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Gen. 28:10-22 is the most crucial word in the revelation of God. If we know the Bible, we shall realize that here there is a radical turn, a new start, in the divine revelation. In the first twenty-seven chapters of Genesis, the term the house of God (Bethel in Hebrew) is not used. But in this chapter, the matter of God's house is revealed. The house of God is not merely a place; it is a living composition of living people. Where these people are, there the house of God is also. Hence, it does not depend upon the place but upon the people. If the people move, then the place where they once were is no longer God's house. How can a place be called the house of God? Only because the real, living house of God, a living composition of living people, is there.
Gen. 1:26 says that man was made in God's own image. This is wonderful. Man is man; he is not God. Nevertheless, he has God's image. In other words, man looks like God. It is correct to say this. If anyone has your image, he surely looks like you. It is very significant that God made man in His own image.
In Gen. 2:7 we see that the man who was made in God's image was constituted with dust. Do you realize that you were made with dust? No one is an exception. We were not made with gold, diamond, or steel; we all were made with dust. Is dust precious? Would you put a handful of dust into your pocket and keep it? No one would do this. Nevertheless, we were made out of dust. Rom. 9:21 reveals that we are clay vessels. Dust and clay are nearly the same. When water is added to dust, the dust becomes clay. According to our material constitution, we are not precious.
In chapter twenty-eight the term changes from dust to stone. The stone in this chapter becomes the rest for the man of dust (v. 11), for the stone now holds the dust. It is quite meaningful that Jacob, a man of dust, rested upon a stone. Consider the picture in chapter twenty-eight. Here we see a tired, lonesome, disappointed, dusty man, a man who was not certain of his future. Needing some rest as the sun was going down, "he took one of the stones of that place, and made it his pillow, and lay down in that place to sleep" (v. 11, Heb.). The way to know the Bible is by the Bible. If we only read Genesis 28, we shall not know what it means. But when we read the whole Bible with the heavenly light, we see the meaning of the stone in this chapter. When Peter first came to the Lord, the Lord changed his name saying, "You are Simon the son of John; you shall be called Cephas (which translated means a stone)" (John 1:42). Approximately three years after this first meeting with the Lord, Peter, responding to a question asked by the Lord, said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 16:16). Then the Lord Jesus said to him, "I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church" (Matt. 16:18). The Lord seemed to be saying, "Peter, do you remember that on the first day you came to Me I gave you the name stone? This should not merely be a name — it must be a fact. Peter, you are a stone. I shall build My church upon this rock." Thus, Matthew 16:18 reveals that the stone is for the building of the church.
What is the church? First Timothy 3:15 says that the church is the house of the living God. Ultimately, in eternity, the house of the living God will be the New Jerusalem. In Revelation 21 we see that the New Jerusalem is not built with clay or dust but with precious stones. Speaking of the New Jerusalem, Revelation 21:11 says, "Her light was like a most precious stone, as a jasper stone, clear as crystal." This is not my allegorization; it is the divine revelation.
We need to look at the Bible with a bird's-eye view. In Genesis 1 and 2 we see that although man was made in the image of God, he was constituted with dust. While the image of God is for God's expression, dust certainly is not suitable for the expression of God. Hence, there is the need for transformation. Transformation is not merely a change in form; it is also a change in nature, for the word transformation denotes a metabolic change. We need to have a change in nature that our nature and appearance might no longer be that of dust. In Genesis 2 man is dusty, but in Revelation 21 he is precious stone. In eternity, there will be no need for cleaning. While we are on this dusty earth, we must clean every day. But because there will be no dust in the New Jerusalem, there will be no need to clean it. All the dust will be transformed into precious stones.
In Gen. 2 we have a man of clay, and in Gen. 28 we see a man of clay resting upon a stone. The Bible is surely written by God. In no other book do we find a portion such as 28:10-22. This passage is short, but it is crucial, deep, and meaningful, including the whole Bible in its scope. In verse 11 we see the stone which Jacob used for a pillow. As everyone knows, a pillow is something upon which to rest. In verse 18 this pillow-stone becomes a pillar. A pillow is for rest, but a pillar is used for support in a building. In the temple built by Solomon, there were two main pillars (1 Kings 7:21). Galatians 2:9 says that James, Peter, and John were pillars in the church. Furthermore, Revelation 3:12 says that the overcomers will be pillars in the temple of God. In Genesis 28 we have the stone, the pillow, and the pillar. But this is not all. Eventually, this pillar becomes Bethel, the house of God. Moreover, in this short portion of the Word we see a ladder set up on the earth, the top of which reached to heaven (v. 12). It is impossible for any man to have written this record. How could Jacob have dreamed such a dream? According to human history, no one has ever had such a dream. But Jacob saw a ladder on which the angels of God were ascending and descending. This indicates that the angels were already there waiting for the time to ascend. When Jacob saw the ladder in his dream, the angels might have immediately ascended to heaven to report the news that Jacob had come and had seen the ladder. After Jacob had awakened out of his sleep, he realized that this place was not only the house of God but also the gate of heaven (v. 17).
