Genesis 35:21-29
Israel's Defeats and Christ's Perfections

We have seen another high point in Jacob's life - the return to Bethel. Jacob heeded God's call. He purified his household, and he brought them to Bethel, the house of God, to worship there. God protected them on their way, and when Jacob arrived, God gave him a new name, Israel, and repeated all his promises to him. Jacob would become the father of a mighty nation and his descendants would inherit this land.

Yet in the middle of this glorious moment, we were confronted with the grim reality of death. They buried Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, at Bethel. And the next thing we knew, Jacob was leaving Bethel. It was too hard for a sinner to dwell in the presence of God. On his way away from the place of God's presence, he lost his wife Rachel to childbirth. In that way, through much sorrow, Benjamin the final son of Israel was born.

Remember now who this was first written for. This is the first book of Moses, written for the children of Israel - the children of Jacob - to give them an identity as they traveled through the desert on the way to the Promised Land. What must they think as they hear this read to them? Are they happy with their identity in Jacob? Are they proud to be the sons of Israel? Or do they cry out to God for a better identity and a better head that they may be counted worthy to inherit the promises!

Let us look at this passage as well through their eyes. Let us see how unsatisfactory is the identity conferred on them through Isaac, Jacob, and the sons of Jacob. In Jacob they have an imperfect head (to say the least). In his children they are identified as defective - sinners and foreigners to the Promised Land. And in Isaac, they see a promised seed that does not bring eternal life but goes down to the grave at the end.

Looking at that, we will cry out for Christ. Christ the sufficient head. Christ the perfect child. Christ the promised seed who rose again to everlasting life. Then may we all find all our sufficiency in him, to be heads of households according to, to raise our children as sons of God in him rather than as sons of Jacob, and to have our very lives conformed to his death and rising again.

