, God separated them into nations and with the calling of Abraham, made a nation for Himself.
As the nation of Israel began to grow, it was later organized into groups for the purpose of creating a cohesive society that would stick together whose main purpose was to spread the knowledge and glory of God throughout the earth. The first level was the family where the man of the house led his family according to the word of God to establish the glory of God upon the earth. It was the firstborn’s job to maintain that direction. The next level was the extended family, smaller families that were distant relatives were known as clans. The clans were part of the larger groups known as the tribes and the twelve tribes of Israel made up the nation.
The scripture says:
Genesis 25:34
Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.
One of the words used to describe despised is scorn.
Scorn- the feeling or belief that someone or something is worthless.
In Esau, we see the same spiritual condition of the world around us in that the world despises the things of God. It’s important that we understand that this isn’t accidental and it isn’t simply caused by a political party. This is an ongoing fallen angelic rebellion against God that has injected its rebellion into the heart of man and is being spearheaded by the spirit of disobedience:
Ephesians 2:1-2
1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—
The same spirit that drove Esau to despise his birth rite is the same spirit that drives the world towards disobedience against God’s word and God’s will on the earth. Esau was the first birth and represents the old man. Jacob is the second birth and represents the new birth in Christ. In the story of Jacob, we also see the truth that progressive sanctification takes time. It took time for a Jacob to come to the breaking point where He allowed God to change him.
Esau was born first, but God promised that the older would serve the younger. The scripture says that Jacob, while in the womb, grabbed his older brother Esau’s heel in an attempt to stop his brother from coming out first. The name Jacob means supplanter or heel grabber and we learn that later in life Jacob’s nature is that he grabs what he wants through deceptive practices.
One important point to make here is that if God has a plan where people called to serve Him will carry His glory and knowledge into a fallen world of sin, He certainly cannot allow them to remain the same as the world around them. They must be changed in a way where their nature begins to reflect the nature of God, where their image becomes conformed back into the image of God instead of the image of the fallen Adam.
The main spiritual idea to be made about Jacob as heel grabber/ deceiver is that while God gave him a promise that he would receive the birth rite, he immediately attempts to take matters into his own hands and bring God’s promises for his life to pass in his own strength.
As Christians, we must understand that many believers try to live their lives that way and many preachers teach the Bible that way. In other words, people are taught that it’s through what they do that changes them. If they have a problem with lust, they are told to quote scripture. I’m not trying to be overly technical here, but it’s extremely important that we understand and remain focused on God’s plan not man’s.
Memorizing and quoting scripture is great. Personally, I love to memorize and quote scripture and there are many times that when the enemy tries to attack, I remind myself what God’s word says, but we must be careful that we don’t change the object of our faith to quoting scripture instead of faith in the slain and risen lamb that was foreordained before the foundations of the earth.
God has established a plan for victory over sin. He sent Jesus, the sinless one to die for the sins of the sinful ones. Faith in this truth, causes the old man to die and allows a new man to resurrect. Continued faith in this truth allows the old man to remain dead and empowers the new man in Christ to live for God according to God’s standard that is written and revealed through His word.
But a Jacobean or self help (works based) Christianity may try to do it like this: if they have a problem with alcohol, the church makes a small group called recovery and they take AA principles and make a mixture of AA and scripture and repackage it as God. This is not how God works. These are ideas and plans of man injecting his own ways into God’s ways. God’s way is that man allows God to change his heart through the truth of God’s word and the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit.
His brother Esau was born first and there are some interesting thoughts about Esau and the first birth. We have already discussed our first birth in Adam and how the first birth is the natural birth and the natural birth is our birth into sin; whereas, the second birth is our birth in Christ and birth into new life. Several things amaze me about the birth of Esau: 1. Because he is first, he is associated with birth in Adam; 2. His name is Esau, but the nation called after his name is Edom. Both Adam and Edom come from the same variant meaning red, red having to do with the earth from which Adam was formed; 3. The Bible says that Esau was red and hairy all over; 4. Esau is described as carnal or worldly in that he sells his birth rite for a bowl of red stew. The birth rite was extremely important in God’s eyes. His decision to do that proved that he had no regard for God’s purposes. Esau’s only desire was to serve himself.