In addition to all these wonderful items, there is another important item in this chapter — the matter of our living. Many times when we preach the gospel, the sinners ask, "If I believe in Jesus, will He take care of my living?" Some saints ask a similar question: "If I love the Lord and live for Him, what will happen to my living? Don't I need to take care of this?" We all have the problem of making a living. But in this short record we see that God takes care of our living. As we shall see, taking care of our living is secondary. In verse 15 the Lord said to Jacob, "Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest." Here the Lord seemed to be saying, "Jacob, I will be with you and I will take care of your living. I'll give you bread to eat and raiment to put on." This corresponds to the Lord's word in Matthew 6:33: "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." If we seek His kingdom, God will surely take care of our living.
Although God had promised to be with Jacob and to keep him, Jacob still made a deal with Him, saying, "If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God" (vv. 20-21). Notice the word "then" in verse 21. If God would do so many things for Jacob, then Jacob would take Him as his God. But if God would not do these things for him, then there would be no deal. Jacob seemed to be saying, "If You give me food and clothing and take care of my living, then I'll take You as my God, this pillar shall be Your house, and I will return to You the tenth of what You have given to me." This was a very profitable business arrangement. Jacob was saying, "Lord, You must first give to me, and then I'll give to You. If You give me a dollar, then I will return a dime to You." God says that if we seek His kingdom, then He will give us bread. But we say that God must first give us bread and then we shall seek His kingdom. There is no need for you to make such a deal with the Lord. Simply be a lump of clay and allow the Lord to work on you, and He will add to you everything you need. The word add in Matthew 6:33 implies that something basic has already been given and that other things are simply added to us. As we shall see, God will give us the land, the seed, and the blessing. To all this, He adds food, clothing, and the other things we need for our living.
I love this portion of the Word because its span is so wide, covering the whole Bible from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. This is why I say that it is such a crucial portion. It covers everything from the dust to the stone, from the creation to the building of God's house. It covers the matters of bread, clothing, the house of God, the ladder, and the heavenly things.
In this passage, Jacob firstly found rest and ultimately he received the promise that there would be no problem regarding food and clothing. Everyone is looking for rest. Rest always includes satisfaction. If we are not satisfied, we can never be at rest. Whenever we come to the Lord, the first thing we receive is rest. As lonesome, disappointed people who do not know where we are going, we need rest. As those who seem to be hopeless, who have no future, and who have lost almost everything, we long for rest. Praise the Lord for His rest! This rest is upon the stone, and this stone is in the very place where God's house is. Here is our place of rest.
In verse 13 we see that here Jacob was met by God for the first time. We all need to be met by God. This is basic. Jacob was born into a godly family. Abraham, Isaac, Sarah, and Rebekah were all godly people. Although it is good to be born into such a godly family, we must still have our own direct, personal meeting with God. Everyone in your home may eat, but you must still be an eating person yourself. Do not say, "Oh, my grandfather was Abraham, my grandmother was Sarah, and my parents are Isaac and Rebekah." What about you? Everyone in your family is an eating person, but do you yourself eat? Concerning God, Jacob had acquired knowledge, but he had not eaten anything. He had been born into a godly family, but before the dream at Bethel, he himself had had no direct meeting with God. But, much to his surprise, here at Bethel, God met him for the first time. Jacob did not intend to meet God. It was God who was waiting there for him. God had already come down from heaven and was there on earth.
The experience of the Samaritan woman in John 4 is similar to Jacob's experience in Genesis 28. The Lord Jesus, who had come down from heaven, went to the well purposely to meet her. To that Samaritan woman, Jacob's well was Bethel, and Jesus was there as the heavenly ladder. If, like Jacob, she had had an actual dream, she would have seen the angels ascending to heaven to bring the good report that she had met the Lord. The angels might have said, "The sinful Samaritan woman, the one who has had so many husbands and who is living with a man who is not her husband, has come to Jesus!" The situation was the same when you came to the Lord. Jesus, the heavenly ladder, was waiting for you. On the day you were saved, you had your first dream and were met by God for the first time. How wonderful this is! If you examine your experience, you will say, "Praise the Lord! Now I understand what happened to me that day. Before I was saved, the heavenly ladder had been set up on earth, and God was waiting there to meet me."
