God at work: from creation to 3 wives

The Lord our God is not a God who lives by accidental happenings. He does not bumble along hoping that everything will be alright one day. He is a God of purpose, design and sovereignty.

In the beginning the Lord God crafted creation. [Gen c1 v1 to c2 v3; John c1 v1 to 3; Colossians c1 v 15-17] The Lord did not create accidentally or haphazardly but deliberately according to His outcome intent. He had an eternal purpose: to dwell with His angels and His people in a mutual relationship of love, [Rev21:3 and 22:3b-5] a life in which all is goodness [Rev 21:4]. Therefore the Triune God poured out life, creative life, life that is not here today and gone tomorrow, for that ultimately is non-life, but life that He intended to be eternal, for God is the God of the living.[Mark c12 v 27]

First the Lord made the heavens, a spiritual realm, a dwelling place for a host of angels. Then He made the physical cosmos, a realm providing a home for people, that is creatures made in His image, in a triune form of body, soul and spirit. All made for eternal community with Himself. [Gen c3 v 22 and Rev c21 v4b]

We know very little about the spiritual creation, for it is not easily sensed by us. But we do know that every angel had an open, direct, personal relationship with God. There are tiers of status and roles in this heavenly realm but there is no block or barrier between any angel and their Lord God. And so there is no need for either faith or hope; but there is love for all the angels were created by love, for love and invited into love, a personal gift relationship of I to You and You to I, wherein every self is freely directed to the blessing of others.

In that same love God made our physical cosmos, an inter-woven cradle for human being. Air and light, sea and land, plants and manifold kinds of creatures forming, shaping, providing a home fit for creaturely beings, especially human beings. And when it was done, God saw that everything He had made was good, very good, [Gen 1 v31] for it was all well fitted to achieve His long-term purpose, the making of a shared home where Heaven, His dwelling place and His heavens would be one with the Earth, the dwelling place of His people, in which He and His would be together. Expressing that intent He walked with His people in the garden He had made for them. That was not yet that single dwelling place but it was a sign of it.

But then, we do not know the deep whys and wherefores of this, some of God’s spiritual creatures fell into pride which turned their commitment to others into a promotion of themselves. Where there was peace there arose rebellion. Where there was righteousness there came wrongness. Where there was community there erupted division. And the who prided himself the most attempted to enthrone himself over God. That failed, and he and his followers forfeited their heavenly home. [Isaiah 14 v12-15; Ezekiel 28 v12b-17; Revelation 12 v7-9]. As God is a kingship of light entered a dominion of darkness. As God is love they became gripped by hate, especially for human beings, whom God made in His own image.

Sadly this fall from intimate relationship with God did not end there. The rebels, unable to strike down God decided to strike down His people, and by that despoil God’s physical cosmos, just as they had His heavenly realm. By false appearance and distorted word God’s people were lured into betraying themselves and rebelling against God. [Gen 3 v 1- 6]. They found out their folly as God revealed the consequences of their fatal choice. The well crafted cosmos cracked. The blessed world became cursed. Life entered death. They exchanged the blessing of the kingship of God for suffering under the rule of the prince of this world.

Yet God acted to protect His purpose, to establish His people and achieve His plan, signalled by the prophecy of the crushing of the serpent’s head. [c3 v15]This is the process we are following. It begins in a new act of creation in the birth of Seth. As Cain’s evil pervades the world, God raises up Noah and cleanses the world by water. Then comes the anti-God kingship of Nimrod, pointing to the rebellion of many nations [Psalm 2 v1-3], who urges his people to reach heaven and make a name for themselves, but God undoes their ambitions. Then through Shem God chooses Abraham, promising to make a name for him. He who was childless would be the father of God’s people, through whom God would bring blessing to the whole world. That promise begins with Isaac and flows through Isaac into Jacob, who fathers the twelve tribes of Israel. The name Israel means ‘struggles with God’. An apt renaming for Jacob, for while he knows that God is with him, he also puts his hope in worldly actions; and an apt name for the nation of Israel, which regularly falls into Jacob’s worldliness even though God has chosen them out of all the peoples on the earth to be his people, His treasured possession. [Deut c7 v6 and c14 v2]

This brings us to Genesis c25 v19 to c50 v21. However this is not a commentary on the Bible but a reflection on Bible Revival. Within the action and people in these chapters we can see the key characteristics of the Revival God:

- the Sovereign God of Grace who works with and through people, their nature and their circumstances to achieve His purposes.

- the eternal God, the God of the past, the present and the future who has a long term perspective which shapes His present actions. This becomes more visible to His people looking back after the events rather than as they live in the events – a truth that is still so for His people today. It may also be made known by God in multi-layered prophecy.

These interweave forming the patterns of His historical action.

Often these Genesis chapters are approached as the histories of three men, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, with an extra smattering of Esau and Laban. But this can so strongly control our perspective that we may miss vital aspects of God’s revival work, which is, remember:

- the raising of a people committed to be His people, and then to enliven the members of His people in faith and purpose and way of life;

- the rousing of them from love of the world and the restoring of them from the love of idols to Himself as their true love and way of life.

- the seeking of others who have been outside His people by indifference and sin to bring them into His kingship blessing and community.

All these things happening as necessary in each generation until all who belong to Him are brought to eternal life with Him in His new creation where revival will no longer be needed.

Rather than concentrating on the male actors focusing on the three main women Rebekah, Rachel and Leah may help us to see these things more clearly.