Genesis Chapter 27
In chapter 25 we saw the beginning of the account of Jacob and Esau which effectively occupies the whole of the second half of Genesis. This surely indicates its importance in the great history of redemption. There we were introduced to the birth, to Isaac and Rebekah, of twin sons and from the events surrounding the birth; the very different directions in which the twins developed; and the fact that Isaac love Esau and Rebekah loved Jacob the reader is set up to expect a rollercoaster ride as things unfold. And we are not disappointed.
However we need with, God’s help, to ‘dig deeper’ rather than just treating this as a great story of family rivalries and their consequences and see how it is foundational to where we are today. At the beginning of the year I set out to draw just one lesson from each chapter of Genesis in order to lift our eyes heavenwards and to help us to live godly lives and as we enter long sections of exciting and instructive narrative this is becoming more and more challenging. My longing is that we are excited by God’s plans and purposes and that we are caused to give glory to him that he uses ordinary flawed and sinful people for the outworking of his purposes – people just like you and me.
Chapter 27 is all about deception!
How do we deceive? There are many ways but the one highlighted here is by pretending to be what we are not. Isaac and Rebekah are partly to blame for the mess of this chapter by having favourites. Jacob is partly to blame by being very unbrotherly when Esau came home simply wanting some food 25.30. Esau is partly to blame by the way he asked for that food! Jacob is partly to blame as he clearly calculates what he can get out of the situation!
Bluntly it is a mess! But we surely have to acknowledge that we all have that in-built tendency to seek our own way. Self is very prominent in our lives and it is particularly accentuated in our own day by the culture in which we live. But we don’t have to be controlled by it for the God who was sovereign over the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and brought his purposes to pass from the mess is the same today.
These flawed people of old were, under God’s sovereign plan, the line from which Jesus came to free us from the sin that was the root of all the problems we read of in these and subsequent chapters.
These chapters should cause us to reflect and learn for I doubt there is one of us who can say ‘I have not deceived’. But Jacob the deceiver met with God and God transformed him.
He will do the same, he does the same for us, in Christ.
If the Son sets you free you will be free indeed.
John 8.36