Jacob’s night with God is not a story about how Jacob defeated God in a wrestling match. Jacob did not defeat God. Rather, God defeated Jacob. If you know anything about wrestling, then you will know that wrestling starts at the legs and hips. Wrestling is about gaining leverage over your opponent, and the way you gain leverage is by using your legs and hips. Without the use of his hips, Jacob could not use his legs for leverage. This left him with only one option. He could only cling to God, not in an effort to overpower Him, but in an effort to remain with God. Up to that point, Jacob had spent his life trying to manipulate God and men. He had manipulated his father out of the family blessing. He had manipulated his brother out of his birthright. He had tried to manipulate God out of a blessing by bargaining with Him. He had manipulated his uncle out of the best of his uncle’s flock. And now that he was left without a home, he found himself forced to return to the land of his birth, still fearful that his brother wanted him dead, and so again attempting to manipulate his brother by showering him with gifts. We are all like this. Conceived in sin, and born into ignorance, we spend our lives attempting to manipulate God and men. We think to manipulate God into accepting us as righteous based upon our own self righteousness. We think to bargain with Him by offering Him promises of future obedience. But at some point along the way, like Jacob, God breaks His people’s cycle of manipulation. And at that point, we find ourselves able only to cling to His gospel, to His righteousness, to His cross. The text says that Jacob wrestled with God and prevailed. This doesn’t mean he wrestled with God and won. Rather, it is better understood in the sense that although Jacob had spent his life wrestling with God, he now lived. God had brought him to repent of his efforts to manipulate. Although he had wasted many years trying to manipulate God, nevertheless, by the grace of God, he had now emerged from the other side of a life spent manipulating. He had prevailed.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Oct 2013 11:49:46 +0000
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