28. The Living Word Appears Yet Again

“He (Jacob) had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the LORD stood above it and said, ‘I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants. Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.’” (Genesis 28:12-15 Amplification and emphasis added.)

Just as God’s living Word appeared earlier to Abraham and Isaac, so does He now appear in a dream to Jacob, after he had conspired with his mother to deceive his father Isaac and his brother Esau. To escape Esau’s wrath, Jacob had spent the day creating as much distance as possible between himself and his brother. By sundown he was miles away…and, apparently, all alone…in an eerie, barren region of rock-strewn wilderness. By then he was so exhausted that he moved some stones in order to fashion a ‘bed’ for himself. Then he dropped to the ground, rested his head on a stone ‘pillow’ and fell asleep.

At that time, his future outlook couldn’t have appeared bleaker or more hopeless. Just as Adam and Eve had run and tried to avoid God’s wrath, this descendant of theirs was doing the same thing. He was in this dire situation thanks to deep family character flaws. The strife between Isaac and Rebecca and Jacob and Esau caused this disruptive situation to develop. Now Jacob had no family and the comfort and security of his home was gone. God had already revealed that the blessing would be his, but because Rebecca persuaded Jacob to take matters into his own hands…it now seemed as if he had ruined everything.

But Jacob’s future and that of his unborn descendants did not depend on anything the Serpent or his Sin-corrupted human victims did or failed to do. Notice what God’s living Word said: “Behold I am with you and will be with you wherever you go…I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you!”

The ultimate fulfillment of God’s promises does not depend on poor Sin-blasted, corrupted humans. It depends on the perfect nature and character of Almighty God! God had already chosen Jacob to receive the Covenant blessing from his father! Everything was, and continued to be, God’s initiative.  He had already made His eternal Covenant with Himself before Creation took place. And He gave His awesome Original Blessing to Adam and Eve and their unborn descendents as soon as He created them. In His perfect foreknowledge and wisdom He knew what the Serpent would do and all the mortal damage Sin would inflict on His beloved humans as a result of Adam’s rejection of His Word. So immediately after the Serpent severed the humans from His Word, God sent His Word after them to reconcile with them and summon them to begin to follow Him again… so He could apply the provisions He had already provided to deal with this and restore them fully and make everything right once more!

In their Sin-blasted state, Adam and Eve didn’t know what to do with themselves. The intense shame and confusion they felt, drove them to try to cover their shameful nakedness as best they could. And, when they heard the sound of the Lord in the Garden, they felt compelled to hide themselves. And now, centuries later, Jacob was doing the same thing. He was like his original ancestors. All he could do was to try to run and escape the consequences of his acts. But God came to honor His Word and to carry the restoration of Adam and Eve forward into Jacob and his generation. And nothing created could, or ever will, prevent that from happening.

God Prevails… Always!

No matter what we do or fail to do, God will not be deterred. Sooner or later, He will bring to pass and bring to Ultimate Fullness and Consummation, whatever He has revealed, commanded or promised. He will always honor and confirm His Word. Thus He will bring every bit of what He has spoken… into actual existence. No matter what situations we get ourselves into, God will keep sending His eternal living Word forward into time and space…to come after us. And if we heed His voice and repent of our rebellion, He will completely restore us and fulfill His Covenant promises to us.

God is perfect. His nature and purpose toward us never change. Regardless of what His enemies try to do to destroy us or what messes we create for ourselves, God’s Word comes after us to do His Father’s bidding. Nothing but our deliberate willful refusal can deter or prevent Him from obeying His Father and imparting His perfect Covenant faithfulness and restorative compassion on our behalf. All the sins, crimes, failures and machinations of demons and men combined, won’t stop God’s Word from fulfilling His Father’s mandates… as soon as we stop running and hiding from Him and come back to Him… on His Father’s terms.

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will My Word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it!” (Isaiah 55:10-11 Emphasis added.)

“Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner…I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” (John 5:19; 30)

“Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, SAT DOWN AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD, waiting from that time onward UNTIL HIS ENEMIES BE MADE A FOOTSTOOL FOR HIS FEET. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us; for after saying, ‘THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THEM AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY LAWS UPON THEIR HEART, AND ON THEIR MIND I WILL WRITE THEM,’ He then says, ‘AND THEIR SINS AND THEIR LAWLESS DEEDS I WILL REMEMBER NO MORE.’” (Hebrews 10:11-17 Emphasis added.)

