Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

Scripture: Exodus 3:6...'I am the God of your father - the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.'
Matthew 22: 32...'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead but of the living.'
Thinking about the lessons that I learned in my upbringing as a
Christian, I always associated Abraham with the Abrahamic Covenant.
But, to be honest, I always wondered why the Lord chose to mention
that He was also the God of Isaac and Jacob? What significance did
that hold to me?

One thing that I noticed was that this concept was both brought to our
attention in the Old as well as the New Testament. It suggests that in
both the old dispensation and the new, God is following one identical
principle. In the old Testament, the Lord appeared to Moses with the
intention of calling Israel out of Egypt to become His chosen people. In
the New Testament, Jesus appeared in resurrection to the new people
of His choice.

So, what does God mean when He speaks today of Israel? Is there a
larger meaning in the term than appears on the surface? Let us look to
Paul's letter to the Galatians where he mentioned that there are now
neither Jew nor Greek (6:l5), but all find their common ground at the
Cross of Christ. It is there that Paul uses a remarkable expression...'the
Israel of God'. I tell you, we who believe in the Lord Jesus are the Israel
of God, one with all the true Israel, not a separate people.

To explain this further, let's go back to the beginning. Adam yielded to
the temptation to doubt God's love, and so fell from his high destiny and
came under condemnation and death. And, as a result, we all followed
him. Noah was the exception for God called him a righteous man and
blameless. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

But, when it came to Abraham, we come encounter the first example
of a man chosen by God. Abraham was an idolator, but God still chose
him. God chose this idol worshiper, laid hold of him. Today all God's
people are like that. They have responded to His love, they have tasted
His salvation, and now they find themselves His children. God
possesses a people whose starting point is being that He chose them.
So, first came the individual men of faith. Without Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, there would be no Israel.

When speaking to mankind, God so identifies them as evidence of the
resurrection. Everything returns to them. How come then do they have
this position? Again, God wanted a people. The Lord's present aim is
exactly that - to take out from among the nations a people for Himself.

(Acts l5:14) In these teachings, Israel is a combination of both Jew and
Greek. So, what these men went through must therefore be the spiritual
experience of all God's chosen people.

As the Israel of God we must have, even in small measure, the full
experience of them all. It is the intention of God that all His true people
should say of themselves, "He is to me the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. Let us look at yet another concept...Ishmael could call Him, "the
God of Abraham', but that will not do. Esau could go further and say
'the God of Abraham and Isaac, but that also is insufficient. Spiritual
experience is not summed up in just Abraham and Isaac. Jacob's name
has to be included as well. To the true Israel, He is the God of all their
fathers.

Abraham is distinguished by what he did, by the great movements
which started with him. Jacob is notable for the much suffering he
passed through. Between these two great men stands Isaac, a very
ordinary man, with nothing special about him except his ordinariness.
Abraham amassed much wealth, not so Isaac. Isaac only received the
inheritence. The point is that we don't progress. We do not advance
into wealth, we are born into it. This, therefore, is true of every spiritual
experience we have in Christ. The principle of Isaac's life is the
principle of receiving.

Jacob, on the other hand, bargained for everything. He even
bargained for his wife. He made his own choice. In doing so, he paid
for everything time and time again.

Many of us can see that God is the source of everything. Why is it
then that so many of us do not take the gift, but go on struggling for it?
The answer is that Jacob and the principle of natural strength, so
dominates us that we are so sure that we achieve God's end by our
own efforts.

We who are Christ's are heirs according to promise, but the
inheritance we receive in the Son, and the road which God wants us to
we can walk live in enjoyment of that inheritance -- these depend upon
the touch of God on our natural strength. Jacob was a most cleaver,
able man. There was nothing he could not do. But, in all his
accomplishments, his talent for self-advancement had no place in the
will and plan of God for him. It was all brought to nought, and the
experiences of Jacob, by which he accomplished well illustrate the
disiplinary work of the Holy Spirit. Everything that Jacob did on his own
went wrong.

Jacob learned one great lesson. He was on the eve of losing
everything, all he had accumulated, all he had worked for. In his plan

of meeting Esau, he devised a plan that he hoped would appease. But,
then he met God! He met God and was lamed. God had touched
Jacob, Up to that day, his name was Jacob. But, after his encounter
with God, he became Israel...'a prince with God'. This was the
beginning of the Kingdom.

This breaking of the strength of nature, is the point to which God's
people must come. We may get along just fine in the dark, but the light
of God will be our undoing.

Abraham saw God as Father. He proved Him to be the source of all
things. Isaac received the inheritance as a son. It is a blessing to have
a gift bestowed on us by God. Yet, even what we receive we may seize
upon and spoil. Jacob attempted to do this and was only saved from
the consequences of having his natural strength undone. There must
be a day of experience when this happens.

The characteristics of those who truly know God is that they have no
faith in their own competence, no reliance upon themselves. After
Jacob learned this lesson, that began the Israel of God.
The Lord chooses ordinary people like you and me, who are willing to
receive from Him and who are willing to receive His gift of grace and
who are willing to submit to this discipline of surrender and following that
narrow path.

Abraham displayed the purpose of God in his choice of we sinners.
Isaac shows us the life of God made available to us in the gift of His
son. Jacob sets up the ways of God in the Holy Spirit's handling of us
to conserve and expand what we have received. He cuts short our old,
self-willed nature, to make way for our new nature in Christ to work in
willing cooperation with the Lord. Thus the Spirit moves to attain God's
ends by His own means. This is the goal of all God's dealings with His
own. Amen.

The Wilderness Preacher