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THE TOUCH OF GOD
Genesis 32:22-32
Bob Bonner
January 28, 2007
Jesus is so often profiled in movies as this gentle, meek and almost effeminate leader that Christians are to emulate. This portrayal has been responsible for some men deliberately looking away from rather than following Jesus. Some portray Him as a pacifist, one who would never fight or hurt a flea. The only possible way one could come to that conclusion is if one has never read of Christ’s exploits, in either the New Testament, or His pre-incarnate appearances in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, we have Jesus boldly walking into the Temple in Jerusalem, not once but twice, turning over the tables of the money changers, declaring that they should not turn God’s house into a den of thieves. He did this once at the beginning of His ministry and then about three years later at the end of His ministry.
When one studies Christ’s prophesied role at the end of this world, as spelled out in the book of Revelation, He is portrayed as a relentless, wrathful and destroying King, providing mercy only to those who humbly have put their trust in Him.
When we come face to face with the pre-incarnate Christ in the Old Testament, as Joshua did, right before he goes to war against Jericho, we see Jesus as a mighty soldier, the commander and chief of the Lord’s army, ready to put the hurt on Joshua. Friends, there was and is nothing effeminate about Jesus Christ. Yes, He is loving and kind, but He also is the judge of all the earth.
This morning, we will see the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ once again, in a powerful duel with one of His own. In our passage, we will see Jesus put the smack down on one of His chosen patriarchs, Jacob. Join me as we look in our Bibles at Genesis 32:22.
As I showed you last week, Chapters 32-33 of Genesis reveal God’s solution to Jacob’s problem of how to reconcile his relationship with his brother. In this four-act drama, we see what it takes to deal with our past mistakes and how to be reconciled to a family member. In Act One, verses 1-2, we have the vision of the angels that make up the “camp of God.” Act Two, verses 3-21, is the sending of a gift to Esau . In Act Three, verses 22-32, our passage for this morning, we learn about Jacob’s wrestling with the angel of the Lord at Jabbok. And in Act Four, chapter 33, we finally see the peaceful reconciliation with Esau. As the reader can tell, Jacob’s preparation to meet with Esau is bracketed by two unexpected meetings with the divine. These two meetings signal another major transformation is going to take place in Jacob’s life. In our passage of study this morning, we will see what it takes for Jacob to become successful over Esau.
According to chapter 31 Jacob and his family traveled south from Aram, east of the Jordan River. When we get to Chapter 35, we will see that Jacob’s first planned destination in Canaan, since he left Aram is Bethel, where he first met the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ at what some call, “Jacob’s Ladder.” The quickest and easiest route for him to take while driving thousands of animals is to continue south and around the headwaters of the Jabbok River, traveling westward just south of these headwaters.
This river flows through deeply-cut canyons for about 50 miles westward into the Jordan River, just about 20 miles above the Dead Sea. The source of the Jabbok River begins at an elevation of about 1900 feet and ends at the Jordan River at 115 feet below sea level. That’s a drop in elevation of over 2000 feet in 50 miles.
As Jacob comes around the headwaters of the Jabbok River, he sets up camp at Mahanaim. Eventually, he will cross the Jabbok River at a well-known pass that is easy for travel. The pass and crossing point is called Penuel. From there, he moves his family to Succouth for an unspecified amount of time. Next he travels to Shechem because it is a town on a highway that traverses the west side of this mountain ridge in Palestine that runs north and south, to Bethel.
Our passage for this morning historically and geographically takes place at Penuel. Penuel is very close to where the Jabbok River leaves this canyon and flows into the plains of the Jordon River. This is the terrain in which our story takes place.
With that brief historical review and preview, let’s begin reading our passage. “He arose that same night and took his two wives and his two maids and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream [the Jabbok]. And he sent across whatever he had.”
Interestingly, the name “Jabbok” was not given to this river during Jacob’s lifetime, but it was named the “Jabbok” later. The word Jabbok comes from a word that means “twisted,” like a pretzel is twisted. This same word has been translated elsewhere as “wrestler.” I believe that it gained this second meaning because two people wrestling together look like a twisted pretzel, with arms and legs intertwined together. What a perfect name for this river, in light of history. It not only describes the rivers twisting through deeply-cut canyons, but also it commemorates the spot of the event we are just about to study, where God, or Jesus, wrestled with Jacob
Some might wonder, “Why did Jacob separate himself from his family at this point?” I believe Jacob deliberately separated himself from his wives and children because he was afraid for their safety. He had just received a report that his brother, the one who, 20 years previously, had vowed to kill Jacob, was coming to see him. Out of concern for them, he did not want them to be near him should his long-estranged brother, Esau, show up and try to kill Jacob and maybe even his family members.
Beginning with verse 24, we meet an opponent who challenges Jacob to a wrestling match: “Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.”