In God’s eternal knowledge and will, He already has everything covered and paid for. And His Word has already done everything needed in our name. So God is not out to punish, but to reconcile and rescue and restore us. And He’s especially persistent with those chosen to be His instruments of reconciliation for the rest of the world (See Hebrews 12). As we see from what God promised Abram, it was not only for his sake that God’s Word appeared and revealed Himself to him, but also for the sake of all the families of the earth.

God was training and preparing Jacob to carry this forward and become part of His mediating priesthood on behalf of the rest of the human race (1Peter 2:9-10). No matter how far the effects of our Sin extend or how deeply and lethally Sin gored and disfigured us, God’s Word relentlessly seeks to reconcile and reconnect with us and nothing is going to stop Him. He will regain and recover His image and likeness in the end.

The Word of God carried God’s favor and Blessing forward when He covered the nakedness of Adam and Eve. He carried it forward to Cain, Abel and Enoch. He carried it forward to Noah and his son Shem and to Abram the moon worshipper and his son Isaac. And now He is bringing it forward for Jacob and his future descendants. He does this so every generation can know Him and be fully redeemed by Him. Whoever repents will be completely restored and rejoined to Yeshua, the Creator of all things, Himself.

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.” (Colossians 1:15-16)

So when Jacob could run no longer, he stopped for the night. He had no idea how focused the God of Abraham and Isaac was on making sure that His awesome Original Blessing would reach its ultimate target. God was not going to allow Jacob’s fallen flesh and self-centered foolishness stop it. So the Word appeared to him in a dream and revealed something Jacob had to know. What most English translations describe as a ‘ladder’ now appeared in a dream (Genesis 28:12). What Jacob saw was probably not like the wooden or aluminum ladders common in our modern world. What Jacob probably saw was like a stairway that God fashioned from the stones that were scattered across the landscape…it was a stairway that connected Earth to Heaven and upon which angels (messengers) of God were ascending and descending. The living Word of God brought this revelation forward to His disciples of the first century when He appeared on Earth in the flesh and unfolded more of its meaning for them:

“‘If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way where I am going.’ Thomas said to Him, ‘Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the Way (the ladder or stairway), and the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father but through Me!’” (John 14:3-6 Amplification and emphasis added.)

The message given to Jacob was that God’s Word has come for him. He has opened Heaven for His Covenant friends and two-way communication and interaction between God’s Throne and the everyday human world can take place. At the top of the stairway leading into Heaven, Jacob saw the same ‘Angel-YHWH’ that had appeared to Abraham at Mamre and also to Isaac. Now He was revealing Himself to Jacob in human terms that Jacob could understand. The Original Blessing of God that the Word had brought forward for fallen Adam and Eve and Abel, Enoch, Noah and Shem; and Abraham and Isaac, He was now bringing forward so that Sin-corrupted, conniving, deceitful Jacob could share in it as well.

God has chosen what He has chosen and what He has spoken stands forever. His Word and His will cannot ever be changed! By the time the Salvation story reaches its conclusion, everything God pronounced in the beginning will be fulfilled to perfection. In the end, it will be exactly as God said it would be in the beginning. The Tree of Life from which the Sin-corrupted first humans were banned in Genesis still awaits them at the end of the journey. Everything will be restored, to every human who repents, by their ever-faithful, never-changing Covenant-keeping God:

“Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’— therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the Tree of Life.” (Genesis 3:22-24 Emphasis added.)

“He, who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the Tree of Life which is in the Paradise of God.’” (Revelation 2:7 Emphasis added.)

“Then he showed me a river of the Water of Life, clear as crystal, coming from the Throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was The Tree of Life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him…” (Revelation 22:1-3 Emphasis added.)

The Original Blessing, Restored!

The Life and the Original Blessing God imparted to Adam, Eve, and the entire human race is what God’s living, eternal Word is here to restore to us. God’s living Word IS the Life and The Blessing! And He pursues us relentlessly, like the most wonderful and faithful Shepherd imaginable…relentlessly seeking to find and restore His lost sheep so that He may give Himself to them! Nothing created can override, alter or change God’s intentions toward us. He has given His Word. Whatever is contained in Him is ours. Everything we will ever need to fulfill our true identity, purpose and destiny…HE IS! That is what Genesis and the rest of God’s Scriptures reveal, preserve and fulfill.

