Genesis 28.16-17-Jacob Worships the Lord in Response to the Dream
Wednesday June 14, 2006
Genesis: Genesis 28:16-17-Jacob Worships the Lord in Response to the Dream
Lesson # 162
Please turn in your Bibles to Genesis 28:10.
On Sunday morning we studied Genesis 28:10-13, which records Jacob’s departure from Beersheba to Paddan Aram.
In this passage we saw that during his first night away from home, a vision of elect angels and the Lord appeared to him in a dream in order to give him reassurance.
On Tuesday evening we studied Genesis 28:13-15, which records Jacob receiving from the Lord reconfirmation of the promises of the Abrahamic Covenant and reassurance that the Lord would protect and prosper him in exile in Paddan Aram.
This evening we will begin to study Genesis 28:16-22, which records Jacob’s response to the theophany and divine promises that he encountered in this dream.
This evening we will see that Jacob’s first response to the dream was to worship the Lord, which is recorded in Genesis 28:16-17.
Genesis 28:10, “Then Jacob departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran.”
Genesis 28:11, “He came to a certain place and spent the night there, because the sun had set; and he took one of the stones of the place and put it under his head, and lay down in that place.”
Genesis 28:12, “He 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.”
Genesis 28:13, “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.’”
Genesis 28:14, “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.”
Genesis 28:15, “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 28:16, “Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.’”
The fact that the Lord “appeared” to Jacob is a “theophany,” or “Christophany, which are theological terms used to refer to either a visible or auditory manifestation of the Son of God before His incarnation in Bethlehem (Gen. 32:29-30; Ex. 3:2; 19:18-20; Josh. 5:13-15; Dan. 3:26).
“Lord” is the proper noun Yahweh, which is the covenant name of God indicating that Jacob had a covenant relationship with God.
The term “Lord” also emphasizes the “immanency” of God meaning that the Lord was involving Himself in and concerning Himself with and intervening in the life of Jacob and would bless him in fulfillment of His promises to him.
Just a few hours before, Jacob was feeling alone and abandoned and isolated and forsaken but with this theophany and divine promises, he is now aware that he was never alone and that the God of his grandfather and father was present with him.
According to Genesis 28:19 “this place” was called “Luz” but was renamed by Jacob to “Bethel” according to Genesis 28:19.
“Bethel” literally means, “house of God” and is identified with modern Beiten, approximately ten miles north of Jerusalem, which became one of the two capitals and cult centers of the northern kingdom and only Jerusalem is mentioned in the Old Testament more than Bethel.
If you recall, it was near Bethel that Abraham built an altar and worshipped the Lord in prayer just before and after his ill advised trip to Egypt with Sarah (See Genesis 12:8; 13:3, 4).
Bethel would be the place that Jacob would later return to from his exile according to Genesis 35:1.
It would become to him a lifelong memorial of God’s promises to him and of His ability to fulfill those promises.
Genesis 28:17, “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.’”
The Hebrew term translated “fear” and “awesome” is the verb yare (ar@y*) (yaw-ray), which denotes the concept of worshipping God and does “not” refer to being afraid as a result of a threat to one’s life but rather it means, “to have reverence and respect” for the Lord and to be in “awe” of Him and expresses Jacob’s “wonder” towards Him.
Therefore, we see that Jacob is responding to the theophany and divine promises by having “reverence” and “respect” for God and is in “awe” of Him and is expressing his “wonder” towards Him.
These four English words, “reverence,” “respect,” “awe,” and “wonder” convey the idea behind the verb yare in Genesis 28:17 and also express the concept of worshipping the Lord.
Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary defines the noun “reverence”: “A feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with awe; veneration.”
Therefore, paraphrasing this definition we would say that Jacob’s response to the theophany and divine promises was to possess an attitude of deep respect and awe for the Lord.
Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary defines the noun “respect”: “esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or trait, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or trait.”
Jacob’s response to the theophany and divine promises was to esteem the excellence of the Person of God as manifested through His personal qualities or attributes such as love, faithfulness, mercy, compassion, justice, righteousness, truth, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, immutability, and sovereignty.
Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary defines the noun “awe”: “an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc. produced by that which is grand, sublime, extremely powerful or the like.”
Jacob’s response to the theophany and divine promises was to possess an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration for the Lord, which was produced by the vision of angels and theophany and divine promises in his dream.
Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary defines the noun “wonder”: “to be filled with admiration, amazement or awe; marvel.”
Jacob’s response to the theophany and divine promises was one of being filled with admiration, amazement and awe.
Warren Wiersbe writes, “True wonder reaches right into your heart and mind and shakes you up. It not only has depth, it has value; it enriches your life. Wonder is not cheap amusement that brings a smile to your face. It is an encounter with reality, with God, which brings awe to your heart. You’re overwhelmed with an emotion that is a mixture of gratitude, adoration, reverence, fear-and love. You’re not looking for explanations; you’re lost in the wonder of God” (Real Worship, page 43, Baker Books).
Therefore, paraphrasing this comment by Wiersbe on wonder we would say that Jacob’s response to the theophany and divine promises reached right into his heart and shook him up and enriched his life.
Jacob’s encounter with the Lord brought awe to his heart and overwhelmed him with an emotion that was a mixture of gratitude, adoration, reverence, fear and love for the God of his grandfather Abraham and his father Isaac.
Jacob wasn’t looking for explanations since he was lost in the wonder of God.
Therefore, the phrase “He (Jacob) was afraid” and Jacob’s statement “How awesome is this place” expresses the fact that Jacob is worshipping God in the sense that he is manifesting an attitude of deep reverence, respect and awe of the Lord for revealing Himself in the dream and giving him reassurance.
Psalm 68:35, “O God, You are awesome from Your sanctuary. The God of Israel Himself gives strength and power to the people. Blessed be God!”
Psalm 128:1, “How blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in His ways.”
Hebrews 12:28-29, “Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire.”
Therefore, Jacob’s statement “How awesome is this place” indicates that he is worshipping the Lord.
Worship is adoring contemplation of God as He has been revealed by the Holy Spirit in the Person of Christ and in the Scriptures and is also the loving ascription of praise to God for what He is, both in Himself and in His ways and is the bowing of the soul and spirit in deep humility and reverence before Him.
Warren Wiersbe defines worship, “Worship is the believer’s response of all that they are –mind, emotions, will and body-to what God is and says and does. This response has its mystical side in subjective experience and its practical side in objective obedience to God’s revealed will. Worship is a loving response that’s balanced by the fear of the Lord, and it is a deepening response as the believer comes to know God better” (Real Worship, 26).
If we paraphrase Wiersbe’s definition, we could say the following:
Jacob is worshipping the Lord in that he is responding in his mind (his thoughts), emotions (excitement), and body (rising early and setting up a pillar to memorialize the theophany) to what God is (omnipotent and sovereign and faithful) and did in revealing Himself to Jacob by means of a theophany and what the Lord said in His promises to Jacob.
Psalm 95:6-7, “Come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.”
Genesis 28:17, “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.’”
The expression “house of God” anticipates the name Jacob is about to give to the place, which according to Genesis 28:19 is “Bethel.”
The expression “the gate of heaven” appears only once in the Bible, here in Genesis 28:17.
“The house of God” refers to the abode of God, which is located in the third heaven and “the gate of heaven” is the place where Jacob entered heaven in his dream.
The original languages of Scripture teach that there are three levels of heaven: (1) 1st heaven: Earth’s atmosphere. (2) 2nd heaven: Stellar universe. (3) 3rd heaven: Abode of God, the angels and the dead believers.
This multiplicity of heavens is indicated in Hebrews 4:14 where our Lord at His ascension is said to have “passed through the heavens” (accusative masculine plural noun ouranos).
The 1st and 2nd heaven are not specifically mentioned but the 3rd heaven is.
2 Corinthians 12:2, “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago -- whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows -- such a man was caught up to the third heaven.”
Logically speaking, it is evident that there cannot be a 3rd heaven without also a 1st and 2nd heaven.