When God first met Jacob, He said, "I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac" (v. 13). This implied that God was to be Jacob's God. We all have experienced the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac. Since the God of Abraham is the God of justification and the God of Isaac is the God of grace, this means that we have experienced the God of justification and the God of grace. Although we have experienced such a God, we also need to meet and experience the God of Jacob. This means that God will be to us the God of transformation, the God of dealings. Knowing the God of Abraham means that we are justified, and knowing the God of Isaac means that we enjoy the grace of God. But we must also have a dream in which the God of Jacob says, "I shall be your God. I shall be the God of a heel-holder, the God of a supplanter. The more you supplant, the better I can deal with you. The more you hold the heels of others, the more I shall put you into the oven. I shall be to you the God of Jacob." Eventually, the Bible says that God is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and that this God is not the God of the dead but of the living (Matt. 22:32). My God is not only the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac; He is also the God of Jacob, the God of dealings who deals with me all day long. If we only stay with the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac, never experiencing God as the God of Jacob, we shall not have the needed transformation. Whose God do you love — the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, or the God of Jacob? While we love the enjoyment, none of us loves the dealings. God is the Triune God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Be prepared — one day you will meet Him as the God of Jacob.
Often the brothers and sisters like to sing about the glorious church life. However, the more we stay in the glorious church life, the more we are dealt with. Nearly all of us can testify that since coming into the church life, God has dealt with us. Before we came into the church, we did not have many problems. But after we came into the church and began to sing of the glorious church life, things began to happen one after another. You might have said, "What is this? Perhaps I am wrong." No, you are not wrong — you are right. Because you are on the right track, the track of transformation, all these things have been happening to you.
God measures our environment and everything that happens to us. For example, He may let you have a little illness, but that illness is measured and will not kill you. This is similar to what God did with Job when He charged Satan not to go beyond a certain limit (Job 2:6). This is God's dealing. In the following chapters of Genesis, we do not see that Jacob enjoyed very much. Rather, wherever he went, God was there dealing with him. God seemed to say, "I am the God of Jacob. Eventually, I want to be the God of Israel. When your transformation is complete, My dealings with you will be over."
None of God's dealings is without a promise. Every time we suffer a dealing there will be a promise along with it. The more dealings we suffer, the more promises we shall have. In 28:13-15 we see God's promise to Jacob. According to Jacob's experience, God's promise did not come before His dealing. The promise is not firstly that we shall be provided with food and raiment. It firstly is that we shall have the land and the seed and that we shall be a blessing to all the families of the earth. Here we see three things — the land, the seed, and the blessing. According to the consistent revelation of the Bible, the land is for the kingdom. In His creation, God created man in His own image and gave him dominion over the earth, over the land. Thus, the land is for the dominion, the kingdom. The seed is for the expression, for the spreading of the image. In 28:13 and 14 we have the same two things that are found in Genesis 1:26 — image and dominion. After this, we become a blessing. Our blessing is simply Christ, for Christ becomes our blessing to others.
If we examine our experience, we shall see that whenever we suffered or had some dealing from God, we received the land and had the sense that we were in the kingdom. Furthermore, we sensed that something of God was expressed through us and was spreading out of us. This is the seed. In addition to this, we became a blessing to others, to our neighbors, relatives, friends, and everyone around us. God's promise was not only given to Jacob; in principle, it is also given to us. When we are under God's dealing, we participate in the land, the seed, and the blessing. We share in the territory and the expression of God and we become a blessing to others.
God knows our need. In verse 15 He said to Jacob, "Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of." Here God was promising to give Jacob food and clothing and to bring him back to his father's land in peace. The people in religion know nothing about the land, the seed, and the blessing. Often when they give a testimony, they say something like this: "Praise the Lord that His presence is always with me. Recently, I took a tour of Chicago and God's presence was with me. Throughout all the years He has been giving me food, clothes, and all that I need." I have hardly ever heard a testimony in which someone said, "Praise the Lord! After God dealt with me, my territory has been enlarged. God has truly been transforming me. He is spreading His expression through me. What a blessing has followed this!"
Now we come to Jacob's reaction. Firstly, after waking out of his sleep, he called that place the house of God (v. 17). Where did Jacob get the concept of the house of God? Abraham did not know of this. As we have pointed out, we do not find this term before Genesis 28. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all lived in tents. Why then did Jacob not say the tent of God but rather the house of God? Surely this is not only a dream but a revelation. Although Jacob did not actually see the house of God, he termed what he saw the house of God, saying, "This is the house of God." Certainly this came from divine revelation.
God has revealed His economy not only in clear words but also in the lives of human beings. Jacob, a man living altogether on the human level, had a dream. In that dream he saw something, and after he awoke he said, "This is the house of God." Undoubtedly, this concept of the house of God came from God Himself.
