I’ve told you that this Firm Foundations series is a look at the whole of the Bible, but it’s like flying over the whole thing, we only look at the mountaintops. And the mountaintops are the doctrinal peaks and significant events of Scripture. Well, last time we finished with the story of Abraham. It we were giving a complete history, we would now spend some time on Isaac, Abraham’s son and heir. But, truth be told, there are no significant events in the life of Isaac as an adult, except as he relates to Abraham his father, or to his children Jacob and Esau. So we are moving straight to the story of his son who would become his heir; Jacob.
Jacob: A Portrait of God’s Work of Salvation: Victory over nature, nurture, narcissism, and nincompoops
Scripture:
Genesis 25: 19 Now these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham [i]became the father of Isaac; 20 and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the [j]Aramean of Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the [k]Aramean, to be his wife. 21 And Isaac entreated Yahweh on behalf of his wife because she was barren; and Yahweh [l]was moved by his entreaty. So Rebekah his wife conceived. 22 But the children struggled together within her; and she said, “If it is so, why then am I this way?” So she went to inquire of Yahweh. 23 And Yahweh said to her, “Two nations are in your womb; And two peoples will be separated from your body; And one people shall be stronger than the other; And the older shall serve the younger.” 24 And her days to give birth were fulfilled, and behold, there were twins in her womb. 25 And the first came forth red, all over like a hairy garment; and they named him Esau. 26 Afterward his brother came forth with his hand holding on to Esau’s heel, so his name was called [m]Jacob; and Isaac was sixty years old when she gave birth to them.
Today I want to share with you the mountaintop of God’s plan of salvation illustrated by the life of the patriarch Jacob. He illustrates it best because in him we can see how God was at work to save him. God chose him, then worked in his life to bring him to spiritual maturity. And the way that God worked in Jacob, he also works in us. First, he was chosen as we are chosen. Then God worked to give him victory over his sinful nature as He does with us. We know that all people are born with a sinful nature, and that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” We are born into this world already with a spiritual death sentence over our heads. And, adding to that, we have learned that everyone born into the world since Adam and Eve are born in a cursed world. Then God works to give Jacob victory over his nurture; the way he was raised by his parents. Then God works to give him victory over his own narcissism, and finally victory over the nincompoops in his life.
Salvation is God snatching victory from the jaws of our defeat. He chooses us, He picks us in order to demonstrate His power and victory. And He doesn’t choose us because we are the best and brightest for Him to choose from.
This is a completely different way of putting together a team. It reminds me of when I was back in middle school and high school. You know, we used to have to take P.E. and learn different sports activities. One of those was a section on basketball. And the old way of picking teams for basketball was for the two best players to become captains of the teams. Then, one at a time, they would pick individuals to be on their team. And we know how they picked. They picked the best players. One at a time, until the last people picked were the worst players. I was usually among the last. This is the usual way of choosing people. Pick the best. But God doesn’t do that. He doesn’t pick based on any superior qualification you have. If we can use Jacob as an example, He picked the born conniver. The one raised difunctionally. The one who pursued selfish ends and faced massive opposition. Then he took this ragtag individual and turned him into a patriarch and a victor.
prayer
I. Chosen by God
The first thing we need to emphasize is that salvation is God choosing you. It is His work in you. I’m sorry to tell you this, but you don’t get any credit for your being a Christian. Some people might say, “Well God chose me because I was a good person.” Or “I was wise enough to see the truth.” No.
Just as Joseph was chosen, we are picked for a purpose.1 Peter 1:2According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.Let’s look at the story.
Just as God chose Abraham to be the father of the nation of Israel, just as Isaac was also chosen between Abraham’s children, Jacob was chosen by God from between Rebekah’s two sons.
Genesis 25: 21 And Isaac entreated Yahweh on behalf of his wife because she was barren;
It had been 20 years of marriage, and no children. Isaac was 40 at marriage, now he is 60 and still childless. So, he prays to God…
and Yahweh [l]was moved by his entreaty. So, Rebekah his wife conceived. 22 But the children struggled together within her; and she said, “If it is so, why then am I this way?”
There have been two different interpretations of what she meant by this. The first is, “If I am with child, what is the reason of this unusual commotion I feel?” Or, as others explain her exclamation, “If I must suffer such uncommon pangs, why did I conceive?” So, she went to inquire of Yahweh.
23 And Yahweh said to her, “Two nations are in your womb; And two peoples will be separated from your body; And one people shall be stronger than the other; And the older shall serve the younger.”
First, you are having twins, that’s why there’s so much movement. Second, each of the twins will become a nation. And third, the elder will serve the younger.
God was saying, the son who started with the advantages of the birthright, the stronger physical nature, and superior strength would, nevertheless, finally hold the inferior position.
24 And her days to give birth were fulfilled, and behold, there were twins in her womb.
So, what do we learn from this? Before Jacob was even born, God chose him as the progenitor of the Jewish people.
Long after he died his name would be listed in the Jewish triad of ancestors; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
He was chosen. And, as we have mentioned before, those who are in Christ are also chosen.
You ask, “When did God choose you?”
Ephesians 1:4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him in love,
So, while Rebekah is still pregnant with the boys, she is told by God that she is carrying twins. But look at what else he tells her. He says, “Two nations are in your womb” indicating that both of her twins will become nations.
We know that the later nations that would come of these two boys were the Edomites and Israelites. But, in terms of Jacob the younger and Esau the older, the younger will take the first place.
