Home Topics Index Download
Transcript 099A — The Gospel in Genesis 27
HC: I would like to talk about something in the Old Testament. Occasionally I speak about the fact that in the Old Testament we find the Gospel. Now the Gospel, of course, is the revelation of God for man, whereby man can know his sinfulness, man can know that God has made provision for man to be reconciled to God. And this is the thread that runs all through the Bible.
Now today many people have the idea that if we really want to learn about salvation, we've got to go to the New Testament. We've got to read the words of Jesus, and basically, the Old Testament is pretty much just a book of laws. It's a book that writes about the nation of Israel, and it was for them, it was to them. And while we can occasionally find some moral precept in the Old Testament, basically we can't get a whole lot of help from it.
But the Bible indicates that when Jesus taught, He taught in parables. And because He is Infinite God, who has given us the whole Bible, we would therefore expect that in the Old Testament, too, we would have parables, or we would have types of what salvation is.
Now let me go through one chapter in the Old Testament and illustrate this, although I could go through any number of passages in the Old Testament and find the Gospel woven through and through. I want to talk about Genesis 27.
Here we have the dismal account, the dismal account of the fact that Jacob took the blessing from Esau. Now the situation is this. When Jacob and Esau were born, they were born as twins. This, incidentally, was the year 2007 BC, although that's not important to this discussion. That's just an interesting fact that you might note.
And at the time they were born, Rebecca, the mother, was told in Genesis 25:23: "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided. One shall be stronger than the other. The elder shall serve the younger." So she knew that Jacob, who was the younger, who was the second born, would be preeminent. And the language of the elder serving the younger in the Bible is the language of the fact that the younger here, because he would be ruling, would be the one that would receive the first blessing. He would ultimately, in the biblical language, be the one who would be saved.
And so Rebecca knew this. Well, 60 years passed, and Isaac has grown to be an old man of 120. And perhaps he remembered what God had told Noah in Genesis 6, because Isaac was a God-fearing man. In Genesis 6 God had said that the days of man shall be 120 years. Isaac was old. He was 120. He was almost blind. He was not senile. He was not decrepit or crippled, or whatever, because actually he lived another 60 years. We read later on in the Bible that he died at the age of 180. But now he's 120, and perhaps he reasons that his days may be fairly short because of what we read in Genesis 6, and so he resolves to set his house in order. He's going to give the blessing to his sons.
Now for some strange reason, and the Bible doesn't tell us why, Isaac forgot that it was Jacob that was to receive the blessing. Now humanly speaking, we know why he forgot. Isaac loved Esau. Isaac loved Esau as the one who was his chosen son. Esau was a fine man who loved the great outdoors, probably basically a very honest man, a very open man. And Jacob, on the
other hand, we'll learn if we study him at all, was cunning. He was deceitful. He was of a different nature altogether. And so it was not at all surprising that Isaac would want to give the blessing to Esau, who actually was the firstborn and ordinarily should have received the blessing of the firstborn.
But in attempting to give the blessing to Esau as the firstborn, Isaac would have been going contrary to God's desires, in view of what God had told Rebecca when Jacob and Esau were still in her womb.
Well now, Rebecca hears Isaac telling Esau, "Go out and kill some game, and then make some savory food and bring it to me, and then I will give you the blessing." Now Rebecca heard Isaac discuss this with Esau. And because she knew that Jacob was the one to receive the blessing, she decided on a very deceitful plan, to try to circumvent this action of her father Isaac. And she called Jacob.
Now bear in mind that Jacob was 60 years old. He's not a youngster He's a very mature man. He's very responsible for what he is doing. And so he is as guilty as she. And actually, as we'll see, he is a whole lot more guilty, because he is the one who begins to lie to his father.
And so then we read in verse 18 this terrible language. "Jacob went in to his father and said, 'My father.' And he said, 'Here am I. Who are you, my son?' Jacob said to his father, 'I am Esau, your firstborn.' [That's a big lie, isn't it? He was not Esau, the first born.] 'I have done as you told me.' [Lie! He's lying again.] 'Now sit up and eat of my game, that you may bless me.' But Isaac said to his son, 'How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?' And he answered, 'Because the Lord your God granted me success.'" He was indicating here that God Himself had given him this success. And so he's calling on the Name of God to witness his lie. Terrible, terrible lie.
So we begin to wonder. Why is God putting this awkward, this terrible account in the Bible? And Jacob actually is the one who received the blessing. Jacob did receive the blessing, although Isaac thought he was giving it to Esau. Isaac said, "Let people serve you and nations bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you." That is the blessing, you see.
Now in this we see a beautiful picture of the Gospel. You know, as I'm talking about this, we begin to wonder. Why did God put this particular account in the Bible? Well, when we begin to realize who is the father of lies, then we can begin to get an inkling. Who is the father of lies? In John 7 and John 8, we find that it says there that Satan is the father of lies. And Jacob here is lying. He is lying. He is acting as someone who is unsaved. He is the kind of a person that we are before we are saved. We are slaves of Satan. We don't deserve to be saved.
And now God is using him to illustrate the nature that we have, that we are unsaved when He comes to save us. Jacob did not deserve to be saved. But Jacob had a covering. And that covering was the goatskin. That covering was the figure of Christ. The goatskins with which he was covered is a figure of the covering that we receive by the shed blood of Christ.
You'll recall that the Bible talks about the scapegoat. The sins of the people were put on the scapegoat, and it was driven off into the wilderness. That's a figure of Christ going to hell for our sins. And the other goat, the sins of the people were put upon it, and it was offered up as burnt offering. And so we see in Jacob a picture of you and me before we were saved. We were dead in our sins. We were subject to hell. We were slaves of Satan. We didn't deserve to be saved. Jacob didn't deserve the blessing. He was lying to his father.
And yet he did receive the blessing. He had been chosen by God to receive the blessing. And he did receive the blessing. So we were chosen by God. And God looked down upon us in mercy while we were yet in our sins, and He provided salvation for us.
Now you see the beautiful picture of the Gospel here in the Old Testament It's the picture of the fact that we are saved while we're still sinners. And we don't deserve to be saved. We're not worthy in any way.