It is hard to imagine anyone more deceitful, selfish, manipulative and predatory than characters like Jacob and Laban. God’s written Word never tries to conceal or change the truth about God’s chosen ones. Their flaws and obvious unworthiness let us know that the story is not ultimately about them. The hero of the story is not the Serpent or fallen, Sin-corrupted humans. It is our awesome God and His eternal Perfect nature, character, disposition and intent. Perfection is always with us and for us. And nothing can stop His ultimate Triumph. He made an eternal Blood Covenant and swore by Himself to fulfill it. It is His irrevocable choice to make us His own and to bless all peoples. The following text helps us to grasp the significance of what God intended to do for Jacob and his descendants on that awesome night in the wilderness:

“For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery—so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to (unbelieving, disobedient descendants of) Israel (formerly named Jacob) until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, ‘THE DELIVERER (Messiah) WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB.’ ‘THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS.’

“From the standpoint of the gospel they (Abraham’s unbelieving family members) are enemies for your (believing Gentiles’) sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the (Blood-sealed Covenant promises God made to their) fathers (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob); for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable! For just as you (Gentiles) once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their (the unbelieving Jews’) disobedience, so these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you (Gentiles) they (unbelieving Jews) also may now be shown mercy. For God has shut up all (of Adam’s descendants) in (Adam’s original) disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.

“Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR? Or WHO HAS FIRST GIVEN TO HIM THAT IT MIGHT BE PAID BACK TO HIM AGAIN? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.” (Romans 11:25-36 Amplification and emphasis added.)

Can you see how deep, vast and ‘airtight’ our faith, trust and hope in our God can afford to be? No matter how brutal, vicious and evil the Serpent and the decapitated humans he continues to deceive may become, no matter how wicked each succeeding human generation turns out to be, the only thing that matters is God’s perfect, changeless Love-Nature, Character and Disposition. God and the Original Blessing that His perfect Word keeps carrying forward and restoring to us are what matter. God is perfect. He always succeeds and wins and prevails. He is our Eternal Blood Covenant Friend, Champion and Redeemer. He has done everything necessary – by and through His living Word and Holy Spirit. In the end, not only will God be our Creator and Redeemer…He will be our ‘Abba’, our ‘Daddy,’ and we will be as one, with Him.

This is what God yearns for us to know. This is the Truth, Lifestyle and Destiny in which God intends to marinate all of His Jewish and non-Jewish Chosen People. This Eternal Covenant Reality is the Life-giving Root into which God intends to engraft, and join and include Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the people of Israel and all of the families of the earth that were included in Adam. God’s Original Blessing was given to all, and if we do not turn away and reject God’s Word, nothing will be able to separate us from Him. This is what the Word revealed to (and through) poor Jacob who fell asleep exhausted on his desolate, barren bed of stones:

“And behold, the LORD stood above it and said, ‘I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants. Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.’

“Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.’ He was afraid and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’” (Genesis 28:13-17)

After that night…for centuries to come and even to the present day, the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob have continued to stumble and fumble in the carrying out of their God-given commission. For centuries, the Serpent and his powers of Darkness have done everything possible to decapitate them from God’s living Word and exterminate them from planet Earth. But God’s living Word will continue to invade their space, and pursue them to carry the Original Blessing forward and connect them to Himself.

This drama will continue to play out until the complete fulfillment takes place at the end. And when the living Word of God became flesh, appeared in Bethlehem, grew up in Galilee and emerged as, Rabbi Yeshua, He began to carry forward to and through His Spirit-appointed, hand-picked disciples, what He had carried forward for Jacob:

“The next day He purposed to go into Galilee, and He found Philip. And Jesus said to him, ‘Follow Me.’ Now Philip was from Bethsaida, of the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote — Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph!’ Nathanael said to him, ‘Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’ Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and said of him, ‘Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!’ Nathanael said to Him, ‘How do You know me?’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.’ Nathanael answered Him, ‘Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel.’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these…Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened (just as Jacob saw) and (you and the rest of My disciples will be able to see) the angels of God ascending and descending on (Me) the Son of Man!” (John 1:43-51 Amplification and emphasis added.)

From this we can see how God, through His living Word Yeshua connected Nathaniel and His contemporary disciples with what He had earlier reaffirmed and brought forward for Jacob. Jacob saw a revelation of the Living Word of God as being the Heavenly portion of the stairway as ‘The Son of God.’ But now He reveals to Nathaniel that the living Word of God is also standing before him. Not only was it He whom Jacob saw in the Heavenly realm…but it is also He who stands before Nathaniel in the Earthly realm. Yeshua, the living Word made flesh, IS The Stairway!

