By J. Vernon McGee
And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there: and make there an altar unto God, who appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau, thy brother. Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the foreign gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments. And let us arise, and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went. (Genesis 35:1-3)
Bethel is about twelve miles north of Jerusalem. Described as a bleak moorland in the hill country, it stands twelve hundred feet above sea level where the wild winds whistle about its large, exposed rocks. If you have driven over the narrow old roads between California's Yucca Valley and Apple Valley, you have seen a place much like Bethel. Although the topography was desolate and forbidding, it was where the spiritual high point in the life of Jacob occurred.
To understand this passage in Genesis 35, we must go back thirty years to the time when Jacob first went to Bethel. At that time he was fleeing for his life. His brother Esau was after him to murder him. Jacob was a fugitive, a runaway. He had no traveling gear whatsoever except the staff in his hand.
That first night away from home, Jacob spent at Bethel -- his head pillowed on a stone in that bleak, lonely spot, with the winds howling about him. He dreamed of a ladder that was set up on earth, the top of it reaching to heaven, and God standing above the ladder.
What was it that brought him to this place? What kind of home did he leave? It was not an ideal home, but it was a home through which God was moving for time and for eternity. It was the home of Isaac and Rebekah.
Home and Family
Isaac was the son of Abraham and Sarah, the son of promise God had given them by a miracle in their old age. When the boy was grown, his aged father refused to take a wife for him from among the heathen in whose land they lived. Abraham instructed his servant to get a bride for his son from among his kinfolk back at Haran. The servant, unerringly guided by God, brought back Rebekah to be the bride of Isaac. We take up the thread of their story when they were expecting their first child.
And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to inquire of the LORD. And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be born of thee; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger. (Genesis 25:22, 23)
God said that two nations were to come out of this family, and two nations did come from these two boys. We shall follow them through the Word of God.
Not only can we trace the history of these two nations, but we are given the spiritual application to the life of the believer. You see, all truth in the Bible is germinated in Genesis. We find the seed plot of the Bible in the Book of Genesis, and we have the bud appearing there -- much of the Bible is simply the unfolding. In Esau and Jacob we have a picture of the two natures in a believer today. If you are a child of God, you have a new nature -- but you did not get rid of your old nature, and because of this there is conflict. The new nature and the old nature are opposed to each other. Paul said that the flesh wars against the Spirit, and the Spirit wars against the flesh. Esau pictures the flesh, Jacob the spirit.
Esau, the man of the flesh, is outwardly far more attractive than Jacob. He was an outdoor man, the athletic type. He was the popular man, the extrovert, the monsieur de monde, the man of the world.
In contrast, Jacob was the man of the spirit -- although that is not apparent at the beginning. When we first meet him he is actually much less attractive than Esau. He is clever, self- opinionated, crooked as can be, and above all he is mama's boy.
And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison: but Rebekah loved Jacob. (Genesis 25:28)
In this family both parents have their favorites, which invariably creates friction. As these boys are growing up you will notice that they are not identical twins -- rather they are opposites. God said before they were born, so it would be of grace, "I have chosen the younger, and the older will serve him" (see Genesis 25:23). Jacob, knowing God's promise, still connived for the right of the first born.
The birthright may not seem very important to you, but it actually meant that the boy possessing it would be the priest of the family, and it guaranteed that the promises made to the father would be confirmed to him. The ultimate promise was that the Messiah would come through the line of the one having the birthright. Esau, a man of the flesh, did not care about what might happen a thousand years from his day. He was not concerned about anything beyond his present life. His philosophy was "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die."
Esau came in from hunting, hungry -- but not starving to death. Jacob did not take advantage of a starving man. Do you think anyone could have starved to death in the wealthy home of Abraham or Isaac? Of course not. But when he smelled the aroma of his brother's cooking, he wanted it. Now, you get nothing from Jacob unless you pay for it, and Jacob bargained, "I'll let you have it if you will let me have that birthright you don't care about." Esau so despised his birthright that he said, "You may have it, it means nothing to me." Thus Jacob buys that which God had already promised to give him -- he wanted to get it on his own. God could not, nor did He, approve this transaction.
