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Sermon preached on Genesis 35 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 03/17/2024 in Petaluma, CA.
Sermon Manuscript
Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
We pick our Genesis series and we draw to a close a specific section of Genesis. You may not recall, but we’ve been in the section that began in chapter 25 under the heading of the generations of Isaac. To study about Isaac’s generations, obviously deals with his progeny in Jacob and Esau, and we’ve studying mainly about Jacob in this section. This section draws to a close at this chapter, with Isaac’s death recorded at the end. We’ll then have a brief new section about the generations of Esau before starting a new section headed on the generations of Jacob in chapter 37 which will deal mainly with his sons, especially Joseph. So then, as we conclude this section in Genesis, we think about the spiritual transformation God did to turn Jacob into a new man. That culmination happens as we see Jacob return to worship God at Bethel and then settle back in the land of his father Isaac.
In our first point for today, we’ll consider Jacob and family preparing for worship in verses 1-6. Verse 1 begins with God commanding Jacob to go to Bethel to worship him there. God reminds Jacob of the significance of Bethel in verse 1 by mentioning that this was where God appeared to him when he was fleeing from Esau. Jacob was on the run for his life because of his sin against his brother, and that resulted in him leaving the Promised Land. On the way out of town, unsure of his future and his safety, God appeared there at Bethel with that stairway to heaven dream. There God promised to be with Jacob and to bless him and keep him and one day bring him back safely to the Promised Land. Jacob in response vowed that should God do this, to be with him and safely return him to the Promised Land, that Jacob would return to Bethel and worship God there. Yet, Jacob had been back in the Promised Land for some time now, but still had not fulfilled that vow. Without explicitly referring to the vow, God commands Jacob to keep his vow now. Let us also appreciate the timely providence here after how last chapter ended. Remember, Israel’s sons ruthlessly destroyed the town of Shechem. It left Jacob afraid that the other Canaanite people in the area would rise up against them. Given the recent events, this was a providentially good time for them to pick up and move on.
So, Jacob has his family prepare to worship God at Bethel, verse 2. He calls them to do three things They are to put away the foreign gods, purify themselves, and change their clothes. Let’s begin with his call to get rid of all their idols. The family obeys in verse 4, gathering up all their idols, as well as these earrings that apparently were in some way connected with these false gods. Jacob then hides or buries them under a tree near Shechem. This roughly parallels how in verse 8, Jacob’s mother’s nurse dies and is buried under a tree near Bethel. In other words, the text paints an imagery that you might say shows these foreign gods being dead and buried.
At this point about the idols, we see that all this time Jacob’s family still had their old foreign gods from their life back in Paddan-aram and they had tried to maintain those along with their new relationship with the LORD God they had come into through their marriage with Jacob. We might remember even how Rachel stole her father’s idols when they left, and while we weren’t certain her motivation, this might lean us to think they still held some religious value to her. So, you see, this call to put away foreign gods is about a form of repentance. When preparing to worship God, you should examine your life and see if there are any areas of sin that you should be repenting from. Clinging to false gods is not compatible with the worship of the one true God. So, as Jacob prepares his family for worship, the family looks to turn from their former idolatries.
So then, Jacob also tells them to prepare for worship by purifying themselves and changing their clothes. In the most simplistic sense he says that before we go worship you should take a bath and put on clean clothes. We would all do well to follow such a practice. But realize this reflects an outward action of putting off uncleanness and putting on cleanness before going before a holy and pure God. Verses like this ultimately teach us that we need to have purified hearts as we approach God in worship.
So then, Jacob has his family prepare for worship by putting off various things and putting on certain things. We can remember various New Testament passages that call Christians to put off and put on. And fundamentally, when thinking about preparing for worship, we know this is what we need to find in Jesus. While we may endeavor to turn from sin, we know we won’t be able to come before God in cleanliness of heart apart from coming in Christ Jesus. I like especially where we see the Bible call us to put on Christ. We come in worship before God as those who come purified in Christ. And while we think of doing that when we first become a Christian, all our lives then becomes one where we look to put on Jesus.
So then, we see they finally arrive at Bethel in verse 6. But did you notice that verse 5 explains how God protected them on the journey to Bethel? Even though Jacob’s sons had foolishly done something that could have caused the locals to hate them, God instead put fear in their hearts. That allowed Israel to safely make the journey from Shechem to Bethel. And so, while we see Israel working to prepare themselves for worship, we recognize simultaneously how God was working to prepare them to worship. God is the one who reminded them of Jacob’s vow to worship, and God’s the one who provided for their safe passage to church.
