20260301 Genesis 35:1-37:1 Already, Not Yet, and God’s Faithfulness
Genesis 35-37:1 ends the third large movement of the book of Genesis.
Genesis is a complicated
book. We can get lost in the epic stories like Creation, the Flood, Babel,
Sodom and Gomorrah, and forget that Genesis is Scripture. As Scripture, Genesis
confronts us as sinners. It warns us of the wickedness of the schemes of our
hearts. It turns our gaze to a God who is holy, patient, gracious, and faithful
to his promises. Genesis is Christian Scripture. It points us to Christ. While
it highlights our sin, it also points to an individual, a son of Adam, Noah,
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and king from the line of Judah who will bring God’s
blessing to all the families of the Earth. As Scripture, Genesis presents what is
required to please God. Righteousness or the forgiveness of sins is received by
trusting in God and his promises. As Christian Scripture, Genesis also portrays
the Christian life accurately with these three components: (1) God’s people enjoy
God’s blessing, (2) they also sin and suffer, and (3) they live in the hope of the
fulfillment of all of God’s promises.
Genesis 35:1-37:1 presents these three realities in the life
of Jacob. Jacob enjoyed God's blessings. Jacob suffered from the consequences
of his sins and the sins of others. Jacob also lived with the Hope that God
would one day, make all things new. This is a picture of the Christian life. We
call it the already-not yet. We already enjoy God’s New Creation, we suffer while
we also expect more to come.
Genesis 35 and 36 are about (1) our present enjoyment of
God’s Blessings (Gen 35:1-15), and our ongoing struggle with sin and suffering
(Gen 35:16-29), (3) while we hope in God’s faithfulness to keep his promises
(Gen 36:1-37:1).
Gen 35:1-15 Jacob’s Enjoyment of God’s Blessing.
Gen 35:1-15 offers at least five clues that Jacob is
enjoying the blessing of life with God. These five clues of enjoying God’s
blessing are all relevant for us today.
Genesis 35:1-15 and Applications
Gen 35:1-2 has a first clue of Jacob’s enjoyment of God’s blessing is the
location, Bethel and the Edenic Promised Land.
When Jacob left the Promised Land in Gen 28, he had a dream
with angels. When he returned in Gen 32:1, he saw angels. In the same way the
Garden of Eden was guarded by angels, so was the Promised Land. The seeing of
angels on his way out and on his way back implies that the Promised Land is
Edenic.
For us, we enjoy the Eden blessings in Christ. In Christ, we
have Edenic rest that is rest for our souls. Because of the forgiveness of sins,
we can enjoy a relationship with God as it was in Eden. God’s forgiveness transforms
us and allows us to have grace-based relationships as it was in Eden. God’s
forgiveness helps us to be free from the shame of sin and the fear of death, as
it was in Eden.
The promised Land and the angels, the place called Bethel,
house of God remind us of God’s blessings, these blessings are ours today in
Christ.
Gen 35:3 has a second clue of Jacob’s enjoyment of God’s blessing by
knowing God’s presence.
In Gen 35:3, Jacob remembers God’s promise in Genesis 28 that
he would be with him while he is in exile and return him safely to the land. Jacob
says he will make an altar to God “who answers me in the day of my distress and
has been with me wherever I have gone.”
We too enjoy
God's presence. Jesus’s name is Immanuel. Jesus promised the disciples in Matt
28:20 that he would be with them until the end of the age through the Holy
Spirit. We are never alone. Nothing can change that. At our lowest point, God
is with us. Like Jacob, we can say, “God answers me in my time of distress, he
has been with me wherever I have gone.” If God’s presence seems too abstract
spend time with Christians and if you don’t already, make it a habit to come to
church, where God promises to bless his people.
Genesis 35:4 has a third clue of Jacob’s enjoyment of God’s blessing is his
repentance and ridding of idols.
According to Gen 35:4, “Jacob’s wives gave to Jacob all the
foreign gods, and the rings that were in their ears.” The gods refer to the
household gods Rachel stole from her father Laban. The next time this word
“ring” appears in the Bible is in Exodus 32 at the building of the Golden Calf,
so this gold can be associated with idols.
For us, repentance is not a toil so we can move on to enjoy
God, it is part of enjoying God. So, Gen 35:4 summarizes a big part of the life
of the Christian. In an ongoing manner, we are ridding ourselves of our idols. Our
idols are things other than God that drive our lives. I have found Judy Cha's
categories to be helpful. She suggests our core idols are power, control,
approval, and comfort. Her categories are helpful to understand what the idol
is behind the sin that we also need to address to repent fully.
We can take a sin like sexual sin and see what ridding
ourselves of our idols can look like. Pornography, affairs, or promiscuity are
easy to identify. They reveal a deeper problem. We use sex to escape stress,
pressure to feel good temporarily. We might also use sex to cure loneliness or
feeling unwanted. Sex can serve to counterfeit intimacy. The same sin may reveal
different idols. For some the underlying idol is comfort if sex is used to find
relief from stress. For others the idol could be approval, where sex is used to
be desired and validated. For others, the underlying idol could be control. When
life feels chaotic, sexual sins can become an area that we can control. We
could do this same exercise with other sins like anger, domineering behavior,
selfishness, greed. The call to get rid of our idols is a call to repent more
deeply.
