“And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.'” Genesis 32:30
How does God work in the soul of an individual to bring him to a saving knowledge of Himself? It begins always with the initiative of God who reveals Himself to the heart, mind, and soul, of an individual. The revelation, in its most basic form, is addressed to the individual with an individual name. In other words, when God calls one to Himself, He does so by one’s specific name. He may later change that name as Christ did with Peter, or God did with Jacob, when He gave him the name Israel. Both in the Old Testament and the New Testament is revealed God’s working to bring individuals to a knowledge of Himself, His nature and Person, in order to bring them to the conviction of their need of Him, an eternal need to know the eternal God.
The story of Jacob in the book of Genesis is a unique, and yet, consistent testimony of the mercy of God, who with a most unlikely, and difficult individual, worked over the course of years to bring him to a moment in time when all changed. Sometimes an individual will respond almost immediately, and whole-heartedly, to the working of God in his or her heart. For Jacob, because of the deep-rooted self-centeredness in him, it would take time, revelation, circumstances, suffering, and then one final moment when, like Job, he is brought to the point of not only hearing of God “… by hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You.” (Job 42:5) God brought Jacob, through a series of events, and consistent revelations of Himself, to see God, as Jacob would put it, “face to face.” Though Job was the Lord’s servant, there was the deep need in his heart to be brought alone, and face to face, with the presence and power of His Creator and Redeemer. In the case of Jacob, it would take over twenty years to bring him to the place of absolute aloneness with God, being shut up to Him, to Christ, there to plead with Him for deliverance and salvation. One final blow to Jacob’s resistance to God, was the act of the Lord Jesus to touch the socket of his hip, which would become out of joint. Jacob could no longer flee the impending danger of his approaching brother, his brother from whom he had stolen his birthright, and the blessing of God by the words of his father, Isaac. There was but one “out,” or way of escape, and it was in Christ alone. As the day was breaking, when Jacob wrestled with God, the Lord said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.” However, brought to the end of himself, Jacob knew that he could not let him go, for his very life, his existence, and that of his family, depended upon the God alone who was now before him. There he would tell Christ, “I will NOT let You go unless you bless me.” (Genesis 32:26) Jacob needed not only the revelation of God in a dream, and the promises of God concerning possessing the promised Land, but he had to meet God, Christ, and know the reality of a His saving, delivering power from heaven. The great and wonderful act of God was accomplished when Jacob said: ‘I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” (v.30) This was the Jacob who had been forced to leave his father’s house, for fear of his brother Esau. This was the Jacob who saw God in a dream at Bethel, declaring of that place that it was the house of God. This was the Jacob who would not make the God of his father to be HIS God, unless God kept, provided for, and brought him back to his home in Canaan in peace. God accomplished this with extraordinary patience and care, bringing Jacob to personal trust, a whole-hearted surrender, to Christ’s saving, eternal power.
Dear Father, Work in us today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.