Now this contradicts the usual order of things in the ancient world.
https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Inheritance
It is called the right of primogeniture. “In the patriarchal naṛratives, the principles of inheritance are tied to the “birthright.” The first-born son, the father’s “might, and the first-fruits of [his] strength,” …. had special privileges, deference, and associated duties. It seems clear that he held by such right a double portion of his father’s goods (Deut 21:17).”
Deuteronomy 21: 15 “If a man has two wives, the one loved and the other [i]unloved, and both the loved and the [j]unloved have borne him sons, if the firstborn son belongs to the [k]unloved, 16 then it shall be in the day he [l]wills what he has to his sons, he cannot make the son of the loved the firstborn before the son of the [m]unloved, who is the firstborn. 17 But he shall recognize the firstborn, the son of the [n]unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that [o]he has, for he is the first of his vigor; the legal judgment for the firstborn belongs to him.
But Rebekah is told that the elder will serve the younger. Jacob is chosen by God before he is even born. But even though he is chosen, just like us, he had to make the choice to follow the Lord.
Jacob gets the gift of salvation. But salvation is God choosing. And it is a life-long work of God on those who are saved.
And we can see in Jacob how God is setting him apart during his life. God is sanding off Jacob’s rough edges all during his life. And God does the same with us. He is giving us victory, sanding off the rough edges.
Jacob starts off life just like we do, with the deck stacked against me. The first victory he needs is victory over his own nature.
II. God gives us Victory over nature
Genesis 25: 24 And her days to give birth were fulfilled, and behold, there were twins in her womb. 25 And the first came forth red, all over like a hairy garment; and they named him Esau. 26 Afterward his brother came forth with his hand holding on to Esau’s heel, so his name was called [m]Jacob; and Isaac was sixty years old when she gave birth to them.
Everyone is born with a sinful nature.
A. He is born with a sin nature.
We are given an indication of his sinful bent in verse 26.
26 Afterward his brother came forth with his hand holding on to Esau’s heel, so his name was called [m]Jacob;
Esau was born first. Esau means “hairy.” This is the condition called hypertrichosis. The name Esau is translated “made.” Because he was hairy all over, like a man, he was named “made” because he was already made. It is said of Esau that not only was he born with hair all over his body, but his skin was red or ruddy. On the other hand, Jacob was born with smooth and tender skin, like other babies. This would indicate that obviously they were fraternal, not identical twins. And Jacob’s name means to follow on another’s heals. But, because of what Jacob became, it came to mean someone who “supplants.” Someone who takes the place of another, as through force, scheming, strategy, or the like. Can you imagine naming your kids hairy or supplanter? I don’t know which is worse.
But Jacob is called supplanter because while they were being born, Esau was born first, but Jacob was holding on to his brothers heal as Esau was being born. I’ve read that usually with twins, there is a gap of time between their births. It can be hours between the first and the second. But Jacob wasn’t having it. He’s holding on to Esau’s heal as though he would pull him back and pass him by.
“You little devil, trying to be born first.”
But the sense of this event was to indicate that Jacob’s character was as a supplanter, one who schemes to take someone else’s place. And the implication from Scripture was that this characteristic was already there, even at birth. And it was. I read this commentary about this little household of four.
https://biblehub.com/commentaries/genesis/25-27.htm
“Isaac’s small household represented a great variety of types
of character. (Isaac) He himself lacked energy, and seems in later life to have
been very much of a tool in the hands of others. Rebekah had the stronger
nature, was persistent, energetic, and managed her husband to her heart’s
content. The twin brothers were strongly opposed in character; and, naturally
enough, each parent loved best the child that was most unlike him or her: Isaac
rejoicing in the very wildness of the adventurous, dashing Esau; and Rebekah
finding an outlet for her womanly tenderness in an undue partiality for the
quiet lad that was always at hand to help her and be petted by her.
One’s sympathy goes out to Esau. He was ‘a man of the field,’-by which is
meant, not cultivated ground, but open country, which we might call prairie. He
was a ‘backwoodsman,’-liked the wild hunter’s life better than sticking at home
looking after sheep. He had the attractive characteristics of that kind of men,
as well as their faults. He was frank, impulsive, generous, incapable of
persevering work or of looking ahead, passionate. His descendants prefer
cattle-ranching and gold-prospecting to keeping shops or sitting with their
lungs squeezed against a desk.
Jacob had neither the high spirits nor the animal courage of his brother. He
was ‘a plain man.’ The word is literally ‘perfect,’ … ‘steady-going,’ or
‘respectable,’ in modern phraseology. He went quietly about his ordinary work,
in contrast with his daring brother’s escapades and unsettledness.”
From the time they were born, their
lower natures were foreshadowed in their names and physiology. We are all born with certain characteristics.
And that is really the
story of salvation. We were all born
with a natural bend toward sin and selfishness.
For Christians it’s called the old self.
Romans 6:6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;
Colossians 3:9 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices,
So, just like us, Jacob was born with a sinful nature. And his particular preferred brand of sinfulness was scheming and conniving. But God picked us.
But God was at work through his life, to give him victory over that nature.
We sometimes give up on the idea that our lower nature can be overcome. It can’t be by our own efforts. Jacob does grow up to be a man who is far more than that baby grabbing to pull itself ahead.
Well, Jacob had a compound problem, as we all do. The old saying goes, “It’s hard to fly like an eagle when…you are surrounded by turkeys. And Jacob was.
III. Victory over nurture: He is born into a sinful family.
For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life--namely myself. . . In fact, the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things. Consequently Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. . . But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is in anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere, he can be cured and made human again.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.