  1. The Imperfection of Israel
    1. The Insufficient Head - Jacob (21-22)
      1. "Then ISRAEL journeyed…"
        1. Note the use of the new name.
        2. The Spirit is reminding us of this new identity Jacob has as the one who has seized upon God's promises by faith and now clings to them.
        3. Yet what is "Israel" doing?
        4. He is journeying away from Bethel (the place God told him to dwell).
        5. It's an ironic contrast between the identity of the name and the actions of the man. He is not living up to his new name.
        6. This also reminds the nation of Israel that this is their identity.
          1. These aren't just the actions of one man, Jacob
          2. This is who ISRAEL is. This is who they are.
      2. Pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder
        1. Where else have we seen a tower?
        2. The Tower of Babel. And what did that represent?
        3. Then we saw God's tower in Bethel, a tower that truly reaches into heaven.
        4. THAT is the tower Jacob should have pitched his tent next to.
      3. Things get worse as Israel DWELLS in that land (22)
      4. Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father's concubine
        1. What wickedness is in this family!
        2. Paul says this sort of sin - a man with his father's wife - is not even NAMED among the Gentiles.
        3. Yet this sin stamps its identity on Israel. By this Israel becomes WORSE than the Gentiles.
      5. Why does Reuben do this?
        1. Is it a passion he cannot control? No.
        2. Reuben has other motives for his wicked act.
        3. Reuben is Jacob's firstborn … by Leah.
        4. Jacob has always favored Joseph, and now Benjamin as well, because they were children by Rachel, his preferred wife.
        5. Bilhah was Rachel's maid.
        6. So Reuben fears she will now become the preferred one and his mother Leah, and her branch of the family, will continue to be ignored.
        7. So he assaults this innocent woman or seduces her in revenge against his father because Jacob will not give his firstborn son the rights of the firstborn.
        8. But also, this is an assault on Jacob's headship over the family.
        9. By this wicked sin, Reuben is claiming that he has the rights and privileges that belong to the head of the family. If Jacob will not name Reuben his firstborn as the rightful head, Reuben will take that headship by force.
      6. And what does Jacob do?
        1. "And Israel heard about it."
        2. That's it!
        3. He doesn't punish his son. He doesn't assert his own headship. He doesn't repent for having tempted his firstborn to such great sin by preferring Joseph and Benjamin.
        4. He stands by and does nothing!
      7. This is your identity, O Israel!
        1. A vile sin occurs in your midst, and you do nothing!
        2. You do not punish the sinner. You do not seek to make things right. You do not lead the people in righteousness.
        3. How can a nation with such origins retain the privilege of being the people of God?
        4. Will they not also fail to judge according to God's judgments, doing nothing in the face of evil?
        5. This is what must go through the heads of the Israelites in the wilderness as they hear this story.
        6. Give us a better head, O Lord! they must cry, or we will perish.
    2. The Defective Children - Reuben and the Rest (23-26)
      1. So they have a defective head as the foundation of their identity.
      2. Is it any surprise then if they are defective children?
      3. Their identity is not only with Jacob but with his sons.
      4. And how are these sons named? "Now the sons of Jacob were twelve: the sons of Leah were Reuben, Jacob's FIRSTBORN…."
        1. There he is, the firstborn son! Reuben is the one who has a right more than anyone to confer an identity and a character on Israel.
        2. In fact, he has demanded that right by his wicked sin with his father's maid.
        3. Here he is, the usurping head of the house of Israel!
        4. Is this what we were hoping for?
        5. Is there any hope in being descended from him? Is there any hope in being descended from the nation of which he proclaims himself the head?
      5. And look at the other sons
        1. They have four mothers in all
        2. Two of the mothers were wives of Jacob, two were maidservants of those wives.
        3. From the beginning, their identity is not as a unified body, but as warring factions.
        4. From the beginning their identity is marred by their father who did not love one bride but many, and so was unfaithful to them all.
      6. Where did they come from?
        1. "These were the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Padan Aram"
        2. (Even Benjamin, who was technically born in the Promised Land, is lumped in under this statement)
        3. They were born outside the Promised Land.
        4. They were born in the place where Jacob did not seek the things of God but loved the things of men.
        5. They were born there because Jacob was too busy seeking a second, prettier wife, and the riches of this world to turn and seek the face of God.
        6. Now Jacob's children are stamped with this identity - the children from Padan Aram.
    3. The Death of the Promised Seed - Isaac (27-29)
      1. Jacob came to his father at Mamre
      2. Where's that?
        1. Mamre is where Abraham dwelt when he met the three strangers
        2. And the one stayed behind to promise that Isaac would be born
        3. And Abraham laughed, but that laughter of unbelief was changed to the laughter of joy when Isaac was born a year later.
        4. Now ironically, we come to Mamre to bury Isaac, the promised child.
      3. Twice, Isaac had the privilege of being a picture of the resurrection
        1. Paul in Romans 4 and the author of Hebrews in Hebrews 11 both note that Abraham was "as good as dead" when Isaac was conceived.
        2. So he comes into this world as life from death, the living one from one as good as dead, a picture of a resurrection.
        3. Then of course Abraham takes Isaac to sacrifice him at God's command. And Hebrews 11 tells us again that Abraham figuratively received Isaac back from the dead, a second picture of the resurrection.
      4. But ultimately he does not bring the resurrection
      5. In the end Esau and Jacob bury him
        1. Side by side, the child of this world and the child of the next bury the child of the promise.
        2. The time has not yet come for the radical separation between those who love what Esau loves and those who are called to dwell with God in heaven.
      6. Do you see what this passage does for the Israelites?
        1. They try to find their identity in Jacob, but he is ineffective and wavering in his faith.
        2. So they look ahead a generation to Jacob's sons, but the sons have a wicked firstborn in Reuben and themselves are defective, being born outside the Promised Land.
        3. So they turn the other way and look back a generation to Isaac, the promised seed. But how can the promises of God be fulfilled in him when he is buried in the ground.
        4. So they cry out. Where is our identity? Where is our head? Where is the one to whom these promises will truly come and in whom they will finally be fulfilled?
  2. The Perfection of Christ and Our Identity in Him
    1. The Sufficient Head
      1. Here he is, the hope of Israel, her true head!
      2. He is perfect, everything that Jacob is not.
      3. He leads his people in righteousness
        1. Jacob stamped his people with his inability to oppose sin. That was the identity he gave them.
        2. Reuben, unlawfully taking his father's place, stamped the people with great wickedness. That is the identity HE gave them.
        3. But Jesus, he has battled sin and triumphed over it.
        4. From the beginning to the end of his ministry he fought the devil and was triumphant.
