Our God is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. As the real Israel of God, God’s spiritual people today, we need to know and experience God as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
The experiences Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had with God need to become our experiences, and the result will be that we will become in reality the Israel of God today.
Abraham experienced God as the Father, the source, the originator, and the initiator, and God infused Abraham with faith to believe. God justified Abraham by faith, He called Abraham, and He led Abraham into the good land. God then gave Abraham many experiences related to obtaining a seed, Isaac, and having Isaac offered to God.
The spiritual reality of Abraham’s experience of God needs to become ours; we are Abraham’s sons, following in his footsteps of the “father of faith”.
Isaac enjoyed all the riches of his father, and Abraham gave his son Isaac all that he had. We today need to simply receive Christ and enjoy Him as the all-inclusive One, the allotted portion of the saints.
Jacob was clever, thoughtful, calculating, resourceful, and supplanting, and he devised schemes to rob his brother Esau of his birthright, rob Laban of his riches and herds, appease Esau his brother when he was coming to meet him, etc. Jacob wrestled even with God and God didn’t win! In Jacob we see the discipline of the Holy Spirit and the transformation and maturing in the divine life.
God arranges the circumstances, the people, the situations, and the matters around us to discipline us (Heb. 12:11) so that we may be dealt with, transformed, and eventually matured to become the Israel of God. When we are disciplined by the Holy Spirit and we accept the dealings, the end result is always that we are torn down, broken, and reduced to nothing, and this allows for the Triune God to work Himself into us and reconstitute us with Himself.
Through the discipline of the Holy Spirit God completely tears down our old creation so that the element of the new creation may be wrought into us to make us the Israel of God, God’s corporate expression and representation on the earth.
Further Aspects of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
Throughout the Bible we see specific mentioning of God as being, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Who is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? There are many aspects related to this compound title, and here are a few of them:
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is Jehovah, Elohim (Exo. 3:6, 14; Rev. 1:4). Our God is the self-existing and ever-existing Triune God, the eternal great I AM. Elohim means, “the faithful mighty One”, and Jehovah means, “He who was, who is, and who will be.” (see Gen. 2:4-22; Exo. 3:15; Rev. 1:4) With God there is no beginning and no end; He is self-existing and ever-existing.
He depends on nothing apart from Himself (John 8:24, 28, 58); He is the all-inclusive One, the reality of all the positive things and whatever His called and sent ones need. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End (Rev. 22:13).
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the God of resurrection (Exo. 3:6, 15; Matt. 22:23-33; Acts 3:13). He is not the God of the dead: He is the God of the living! This means that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will be resurrected, and God is the God of resurrection. Christ Himself is resurrection and life (John 11:25)!
We need to know both the Scriptures and the power of God. The Bible clearly tells us that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the God of resurrection, and the power of God is the power of resurrection. Our hope as believers in Christ is that, if we fall asleep before the Lord Jesus comes back, we will be resurrected to be with Him when He returns!
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the God of the tabernacle (see Exo. 40:34-35; Gen. 12:8; 13:18; 26:17, 25; 33:18; 35:21; Heb. 11:9-10; Rev. 21:2-3). Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all lived in a tent and wherever they went they built an altar to God. While they were living in tents, they were eagerly waiting for the eternal tabernacle of God, the city which has foundations, the New Jerusalem (see Gen. 12:8; 13:18; 18:1; 26:17, 25; 33:18; 35:21; Heb. 11:9).
Today we as believers in Christ and as the Israel of God we need to live “in a tent” to experience “the God of the tent”. We do not belong here; we are sojourners and strangers in this world, and our home is above: we seek the Jerusalem above, the heavenly city (Rev. 13:14).
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the God of justification, grace, and transformation. The God of Abraham is the God of justification (see Gen. 15:6), who justified Abraham and is justifying us not out of works but out of faith: we believe God, and this is counted as righteousness (Rom. 4:2-3). The God of Isaac is the God of grace: He is our enjoyment, and He wants us to simply receive and enjoy Him in all His riches (see 2 Cor. 13:14).
The God of Jacob is the God of transformation through divine discipline (2 Cor. 3:18; Heb. 12:5-11). Our God disciplines us, and while this may be temporarily painful and unpleasant, the result is the fruit of righteousness! Eventually, the God of Jacob became the God of Israel (see Gen. 33:20; Exo. 5:1), the God of the transformed Jacob. The issue of the Spirit’s transforming work in our life, as we accept God’s discipline and dealings, is that we become the Israel of God, a corporate man who expresses God and represents Him, thus fulfilling Genesis 1:26.
Lord, we want to know You and experience You as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. You are the great I AM, the self-existing and ever-existing Triune God as everything to us to meet all our needs. You are the God of resurrection, continually imparting Your resurrection life in our whole being. Lord, we are here on earth seeking the heavenly city which has the foundations, the New Jerusalem, whose architect and builder is God! For this New Jerusalem You are justifying us, giving Yourself to us to be enjoyed by us as grace, and transforming us through the divine discipline that we may be the Israel of God. Lord, gain the transformed and matured corporate man which fulfills Your purpose!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Ron Kangas’ speaking in the message for this week, and portions from, The History of God in His Union with Man (ch. 11), as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Genesis (2), week 1 / msg 1, Knowing and Experiencing the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob to Become the Israel of God.
- Further reading on this topic: recommending msg. 69 in, Life-study of Genesis, and ch. 12 in, The Experience of Life (both by Witness Lee).
- Hymns on this topic:
# Therefore being justified by faith / We have peace with God / Through our Lord Jesus Christ / Because the love of God is shed abroad / In our hearts, by the Holy Spirit / Which is given, which is given / Unto us, to us, to us. (New song on Being Justified by Faith)
# If there is no resurrection, / Then whatever would there be? / There would be no transformation, / Nor to Christ conformity. (Hymns, If there’s no resurrection)
# He looked for a city and lived in a tent, / A pilgrim to glory right onward he went; / God’s promise his solace, so royal his birth, / No wonder he sought not the glories of earth. / City! O city fair! / God’s dwelling with man to eternity is there. (Hymns #974)
# Transformation is my need, / To be broken more indeed, / That the clay may change in form, / To the treasure to conform. (Hymns #548)
About aGodMan
