SPIRITUALITY AS SEEN IN JACOB
[p. 350] SPIRITUALITY AS SEEN IN JACOB
Genesis 30: 25; Genesis 32: 24 - 30; Genesis 33: 7; Genesis 37: 3; Genesis 48: 14
I wish to speak at this time about spirituality and I have selected Jacob as illustrative of a believer’s progress in this great matter. I believe I have made right selection and the fact that it is said that God loved Jacob hundreds of years after he died confirms the selection. God is a Spirit. Spirituality flows out of what God is, and it is necessitated by what God is. First it is that which is natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual (1 Corinthians 15: 46). The spiritual is final, and corresponds with what God is. Unspirituality renders us unsuitable for God, untrustworthy too. Nothing is much more objectionable than untrustworthiness. So we read of certain who believed on the Lord Jesus on account of the signs which He manifested, but the Lord did not commit Himself to them; it is a very humiliating thing if the Lord has to retire because unspirituality comes into evidence in those who would make profession of Him. He did not commit Himself to them, it says, and immediately the Spirit of God introduces the subject of new birth as if the Spirit would say that aside from this and the development of it there can be nothing for God; He must remain alone, whereas His thought is to surround Himself with myriads in the relation of sons, that relation involving spirituality.
So the Lord speaks of the necessity of new birth to a man who met Him, came indeed to Him by night, and said to Him, “We know that thou art come a teacher from God”, John 3:2. Nicodemus was exercised and that led him to say this to Jesus: “We know that thou art come a teacher from God”. A very fine remark! one of the best he made. He made many afterwards, as we know, but some of them were [p. 351] not very luminous. His most spiritual service was to bring one hundred pound weight of spices to embalm the Lord Jesus when He was dead. If we only had believers like Nicodemus as he is presented in Scripture, we would have persons who knew something about new birth but knew very little about the assembly, very little about the heavenly calling. He remained in the council although he was a disciple, but he did not follow the line of separation to become a real disciple of Jesus. There were many secret disciples, sorrowful though that is, because they are cowardly-and they are owned in heaven. As I said before, Nicodemus came out into the open to bury Christ, although to attend the burial was not in itself so very much. He attended the burial of Christ and embalmed Him, and did so quite liberally. Immediately after that we have the record of Mary Magdalene in John 20, but there is no word of Nicodemus as being in the new company, the new circle whom the Lord Jesus addresses and speaks of as His brethren. I do not say he was not; he was, I believe, and so was Joseph of Arimathaea, too, but there is no further word of them. It may be there are those present who are like that, secret disciples. Why not take courage in your heart, in your hand, and come out boldly for Christ? You will be on the winning side, as it is said, “Who is he that gets the victory over the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”, 1 John 5: 5. He comes out of heaven, a great Warrior, presently, His name is called The Word of God, and He is completely victorious over all His foes. There will be no need to be ashamed of Him then, nor is there now. There is an urgent call to be out and out for Christ. Nicodemus began with a good remark, and finished with a fairly good deed, but still we cannot look at him as a glorious witness for Christ, one of Christ’s brethren.
Now, the new birth underlies those who are the [p. 352] brethren of Christ, and that is why it is brought in in John 3, because that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. The spirit is an element in itself, a germ, as it were, in my person, which develops and develops and develops until the natural is superseded by it. There is first that which is natural, afterwards that which is spiritual, and that is final. We are not worth much without that: we are not worth anything unless we are born anew, whatever our attainments. We are not worth anything to God or for His testimony.