Romans 9:10-13
10 And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; 11 for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, 12 it was said to her, “THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER.” 13 Just as it is written, “JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED.”
We see in these verses the difference between Jacob and Esau. Even from their birth one is seen as righteous and the other as unrighteous. One is seen as worldly and the other as spiritual. I mentioned previously that in our second birth, we are already sanctified and made holy by faith, but that our condition is inferior to our position. We can see this same truth in Jacob’s life in that while he is born the second birth and promised that he would receive the blessing, behavior that reflects the old man starts in the womb with trying to take it his own way and in his own strength. This New Testament passage is a good reminder of the Biblical concept of the old man vs the new man.
1 Corinthians 15:45-47
45 So also it is written, “The first MAN, Adam, BECAME A LIVING SOUL.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. 47 The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven.
The fact that Jacob’s deception started in the womb is also a spiritual type of the sinful nature and that is a very important concept regarding the power of sin. In our first birth, we are dominated by the sinful nature. But in our new birth, the relationship between the sinful nature and the new man in Christ is severed, and the new man receives a down payment of the Spirit of God and becomes a partaker of the divine nature (Gal 2:20; Rom 6:4; 2 Pet 1:3-4; Rom 7:1-4 if you have questions about these verses ask at the next Bible study and we can discuss)
Jacob’s nature is deceptive and his practices will continue that way until he yields to the will of God and allows God to change him, and this is the same story for any believer. They can be saved, but still ignore the voice of God and stunt their spiritual growth.
While Jacob’s fleshly moves start in the womb, they continue throughout his life. He takes advantage of Esau and buys the birth rite for a bowl of stew while Esau is in a weakened state. It’s true that Esau despised his birth rite, but should a true child of God take advantage of a person when they are in a weakened state? God had given Jacob a promise. When God gives us promises, we can stand on those promises by faith. We do not have to take matters into our own hands and attempt to make things happen in the flesh. God wants us to be still and know that He is God.
Jacob faced another test that many Christians also face when it comes to trusting God while in the waiting room of the promise. His own mother Rebekah planned a scheme to deceive Isaac when he was old to help Jacob steal the double portion blessing from Esau. Isaac had asked Esau to go hunting and kill game, so that a savory stew could be made for him, and after it was done, Isaac would release the double portion blessing over Esau’s life. Once Esau left to go on the hunt, Rebekah made a stew and a sleeve out of fur [because Esau was hairy] and no sooner was Esau out of the door when Rebekah and Jacob made their move. They told Isaac that Jacob was Esau and deceived Isaac into giving Jacob Esau’s blessing.
There is an important spiritual truth that must be learned— when we resist the chastening of the Lord and rebel against His correction, we will only slow the progression of God’s will for our lives. It is not God’s business to give us what we want, when we want it and how we want it. Instead, it is God’s will that we be conformed into His image. It is God’s will that our old man be renewed in the spirit of his mind, and this means that our old man must be crucified, our new man resurrected and the new man begin to operate with the new mind of Christ. This is the progression of sanctification, and this requires that the believer yield to the will of God and allow God to deal with his life and change his mindsets. This process cannot be done without a proper understanding of the word of God.
Jacob’s deceptive tactics resulted in some hard years of life. God allowed him to be tricked and put him in a predicament where he was stuck for a total of 21 years. God was with him and blessed him the whole time, but he had no choice but to stay still and wait on the Lord. God knows how to orchestrate the perfect scenario to prepare us for the change. Maybe, as you read, you think, “Lord, I don’t want you to have to put me in a place of time out. I want to surrender to you now. I want to yield my will to your will and allow you to have your way with me; but Lord, I also have this loved one: a spouse, a child, a friend that I’m believing you for. Lord would you please intervene in both my life and their life?”
That is what we are to do— humbly and submissively surrender to God’s will and humbly plead with Him for the souls and lives of the people that we love. As we trust Him, He will move in our situations and circumstances. Let it be known that it’s likely not to transpire the way we expect or want, because the entire time that the Lord is working on the person or circumstance that we are praying about, He is also working on the Jacob in us that He wants to remove, so He can change our name to Israel.