The text says that “a man wrestled” with Jacob. This expression, “a man” is an ambiguous Hebrew term, pointing to some kind of being that has not quite revealed himself. In other words, this being was a physical figure of sorts, but Jacob wasn’t sure who it was. The darkness concealed his opponent’s identity. He may even have thought this was his brother, Esau. Remember, Jacob hadn’t seen Esau in 20 years. When we get to verse 30, Jacob finally identifies for us who this fleshly being was. It was God in the flesh, the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ.
Also, note that the writer of Genesis deliberately emphasizes that when this man, Jesus, confronts Jacob, Jacob was alone. The writer does so because he wants us to understand that just like every individual down through history, God deals with us one on one. It is not a group effort, as it concerns your eternal destiny or eternal rewards. It is a personal thing between you and God. I can’t deal with God on your behalf; you must deal with God. In this case, Jacob had to deal alone with God as it concerned his relationship with God and as it concerned God’s preparing Jacob to reconcile with his brother with Esau.
The word used here for “wrestled” is not the same as “Jabbok.” This “wrestle” is a rare word, used only here and in verse 25. This “wrestled” is connected in meaning to the word “dust,” implying one is getting dusty while wrestling. It may not be too far a stretch to say that Jesus got “down and dirty” in His wrestling match with Jacob.
Note also, that Jacob did not initiate this wrestling match. The text clearly states that the “man” or Jesus initiated this wrestling match. It was God who made the first move. It was God who was in control. It was God who initiated this wrestling match and eventually says when it will stop.
This is really important to keep in mind because there have been some errant teachings about prayer that come from missing this observation. Some people use this passage as a basis to promote or encourage people to wrestle with God in prayer in order to get the answer or blessing we want from God. They suggest that if we initiate a prayerful wrestling match with God, like Jacob did, then God will honor our efforts and determination. If we fight hard enough with God in prayer, they teach, then God will hear us and we will prevail. He will bless us with what we want. Alternatively, they tell us that if we do not get what we want through prayer, then it is because we tired too quickly. We didn’t wrestle long or hard enough in prayer. We weren’t serious or as committed as we needed to be.
But the text does not say Jacob wrestled with God, initiating this match. It says that God initiated the match with Jacob, because God was trying to teach Jacob a lesson, which we will see he learns from this momentous event in his life.
To tell people they must wrestle with God to get what they want portrays God as a warped being who doesn’t care and would rather fight than switch or give you what you want or need. The facts are that this teaching works against what other Scriptures teach that God hears our prayers and invites us to continually come, ask, seek and knock as often as we wish and He will gladly hear and answer us. But He never promises that we can get what we want, even if we are ready to duel it out with God. We don’t have to drag God’s blessings out of Him! What a warped, unkind, unloving God He would be if we did.
The real question to ask here is: “Why did God come down and wrestle with Jacob?” Listen to the age-old words of Rev. Griffith Thomas, one-time principal of Wycliffe Hall, in Oxford. He wrote: “The wrestling was an endeavour on God’s part to break down Jacob’s opposition, to bring him to an end of himself, to take from him all self-trust, all confidence in his own cleverness and resource, to make him know that Esau is to be overcome and Canaan obtained not by craft or flattery, but by Divine grace and power.”
Do you get that?! Thus far in his life, everything Jacob had done, and won, he still thought was by way of his own wile and wit. He’d got the better of Esau and Laban purely by way of his own scheming, and although God had employed various means to try and force Jacob back to Him, Jacob was still determined to do things independently from God. So, finally, God clothes Himself with the form of a man and comes down to wrestle Jacob away from his self-reliance. God has great plans for Jacob! His redemptive purposes for the whole of mankind are to be worked out through Jacob’s family line. But God can’t use Jacob and bless him while he’s still doing things in the flesh, depending only upon himself.
And the same is true with you and me! God wants to use us, and He wants to bless us, but He can’t fully do either until we’ve voluntarily and fully submitted to Him. Not until we are fully yielded, not until we have allowed God to master us, can He fulfil His “good, pleasing and perfect will” in us. [Rom. 12:1ff; 2 Cor. 3; John 15] If we never yield completely to Him, then we’ll never know what God might have accomplished in and through us! So, God initiates this wrestling match.
In response to Jesus’ challenge, Jacob immediately takes on this “man.” Jacob, as he did in front of Rachel the first day he met her, showing off his strength by single-handedly removing the stone from the well, once again surprises us with his strength. For he wrestled with Jesus until daybreak.
Realizing that Jacob was relentless in his determination to win this match, and that Jacob wasn’t giving up, Jesus brings this match to a close. “When he [Jesus] saw that he had not prevailed against him [that Jacob would not quit or give up], he [Jesus] touched the socket of his [Jacob’s] thigh; so the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him.”
