God’s Bethel

“Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there…”

(Genesis 35:1)

After years of exile, the LORD purposed to bring Jacob back to the place where He had some 20 years earlier revealed Himself unto him, Genesis 28:16-19. Although it would prove to be a place of continued trial and heartache for him yet God had ordained it as a resting place for there it was that he had erected an altar unto the LORD, a type of the sacrifice of our LORD Jesus.

If you are one of the LORD’s sheep, no matter how long you have lived in this life’s journey, the LORD must and will bring you again to worship Him in the Way He first revealed Himself to you as Truth. Consider when the LORD first opened your eyes to Christ. Where was it He caused you to look? Was it not outside you to the Glorious Savior, Redeemer and Substitute? And if ever in life’s busyness and earthly pursuits you wander from the Truth, being a child of God, the Loving Father must chasten you, for “...whom the LORD LOVES, He chastens.” (Hebrews 12:6) Such chastening is designed with one purpose. Is it not to drive you as God’s child back to the only place of refuge and salvation we have, which is the blood and righteousness of the LORD Jesus?

The evidence that Jacob was the LORD’s and led by the Spirit is that he obeyed God’s command to dwell there in Bethel (the house of God), a type of our LORD Jesus. Note briefly three characteristics of one who is so led by the Spirit of Grace.

1.) REPENTANCE TOWARD GOD, Gen. 35:2: “Jacob said unto his household…put away the strange gods that are among you…” Where God draws the heart to Christ there is a renouncing of every false way, owning the ONE TRUE and LIVING GOD ALONE.

2.) SUBMITTING TO THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN CHRIST, Gen. 35:2: “Be clean, and change your garment.” It does not say, ‘cleanse yourself’ but BE clean. In this, the sinner is passive. God must do the cleansing. There is also a changing of garments which is casting away all works of self-righteousness and submitting exclusively to the garment of righteousness that the LORD Jesus established and God the Father accepted and imputed at the cross, Romans 10:1-4; 2 Cor. 5:21.

3.) WORSHIPPING GOD IN THE SACRIFICE OF HIS SON, Gen. 35:3: “I will make there an altar unto God.” By faith he was looking forward to the death of the LORD Jesus on his behalf. All who are drawn to Christ by the Spirit of Truth will worship Him in the Truth of God’s complete satisfaction with those for whom Christ died when He died. As with Jacob, looking to the death of the LORD Jesus that He would accomplish when He came many thousands of years later, we as sinners having been drawn now by His effectual grace also find comfort in knowing that He has justified all the elect at one time, in one place with one sacrifice when He died, Hebrews 9:15.

What a REST there is in Him because of His finished work at Calvary! Thank God for His Spirit Who has so directed us to Christ Crucified, even as He did Jacob.