[Roger T. Forster]
Reading: John 1:49-51; 1 Timothy 3.15-16.
ABRAHAM'S four altars helped us to discover the face of God behind the universe. Isaac's four wells revealed to us the finger of God. So God has a face and a hand. Now Jacob's four pillars are going to help us to discover something about God's family.
These four pillars represent the house of God, God's place of relationships. If God has a face, that means that He is a Person, and if He extends His hand, it is to do things, but primarily to take hold of men and women and bring them into a relationship with Himself. So this particular habit of Jacob's, of setting up pillars everywhere he went, is going to help us to understand something of those relationships in the house of God.
Jacob is sometimes a very difficult character to understand. He seems to have an ability to do everything wrong! That is very encouraging, for the Church of God is made up of people like that, and that is why he is one of the best people to teach us what the house of God is all about. Of course, all these three great men that God used were very weak and fallible, but it was through these men that God was bringing such tremendous truths to us. Abraham was very easygoing, but that is just the sort of man God uses in His Church. He has a wonderful way of dealing with hopeless material, so He takes all the easygoing, sanguine [36/37] Abrahams and puts them up on the Cross, saying: 'It is all right, Abraham. If you trust Me you will go right through.' Then there was Isaac, who was full of self-pity, but God can use that sort of material. It is a wonderful thing to be in the house of God!
But perhaps Jacob seems to us to be the worst of all. For instance, he was so tied to his mother's apron-strings that he was not married before he was seventy-seven! Well, you cannot do much with that, but God can, and that is the tremendous thing about the house of God. Who is in this house is what really matters, and that is God Himself, through our Lord Jesus Christ.
THE PILLAR AND GROUND OF TRUTH
1 Timothy, verse 15, is a very difficult verse in some ways, for it says: "The house of God, which is the church of the living God" -- and then, is there a full stop or a comma? In the Greek we cannot tell. Perhaps there is a comma and the verse goes like this: "The house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." Ah, so the Church, the house of God, is the pillar and the ground of truth! But perhaps there is a full stop there, so that the verse reads like this: "The house of God, which is the church of the living God. The pillar and ground of the truth; and without controversy great is the mystery of godliness; God was manifest in the flesh ...", and that is Jesus, who was "justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory". So perhaps Jesus is the pillar and ground of truth! Perhaps the answer is that both are the pillar and ground of truth. The Church is the pillar and ground of truth, but so also is the Lord Jesus, because all that matters about the Church is the Lord Jesus, and all that the Church is is found in the Lord Jesus. The Church is His Body. He fills all things, and He is the truth and the ground of truth, but He is found in us, so we are the pillar and the ground of truth. Perhaps that is why Paul, when he writes to the Corinthians, says: "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that body, being many, are one body: so also is the Christ" (1 Corinthians 12:12). There the Body is called the Christ. All that matters about our bodies is what is inside them, and if they had no one inside them, they would not be worth anything at all. In fact, they would soon fall to pieces. They would not exist, and if the Lord Jesus did not exist today, neither would the Church; but He does exist, and is alive for evermore, so that is why the Church is still in existence, and what is in Him is the pillar and the ground of truth.
Now, if we had followed the story of Jacob and looked in the first place where Jacob's pillars are mentioned, in Genesis 28, and noticed that he put up a pillar on the ground where he had slept, we would have found that he said: "This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven" (verse 17). So, the place where he set up his pillow to become a pillar was the Church, the house of God, and to make quite sure that we would understand this he poured oil over the top and anointed it. He 'Christ-ed' it. And this setting up a pillar he did four times in all. Now, you notice that it is not just the pillar that is the house of God, but the pillar and the ground.
Many churches have two things: a steeple pointing to the sky, and a graveyard. So, believe it or not, has the Church in the Scriptures. It has a ground in which there has been a burial, and it has a pillar which points up to heaven. The ground is the place where the Lord Jesus has died and been buried, and the pillar is where He is risen again and ascended to His Father's right hand, and that is the pillar and ground of truth. As we live in the Lord Jesus we live in His death and burial, in His resurrection and ascension, and it is all that which is the Church. There is that in Jacob which has to be identified with Christ's death. Although Jacob was seventy-seven, he was feeling lonely on that first night away from home, for things had come to a bad end and he was afraid. He had reached an end of himself, and he was tired of trying to do God's work for Him. But in his tiredness he lay down, and there he was finished. There was nothing more that he could do. Then God gave him a dream, and he saw a ladder set up between heaven and earth. He could see that there was something else apart from his tiredness and his deathliness, and it was something that God had raised up which opened heaven. That is why Jacob rose from where he slept, and on the ground of his death he established the ladder that he had seen in his vision. God could do something in that dead man because Jesus also rose and went up to His Father's right hand.
