Genesis 28:16 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Genesis 28:16

Comments

‘Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not.’ He lies down a godless man; he gets up as a man who God has spoken to, and who is changed forever. He has had an encounter with the living God. He would not have swindled if he had known God. ‘God is there’, he says, ‘and I never realised it. How could I ever have been so blind? When I consider the answers to prayer my father received! I was asleep to the reality of God. Now I know he is there and it is possible to have his blessing.’ He is overawed. This is like the house of God. For first time in his life he had really worshipped. It was as if he had come to the gate of the mercy of God, and had been shown how he could be blessed. ‘How awesome is this place! This bleak place is like the home of God to me, like a temple where you learn.’ He does not mean this spot, and no other, but he means that that was where he had had this experience of asking for salvation and yielding to the Lord’s government. He had had a grasp of God’s holiness, and sensed the presence of God. Now he was afraid, reverent. He realised he had gone through a gate; everything would be different now. Though Jacob had heard from his father about the glory of God, he had not thought of God as one who could show himself in such a real and convincing way. Now he was filled with joy at the wonder of the God whom he had been led to follow. Was this Jacob’s conversion? There is every reason to believe so. Up till this time in his life, he had been known for his scheming and trickery. Now for the first time he speaks honestly and commits himself to God in a way that he had never done before. The possibility of real communion with God never seems to have dawned on him before and these words may be interpreted as the words of a man who has woken up for the first time to the fact that God is not just a name but is the living and true God who acts independently of us, is not dependent on His creatures and does according to His will in all the earth. For the Christian every place is the house of God, but Jacob distinguished this place by this special name because it was here that God first appeared to him.

Application

We need a sense of God. ‘How dreadful’ – we might say today, how awesome ‘is this place!’ This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven’, the access to heaven. And it is, when we preach the gospel: we want it to be the gate of heaven. We want it to be accompanied by awe and a sense of God, given a fear of him, as well as a joy in the possibility of sins forgiven and a walk with the Saviour.

If only someone can see there is a spiritual experience to be had. You can be in a church hearing the gospel, or you can go home and find a quiet place, but if you repent of your sin and pray and trust Christ for new life, then that place will be the gate of heaven for you. Can you say, ‘I have been shown favour by God, a pardon I never deserved, the grace and favour of God’?

That overfamiliarity with God which is so common today was alien to him. The reception of God’s word instead filled him with fear at the God who was so great and yet had drawn near to his servant. He rejoiced that such a God had shown favour to him for he was aware of all the mercy and kindness of God in this revelation. But at the same time he saw how dreadful was this place because God who spoke was so full of power, so holy, and so utterly sovereign over the affairs of men. This fear was not however such as to drive him away from God, but to cause him to come near yet with the utmost reverence and humility.

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Genesis 28:16 Commentary and Bible Study