I have selected Jacob because he represents this great idea in the Old Testament more than any other I know. Even as a babe, he was moved on the principle of spirituality; he supplanted his brother. His brother was Esau, and he has to be supplanted because he is the natural man, the man of the field, the man of sports, the man who despised the inheritance of God. That man is worth nothing; he is in the way, and Jacob supplanted him and obtained the inheritance and never lost it. He valued it; all spiritual persons value the inheritance of God. Jacob was quite an oldish man when Joseph was born, and his practical spirituality, his sustained spirituality, begins with the birth of Joseph. Joseph is a type of Christ. I intend to speak of him in that way. Of course he was a literal son of Jacob, a babe, a boy, and a man like others, but he was a type of Christ and particularly in this matter. He appears in the midst of a family; Jacob was the head of a large family by this time. Joseph was his eleventh son. A large family is no detriment to a christian; in fact, to elect to have a small one is a detriment. God works in families. Jacob had ten sons already, but he had said nothing about moving out of Padan-Aram to get back to his own place. That is the spiritual side of the matter, as he says here, “Send me away, that I may go to my place and to my country”, Genesis 30: 25. That is the christian, typically; he has got his own place and that [p. 353] is not this world. That is not the world of the theatres, or the world of sports. Esau’s world was that, not Jacob’s. He was a plain man, we are told, and dwelt in tents, meaning that he was a pilgrim; that was what characterised him in Canaan. But he had got out of the way; he had been away for twenty years from his own place, his own country; and now he would return. It is a great moment in the believer when this thought arises, and especially if it arises in the head of a family. God can speak to a man through one of his children, if he himself for the moment is not expressive of Christ, although a true believer; one of his children may be and that was so with Joseph. The Spirit of God does not tell us just what it was, but He does say that as Rachel bore Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go to my place and to my country”. There is surely some suggestion in that child, that son, that he had not observed in the others. It was not in the others. You take, for instance, the firstborn in which fathers pride themselves. His mother says, ‘A son!’, as much as to say, ‘Wonderful!’. That was what she said about Reuben. We think our children are wonderful, but they are not really as wonderful as we think. But a son was a wonderful thought with her. But Jacob’s comment many, many years later throws cold water on that. We have to wait and see what these babes are going to be. Excellency of dignity, beginning of my strength, says Jacob-my firstborn, but alas! impetuous, unstable as water (Genesis 49:3, 4). That was what Reuben was, you see, the firstborn. Well, I cannot go over them all, but would just touch on that; the firstborn, you see, may be a great disappointment. Then we have a Simeon; we have a Levi; we have a Judah; one after another, a name given to each, and why? So on down, covering all the ten of them; not a very happy family, you know. It often strikes one, the unsightliness of that family at [p. 354] first, the hatred between the two sisters, and the rivalry, and many other things. But still it was the twelve tribes that were coming on, and here is the eleventh. There is something about him in the midst of all that scene of evil. You can see them all around, you know; Reuben, and Simeon, and Levi. Simeon and Levi-instruments of cruelty were in their habitations; these boys would have had knives in their pockets, and little pistols, if they existed. That is what they were. Let us not deceive ourselves as to what the flesh is. Then Joseph appears; there must have been something there peculiarly touching. He is from another land, as it were; his countenance bespeaks something else, as it is said of Moses, he was fair to God. Jacob says, I must go to my own place, to my own country, as much as to say, Joseph reminds me of that. How delightful it is in a family where there is great incongruity, great lack of affection and cohesion, to find a child like that. One child in a family becomes an influence, a saviour as it were, to pull out of the confusion into the heavenly side, into the believer’s position. Well now, having said that, I go on to chapter 32 to show how Jacob was taught. He was on the way back, but he was alone; not now in the midst of his family, no Joseph, no Reuben, no Rachel, no one at all but Jacob. It is God and Jacob now. The head of a family has to come to that very often, to get away from all that is natural, to be with God; at least, to be alone so that God may be with him; to be alone with God. And that was what happened. You know the story: often used in ministry, rightly, but Jacob says, “I will not let thee go except thou bless me” (verse 26). He is on spiritual lines now.
“I will not let thee go except thou bless me”: I want a blessing; if I am in touch with God I am at the source of everything; I want to get all I can. And He is ready to give. He does not wish you to go begging. I want a blessing, he says, and he gets it.
