Let us turn to God's Word in
the chapter that we've just read, a familiar portion I'm sure.
A well-known chapter in the book of Genesis. And I want to direct you now for a
while to a part of this chapter. We'll read again. at verse 16
following we're told and Jacob awaked out of his sleep and he
said surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not and he
was afraid and said how dreadful is this place this is none other
but the house of God and this is the gate of heaven and Jacob
rose up early in the morning and took the stone that he had
put for his pillows and set it up for a pillar and poured oil
upon the top of it and he called the name of that place Bethel
but the name of that city was called Luz at the first and our
text is really these words at the beginning of verse 19, and
he called the name of that place Bethel. We are actually told
in the context the meaning of the word Bethel. The Hebrew Beth
is a reference to a house, and El is of course the short form
of Elohim, the name of God, Bethel, house. of God and he says as
much previously of course in verse 17 this is none other but
the house of God and this is the gates of heaven and so as
we turn to this portion and these words he calls the name of that
place Bethel I want to consider the gods of Bethel and we see
here in the chapter that this God is indeed the God of the
covenants. He is here awaking after his
sleep and in that sleep of course he had this remarkable dream. Verse 12 He dreamed and behold
a ladder set up on the earth and the top of it reached to
heaven and behold the angels of God ascending and descending
on it and behold the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord
God of Abraham, thy father and the God of Isaac. Here is the
God of Bethel then. He is the Lord God of Abraham. He is the Lord God of Isaac. And now he comes to reveal himself
to Isaac's son, to Abraham's grandson, Jacob. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. This is the God of the covenants,
the God who takes account of Jacob's descendants, the Hebrews,
or the children of Israel. Remember how later he would become
Israel at Penuel. His name would be changed from
Jacob, the supplanter, to Israel, the prince with God. And his
descendants are there in Egypt, as we come to the book of Exodus.
and how they are under cruel bondage how they are made slaves
to Pharaoh and the Egyptians and we are told there at the
end of Exodus 2 how the children of Israel sighed by reason of
the bondage and they cried and their cry came up unto God by
reason of the bondage and God heard their groaning and God
remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with
Jacob. God remembered his covenant then. And he looked upon the children
of Israel who were told, and God had respect unto them. The God of Jacob is the God of
the covenant. And as we turn to the content
then of this 28th chapter in Genesis, I first of all want
to say something with regards to him who is the mediator of
the covenant. There's that in the chapter that
is setting before us in remarkable type, the Lord Jesus Christ. Think, for example, of the ladder
that Jacob sees in his dream, as we saw just now there in verse
12. Behold a ladder. set up on the
earth and the top of it reached to heaven and behold the angels
of God ascending and descending on it and behold the Lord stood
above it. Three times here we have the
use of the word beholds, beholds, beholds and behold again. there in verses 12 and the beginning
of verse 13. And the last, Behold. Behold,
we read at verse 13, the Lord. Remember the significance of
that word, Behold, or Lo, as it's sometimes translated. It
has that idea of looking, of fixing the eye, not a casual
look, but a serious consideration. We are to take account then of
what is being said in these verses and that that was said before
the eyes of Jacob as he slept and ultimately he beholds the
Lord and it is the covenant name that we have of course. Behold
the Lord and what does he say? I am the Lord God of Abraham
and the God of Isaac. He is the God of the Covenant. And how does the God of the Covenant
come to us? He comes to Jacob here by means
of this dream, by means of this ladder, which is set up on the
earth and yet the top of it reaches to heaven. Isn't this ladder
a wonderful type of the Lord Jesus Christ? Remember in the
gospel in John's opening chapter and there at the end we have
those words that the Lord spoke unto Nathaniel, Verily, verily,
I say unto thee, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open and the
angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. The very same
language that we have here, the same as he's spoken of with regards
to this ladder. The angels ascending and descending
on the ladder. The reference here then is to
the Lord Jesus, who is the mediator of the covenant. And we see him
not only in type in this ladder, but we also see him in what he's
spoken to Jacob concerning his seed. there at the end of verse
14, in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth
be blessed. Who is this true seed? Well,
the seed is again none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. When
we have the record of the entrance of sin into the world in Genesis
chapter 3, The fall is recorded there as we are aware of our
first parents. They transgress, they disobey
the command of God, Adam and Eve fell and yet in that very
chapter we have the promise of the Lord Jesus Christ and it's
given in terms of that word that God speaks unto the serpent as
he comes to curse the serpent which was the instrument of Satan
in tempting Eve. I will put enmity between thee
and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. He shall bruise thy head, and
thou shalt bruise his heel. The seed of the woman. And who
is the seed of the woman? The Lord Jesus Christ. Made of
a woman. Conceived by the Holy Ghost.
