God's Covenant With Jacob (MP 26)

God stood at the top of a wide stairway,
With angels going up and down both ways;
“This must be the gate to heaven’s fairway,”
Thought Jacob, in his dream’s glorious haze!
It was a vision; in it God renewed
The promises to Abraham He had made:
With many offspring he would be imbued,
And they would own the land in which he laid!
Jacob named the place Bethel, House of God;
He vowed to give God a tenth, and obey
All the days of life he had left to trod;
With a lighter heart, he went on his way!
Jacob trusted God in what lay ahead,
Relying on Him to do what He’d said!

Scripture Quoted: Genesis 28:11-15 (NIV) [Brackets added]
"There above it [the stairway] stood the Lord, and he said: ‘I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land in which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you.’ “

Commentary on Genesis 28 (NIV)

Instead of speaking directly to him as He had done to men before, God appeared to Jacob in a dream. As His Plan for the world unfolded, God chose speaking to men in dreams or through prophets. Occasionally He did speak directly, as at Jesus’ baptism, and He inspired about forty men and women to write the Bible under His inspiration. In this vision at Bethel, He renewed the pledge to Jacob that He had made to Abraham and Isaac previously. God is carrying out His pre-made Plan of carefully crafting a nation chosen to give birth to Jesus, the man He intends to return to earth as, bringing redemption to the race. Keep in your mind that all men were condemned to death and Hell as a result of Adam’s disobedience, for as the first man created, he represented all men. No other man could live a sinless life and represent the race of men except God Himself. So that is His plan; He is going to volunteer Himself to represent men and take all their sins upon Himself by dying on the cross for mankind. He wants to prepare a nation to be evangelists to the world. Through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that nation is going to come; its name will be Israel. Please understamd that God is not preparing Israel for their salvation or to escape the condemnation that came to all men through Adam; Israel's task is to prepare themselves to receive and trust in Jesus first when He comes, then to spread the gospel across the whole world.

Jacob will eventually father twelve sons; from each a tribe of people will be born. Notice the care with which first Isaac, then Jacob, chooses wives from their own kin. God wants to make sure that no members of His Chosen nation are born of Canaanite mothers. Isaac blessed Jacob again in Genesis 28 before he left home, and he told him to marry his own first cousin, a daughter of Rebeka’s brother Laban. Laban is in Mesopotamia, where Abraham was born, and he is a grandson of Nahor, Abraham’s brother. Jacob is going there to live for an indefinite time from fear of being killed by his older brother whose birthright Jacob stole. We must observe that none of these men and women was perfect; every one of them sinned. It is the same today and always has been. God’s Plan for the world expected that the men and women who dwelled with Him eternally would be holy; God hates sin. He foreknew that not one would actually be sinless; therefore a great part of His Plan details how He provided salvation from death for those members of the race who believed in Him; that is, Jesus Christ.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)