Jacob did not stop there. When old Isaac was about to do that which he should not have done -- that is, bless Esau -- the boy Jacob and his mother schemed. Actually they stole the blessing. Their father Isaac had said to Esau:
And make me savory food, such as I love, and bring it to me, that I may eat; that my soul may bless thee before I die. (Genesis 27:4)
Rebekah and Jacob collaborated in the deception:
And Rebekah took choicest raiment of her eldest son, Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them upon Jacob, her younger son. And she put the skins of the kids of the goats upon his hands, and upon the smooth of his neck. And she gave the savory food and the bread, which she had prepared, into the hand of her son Jacob. And he came unto his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I; who art thou, my son? And Jacob said unto his father, I am Esau, thy first-born; I have done according as thou badest me: arise, I pray thee, sit and eat of my venison, that thy soul may bless me. (Genesis 27:15-19)
Isaac, his senses dimmed by age, was taken in by this clever ruse.
And he came near, and kissed him: and he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed him, and said, See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the LORD hath blessed. Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine: let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee: be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee: cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee. (Genesis 27:27-29)
The theft of the blessing was the straw that broke the camel's back. It turned Jacob's brother against him.
And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father blessed him: and Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother, Jacob. (Genesis 27:41)
My father is old, he thought, and I don't want to do anything that would put him in his grave; but the minute he dies, I am going to kill my brother.
Now when Rebekah hears about this threat to her favorite son, she says to Jacob,
Now therefore, my son, obey my voice; and arise, flee thou to Laban my brother, to Haran; and tarry with him a few days, until thy brother's fury turn away. (Genesis 27:43, 44)
She told him to go there for just a few days -- but the days lengthened into twenty years, and in the meantime Rebekah died. She never saw her boy again. Her sin was judged.
The Encounter
This boy leaves home and spends his first night out at Bethel. That night he dreams of a ladder set up on earth with angels on it. If I had written this account I would have said that the angels come from heaven descending and then return, ascending. But the record does not read that way. It states that the angels were ascending and descending. What does that mean? God is telling this boy that He would answer prayer. The ascending angel, the prayer; the descending angel, the answer -- and the ladder is our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the New Testament, when Jesus called Nathanael, He characterized him as "an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile" (John 1:47). He was no Jacob -- none of his cleverness, none of his crookedness, none of his self-opinionatedness. Nathanael was a sincere man who had questioned the messiahship of Jesus. "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" (John 1:46) he had wisecracked to Philip. But Jesus said to him,
Before Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee. Nathanael answered, and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel. Jesus answered, and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? Thou shalt see greater things than these. And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man. (John 1:4851)
Christ is the ladder, and when the boy Jacob pillowed his head on the stones at Bethel with the wild winds racing about him, he dreamed of that ladder. He thought he had left God back home. Listen to him:
And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not. (Genesis 28:16)
You see, though down deep Jacob has a spiritual nature, he is a conniver and a schemer, depending on his own wits and his own strength. He is far from God. This boy, when he left home and escaped from Esau, probably mopped his brow and said, "Goodbye, Esau. Goodbye, God." He honestly thought he had left God back home. But the first night out, God has appeared to him. He is telling this lonesome, homesick boy that there is grace and mercy with God, that he still has access to God, and that his prayers will be heard and answered. God has not forsaken him.
In the section of Romans where Paul discusses the nation Israel, and especially this boy and his brother Esau, he says something in chapter ten that is quite interesting:
But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above). (Romans 10:6)
You do not have to bring Christ down a ladder today. He is available to you -- right where you are sitting.
Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead). (Romans 10:7)
He is already back from the dead, my beloved.
But what saith it? The word is near thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart; that is, the word of faith, which we preach. (Romans 10:8)
Such is the gospel that we preach today, the gospel of a ladder reaching to heaven. God is available. You do not have to go through a religious system, a church, or a preacher. There is nothing between your soul and God.
This is the frightening thing, and it is the thing that frightened Jacob. When you are running away from your brother because you have deceived him, when you are out of the will of God, such a discovery is frightening. God says to you and He says to me, "There is not even a tissue between your soul and Me. I am available." The Lord Jesus says, "I am the way, the ladder."
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9, 10)
There is a ladder let down from heaven right where you are at this moment. All you have to do is bring your mouth and your heart into harmony so that they say the same thing. Trust Christ as your personal Savior today. Believe that God gave Him for your sin and that God raised Him from the dead, and you will be saved. The way is wide open for you today. No man is able to open it, but Christ opened it for you about two thousand years ago. Christ is the ladder.
You know, that is the reason some folk will not come to church or Bible study. They have a hundred excuses, but the real reason is they do not want to get that close to God. Actually, the reason multitudes of folk want to go through a ceremony, a ritual, a church, or a man is so that they will not have to go firsthand to God. But by Christ's death and resurrection, God cut out the middleman, and now you go to Him directly.
Jacob found that ladder when he ran away from home. And God promised to be with him. Imagine God promising to be with this clever, self-opinionated boy who thinks he knows everything!