He has no human father. He has a human mother. even the
Virgin Mary is the mother of the Lord Jesus Christ. But He
is the seed of the woman, He is the fulfillment then of that
promise that God gave at the very beginning when our first
parents sinned. Christ is that seed, and not
only the seed of the woman, He is subsequently seen to be the
seed of Abraham. How Abraham saw his day Christ
tells the Jews your father Abraham saw my day and rejoiced and he
saw it of course in terms of that trial of his faith here
in chapter 22 when he was commanded to offer his son the son of promise
Isaac and yet though he will obey that strange command of
God God provides himself a lamb for a sacrifice The truth of
substitution is there in chapter 22, but here also in this chapter
we have the mention once more of the seed, the seed of Abraham.
In verse 18, In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth
be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice. Who is the one
in whom all the nations of the earth are blessed? That is the
Lord Jesus Christ. He is Abraham's true seed. Now, we have the authority of
the New Testament to say that. Paul, writing in Galatians chapter
3, speaks of Abraham's seed. He saith not unto seeds as of
many, but as of one, unto thy seed, which is Christ. Christ is the seed. of Abraham,
the promised seed. And as he is the seed of Abraham,
so he is also in that sense the seed of Isaac, the seed of Jacob. And here then at verse 14, In
thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be
blessed, that is the promise again concerning the Lord Jesus
Christ. How Christ is seen here in the
Old Testament the mediator of that covenant, the one through
whom God is pleased to make the great covenant of grace known
unto his people. But then also here we have the
descending. There in verse 12, Behold, the
angels of God ascending and descending on it, on the ladder. Now, the
Lord Jesus Christ is that one, of course, who has descended
from heaven in the appointed time, that that was predestinated
in the eternal covenant. When the fullness of the time
was come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under
the law. As I said, he is the seed of
the woman. made under the Lord he comes
to stand in that low place of all his people to answer for
them with regards to both the precepts and the penalties of
the Holy Lord of God and he is that one of course who was honored
it as none other we sang just now did we not in that lovely
hymn of Isaac Watts, the law its best obedience owes to our
incarnate God, and thy revenging justice shows its honours in
his blood. All the blood and the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ is that one who was made under the law. But how he descends, how he comes
from the highest heavens, and how we see him as that one who
is made a real man. It is the great mystery without
controversy. Great is the mystery of godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh. God sends His only begotten Son. He doesn't become the Son of
God of the Incarnation. He's the eternal Son of God. Isaiah 9 and verse 6, we have
it, do we not? Plainly stated, unto us a child
is born, unto us a son is given. Or the son is not born there
in the womb of the virgin, the child is born, that's the human
nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. But the son is given, he is the
eternal son of the eternal Father. And the eternal Son is pleased
to take to himself that real human nature. a true body, a
reasonable soul, he becomes a man. He humbles himself, you see.
In the outworking of that covenant there is a descending. And how
the angels descend, remember how at his birth we read of the
ministry of the angels in The second chapter of Luke's Gospel,
we're told something concerning the circumstances of his birth
there in Bethlehem, that there were those shepherds
who were abiding in the field, watching over their flocks, And
lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the
Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid. And
the angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold, I bring you
good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto
you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is
Christ the Lord, and this shall be a sign unto you. Ye shall
find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger, And
suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host
praising God and saying glory to God in the highest and on
earth peace, good will toward men. How the angels are descending
here, how they descend from heaven. to announce the birth of the
Lord Jesus Christ though angels of course have no personal interest
in that birth and all that the Lord Jesus Christ will accomplish
through his life and through his death and yet the angels
are there, the angels minister to him when he is led of the
spirit into the wilderness and tempted of Satan forty days and
forty nights And then Satan leaves him, remember, and afterward
an angel comes and ministers unto him. There in the Garden
of Gethsemane, an angel comes again to minister unto him. How the angels descend upon him
is this true ladder. He is the mediator then. The
mediator of the Covenant. We see it in the ladder, we see
it in what is spoken concerning the seed of Jacob, and we see
it in the descending of the angels. But let us, in the second place,
consider in this chapter also what we learn concerning the
blessings of the covenant. The mediator is Christ. Now,
what of the blessings of the covenant? And again, with regards
to the ladder, we're told, the top of it reached to heaven.