Notice: It does not say that God “could not prevail” but “he had not.” Big difference: God could have killed Jacob instantly, as is obvious from the rest of this verse. The point is that Jacob was a fighter. Jacob would not give up. It was not until God “touched him” that he realized he was not going to win and had to stop. This word, “touched” is a mild term relative to the power of Jacob’s assailant. This little touch of Jesus was a mighty blow to Jacob, such that it dislocated his hip.
In Jacob’s determined resistance, of course, we see a picture of our own stubbornness when it comes to yielding to God. How readily do we give way to His Lordship and will? Not very quickly, as a rule! We struggle against it. We do a ‘Jonah’ and run the other way at times. But God keeps on ‘wrestling’ us, because He knows that His way is the best for us. Sometimes, our struggling is so great, and our resistance so determined, that God will take the drastic step of hurting us in order to bring us to the end of ourselves—to bring us to the point at which we will lean on Him…
That’s what this wrenching of the hip was for. God wasn’t hurting Jacob in a fit of rage! He was disabling him so that from now on he would forever remember his own weakness. Barnhouse comments: “Is it not strange that God must dislocate our plans, our lives, and even our bodies before we bow to His will? For years God had been trying to get Jacob to submit to Him but Jacob fought for his own way to the last moment…There was nothing left for divine love to do but put him out of joint.”
However, even with an injured hip, Jacob still hadn’t let go of Jesus. We read, “Then he [Jesus] said, ‘Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.’ But he [Jacob] said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
Jacob knows now that this person is no ordinary human being. He knows that his opponent at a minium, is an agent of God, and thus he clings to Him, and out of respect, he pleads for mercy.
Remember, before this wrestling match and before his hip was injured, Jacob was already worried about facing his brother Esau. But now, lame, how do you think he feels about facing Esau? Now, he is in a panic. Why, he couldn’t even walk without hobbling, let alone do battle with his brother! Hence, realizing his total inadequacy, he humbly begs for God to intervene on his behalf. He pleads for a blessing. He finally recognizes that his only hope for the future lay in the grace and strength of the Lord.
However, before Jesus blesses Jacob, He forces Jacob to own up to his past. He does so by asking Jacob, “What is your name? And he said, “Jacob.” Meaning, “I am who my name says I am... a deceiver, a devious, scheming, manipulative person.” Once Jacob faced himself and admitted to himself and to God his previous manner of surviving in the world, to be a devious manipulater, then Jesus could begin to transform Jacob.
With this admission of guilt, God in essence says to him, “Not any longer will you be know as Jacob! From now on, you will be known by a new name that represents your new identity. Your new name will be ‘Israel’ for you have striven with God and with men [ie. Laban] and have prevailed.”
One of my Bibles has a footnote that says the name “Israel” means “he struggles with God.” Unfortunately, that isn’t strictly true! There are around forty names of people in the Bible that are made up of verbs joined with the Hebrew words “El” or “Jah” meaning “God.” In every case, God is the doer of the verb. For example: Samuel means “God heard,” not “he heard God!” Daniel means “God judges,” not “he judges God.” And, in the same way, Israel means “God wrestles, strives or struggles,” not “he strives, struggles or wrestles with God.”
You see, the whole point of this passage is not, as some would have you believe, that Jacob wrestled with God. The point of this passage is that God, the one who took the initiative has chosen to wrestle with Jacob. God is always the one who is in control. He was going to do a work on Jacob.
“So what’s this, then, about Jacob prevailing?” you might ask. Well, in a sense, Jacob did win. He won in that he came away with a blessing! But he won through losing the match. Barnhouse explains it this way: “He won by failing…The day of failure through success was over, and that of success through failure had begun.” In other words, Jacob didn’t win because he was stronger, he won because he recognized he was weaker and would have to rely on Jesus who is stronger! And when we reach the same conclusion, then we’ll start winning too!
Bottom line, God says, “Jacob, your new name declares that you will be a winner, because I fight for you...because I am on your side. You will never have to depend upon your survival skills of deceiving others to get ahead. I will fight for you as you trust in me.” Jacob, from God’s and history’s perspective, will be seen as a winner, not because of his skills, but because of God’s mercy.
Further, not only will this man be considered a winner, so will that nation that bears his name. The significance of the nation of Israel is that they are God’s, His chosen people. Being Israel, in the end, they will be invincible and triumphant, even when matched against the anti-Christ, all because God has chosen them as His own. Even when they do wrong and ignore Him, as they are doing now, God will work it out at the end of history, when they are living as a minority of persecuted people during the Great Tribulation, they will emerge victorious.
The wrestling match is all over, except for the shaking of hands. Jacob turns to his holy opponent and asks, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” [That is more of a rhetorical question than a question seeking information. In other words, Jesus is making a statement or challenge here. Such as: “Just stop and think; then the answer as to ‘Who I am?’ will come to you.”] And he blessed him there. So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved.”