Like Jacob and his family, we must identify our idols and
rid ourselves of them to find more freedom, joy, peace, to enjoy life in Christ.
Christ satisfies better than any idol. We can learn to trust in God’s
sovereignty, so we do not need to try to control everything because he is in
control. We do not need to be driven by approval because God has accepted us. We
learn to find comfort not in temporary earthly things but in God’s sure
promises. We truly enjoy God’s blessings when God satisfies the longings of our
idolatrous hearts.
Genesis 35:5 has a Fourth Clue of Jacob’s enjoyment of God’s blessing is
God’s Protection.
In the previous
story, Jacob was worried that his sons’ actions of slaughtering the male
inhabitants of Shechem was going to lead to trouble. According to Gen 34:30, Jacob
was afraid the Canaanites would seek revenge and destroy Jacob and his
household. Now, according to Gen 35:5, following the ridding of their idols,
which shows Jacob’s allegiance to God, God protects him. The narrator tells us,
“A terror from God fell upon the cities that were around them, so that they did
not pursue the sons of Jacob.”[i]
For Christians,
enjoying God’s protection is part of enjoying his blessings. In the Bible, God protect his people using
“angels (Psalm 91:11–12), fire (2 Kings 1:9–10), floods (Judges 5:21), escape
routes (Acts 9:24–25), royal decrees (Ezra 6:11–12), pagan armies (Acts
23:23–24), and insomnia (Esther 6). God’s power and creativity to protect his
people are unlimited.(Fn)
We still need to be careful to not claim what God has not
promised. We cannot claim that God promises to protect us from physical danger.
Christians die in tragedies every day. What is true for all Christians is that
God protects us spiritually. Eph 6:10-18 speaks of our spiritual armor to
endure through the end. Our road to the New Heavens and New Earth is protected
by God and guaranteed no matter what comes our way.
Gen 35:9-13 has a fifth Clue of Jacob’s enjoyment of God’s blessing with
the repeat of the Eden Commission.
In Gen 35:11,
God repeats a command that only appears two other times in the whole Bible,
once to Adam, once to Noah, “Be Fruitful and Multiply.” There is a sense that
Adam was the King Priest and God’s child through whom God was going to bless
the whole World. This vision of global blessing is never lost in the Bible. This
Worldwide blessing commission is repeated to Noah, the new Adam. Now Jacob as
the representative for the Nation of Israel becomes this New Adam to bring the
Eden blessings to the World. These blessings were a right relationship with God,
a right relationship with people, and the enjoyment of inner peace with no fear
and shame.
Christians are part of the same spreading of God’s
world-wide blessing with the Great Commission. The blessings are fulfilled in
Christ and the forgiveness of sins and so our mission is to make Christ known. The
way we make Jesus known is practicing God’s Ordinary Means of Grace where he makes
himself known and blesses his people. These are the preaching of God’s Word,
Prayer, and the Sacraments.
Conclusion
We see that Jacob like Christians today, enjoys God’s
blessings in this life. We saw 5 clues of God’s blessing with – the Edenic
location, God’s presence, the ridding of idols, God’s protection, and Eden
Commission.
Now, we turn to the reality that we still sin and suffer in
this life.
Gen 35:16-29 Ongoing sin and suffering: Three Burials and the Sin of Rueben
Even when we enjoy God’s blessings, sin is always around the
corner. Sin and suffering continue. We need realistic expectations for the Christian
life on this side of glory.
First, we see the ongoing role of sin and suffering with Death
Following the death of Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse in Gen 35:8,
Rachel and Isaac die in Gen 35:19 and 29. The wage of sin is death according to
Gen 2:17 and Rom 6:23. Death reminds humanity of our sinful nature that we pass
down from one generation to the next. Death remains because sin remains. It is
part of this life.
Second, we see the ongoing role of sin and suffering with Ruben’s sin.
Genesis 35:22-26 are about Rueben’s sin. If we have followed
the story of Genesis so far, in each generation, an individual is chosen to be
the one through whom God’s blessing to the nations will come. In Gen 34,
Jacob’s second and third sons, Simeon and Levi performed the violent act of slaughtering
all the males at Schechem. Gen 35:22 turns to Reuben, the firstborn. Following
Rachel’s death, Reuben slept with his father’s concubine, Bilbah. If we just
read it out of context, it is a disturbing sexual act. Because what follows is
the list of Jacob's wives and sons, it seems like more is going on. Rachel was
Jacob’s favorite wife and Bilhah was Rachel’s servant (Gen 29:29). Tim Mackie
in his Genesis lectures suggests Rueben’s act was a powerplay to protect his
mother Leah’s status. In sleeping with Bilhah, she would not become his
Father’s new favorite wife. We see that even as we can enjoy God’s blessing, we
live in a world with favoritism, scheming, sexual deviation. With Rueben's
failure, Gen 34-35 have failure stories for Leah's first three sons. According
to Gen 49, it is the fourth son, Judah, who will be elevated above his brothers.