The top of it reached to heaven, in verse 12. And those blessings
in heaven are eternal blessings. The blessings of the covenant
are eternal blessings. This is the heaven of heavens,
is it not? This is that place where God
dwells. This is eternally. And the blessings in conveyed
are eternal blessings. Firstly, there is in that covenant
election, and election is eternal. God makes choice of his people
outside of time, before ever time was created. There are many scriptures, of
course, we could refer to, but that great first chapter of Ephesians
Verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places, in Christ. These spiritual blessings, you
see, are in the heavenlies. The top of it reaches to heaven.
According as He hath chosen us in Him, before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
Him in love. how the election then is clearly
here, seen to be eternal. The blessings are in the heavenlies,
and the heavenlies are to be identified with eternity. That is when God made choice
of his people, before the foundation of the world, before creation.
Before there was time, God made choice of his people. But then
again, besides eternal election, there is also eternal adoption. Verse 5, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according
to the good pleasure of his will. Again, we see here how that they
were predestinated. When was predestination? Again,
that was clearly outside of time, because when God made choice
of them that he predestinated them to be his adopted children. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
can say in prophecy, in the words of Isaiah 8, Behold I and the
children which God hath given to me. Now those words in Isaiah 8,
in the context you'll see are clearly the words of the prophets.
He's speaking of his own experience, he's speaking of his own children.
But we know from the New Testament again, from the way in which
Paul takes up those words in Hebrews chapter 2, that they
really belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. Because there in verse
13 of Hebrews 2, Paul quotes them directly in reference to
Christ. These children are they that
God gave to him. And when did God give him these
children? He gave them to him in the heavenly places before
the world was created. And if children, Paul says, then
heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ. All the blessings of the covenant,
you said, They are blessings in the heavenlies, they are eternal
blessings, they are election, they are adoption, also they
are justification. Like the former two, Dr. Gill makes the observation that
justification is also an immanence and an eternal act of God. The doctor says that active justification
is the act of God passive justification is the act of God terminating
on the conscience of a believer. He distinguishes those two. There's
that justification which is simply and solely the act of God. Romans 8 verse 33, Who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. They are His elect, and His elect
are the ones whom He has justified. That is God's act. How are they
justified? They are justified by grace.
Being justified freely, it says, by His grace. As God's will to elect is election,
so it must follow that God's will to justify is also justification. what God's wills is. He wills who he will elect, they're
elected. He wills whom he will adopt as
his children, they're adopted. He wills those whom he will justify,
they're justified. All the blessings I say are in
that sense eternal. They're all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places. The top of the ladder As we read
here in verse 12 of this 28th chapter, the top of the ladder
reaches to heaven. But then we must also recognize
this, that the blessings are to be experienced here upon the
earth. We don't just assent to these great eternal
verities, there is to be an experience. of them in the souls of men. Remember what Gill says with
regards to passive justification. It is the act of God terminating
in the conscience of a believer. How necessary is faith then to
that blessed experience. By him, says Paul in his preaching,
by him all that believe are justified from all things that they could
not be justified from by the deeds of the law. There is no
justification in the law. There is only condemnation in
the Lord of God. The only way of justification
is by faith in Christ who is the law-fulfiller. who is the
one that has come to honour the Lord and magnify the Lord in
the room and stead of his people. Here we have, you see, the descending.
It's the angels ascending and descending. God is pleased, is
he not, to minister to his people. He comes where they are, the
Lord Jesus Christ. comes just where his people are.
It's interesting that we see that in the ministry of a prophet
like Ezekiel. He's taken, and he has to sit
where the captives are sitting, and he sits amongst them astonished.
And isn't that what the Lord Jesus Christ does? He comes where
his people are. For as much as they are partakers
of flesh and blood, he likewise takes part of the same. He is
said to be made in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin. He doesn't identify with Adam
in the state of innocence. He comes and identifies himself
with the sinner, with Adam as the transgressor, although Christ
himself is without any sin. He is the holy, harmless Son
of Man. But He comes just where His people
are. He comes to minister to them.
There is a descending there. And how the Holy Spirit is pleased
to come and make these things real in the souls of the elect. How God takes possession of the
hearts of His people. Galatians chapter 4 and verse
6 it says because you are sons God has sent forth the spirit
of his son in your hearts crying Abba father because you are sons
because you are sons by the decree of adoption God sends forth his
spirit into your hearts When God sends his Spirit, what is
the ministry of the Spirit? It is to make the things of Christ
so real. He comes as the Spirit of Christ,
the Spirit of God's Son. And what is the consequence?
