Jacob, deceit, and grace

This morning I read again the story of Jacob (meaning, “supplanter,” Gen. 27:36).  He came out of the womb grasping his brother’s heel, and he spent his life grasping for things that were not his or manipulating circumstances so that they would be to his favor and liking.

If you want your brother’s birthright, it is not enough to trust God that He will provide it; you must manipulate your brother to receive your desires.  If you already have the birthright and are the heir, that’s not enough either; you must deceive your father so that you receive a special blessing and leave your brother only a curse.  If you are deceived by your father-in-law, there is no forgiveness, but you must demonstrate favoritism against your wife Leah.  If you are deceived by your father-in-law and treated unfairly, you must work to take his herds and possessions from him and leave his home under the cover of darkness.  That’s life if you are Jacob.

And it is to this Jacob — the supplanter, deceiver, and manipulator — that God makes this promise:

And behold, the LORD stood above it and said, “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants.  Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed.  Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”  (Gen. 28:13-15)

Are you kidding me?  I can just hear Esau and Leah and the concubines Bilhah and Zilpah, and Laban and probably a large number of unnamed acquaintances saying incredulously, “Jacob?  Jacob gets the blessing of God?  God promises Jacob a special lineage — a promise that cannot and will not be revoked?  Jacob the cheat?  How does that happen?  Why does God bless Jacob???”

God blesses a Jacob for the same reason that He blesses any man.  Grace.  He does not bless on the basis of worth or achievement.  Any man who God blesses is done solely because of the unfathomable richness of God’s gracious goodness and love.

Contemplating the “craziness” of God’s grace in saving men, Jonathan Edwards wrote two and a half centuries ago:

The grace of God in bestowing this gift [of redemption] is most free. It was what God was under no obligation to bestow. He might have rejected fallen man, as he did the fallen angels. It was what we never did any thing to merit; it was given while we were yet enemies, and before we had so much as repented. It was from the love of God who saw no excellency in us to attract it; and it was without expectation of ever being requited for it. And it is from mere grace that the benefits of Christ are applied to such and such particular persons. Those that are called and sanctified are to attribute it alone to the good pleasure of God’s goodness, by which they are distinguished. He is sovereign, and hath mercy on whom he will have mercy. [God Glorified in Man’s Dependence; HT:  Day by Day with Jonathan Edwards, Oct. 6.]

This was the kind of grace that Jacob received and it is the kind of grace that all saved men receive.  We do not deserve it — none of us in any way warrants kind treatment from the Lord of glory — but this is what He has done.  How great is this grace.