Jacob fell in love with Laban’s daughter Rachel. She was the most beautiful thing that he had ever seen. He made a deal with his future father in law and agreed to serve him for 7 years by taking care of his herds in exchange for marrying Rachel. Laban agreed and allowed the ceremony to proceed. The deception came on the wedding night. Laban slipped Leah, Rachel’s older sister, into the marriage bed and deceived Jacob into consummating the marriage with Leah instead of Rachel. When the morning came and Jacob realized he had been deceived, he was angry. Laban’s response was that it wasn’t their custom to let the younger daughter get married before the older. Then he offered to Jacob another deal and said, “If you will serve me another 7 years, I will give you Rachel also as a wife. In the end, Jacob had to serve Laban a total of 21 years. He served him 7 for the original deal that he was deceived into, another 7 years for Rachel the wife that he wanted and a final 7 years for the herds that he was able to keep for himself when his departure time finally came.
This is not the time or the place to address this biblical truth, but it’s impossible not to consider the life of Leah and how this must have affected her. Knowing that she was not really loved and that she wasn’t really wanted. But I wonder also if that isn’t how the Lord feels with many people in the church. It seems like sometimes people go to church and pretend to serve Him as long as they get what they want, but when the message hits too close to home, or the Spirit of conviction starts to deal with the hard things in their lives that they don’t want to give up or give in, then they deafen their ears to the voice of the Lord and continue their Jacobean ways. But that is another message for another time.
Finally, after 21 years of serving Laban, God allows Jacob to be released. It is on this journey that God gets Jacob alone and changes his name to Israel. This is a perfect type of the New Testament truth where God desires that our nature be changed. The word name in the scriptures refers to a person’s character. When God changes someone’s name in the Bible, it shows us that He’s making a point that the person was changed at that moment. He changed Abram to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah, Jacob to Israel, Saul to Paul. There are others, but you get the point. The name change reflects a nature change.
On this journey, Rachel stole and hid her father’s idols and brought them with her as they departed from Laban’s house. Imagine this scene. Jacob with his two wives, all their children, servants, and all this herd of goats traveling towards the destiny that God has planned for the beginning of a nation that will be called Israel, a nation that He promised to Jacob’s grandfather years in advance, and a nation that He promised He would bless the world through, in that, one day through this nation, He would give the world Messiah, whom we know as Jesus.
And here this girl steals her daddy’s false gods. When Laban finds out, he and a search party set out behind them to track them down. To make matters worse, at some point Jacob hears that his brother Esau is somewhere up ahead in the distance of the journey. Fear begins to strike his heart. The whole scenario is being set up by God. God’s intent is to get Jacob alone. And once He has him alone, he plans to deal with Jacob and finally break him to the point of submission.
The Bible literally describes that Jacob wrestled with God. Some places use the word angel, but the word angel is often translated into English from the Hebrew word Elohim, which is sometimes used to describe God and sometimes used to describe other supernatural beings. The way to see it is that God is Elohim in that He is supernatural. There are other Elohim meaning other supernatural created beings, but there is only one Elohim named Yahweh and that is God the Father. In this story, I believe what we see here is that Jacob encounters a Christophany. He experiences the pre incarnate Jesus and has a wrestling match with God.
One last point to be made is this. During the wrestling match, the scripture says that God could not prevail against Jacob, so He touched him in his hip and this caused Jacob to limp for the rest of his life. It took me several years to understand the spiritual significance of how or why God would not be able to prevail in a wrestling match with a man. Then one day, the Lord gave me revelation—He gave us freewill, and He will not transgress the freewill of man. When man refuses to yield his freewill and humble himself towards God’s will, the wrestling match continues and God does not prevail in the life of the believer, but as soon as the believer yields and with the voice of surrender says, “Nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done!” The name is changed from Jacob to Israel and true sanctification can begin its progression in the life of the believer.
The following are a compilation of various scriptures that, in my opinion, help to teach the thought of sanctification:
Ezekiel 36:25-27
25 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.
Romans 8:29
For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;
Conformed- fashioned like unto
Romans 12:2
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
Renewed mind
Matthew 16:24-25
24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.