Let us now turn to our second point as we see Jacob and family worshipping here at Bethel in verses 7-15. Basically, they arrive, and Jacob builds an altar to worship God. Then, God appears again to him and we see him reiterate the covenant promises, reaffirming that covenant made Abraham and then Isaac will be fulfilled through Jacob. Jacob then sets up a pillar to memorialize this and gives a drink offering and pours oil on it to consecrate it, like he had done the first time he was at Bethel.
What I’d like to notice at this second point is that we find several principles of worship here that we still make use of today in new covenant worship. The first is that we see that it is God who calls us to worship. We recognize this truth in our own worship services by placing the Call to Worship at the start of our service. God created us and sustains us and also redeemed us. It is right and good for him to call us to respond in worship. Indeed, we do owe him such worship. And so verse 1 records him calling Jacob to worship and even giving him the detailed instruction to build an altar there at Bethel.
A second principle of worship we see here is the idea of someone serving as a minister in the worship to represent the two parties, God and the people. Back in this ancient worship, it was fitting for Jacob as the head of the household to do this. Indeed, still today, Christian heads of households ought to lead times of family worship at their homes too. But notice how we see Jacob doing this here. For example, I had mentioned that in verse 1 God gave a call to worship. Then in verse 2, look at what Jacob does? Jacob then gives his family a call to worship. In that action, Jacob represents God there to the congregation of his family to call them to worship. But then we see it goes the other way too. Once they arrive in Bethel, we see Jacob making an alter and giving offerings, etc. But only Jacob is mentioned there. But surely from the context we are to understand that the whole family had gathered there to worship. While Jacob leads in such acts of worship, he is doing so representing the whole congregation of his family.
A third principle of worship that we find here is that worship is especially offered in gratitude to God for all his special saving acts that he gives his people. While all the world ought to thank God for life and common grace, God’s people especially should be grateful for all the saving blessings he gives us. So, we see this sentiment in verse 3. When Jacob gives that call to worship to his family, he explains why they should go to worship at Bethel. He says it is because God has answered him in his day of distress and that God has been with him wherever he has gone. Indeed, we’ve witnessed that repeatedly in Genesis. Jacob explains that special motivation for worship to his family. We too gather to worship especially to thank God for all the spiritual blessings he has given to us in Christ Jesus and how he is always with us wherever we go, by his Holy Spirit.
A fourth worship principle we see here is the dialogical nature of worship. This is a principle that we see illustrated in various ways in the Bible. It is the idea that worship involves an interacting between God and man. It is not one-sided. It is not just God doing something, nor just man doing something. Rather, it is God and man interacting and responding. In other words, it is a dialogue of sorts. So, for example, we see the Call to Worship given, even through Jacob, and his family responds by getting rid of the idols, etc. Or Jacob makes the altar in verse 7 and praise God by declaring El-bethel, the God of Bethel, and then God appears to him in theophany again. God then speaks to Jacob, which results in Jacob again responding in verse 14 with the pillar and drink offering and oil. So, we see a dialogical principle of worship which still guides how we do our worship today, where we structure the service with rotating elements where God is acting and we are acting, together in response to each another.
So then, those are some principles of worship we can glean from this episode of worship at Bethel. Let us now in our third point for today turn to consider the many names that are here. Throughout this chapter there are a lot of names and a lot of new names mentioned. These names clearly possess some significance that we can learn from. Let me guide us through a survey of them. Let us first note the most significant name here, that name in verse 11 which God declares himself to be God Almighty, El-Shaddai in the Hebrew. God first revealed himself by this name to Abraham back in Genesis 17. Exodus 6 would later emphasize how God chose to use this name among the patriarchs. Clearly, it emphasized to them the great power of God that overcame all their obstacles and who had the power to fulfill promises that only he could.
Next, notice the place of Bethel. We are reminded in verse 6 that actually its name was originally Luz. Jacob gave it the new name back in chapter 28 when God first appeared to him there, since the name means house of God. He again reaffirms that new name of Bethel here at verse 28. He even takes it a little further when he names the place of the altar there at Bethel, El-bethel, meaning the “God of Bethel”. Let us then state the obvious reason why the name of this place changed. Because God appeared there to Jacob in glorious theophany. That set apart that city and made it fitting to rename it. Before it was just another pagan town in the land of Canaan. Afterwards, it became a holy meeting location for God and his chosen people, a place where at that time God chose to put his name.