[p. 355] But he gets it at the same time in which he is crippled; that is, he is not to be the active money-maker that he used to be. He acquired great wealth by his cleverness as a cattle raiser; he did it for wages; his father-in-law changed his wages ten times. Such are fathers-in-law; I mean to say, the Spirit of God hides nothing; He brings everything into the light, whether mothers-in-law, fathers-in-law, sons, daughters or sisters; everything is exposed where God is. If God be not there, we can hide things; but if God be there, there can be no hiding for with God everything is naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do; not only so, but what is spoken, for “what ye have spoken in the ear in chambers shall be proclaimed upon the housetops”, Luke 12: 3. Jacob is alone with God, and he wants a blessing and he gets it; but he gets it as a crippled man, he limps. I touch on this for a moment, because it brings out the negative and the positive sides. As I advance in spirituality I become weakened in other respects; it is the mercy of God that it is so. If I prosper as my soul prospers, it would be well; but if I prosper beyond that to which my soul prospers, I need to be crippled, and God does that for me. He knows what to do.
Now we are told that it was a man that wrestled with Jacob, but Jacob does not call him a man. He calls him God; that is, he knows God when he sees Him; that is an important feature of spirituality. Hence, I can say God is there, as the man does that is affected by the prophetic word; he says, God is among you. He can tell His name is God; it is not the great gifts he is naming, the one who is speaking the prophetic word, but he says, God is among those people. That is spirituality. And so Jacob says, “I have seen God face to face, and my life has been preserved”. He called the place Peniel, meaning ‘Face of God’; he saw that. He is advancing [p. 356] spiritually and God says, I am honouring the advance; your name is no longer Jacob, it is Israel, because as a prince thou hast prevailed and hast power with God and with men. That is a real tribute to spirituality. A man that has power with God in prayer gets answers from God, and has power with the brethren.
Well now, that makes room for Joseph. I just touch on the next chapter, this parade before Esau. He was not worthy of it: it was a remarkable parade, a parade of faith. How God would love to parade His people! He would do it and bring us out in glory when Christ is manifested, who is our life. We shall be manifested with Him; that is, everybody will see us. So here is the family of faith, the family of Jacob, and one after another, the children passing by before Esau and bowing, each mother and each son, bowing, all the children. And in the arrangement for the parade, so to speak, before Esau, Jacob puts Rachel and Joseph, Rachel first, which is, of course, what in a sense should be done, the mother first. That is Jacob’s arrangement, but Jacob is now lame, he is no longer the self-assertive man he used to be. Why should there be a self-assertive man in a family? Where there is a self-assertive man in a family or meeting there is no room for Christ, there is not much divine movement. Self-assertiveness, making a show in the house or the family or the meeting will eclipse Christ and put Him out of view. But Jacob had been made lame by God, turned into a prince spiritually, and that means I make room for Christ. And so in the last mention of the family, Joseph and Rachel, Joseph has moved on. It does not say that Jacob put him there; it was the liberty, so to speak, that Christ had typically. He moved before his mother; room was made for him. Well, dear brethren, that is an important matter, that I be not self-assertive and domineering in my house or among my brethren. If I am self-assertive God would cripple me so that I make room for Christ, so [p. 357] that Christ moves. Joseph moves before Rachel; he is not told to do it; he has liberty to move. There is liberty with Christ in those circumstances.
