A Journey Through The Bible, Part Fourteen

Old Testament

Genesis 27 and 28

Genesis 27:1-4—“Now it came to pass, when Isaac was old and his eyes were so dim that he could not see, that he called Esau his older son and said to him, ‘My son.’ And he answered him, ‘Here I am.’ Then he said, ‘Behold now, I am old. I do not know the day of my death. Now therefore, please take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt game for me. And make me savory food, such as I love, and bring it to me that I may eat, that my soul may bless you before I die.’"  What Isaac is doing is wrong. Through some aspect of God’s will, a “blessing” from one of the patriarchs was prophetic in nature; notice especially Jacob blessing his 12 sons in Genesis 49. So what Isaac proposes to do here is give Esau, his firstborn, a greater blessing—a better future, in effect—than Jacob. But God has already told Isaac that Jacob was to have the preeminent position. So for Isaac to give Esau a superior blessing was contrary to what God wanted.

Well, Jacob, the little deceiver, with the help of his mother Rebekah, stole the blessing anyway. Rebekah must have been some kind of cook if she could make goat meat taste like game from the field (can you do that, mom?). But Isaac couldn’t see well, thus mother and youngest son were able to trick the old man into doing what God intended in the first place. It doesn’t appear that Rebekah and Jacob had God’s purposes in mind here; the Bible had earlier said “And Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob,” (Genesis 25:28). So she’s just trying to get something for Jacob that Isaac wanted to give Esau. But it worked out the way God planned all along. Men, even great men like Isaac, cannot defeat the purposes of God. Humans will never learn that while this earth exists.

Incidentally, Isaac wasn’t as near death as he indicates here. He might have thought he was, but actually he will live at least 40 more years.

Genesis 28:12-14—“Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the LORD stood above it and said: ‘I am the LORD God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’” As He had done with Abraham and Isaac, Jehovah now assures Jacob that he is the son of promise.

When he had this famous dream, Jacob was on his way to Padan Aram, to the home of Laban, Rebekah’s brother. Isaac had told him to go and find a wife there, just as Abraham had found one for Isaac among his relatives, not wanting him to marry among the pagans of Canaan (compare the post on chapter 24). As we shall see in a subsequent chapter, Jacob will meet Rachel, fall in love with her, and the twists and turns in the story from that point on will be legion. One last thought from this chapter. After Isaac had sent Jacob on his mission, “Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan did not please his father Isaac. So Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife in addition to the wives he had,” (vs. 8-9).  Poor old Esau couldn’t do anything right—yet. Perhaps a daughter of Ishmael was better than the Hittite women he had. But not much.

New Testament

Matthew 16

Matthew 16:18-19—“’And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’" Peter had just made the grand confession, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” and we get this significant response from Jesus. A few very noteworthy points.

1. Peter is not the rock upon which the church is built. Jesus simply uses his name as a play on words. In Greek, the word “Peter” (petros) means a small stone; the word Jesus uses for “rock” is petra, a huge boulder. Jesus wouldn’t build His church on something so unstable as a human being. The “rock” is Him and His unchanging deity. “For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ,” (I Corinthians 3:11).

2. Upon that rock, “I will build My church.” Let me break down what Jesus said.

     --“I” will build My church. Jesus’ church is built by Him. He’s the one Who sets the conditions for entrance and adds people to it (Acts 2:38, 47). Man has no right or authority to build his own church. Any church built by man is not Jesus’ church.

     --I “will build” My church. The future tense here indicates that, as Jesus spoke, His church was not yet in existence. Subsequent reading of the New Testament reveals that the church began on the first Pentecost after His death, as recorded in Acts 2. There are those who have taught that the Christian church started with John the Baptist, or in some way was an extension of the Jewish “church” of the Old Testament. This isn’t what Jesus indicates here.

     --I will build “My” church. It’s Jesus’ church. He died for it, He built it, He adds people to it, it’s His. It ought to be called by His name. It is one of the reason—not the only one, by any means, but one reason—that I am a member of the church of Christ.

     --I will build My “church.” Notice the singular here. Not “churches,” as of many, but “church” as of one. The plethora of denominations that exist in the world today did not exist in the first century; there was only one church back then. We can trace the beginnings of all denominations down through history. This division is Christendom surely is not good. A couple of passages to indicate this: “Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment,” (I Corinthians 1:10). No divisions. Speak the same thing. That doesn’t sound like Christendom today, but it’s what God wanted. Note also Jesus’ prayer in John 17:20-21: “’I do not pray for these [apostles] alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” Christ wants His followers to be one, with the kind of unity found in heaven. It is difficult—no, impossible—for me to believe that the denominational squabbling we find on earth exists also in heaven. And the reason for this unity? “That the world may believe You sent me.” Nothing has done more damage to Christianity in the eyes of the skeptical world than the sad division within the religion. It has even led to bloody wars, and that is inexcusable.

3. One last thought from Matthew 16:18-19. Jesus promised Peter the “keys to the kingdom.” Peter is not standing at the gate of heaven, determining who will get in to see God. What do keys do? Keys open things. The meaning here, most likely, is that Peter was given the privilege of preaching the first gospel sermon to both Jews and Gentiles (Acts 2 and 10), thus “opening the door” of the kingdom to all of mankind. I don’t think we should be dogmatic here, because Jesus simply doesn’t explain His meaning. But that, to me, seems the best explanation. I’ll talk, in a couple of chapters, about the “binding and loosing” statement.

I think I should also mention that the "kingdom of God/heaven" on earth is the same as the church--different names, or metaphors if you will, for the people of God.  The kingdom is not some future institution; it exists right now.  More on that later.