There is that cry of Abba, Father, that calling upon God, crying
to God, seeking God for mercy. Now what is the evidence of all
of this? Paul knew it, of course, himself.
as he tells us in the opening chapter of the Galatian Epistle
when he pleads God, he says to reveal his son in him. This is
the God who separated him from his mother's womb, the God who
called him by his grace and God would reveal his son in him.
Now what is the evidence? What is the evidence of that
inward revelation? What is necessary to it? First
of all, of course, A man must be born again, there must be
regeneration. If we would know what it is to
enjoy the spiritual blessings in those heavenly places, we
must be born again. Verily, verily, says Christ,
except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. He must be born again, he says
to Nicodemus. Necessary is the new birth. The
natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God.
They're foolishness to him. Neither can he know them because
they're spiritually disturbed. This is a vital thing then. There
must be that new birth if the blessing is going to be experienced
here upon the earth. But what comes with regeneration? Well, there must also be that
blessed enlightenment. Paul says as much when he writes
to the Ephesians. He reminds them there in chapter
4 of what their natural condition was before they experienced the
grace of God. How they walked then, he says,
in the vanity of their mind. Verse 18 in chapter 4. He says,
having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life
of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the
blindness of their heart, all being past feeling. That was
their condition, you see. They're not to walk as other
Gentiles walk anymore, they're those who have been enlightened,
they were once in darkness. They were once in that awful
state of alienation. They were enemies of God. But no more. Look at what he
says in chapter 1 of that epistle. Verse 17, he says that the God
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto
you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of
Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may
know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches
of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the
exceeding greatness of His power to us who believe, according
to the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ
when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right
hand in the heavenly places. Here is another evidence then
of the blessing being experienced here upon the earth. There's
not only that quickening in the soul, there's not only that miniature
of the spirit in regeneration, the sinner born again, born of
the spirit of God, but there's also this blessed enlightenment. All the light shines in the darkness.
The darkness of the sinner who in his soul is dead. He's in
total darkness and yet the eyes of your understanding being enlightened
says the Apostle. There's regeneration, there's
enlightenment, there's faith. As we've said, there is such
a doctrine as eternal justification, we believe that, but We must
also come to experience that blessing, which is a spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. How do we come
to experience it? By faith. And every blessing
comes to us by faith, does it not? It must be that faith that comes
from God. Faith, Paul says, of the operation
of God. Not a natural faith. not just
ascending with the mind not just a matter of intellect accepting
the truth but feeling something in the soul that ministry of
God by his spirit in the depths of a man's being and this is
what Jacob knew he was possessed of that faith the faith of God's
elect look at what he says at the end does he not speak the
language of faith Jacob bowed a vow, saying, If God will be
with me, and will keep me in this way, that I go, and will
give bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again
to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God. And this stone which I have set
for a pillar shall be God's house, and of all that thou shalt give
me I will surely give the tenth, What is the language of Jacob
here? It is the language of faith. We walk by faith and not by sight. And Jacob is walking by faith. He's looking to God in the way
that he goes. He's looking to God to give him
bread to eat, ramen to put on. He's looking to God to bring
him again to his father's house in peace. He is truly a child of Abram. Abram went forth not knowing
whither he was going. This is how God's children are
to, believe it or not, they have to live the life of faith. They
have to look to God to direct them, to open doors for them,
to close doors to them. They have to wait upon Him. They
have to pray to Him. They have to call upon Him. And
God takes account of them. There are those ministering spirits
We have the ministry of the angels here, of course, in verse 12.
In his dream, he sees the ladder set upon the earth and the top
of it reached to heaven, it says, and behold, the angels of God
ascending and descending on it. Paul says in Hebrews 1, Are they
not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them who
shall be the heirs of salvation. There is a ministry. God takes
account of his people. God ministers to his children. This, I say, is the God of the
covenant. This is the God of Jacob. This
is the God of Bethel. This is the God of Bethel. He
called the name of that place Bethel, the house of God, the
gates of heaven. Oh God grant that we might know
something then of the blessed faith of Jacob, that we might
be those who are the true Israel of God. Now let us sing. We're going to sing the second
paraphrase at the end of the psalm book page 338 in the psalm
book and the Tunis Salzburg number 861 the second paraphrase
O God of Bethel by whose hand thy people still are fed who
through this weary pilgrimage hast all our fathers led O God, all better by His hand. And through this weary pilgrimage
I've sold a father's land. I've lost a messing of
reasons before I took God of our fathers be the God of the
ever-succeeding race Religion dance in the moonlight,
the wandering footsteps go by. Give us each day our daily bread,
Oh, spread like the green leaves, they round Timor and let a mother's
love guide the souls that ride in peace. Such blessings from Thy gracious
hand, our humble present Lord,