Genesis 28:13 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Genesis 28:13

Comments

There at Bethel, six miles north of Jerusalem, God revealed himself to Jacob. The Lord stood above the ladder and, just as he had made promises to Abraham and Isaac, so he repeated them to Jacob. This was the first time that God had appeared personally to Jacob. He revealed himself as the God who had called Abraham and guided him through all the changes of his long life and never forsook him. Abraham is called the father of Jacob, in the loose sense in which the word is often used in the Bible. Jacob was the chosen son of Isaac through whom Abraham’s descendants would become a great nation and through whom the Messiah would come. God made a pledge to Jacob, and gave him land promise. He would have a vast number of physical descendants who would spread out in the region, and an even great number of spiritual descendants: all who truly believe in Christ. All the world would be blessed in him and in his seed – including elect Jews and Gentiles. It was the ultimate promise of Messiah.There at Bethel, God found Jacob, and Jacob found God. At home in his parents house, he could say, God is with my father, my grandfather. But his big ideas kept him from ever coming to God personally. You will never meet with God unless you come on his terms. God found him in the sense that God called him to be his own and made him a true child of God. Jacob was now a saved man, and that meant that God had made himself Jacob’s God.

Application

Have you approached God, but only as a cocky or self-righteous or worldly person? You must be humble. When Jacob came to the point, something major was required. What he needed before knowing God and finding him was some doctrine: how to get to God. Someone said to me, ‘I am a Christian. I believe in God and have had a true experience of God and come to the conclusion I need God.’ He had come to the door post, but had not passed through. The door to conversion is like an electronic lock. There is something we need to know, or else we are stuck on the doorstep. There is a staircase and it goes up into this very habitation of God. He understood the gulf between earth and heaven, greater even between earth and the stars. I am a long, long way from God. I am shallow and deceitful. The gulf is caused by my sin. But there is a way to get from earth to heaven. It is relatively easy thing. My father, Isaac, was right. His immediate response is to believe what God has said.

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Genesis 28:13 Commentary and Bible Study