Jacob also called the place where he met God the gate of heaven (v. 17). Whatever he saw there pointed to heaven. It was a place on earth, but it was joined to heaven. Hence, he called it the gate of heaven. Whenever we have a spiritual vision, we sense that we are at the gate of heaven. We are on earth, but we see and experience the things of heaven.
Verse 18 says, "Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had made his pillow, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it" (Heb.). How peculiar it was that Jacob set up the stone for a pillar. If I had been he, I would never have done that with the stone. What is the meaning of this? It certainly corresponds to the whole revelation of the Bible. The most striking thing here is the anointing of the stone with oil. It was sovereign that the oil was there. Where did Jacob get it? Did he, an escapee, bring it with him when he fled from home? I do not know. According to my opinion, pouring oil upon the stone would only have caused a mess. But according to the Bible, this act is very significant. In the Bible, the stone undoubtedly signifies a transformed man, a lump of clay which has been transformed into a stone. In typology, the oil signifies the third Person of God reaching people. When God reaches you, He is the Spirit. Thus, the stone which was set up as a pillar and which had the oil poured upon it, is a symbol that the transformed man is one with the Triune God. Now the Triune God is not only in heaven but also on a transformed man and is one with this transformed man. This man is God's expression on earth. When you look at the stone, you see the oil. When you look at the transformed man standing on the earth, you see the expression of God. How did Jacob know to pour oil on the stone? Before chapter twenty-eight, there is no record of this type of action. Nevertheless, after waking up from his dream, Jacob did this.
After pouring oil upon the top of the pillar, Jacob "called the name of that place Bethel" (v. 19). Why did Jacob call the name of that place Bethel, the house of God? As he was anointing the pillar, he was under the anointing of the Spirit. That pillar represented himself, the transformed Jacob. I do not believe that at that time Jacob understood what he was doing. He was not as clear as we are today.
In John 1:51 the Lord Jesus said to Nathanael, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you shall see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man." The title the Son of Man indicates that God no longer is merely God but that He has become a man. This reveals that God is no longer just in the heavens but that He has become a man living on the earth. The ladder has been set up on earth because God has become a man. Before He was incarnated, He could not be called the Son of Man. When the Lord Jesus told Nathanael that he would see the angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man, Nathanael must have realized immediately that this was the fulfillment of Jacob's dream.
Jacob's dream is a revelation of Christ, for Christ as the ladder is the center, the focus, of this dream. Here with this heavenly ladder we have an open heaven, the transformed man, the anointing upon this man, and the building up of the house of God with this man. The church life today is the complete fulfillment of Jacob's dream because the church life is the gate of heaven, the place where the pillar and ladder are, and the place where the angels ascend to heaven bearing good news and descend to earth bringing something heavenly. Bethel is here in the church life. We are today's Bethel. In Genesis 28, both the place and the stone were called Bethel. The stone was not only called Bethel; it was made Bethel. Why was the place called Bethel? Because the Bethel stone was there. The church life is like this. We all need to see this marvelous dream.
When God makes a promise, there is no need for us to make a vow. If I had been Jacob, I would simply have said, "Lord, thank You." But instead of thanking the Lord and praising Him, Jacob vowed that he would take God as his God, make the pillar-stone the house of God, and give God a tenth of all that He would give him on the condition that God would be with him, keep him, give him bread and raiment, and bring him back to his father's house in peace (vv. 20-22). Jacob's vow was conditional. Our being in the church life is also conditional. Although we all are happy in the church life, deep within we have a condition and say, "I will remain in the church life and be a part of the church life as long as God gives me bread." Although we may not say this in words, it is nonetheless deep within us. Suppose you lose your job and are unemployed for many months. Besides this, you become quite ill. Will you still sing about the glorious church life? Not only will there be no church life, but probably there will not even be a pillar. Your love for the Lord and for the church is conditional. When Jacob promised to give the tenth to God, it meant that if God did not give anything to him, then he would not give anything to God. Jacob seemed to be saying, "Let's make a deal. If You want something from me, then You must first give me something. If You don't give anything to me, what can I give to You?"
Did Jacob believe in God? Yes. If he did not believe in Him, he would not have spoken about God's being with him. But since he believed in God, why did he still have such a condition in his vow? Because he was human, just like we are today. On the one hand, we believe in God; on the other hand, we have a term. Hardly anyone loves the Lord unconditionally. I have heard many brothers and sisters say that they consecrate themselves absolutely to the Lord. Whenever I hear such testimonies, I ask, "Are you really absolute with the Lord?" If the Holy Spirit were to write an account of your experience, it would probably be exactly the same as Jacob's. My record, for certain, is just the same as his. But there is no need to worry about our living. God will give us the land, the seed, and the blessing, and, in addition to all this, He will take care of our living, providing food, clothing, and everything we need. If we seek first the kingdom of God, the Father will give us whatever we need for our living. This is the dream of Jacob.