        5. At the cross, he defeated Satan, definitively triumphing over sin by dying to it.
        6. And rising again, he imputes his righteousness to his people.
        7. You are righteous before God in Christ. That is your identity. It's who you are.
      4. Therefore, Christian, let us follow the example of our head
        1. Let us put on that righteousness that he imputes to us.
        2. Let us as heads of households lead our families in this righteousness.
          1. Jacob failed his family. He gave up his right to be a head. But Jacob is not your example! Jacob is not your identity! Christ is.
          2. Therefore lay aside the sin that so easily entangles and pursue the example of Christ that you may by your actions and words set it before your family.
          3. Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, as Jacob provoked his son.
          4. But rather train them up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord.
          5. Teach them the ways that are right and train them to walk in these ways.
          6. Do not neglect to discipline them, for so your faithful head disciplines you
          7. In all these things, above all, set Christ before them, his teaching, his life, his power.
          8. You will never be a perfect example to your children, a perfect head over them.
          9. Apart from God's grace in Christ, you will fail as horribly as Jacob did with Reuben.
          10. God forbid! You HAVE God's grace in Christ.
          11. You are not the perfect head, but in Christ you have a perfect head to give your children.
          12. Therefore teach them of him that they may find their righteousness, their strength, their everything in him.
        3. Husbands, love your wives
          1. For your example is not Jacob who had many wives and showed favoritism to one whom he selfishly desired.
          2. Your example is not Jacob who heard of the violation of Bilhah and did nothing about to protect or rescue her.
          3. Your example is Christ who only ever loved one bride and gave himself up to protect and rescue her, the church.
      5. He leads his people in holiness
        1. This may sound like "He leads his people in righteousness," but there's a different point to be made here.
        2. Holiness involves being separated from the world and dwelling in the presence of God.
          1. It involves, in the words of this story, dwelling at Bethel.
          2. Jacob could not do that.
          3. How can ANYONE dwell in the presence of God, before his face, day after day?
          4. Yet Jesus, your savior does
          5. And so, therefore, do you.
          6. What was impossible with Jacob is given to you in Jesus Christ.
        3. Let us recall each day, whatever we do, that we dwell in the presence of God, that we bear the stamp of Christ's holiness, that we are guided by Christ's values, loving what he loves, turning from what he turns from.
        4. He will not lead you away from Bethel, as Jacob did with his sons.
        5. But Christ will each day lead you closer to God in heaven. Leave everything else behind if only you can follow him there.
    2. The Perfect Child
      1. Christ is no Reuben, usurping his father's authority to become head over the household.
      2. Christ became your legitimate and true head by perfectly obeying his Father.
        1. Therefore your identity is not as disobedient sons
        2. Your identity is found in the obedient Son, who obeyed his Father even unto death.
        3. Therefore God has highly exalted him and made him your legitimate head.
        4. Let us walk in submission to this head, even as he walked in submission to his Father.
          1. He submitted to an earthly father and mother who were sinful
          2. And he submitted to earthly rulers, even when they sought to put him to death.
        5. Let us therefore respect those whom God has placed in authority over us, for the submission of Christ
          1. Parents over children
          2. Husbands over wives
            • He represents Christ to you. Let us pray for grace for him that he will do so clearly.
            • And submit to him. Perhaps he seems as poor an example as Jacob. (I hope not!) Yet to submit to him is to render submission to Christ, who loves you and gave himself for you. Christ is no Jacob, but a perfect husband!
          3. Governors and presidents and all sorts of rulers, for they are ordained of God and to respect them is to respect the Lord.
          4. Let us not have the heart of a Reuben toward them, though they should be as poor heads as Jacob.
      3. His body is perfectly united
        1. The children of Jacob had four different mothers.
        2. And they fought with one another as warring factions, each one trying to gain the upper hand. This is what Reuben, the firstborn was trying to do.
        3. But Christ, the firstborn of the Father, showed himself great among you by being the servant of all.
        4. Let us therefore not fight for greatness like the sons of Israel, but let us seek the greatness of Christ by serving one another and counting it a privilege to defer to one another and count each other's needs above our own.
        5. In this way, the body of Christ, having one head in him, will show itself perfectly united and therefore true sons of our one God and Father who is in heaven.
      4. And in him you are born from above
        1. Jacob's sons were born outside the Promised Land, outside Bethel. They have the identity of sons of this earth, sons born away from the presence of God.
        2. And so were all you, born in Adam, outside the Garden of Eden.
        3. But you have been born again, born from above.
        4. You have a new birthplace, heaven itself.
        5. Let us therefore live as natural born citizens of heaven
          1. Let us retain the values of our homeland, which are not the values of this world for fleeting wealth or vanishing comfort or temporary security
          2. This is not what Christ, the first true son of heaven, valued when he came to earth.
          3. But he valued the glory of God and the joy of seeing God's kingdom come down out of heaven. He sought those things that are eternal, laying up his treasure in heaven. He worked to increase the knowledge of God, the love and purity of the brethren, and the hope of the calling that is ours in him.
          4. Let us so value what is eternal and labor to produce those values in one another.
    3. The Death and Resurrection of the Promised Seed
      1. Isaac died and he is still dead.
      2. His soul is in heaven awaiting the final judgment and the resurrection of his body.
      3. But Christ died and is alive … forevermore.
      4. Let us die with Christ then to the sins and lures of this world
        1. Let us put behind us all fornication and uncleanness and idolatry, covetous, anger, wrath, malice, and evil speaking.
        2. These things belong to the world to which Christ has died and we in him.
      5. Having died to sin, let us put on the new life into which Christ rose again.
        1. Let us put on the tender mercies of Christ, his kindness, humility, and patience.
        2. Let us bear with one another and love one another.
        3. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.
        4. Let the word of Christ dwell richly in you, teaching and admonishing one another….
        5. And let us do all things with thankfulness to God the father in him.
        6. This is the new life that we are call to, that is repeatedly held out to us in Scripture.
      6. And let us not be afraid or dismayed though we, like Isaac, go down to the grave.
        1. For our resurrection has already appeared in Christ Jesus.
        2. He has triumphed over death.
        3. He will raise us up again to life everlasting.
        4. Let us live our lives in that knowledge and that hope.

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