Well now, the next passage is in chapter 37: that is, that Jacob now loves Joseph. He loved him above all his brethren, all his sons. How fine that in a household or a meeting the leading man loves Christ, that is what marks him; he puts Christ before every brother and sister, before his own brothers after the flesh. He loved Christ; he loved Joseph. This is a very important point to reach in spirituality, because it is not the babe Joseph now, or even the boy. He is seventeen years of age, which is a very critical time for boys and girls, for they are then peculiarly exposed to the devil and if they are in any way affected by the devil they are very unlovable. Boy flesh and girl flesh at that age is very unlovable if it is unruly and it is wise for young people to take in all that, to stand against it. It is the most critical time with them, and that kind of flesh is very unlovable. But not so Joseph: how very lovable he is there! Only one member of the house developed into this at seventeen years of age; Joseph is the outstanding young man in Genesis, and he has got every virtue. You marvel at him. He is never overcome in his youthfulness. He comes out among the brethren to see them, sent there, but he hears their evil conversation. You know how young people are given to evil conversation; they cannot stop; their words follow each other, they overwhelm each other; they have so much to say, and yet they have nothing to say. But these brethren had something evil to say, filthy things, and Joseph resented that and told his father. That was one of the elements doubtless that affected his father. But still he is the seventeen-year-old son that is loved by his father who made him a coat of many colours. It is a vest really, not something for public show because a vest is underneath. Not the time for show yet; it is the time for [p. 358] love and for the evidence of love in secrecy. He loved Joseph above all his sons, and signified it by making him a vest of many colours. The chapter is full of the glories of Joseph; everyone sinks into the shade but Joseph. Jacob recovers himself; he shines in the fact that he loved Joseph; but he rebuked Joseph for announcing his own glory, that is, the glory of Christ. The eleven sheaves bow down to his, the sun and moon and the eleven stars bow down to him, speaking of the glories of Christ. The chapter is full of the glories of Christ, the glories of Joseph, but Jacob rebukes him. But yet he recovers himself in measure in observing this saying. Fathers are often active in rebuking the children; one has to be careful, and if he makes a mistake correct himself before the children. But the chapter is full of the glory of Joseph; it shines brilliantly, and Jacob is just able to keep himself but no more; he is hardly able to do that. Still, there is something there to steady him, for he observed the saying. His brothers hated him; you could not conceive of Jacob hating Joseph. He is a spiritual man; a spiritual man would never hate Christ or what is of Christ. He may be under the power of the enemy for the moment, but he rescues himself, a most important thing. A spiritual man always finds a way of recovery.
In the last scripture, chapter 48, it is still Joseph. The history of Jacob’s spirituality, I may say, is linked up with his son Joseph, as is the history of every true believer who loves Christ: his spirituality is linked up with Christ and it shines in the presence of Christ. Joseph now is a great man, no longer a boy of seventeen. He is the lord of all Egypt; his name is Zaphnath-paaneah, the preserver of the life of the world, the greatest man morally in those days. He was not greater than Pharaoh officially, but he was greater than all others except one, and that was his father. No son can ever be greater than his father in the ordering of [p. 359] God. It cannot be so, and this must come out spiritually; it is not that the father cannot assert what is acquired in the way of wealth or light or experience, but it is the spiritual teaching that involves the greatness, for true greatness lies in spirituality. So Joseph sinks here and Jacob rises. He is in the presence of Joseph, and Joseph is in the presence of his father Jacob. Joseph was in every way right in his approach to his father and in his movements in meeting him and speaking to him; there was not a flaw in the movements or the speakings until Joseph came to the firstborn. We have been speaking about the firstborn Reuben, how his mother says, A son! What a great report that was! She had a son: Rachel did not have anything. See how she gloated over the advantage.
Eve did not call Cain a son; she said, ‘A man’. “I have acquired a man with Jehovah”. That is what she said; but Leah was full of the thought of a son and, of course, met with disappointment and so did Jacob. Now Joseph has two sons: Manasseh is the elder and Ephraim the younger; they are brought from between his knees; he loved them both, but he must have loved Manasseh better than Ephraim. He was short of spirituality; he was a spiritual man, but he was not as spiritual as Jacob. It is well to have measures, you know; one of the most important things in the divine domain is that of values, what things are worth. God makes much of that with no error whatever; everybody has his true value in the presence of God and sooner or later what one’s true value is will come to light. This is the supreme moment for Joseph, and he fails in spirituality. Jacob shines in it, showing how deeply he was immersed in the thought. He had the root of it from the very outset; he supplanted Esau and acquired lovableness in the presence of Jehovah so that Jehovah loved him. In his last moments