Jesus the savior of the world will come through him.
Application
We live with this same tension as Jacob. We need to learn to
count our blessings. I have tasted God’s goodness. I was a lost atheist with a
lot of unhealthy baggage. God’s gift of his church changed my life. As a young
adult, in the church, I gained many parent figures and experienced delight and
love. Christians have all tasted God's goodness in the present. We all enjoy
redemption, the forgiveness of sins, finding refuge from God’s judgment of sin.
God redeems us and engrafts us into his church, the body of Christ to enjoy
Christian life in community. How we experience this goodness will vary, but God
wants us to enjoy being part of his church. While we know God’s blessing, as it
is in our text, life will also continue to be marked by sin and suffering. Genesis
35 is marked by death, and the betrayal of a son, and a Father’s neglect of his
children. In this life, Christians suffer.
I knew a man who was married, had five kids. One day, his
wife decided she wanted out of the marriage. My friend was a good loving man. There
was no abuse. She just decided Christianity was no longer for her, and she no
longer wanted to be married to him.
Another friend started experiencing pain in his shoulder. The
pain would not go away. After getting it checked, it turned out to be cancer. After
more tests, doctors realized the cancer had spread. This man loves Jesus, and
loves God’s good gifts of food, sports, quality time with people. He loves
volunteering at his church's nursery because he loves holding babies. Now, in
his early 60s, he is waiting to see next steps for his cancer. This is the
Christian life. We enjoy God’s goodness, but sin and suffering remain.
Gen 36:1-37:1 God’s purposes remain sure.
We can be a people of great joy, we are also a people of
deep sorrow, grief, and lament. Now, we see that we are also a people of hope. Christians
are a hopeful people because we know we have a faithful God who will bring all
his promises to fruition.
Genesis 36
Gen 36 is about Esau and his descendants. Genealogies in Genesis
trace two lines. There is the line of the chosen through Jacob that was
repeated in Gen 35:22-26, and now Esau, the line of the non-chosen. When we
talk about the chosen line and non-chosen line, this is not fully equivalent to
predestination. Technically, those of us are Gentile Christians, were not part
of God's chosen line in Genesis. We see rather, that God chooses to use some in
order to bless the non-chosen.
In Genesis 27, after Isaac blessed Jacob, he told Esau he
did not have any blessing left for him. Yet, Genesis 33 reveals that God, unlike
Isaac, is not limited in blessing. He blessed Esau abundantly.
Having the
genealogy of the non-chosen continues the previous pattern of Ishmael’s genealogy
in Gen 25:12-18.
In Gen 3:15, we were told there would be two genealogies –
the one of the woman and the one of the snake. The non-chosen – Cain, Ham,
Ishmael, and now Esau all have genealogies as well as the chosen, Adam, Seth,
Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and then Judah.
Applications
In Genesis, the
line of the chosen does not act more righteously than the non-chosen. Abimelech
seemed more righteous than Abraham, and Esau seemed more righteous than Jacob. The
genealogies remind us of God’s faithfulness to continue to fulfill his promises
despite sinful chosen instruments.
The genealogies remind us that the snake crusher is coming. So,
we can say that the Genealogies of Genesis point to the coming of Jesus. We
have the advantage to be able to look back on the coming of Jesus, the
genealogies of Genesis can also stir up our hope. God’s faithfulness in
Christ’s first coming assures us that he we be faithful with Christ’s second
coming. If God has done what he said he would do, we hope in what he says he
will do.
We already enjoy God’s blessing now. We continue to sin and
suffer, but the Christian life is on of Hope in God’s faithfulness to make all things
right at the second coming.
Conclusion
Here ends to
Jacob narrative. Is Jacob a good guy or a bad guy? He is a human. Why did God choose
him over Esau. We just know that God’s purpose is that he would be his agent of
blessing for the world. It seemed at first that Jacob belonged more in the line
of the snake than the seed of the woman.
This is a lesson for us. Being a Christian in no way means
that we are superior to those who are not. It just testifies that we have a
gracious God who chooses some for the sake of blessing the whole world.
The narrative of Jacob is Christian Scripture. It is God’s
word to us. The narrative of Jacob reminds us that we are destined for Eden. It
confronts us with our sin, our deceit, favoritism, murderous anger, the
oppression of women, the impact of our past on our present in our families. The
story of Jacob is a story of redemption. After his wrestling match with God,
Jacob changed! He started to put other people's needs above his own. Once God called
him wrestler, he started to wrestle less and enjoy the blessings God had for
him all along. God remains faithful and his promises get passed on from one
generation to the next. The promises are the promises we now inherit in Christ.
For us like Jacob, our real identity is Israel. We are all fighting
and wrestling with God. When we get angry at our kids, our spouse, our
colleagues, our boss, our sibling, the government… it could also be that we are
wrestling with God. When we realize who God is and what he promises we can stop
our wrestling and start surrendering to enjoy God’s blessings. It is a life of
great joy but also one where we continue to sin and suffer, but we hope in him,
who brings life from death who will one day make all things new.
The Christian life is one of enjoying God’s blessing, one of
ongoing sin and suffering, but also a life of Hope.
Comments
Post a Comment