Finally, as the daylight comes and this personal lesson for Jacob comes to a close, the true nature of Jacob’s adversary suddenly dawns on him. It is God in the flesh, the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ. He had been wrestling with Jesus! Realizing this, he names this place Peniel which means “Face of God,” because out of God’s mercy, Jacob had been allowed to see, not all of God, but just the face God and does not die as a result. According to Exodus 33:20, if he had seen God in all of His glory, it would have killed him. By the way, this expression to “see someone face to face” is a unique expression only used of a direct, divine-human encounter.
This experience was both terrifying and intimate for Jacob. Just as it was for many others in the Old Testament, like Joshua, who saw the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ in His military dress. After having seen Jesus face to face before the battle of Jericho, Joshua’s confidence about God’s call upon his life increased. Likewise, Jacob feels his confidence level rise with every degree of the early morning rising sun. We read, “Now the sun rose upon him just as he crossed over Penuel, and he was limping on his thigh.”
What a perfect picture of how we are to live here on earth and a picture of how everyone who will enter heaven’s gate...limping in dependence upon Jesus. The limp of dependence is the posture of the saint. A student in a sociology class, to which I was invited to speak about the role of the church in society today, raised his hand and said, “I think that believing in Jesus Christ is nothing but an emotional crutch!” To which I quickly responded: “You are absolutely right! And until you come to grips with the fact that you and every one of us is an emotional cripple, you won’t appreciate what an incredible crutch His is! No other crutch, whether it be money, a promotion, possessions, glory on the field of play or battle, having that special person on your arm, booze or drugs, none of those things can compare to Jesus.” Take note: the arrogant and prideful will not waltz into heaven; only those who humble themselves before the Lord and trust in Him will limp into heaven, and once there, we will throw off our emotional and spiritual crutches and we will dance a worshipful jig with Jesus.
The writer of Genesis concludes, “Therefore, to this day the sons of Israel do not eat the sinew of the hip [that is the “sciatic nerve” or the central nerve of the hip region] which is on the socket of the thigh, because he touched the socket of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew of the hip.”
By the way, the strongest sinew, the most powerful nerve in the human body, I understand, is this nerve. By touching and crippling Jacob at his strongest point, Jacob’s self-confidence was dealt a mighty blow. He became very sensitive to God’s power and adequacy and his own inadequacy and impotence from this point on. He would now learn to depend more on God.
Several lessons can be learned from this drama, but I want to underscore only one. I believe it was the most important lesson of Jacob’s life, and, for sure, it is the major lesson of this text. As I highlight this lesson, keep in mind that before Jesus put the smack down on Jacob, Jacob was already a believer. So, whatever can be applied to Jacob can be applied to you if you know Jesus as your personal Savior and Lord.
Remembering that Jacob was a believer, does it surprise you that God would actually cripple a very physically healthy and strong child of God? Why would God do such a thing? There are different reasons why God may do such a thing to certain persons at certain times. And not all reasons apply to every person at that moment. Here, there is an obvious reason why God put the hurt on Jacob’s life. Sometimes the Lord must cripple self-sufficient Christians in order to bless them.
Sometimes we forget to fully admit that all we have and are able to do comes as a gift from Him. If we refuse to believe or to acknowledge that this is true about us, then God—because He loves us and wants us to succeed in His purposes for our lives—sometimes can only get our attention through causing us pain, in order to bless us. It’s like the point of Proverbs 27:6, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend....” A real friend will not allow us to continue in a manner that brings harm to us or shame to Christ. A true friend may even have to risk hurting us with strong words, in telling us the truth. If this is true of well meaning, but imperfect earthly friends, how much more should we expect it from a perfect God who loves us as no other.
Jacob, a very bright, strong, hardworking and gifted individual had never really come to grips with how it was that he had became so successful. He had given lip service to Laban and his wives that God had blessed him. But, as it is with many individuals that are specially gifted, it really takes a humbling experience to totally convince us that we, even though gifted, apart from Him, can do nothing.
Dale Martin Stone penned the following poem that sums up this point rather well. It reads:
When God wants to drill a man
and thrill a man and skill a man
When God wants to mold a man
to play the noblest part,
When he yearns with all his heart
to create so bold a man
that all the world will be amazed,
Watch his methods, watch his ways.
How God relentlessly perfects
whom he royally elects;
How he hammers us and hurts us
and with mighty blows converts us
into trial shapes of clay
which only God can understand,
While our tortured heart is crying
and we lift beseeching hands.
How God bends, but never breaks
when his good he undertakes,
How he uses whom he chooses
and with every purpose fuses us;
By every act induces us
to try his splendor out—
God knows what he’s about!
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