Jacob shines in spirituality. I know of nothing of more value to present to the [p. 360] brethren than this: not only to aim to die a spiritual man, but to live one, every day a spiritual man, so that when matters come to you you are never at a loss. This is a remarkable situation; here was the lord of all Egypt; his father outwardly was much less a man; he was a sheep raiser; I suppose he bore the marks of his occupation when he was brought in before Pharaoh by Joseph. Joseph does not prime him as to what he should say to Pharaoh as he primed his brothers when they were brought in to Pharaoh. He told his brothers what to say, but not his father. He knew that much; he had that much instinct that he did not dare to tell his father what to say to the monarch, and his father is a spiritual man in the presence of the great monarch of Egypt. How old are you? he says. “Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life”; what beautiful words those were, full acknowledgment of what he was! “They do not attain to the days of the years of the life of my fathers”, Genesis 47: 9. But then he had already blessed Pharaoh, think of that! Think of what that was to heaven, that old shepherd, for that is what he was externally. One can understand the grandees of Pharaoh’s kingdom saying, Who is that old man? That is Joseph’s father. He was greater than Pharaoh; he blessed Pharaoh, he was equal to that. Without all gainsaying the less is blessed of the greater. It says twice over that he blessed Pharaoh; that was Jacob the spiritual man, the greatest man on earth, that is what he was; yet outwardly he was a shepherd, an abomination unto the Egyptians. Pharaoh did not ask him for his occupation, as I remember. He asked the five brothers. Joseph told them what to say, that they were cattle men. They were livestock people, and it was a disgrace, you know; in the eyes of the Egyptians it was a reproach to be of that occupation. But they were true to Jacob; see the greatness of the glory of the patriarch, the spirituality that shines,
[p. 361] with which he is clothed in the presence of the monarch. He blesses him and he went out from his presence; he is not sent out. It is all dignity, but spiritual dignity.
Well now, here is the lord of all Egypt, second to Pharaoh. He is Jacob’s son, and he is in the presence of his father. He has two sons, the joy of his heart, and of course the elder is the chief one. He is on the line of nature. The Spirit of God does not seem to let anybody off, even the most spiritual, for there is something that is brought to your attention before you pass out of this scene of testimony. There is only one perfect Man who has been in the scene of testimony, and this is Jesus. So Joseph brings them out from between his knees. There is the old man: this is his right hand and this is his left hand, and Joseph comes to him and puts Manasseh next to his right hand, brings them out from between his two knees; there was no lack, but plenty of affection for the two boys, but there was lack of spirituality in the father, and that is a great matter to look into. We are so prone to think of the first-born, to think on the line of nature in regard to our sons and daughters, and the enemy would come in. And so the boys come from the place of affection and the old man puts his right hand over to Ephraim-the second born, although the firstborn, Manasseh, was there by Jacob’s right hand. What a wonderful thing that is. How heaven watched that! How marvellous it seemed to heaven! Nobody else, perhaps, saw it, but the four of them, the father, the grandfather, and the two sons. There is Ephraim, and the old man, the spiritual man, in the full sense of the light and understanding of the divine counsels about that boy puts his right hand on Ephraim. The whole scene is full of spirituality, if I might say, in Jacob, but of fleshly-mindedness in Joseph. Do not forget it, this fleshly-mindedness in the great man Joseph in the presence of his father!
[p. 362] All this is to rebuke it in us, dear brethren, because something like this may well come up with us some day, perhaps in the care meeting, and I will be caught. I will put my right hand on my relative after the flesh and identify myself with him and give him the first place when it is not intended to be so. It is not the mind of God, and the lord of all Egypt with his lordly voice says, “Not so, my father”; not so, not so. Maybe he repeated it, I do not know, but that is what he said, “Not so”; that is, he rebuked what faith was doing, what spirituality was doing. You see if it was a care meeting Joseph would be all wrong and Jacob would be all right; but there would be confusion if there were such men in a care meeting, or in an assembly meeting. That is bringing it down to practical christianity; that is what happens. “Not so, my father”. How often you hear words like that in assembly matters, words of authority, as if there was authority, when there is not any; there can be no moral authority with what is wrong. Joseph sinks; Jacob rises at this particular crisis and so Jacob says, “I know, my son, I know”. He is very beautiful in his expression, “I know, my son, I know”. He will be blessed too, but the younger shall be greater than the elder; the blessing must come on Ephraim. And it did. It is an object lesson for us as to how we progress in spirituality and how it shows itself in crises, in emergencies, that we are not taken by surprise and give way to our own minds, our own wills, and bring confusion in among the saints of God; whereas on the other hand, the spiritual man gives way to the mind of God, stands by the truth, and the light and power of the mind of God go through.