You know, I was thinking more on this and I think Rom. 9 is important. There God uses Jacob as an example of all believers. They are elected before they do any works or respond to the gospel, purely on the basis of grace. So seeing Jacob’s life as a type of the struggle in the lives of the elect to receive the covenant blessings by faith rather than by works seems to be almost directly encouraged by Romans 9.

I think the ladder dream is best understood in light of Christ’s statement, “Hereafter you shall see angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” He was obviously referring to Jacob’s dream, in which the angels were transversing a ladder. So, in effect, he was saying, “I am that ladder between earth and heaven, the only way for one to go from earth to the presence of God.” Which makes sense in Jacob’s history. It was a very monumental time in his life, in which he was apt to be frightened, as he saw the desperate straits in which his own attempts had left him. It is as if, in order to succor his slight faith, Christ was ready to come to him unasked, and say, “You have been chosen by grace, and therefore, you will be finally brought into God’s presence. But it will not be through your own efforts, only by me.”

I’m not sure how much of the typological significance he would have originally understood, but he at least understood that God, by his covenant grace, sovereignly stooped to meet with him and unilaterally confirm to him the blessings of the covenant. Perhaps later in his life (after Peniel) he was better able to draw out the christological implications of his dream so long before.

So I surmise, anyway.

Your explanation of the type here was fabulous. I confess these events in Jacob’s life never had great significance to me. There were rather strange and hard to understand.

But when you explained they were his works trying to earn what God had graciously promised was his in covenant, it all makes sense! And Christ is of course seen central to this. How does the Ladder story fit in with this view of Jacob’s experience?

As for your extra points here, I think they both are valid, particularly the second one.

Again thanks for doing these studies.

God bless you richly because of The Mighty One, Jesus Christ, who has prevailed over you!

Likewise graciously limping,

Bob

First, it seems as if Jacob had actually come to the point where, because of the insufficiency of his scheming works, he was willing to give up the blessing/birthright; because, when he addresses Esau, he constantly refers to him as “my lord,” and himself as “your servant,” the opposite of the prophecy, “the elder shall serve the younger…”. In light of their history, do you think that Jacob was intimating, “the birthright is yours after all.”?

Second, in the circumstance that Christ refused to tell Jacob his name, and said that he had to be gone before full daylight, he may have been indicating that, even though he was appearing now, he was not ready to be revealed openly, or in broad daylight, as it were — that would have to wait until the proper redemptive-historical time-frame, “the fullness of the times,” in which Christ finally and fully took on human flesh.

Sound reasonable?

By God’s grace, Nathan, please keep writing! Promise me that you will type such observations faithfully & feverishly until your two index-fingers fall off…then promise me you’ll learn how to type with your thumbs… :)

Blessings in Christ alone, for Whose sake the Father gladly justifies the ungodly!