“… You will see the heavens opened (just as Jacob saw) and (you and the rest of My disciples will see) the angels of God ascending and descending on (Me) the Son of Man (here on Earth)!”

Yeshua is The Way

The living Word made flesh is ‘The Way’ that connects Heaven to us and connects us to Heaven. Regardless of what the Serpent did to all humans, God’s original plan and purpose will not be denied or changed or prevented from running its course to complete and eternal fulfillment and completion. That’s how perfect and trustworthy God is. That is how perfect His original Creation was and is. He made us to be His image and likeness. And that is the way it will be unless we deliberately use our God-given free will to reject and oppose God’s living Word. The Serpent has done everything he could to disfigure and destroy our image and likeness nature and significance. But God won’t leave it at that. In the eternal Covenant He made before Creation took place, the Serpent’s rebellion and damage were already foreseen and factored in and taken care of, to perfection. God’s redemption and salvation are already established in eternity. So now His Word keeps bringing this Good News forward, to each generation in time and space. And He offers and gives His Eternal Life…in exchange for our living death…in each generation, in order to reconnect us all to what His Father has already given to us.

By continuing to send His Word after us, God reveals that as far as He is concerned, nothing has changed. Nothing will deter Him. Nothing but our own choices can wrest us out of His hand and deprive us of His Blessing. He is our Covenant God and we are His Covenant People. We have a purpose, place and destiny in His plan. As soon as we repent of our past disobedience and come back under the authority and dominion of His Word, God will restore us and we will be what He created us to be…His beautiful, spotless, flawless image and likeness.

Behold the Bride!

In very beautiful, poetic Hebrew terms, God’s written Word describes the ‘finished product’ of His living creative Word’s redemptive, restorative efforts as ‘The Bride of the Lamb.’ This implies that ‘The Lamb’ and ‘The Bride’ will have a perfect marriage. They will think, act, react and interact and live as one. Isn’t that another way of saying, ‘image and likeness?’ Our image and likeness purpose is what God’s living Word keeps bringing forward throughout human history to restore to us.

The eternal union of the Bride and the Lamb will finally be consummated when the story reaches its end. To see The Bride will be to see The Lamb. And to see The Lamb will be to behold The Bride…they will be one in every way and on every level (See Revelation 21). And so in our daily lives, we disciples are required by our Master to begin even now to blend the focus of our mind, will, heart and affections with His indwelling Resurrection Presence. The Follow Me material will continue to try to express and describe this union. Our hope is to enhance the gradual transformation of modern day disciples into this living union with the Lord so that they may embody what Paul wrote:

“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints; and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

“Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them; for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them; for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret. But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light. For this reason it says,

“Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ (the living Word of God) will shine on you!”

“Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; and be subject to one another in the fear (awe-filled respect) of Christ.” (Ephesians 5:1-21 Amplification and emphasis added.)

When our Master promised Nathaniel that he would see ‘the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man,’ He was describing the living connection between God’s eternal Covenant Inheritance that eternally abides for us in Heaven and the actual practical transmission and application of those things to us as we live and interact with our indwelling Master here on earth. To be one with Him, and to serve as His image and likeness, is to be connected to the God of Heaven and Earth Himself. What is already ours in Heaven must be transmitted to us here on Earth, where it is desperately needed. And that is why we must remain connected to our Eternal Head and Lord, the Word of God who abides in both realms at the same time.

“Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.” (Hebrews 7:25)

“…if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our Life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in Glory!” (Colossians 3:1-4 Emphasis added.)

Our Master is here to teach us what He taught Jacob, Nathaniel and many others. We too must wake up and realize: ‘Surely the LORD is in this place, within my innermost being…and I did not know it.’ Once this realization dawns upon us we will begin to embody and express the living reality of our salvation with ‘fear and trembling.’ We will begin realizing that the awesome Majesty of God’s living Word is within us, and we are one with Him so He can obey His Father from within our yielded flesh. He will move us to allow Him to will and to act out His Father’s good purposes in our name. And when we know Him like that, then what dawned on Jacob in the wilderness, will dawn on us too:

‘How awesome is this place! The awesome Lord that now abides within me is none other than the House of God, and the Gate of Heaven!’”