Some years later Jacob was fleeing from his uncle, Laban (Genesis 31), but Laban caught him up and was very angry. However, at last they came to an agreement in that place. They buried their differences there, and heaped a lot of stones upon the place. This pile of stones could be translated 'grave', and on the top of the grave they put a pillar, which they called 'Watchtower', and said: 'God will watch over us.' Do you see it again? [37/38] There was a place of burial, and a place which rose up to God Himself.
Later, in Genesis 35, Jacob reached Bethel again, and we read that Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died, and was buried there. Then Jacob raised up another pillar, poured on oil and wine, and called it the house of God. Once again there was a burial, and something rising up to meet God.
Then, also in chapter 35, Jacob moved down towards Bethlehem, and on the way his wife, Rachel, died. He placed her in the grave, and on it he placed a pillar. Once again there was a ground of burial, and once again there was a resurrection that rose to God.
On each of these four occasions Jacob is showing us something about the house of God, but it all comes out of his own negative experience.
1. DEATH TO ISAAC'S HOUSE
Let us move back into that house of Isaac for a few moments, and there we find Isaac and Rebekah, of whom we thought last time. They were not very close in their spiritual life, and now we see Rebekah listening at the tent door to Isaac, who is complaining that he cannot see any more and that people might be taking him in, which, in fact, is just what Rebekah is doing. Then Isaac tells Esau to go out and get the venison, after which he will bless him. Rebekah hurries out to Jacob and says: 'We must do something in a hurry, for God's purpose is going to be lost. If we do not do something quickly, you will not get the blessing, and it is quite certain that God means to bless you. I had a vision about it, but if we do not do something about it, everything will be lost.' So they quickly make up some food out of a little kid and flavour it up with spice to make it taste like venison. After all, Isaac's taste is not as good as it used to be, so it is all right. 'Come on, Jacob,' says Rebekah, 'you go in and take it into him. It is all in a good cause. We are doing God's will, and we must cheat your father somehow.' 'But, Mother,' says Jacob, 'I have a smooth skin, and Esau is a hairy man.' 'Oh, that is nothing. Just put these skins on.' So Jacob comes in to Isaac, Isaac is deceived, and Jacob receives the blessing.
When Esau arrives and Isaac understands what has happened, he lets out a great cry, the cry of a man who knows that God is greater and has accomplished His will, despite his hardened heart, his resistance and ignorance. This is a house full of intrigue, unhappiness and deceit, and of man trying to do God's will for him. Ah, Jacob, that is not the house of God! There is hatred in that house, and Esau is going to kill you. You are not learning much about relationships in this family, Jacob! Rebekah had better deceive Isaac again by saying that Jacob must go and get a wife from her brother's family. Isaac believes her, but really Rebekah does this to save Jacob's life from Esau. Is that the house of God?
It may be that the church you are in has difficulties, but God is trying to teach you something from that church. He is trying to show us from the negative what exists in the positive, and that in Christ there is another, totally different, realm of relationships, but we do not understand them, nor appreciate them, until we discover the negatives first of all. That is why the Church always looks a mess, and why there is always pain and difficulty in relationships. God is showing us what the house of man is like so that we might understand what He has given us in Christ. I do not think that any of us are spiritual enough to believe in our relationships in Christ until we have experienced the negative, and it is not a matter of just changing from smooth flesh to rough flesh, for it is all flesh. But the Church is Christ, and that is where our relationships are, with God and with each other.