Although it is true that the Scriptures teach that “the heaven of heavens cannot contain God” (1 Kings 8:27) and that God is omnipresent in the universe, nevertheless, they clearly affirm that the third heaven is in a particular way the abode of the Trinity (Gen. 14:19, 22; 23:3, 7; 1 Kings 8:30, 49; 2 Chron. 6:21, 30; Neh. 1:4-5; 2:4, 20; Psa. 11:4; 20:6; 33:14; 103:19; Isa. 63:5; 66:1; Matt. 5:34; Luke 16:9; John 14:1-3; Acts 1:11; 7:56; 2 Cor. 12:2; Heb. 2:10; Rev. 19:14).
The present 3rd heaven is also the abode of the elect angels as well as all believers throughout human history in every dispensation and is the present location of the appeal trial of Satan and all the fallen angels before the Supreme Court of heaven.
The Lord Jesus Christ during His 1st Advent repeatedly stated that He came from heaven (John 3:13, 27, 31; 6:38, 41-42, 50-51, 58) and is in heaven now seated at the right hand of God (Psa. 110:1; Acts 2:33; Rom. 8:34; Col. 3:1; Heb. 1:3, 13; 1 Pet. 3:22).
The Lord Jesus Christ is the Creator of the three levels of heaven.
Genesis 1:1, “In eternity past, God created out of nothing the heavens and the earth.”
Paul states that “inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak” are heard in heaven (2 Cor. 12:1-4).
Heaven is the place where Paul says “eye has not seen and ear has not heard and which have not entered into the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor. 2:9).
Heaven is a place of beauty (Rev. 21:1-22:7) and is a place of eternal life (1 Tim. 4:8).
Both the present heaven and the new heaven are a place of service to God (Rev. 22:3).
Heaven is a place of worship (Rev. 19:1-3) and is a place of glory (2 Cor. 4:17-18).
The New Jerusalem is located in heaven (Rev. 21:2) and the temple of God is also located in heaven along with the tabernacle (2 Sam. 22:7; Isa. 6:1; Heb. 8) and of course, God the Father’s house is located in the third heaven (John 14:1-2).
Our Lord Jesus Christ as part of His High Priestly prayer promised His Bride, the Church, a dwelling place in heaven (John 14:1-3) since Her true home and citizenship is not on planet earth but in heaven (Phil. 3:20).
The resurrection bodies of believers are located in heaven (2 Cor. 5:1-2) as well as their eternal inheritance (Eph. 1:3).
The third heaven is the place where the resurrected Christ conducts the government of the kingdom of God as the ruler of all creation (Psa. 110:1-2; Matt. 22:44; 26:64; Mark 12:36; 14:62; 16:19; Luke 20:42; 22:69; Acts 2:33-34; 7:55-56; Rom. 8:34; Eph. 3:20-22; Col. 3:1; Heb. 1:3, 13; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2; Rev. 4-5).
Heaven is served by innumerable angels, their hosts and families and is the sphere of their existence (Matt. 18:10; Mark 12:25; 13:32; Eph. 3:15), coming from heaven and returning to it either individually (Matt. 28:2; Luke 22:43), or in hosts (Luke 2:15).
Also, Satan and the fallen angels still have access to heaven because of their appeal trial (Job 1; Zech. 3; Rev. 12:7-9).
Old Testament saints are now located in the 3rd heaven with the Lord Jesus Christ as a result of His trip to a compartment of Hades called Paradise (Luke 23:43; Eph. 4:8-10).
The Lord Jesus Christ will create a new heavens and a new earth for the eternal state, which immediately follows the Great White Throne Judgment at the conclusion of Appeal Trial, which is the conclusion of human history itself (See Revelation 20:11-21).
In fact, Hebrews 1:10-11 quoting Psalm 102:25-27 states that the present heaven and earth “will perish...will become old as a garment” and “as a mantle” the Lord Jesus Christ “will roll them up...as a garment they (the present heavens and earth) will be changed.”
The new heaven and new earth will be the real place of perfect happiness, peace and righteousness because no form of evil and unrighteousness will be allowed into it (2 Pet. 3:10-13; Rev. 21:1-8).
The presence of evil in the universe as a result of Satan and the fallen angels rebellion resulting in the appeal trial require that the Lord Jesus Christ create a new heavens and a new earth.