A third name to notice is Jacob’s new name of Israel. We recall that he was first given this name back in chapter 32 after he wrestled with God. There, God asked him, “What is your name?” That interchange showed how God changing his name reflected Jacob’s spiritual growth. That Jacob went from someone always trying to wrestle others to one who learned the godly way of victory in life through learning to depend upon God and his promises. So, another way of describing the significance of Jacob’s name changed to Israel, is that they respectively represent his old man and his new man. Jacob was a new man under the name Israel, one God had changed significantly from the old man of Jacob’s sinful youth.
A fourth name we see here, one that is also changed, though in a different way, is that of Benjamin. When he is first born, he is named by his dying mother Ben-oni, meaning, “son of my sorrow”. Sadly, Rachel who had so desperately wanted children, saying, “Give me children or I will die,” in a chapter of getting rid of idols, dies having the thing she said would make her fulfilled. She acknowledges that it did not deliver the joy she thought when she named him Ben-oni. Yet, out of death comes this new life, a child that God will use for some great things in Israel’s future. Jacob’s new name for him, Benajamin, means “son of my right hand”, as in “son of my strength.”
Let us lastly note the somewhat long list of names of Israel’s sons. God’s words here to Jacob include that a company of nations will come from his lineage. Indeed, he now has twelve sons that will become the twelve tribes of Israel. While previously God chose to fulfill the promises given to Abraham through just Isaac and then through just Jacob, now he would do it through all Jacob’s many sons. Through this nation, God would bring salvation to the ends of the earth.
Though, while we are speaking about the names of these sons, we should also observe that within basically a chapter, the good names of three of these sons have become sullied. At the end of last chapter, we saw Simeon and Levi rebuked by their father. Then, here, Reuben sins against his father with Bilhah. Reuben, Simeon, and Levi are Jacob’s first three sons, all through Leah. While we have acknowledged that God’s covenant promises would be working through all these sons, one of his twelve sons would have to be the leader. That’s because God had promised that of this offspring, all the families on the earth would be blessed. One of one these offspring would come the savior promised to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, the seed of the woman that would destroy the Devil, that evil serpent from the start. While firstborn Reuben, then Simeon, then Levi, might have been likely candidates, it would not be through them. Their evil actions here will be reflected in the final blessings that Jacob bestows on each son in chapter 49. But indeed that will clear the way for the fourth in line from Leah’s sons to shine. I speak of Judah, and indeed, Jesus Christ, would come from that line of Judah.
So then, let me summarize by connecting our points for today. In this final point we’ve had some opportunity to think about these various names. There is a lot of significance in these names, in matters of revealing God and the work that he was doing. A name speaks to one’s identity and reputation, and our relationship with God is bound up with such. I thought it would be helpful to spend a point thinking about these names in light of today’s overall theme. For when we go back to think about the worship in this passage, there is this important theme of God’s people dying to the old man, and living as new people. They cast off their former ways, to worship God as new creations. Jacob himself worships anew as Israel. Jacob’s family put to death their former gods to worship the one true God exclusively. They put off their former filthy ways and look to stand anew before God. Like Rachel giving birth to Benjamin, God is delivering them out of sorrow to strength, to live now as the nation of Israel through whom he would do wonderful things through. Even as the patriarch Isaac dies, the fulfillment of God’s promises is growing more manifest. For, behind all of this is the Almighty God who has been working for generations to bring these things about. Glory be to the Almighty God!
Trinity Presbyterian Church, as we worship God, we remember that we worship him in our new identity that we now have in Jesus Christ. Indeed, Jesus has washed us and given us the robe of his righteousness to wear. He has given us the new name of Christian. He has called us from an old life of spiritual darkness to a new life in the heavenly light of Christ. And he calls us to worship. Let us daily worship in our homes and closets. Let us especially be faithful to gather each week to corporate worship.
Let us not wait for God to remind us of this weekly duty. Let us rather prepare ourselves each week. We have several practical ways to try to assist in preparing for worship. The first is as simple as when the prelude music begins to use that as a queue to find your seat and quietly pray and meditate to ready your heart for worship. We also email out the bulletins ahead of time which can be used to begin to consider the material for that Sunday. Prior to receiving the Lord’s Supper, we announce it a week ahead of time so you can begin a period of self-examination. And surely every week, we should do some basic examination ahead of worship to see if there are any sins we should be looking to repent of, or any thing we need to look to make right with a brother or sister before going to worship. Let us prepare for worship like this, not as another duty to perform, but with hearts full of gratitude for our new identity in Christ (2 Cor 5:17).
Amen.
Copyright © 2024 Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
All Rights Reserved.