Jacob lay down on that first night, tired of trying to do God's will with clever ways, intrigue, and deceit, with forcing himself, trying to get round people and keeping them in ignorance. It was all hopeless, so he said: 'I will go to sleep. I cannot go on!', and that is the death of a man who has seen that he cannot do the will of God. It is in that moment of despair, despondency and darkness that we get a vision of Christ. The ladder is Christ -- the Lord Jesus said so in the first chapter of John's Gospel. Christ is a ladder set up from earth to heaven. You see, Jacob had been trying to take steps horizontally to get God's work done and His will accomplished, but there is really only one step to take, and that is the vertical one, which is the Lord Jesus. That step has the will of God accomplished in it. It has an opened heaven. It has the voice of God, and not the voice of Isaac, Rebekah or Esau, nor of all the members of the church shouting at one another. In Christ there is the voice of God and He says: 'I will give you ...' In the vertical ladder God gives, and when He gives we only have to take. That is the house of God. If for us the house of God is a place where we are doing all the engineering and are trying to accomplish God's work for Him, then we have not really discovered that the Church is Christ; but once we have discovered that we hear God continuously saying to us: 'I will give ... I will give ...' It is the giving God who is found in His house. [38/39]
2. DEATH TO LABAN'S HOUSE
But Jacob still has a lot to learn -- and I think that is true of most of us! God sends Jacob down to Laban. Well, if Jacob was a twister, Laban was a double-twister! If we have to learn something like this from God, He will get us all involved with someone who is twice as bad as we are, or, at least that is how it will seem to us. But God is trying to say something to us, and it is that word which we are so deaf to hear, because we always think that God is saying: 'Laban is a double-twister!' Somehow, though, that does not seem to live in us, it does not do anything in us, and it does not create anything in us because we are not really hearing what God is saying. He never tells Laban off. All He has to say is to Jacob, and when Jacob really hears the message, then he can finish his apprenticeship and go home, but it takes him many years.
It may be that the church you are in has difficulties, but God is trying to teach you something from that church. He is trying to show us from the negative what exists in the positive, and that in Christ there is another, totally different, realm of relationships, but we do not understand them, nor appreciate them, until we discover the negatives first of all. That is why the Church always looks a mess, and why there is always pain and difficulty in relationships. God is showing us what the house of man is like so that we might understand what He has given us in Christ. I do not think that any of us are spiritual enough to believe in our relationships in Christ until we have experienced the negative, and it is not a matter of just changing from smooth flesh to rough flesh, for it is all flesh. But the Church is Christ, and that is where our relationships are, with God and with each other.
Jacob lay down on that first night, tired of trying to do God's will with clever ways, intrigue, and deceit, with forcing himself, trying to get round people and keeping them in ignorance. It was all hopeless, so he said: 'I will go to sleep. I cannot go on!', and that is the death of a man who has seen that he cannot do the will of God. It is in that moment of despair, despondency and darkness that we get a vision of Christ. The ladder is Christ -- the Lord Jesus said so in the first chapter of John's Gospel. Christ is a ladder set up from earth to heaven. You see, Jacob had been trying to take steps horizontally to get God's work done and His will accomplished, but there is really only one step to take, and that is the vertical one, which is the Lord Jesus. That step has the will of God accomplished in it. It has an opened heaven. It has the voice of God, and not the voice of Isaac, Rebekah or Esau, nor of all the members of the church shouting at one another. In Christ there is the voice of God and He says: 'I will give you ...' In the vertical ladder God gives, and when He gives we only have to take. That is the house of God. If for us the house of God is a place where we are doing all the engineering and are trying to accomplish God's work for Him, then we have not really discovered that the Church is Christ; but once we have discovered that we hear God continuously saying to us: 'I will give ... I will give ...' It is the giving God who is found in His house. [38/39]
2. DEATH TO LABAN'S HOUSE
But Jacob still has a lot to learn -- and I think that is true of most of us! God sends Jacob down to Laban. Well, if Jacob was a twister, Laban was a double-twister! If we have to learn something like this from God, He will get us all involved with someone who is twice as bad as we are, or, at least that is how it will seem to us. But God is trying to say something to us, and it is that word which we are so deaf to hear, because we always think that God is saying: 'Laban is a double-twister!' Somehow, though, that does not seem to live in us, it does not do anything in us, and it does not create anything in us because we are not really hearing what God is saying. He never tells Laban off. All He has to say is to Jacob, and when Jacob really hears the message, then he can finish his apprenticeship and go home, but it takes him many years.
