Bethel to Peniel : A Biblical Paradigm of Transformation
By. Edward K. Pousson
Jacob doesn’t fully understand the blessing that he seeks. Yet he pursues it with a passion that borders on obsession. God’s interventions into Jacob’s journey provide us with a dramatic biblical paradigm of transformation. Personal transformation: Jacob becomes Israel. Community transformation: pagan Luz becomes Bethel (God’s house). National transformation: Israel becomes a great nation. And world transformation: all people will be blessed through God’s transformed people.
Jacob@Bethel – Community Transformation
He came to a certain place (Gen 28:11). No five star hotel. No internet café. No mobile phone. Just one lousy stone for a pillow. But the sun had set, and fugitives can’t be choosy. Jacob’s most recent quarrel with Esau had turned nasty. He barely escaped with his life. Now he’s between a rock and a hard place. When you come to your certain place, your old bag of tricks is useless. It’s just you and the rock. Good night! But well before daylight Jacob is wide awake declaring, this is an awesome place, the house of God, and the gate of heaven (v. 17). What happened? How did certain place (v. 11) become the awesome place (v. 17)? How did Luz become Bethel (=God’s house, v.19)? How does a pagan town transform into a gateway to God? In one night! The question is important for us all. The world is full of certain places that need to become awesome places. What will it take to transform your mission context into a gateway to heaven?
Presence
First, there is a revelation of God’s presence. (Gen.28:12-17). God’s omnipresence was always at Luz. But nothing ever changed. Timeworn traditions and programmed piety will never transform our communities, cities, and nations into gateways to heaven. We need the manifest presence of God, and nothing less. A Sunday school teacher was explaining the omnipresent of God to his class. One anxious child asked, “Teacher, is God in my pocket?” “Yes, Son, God is in your pocket,” answered the teacher. The boy grabbed his pocket, pleading, “Dear Lord, please don’t eat my candy bar.”
No need to worry. The omnipresence of God will not eat your candy bar. Nor will he tamper with your bank account much. The omnipresence of God leaves us alone in our certain place with our stone pillow, broken relationships, compromised values, and secret vices. The pagan town remains pagan. The unreached peoples remain unreached. Darkness still prevails over the land.
But the manifest presence of God changes everything. When God arrives, nobody’s candy bar is safe. But the change! Imagine your community ia a gateway to God, where every person gets a clear opportunity to hear and obey the Gospel of Jesus. Our well-tuned strategies, plans, and programs have their place. But above all these, we need a manifestation of God’s powerful presence, an outpouring of his Holy Spirit upon all flesh. Many are hungering, thirsting, and working for just this. Why don’t you join them?
Purpose
Second, a revelation of God’s purpose turns the certain place into the awesome place. (Gen. 28:13-15). God’s kingdom purpose is bigger than Jacob, bigger than Bethel, larger than Israel, and larger than your church or ministry organization. It includes the blessing and transformation of “all the peoples of the earth” through Jacob and his offspring. (v.14). We are included in that offspring through Christ (Gal. 3:29). We don’t replace Israel, but we are grafted into Israel (Rom. 11:17). As such, we inherit Israel’s covenant promise and responsibility to be a blessing to all peoples.
But are we equally interested in God’s purpose? In this story and throughout the Bible, when God reveals His presence He also reveals His purpose. He doesn’t drop in to gossip over tea and cake – fellowship for fellowship’s sake. When He shows up, He brings a kingdom-wide agenda that will cost us everything. There’s little point seeking God’s presence if we are not prepared to embrace His kingdom purpose.
Others have so reduced ministry to a focus on personal needs that people fail to grasp God’s bigger plan for the world and their part in it. But look at Jacob. A fugitive, ravaged by relational conflict, stripped of all comforts and securities of home and family. A sensitive ear and a shoulder to cry on wouldn’t be asking too much, would it? But all he gets is one hard rock. Not a word about his personal crisis. Instead God gives him a dream. A dream that‘s bigger than life. That’s it, of course. That’s how God ministers to Jacob in his hour of need. The dark night of the soul lights up with hope. The pain of the past is overcome. And Jacob says, I’ll take that dream.
A revelation of purpose is what we need, personally, corporately, nationally and globally. If we can’t see the big picture of what God is doing in our world, we are clueless about our part in his work. We are lost without a purpose to live and die for.
Purpose is not up for grabs. Of course, we all have different gifts and unique callings. But everything must serve that one overriding, unchangeable covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to bless all the peoples of the earth with the life-giving, world-changing Gospel (Gen. 28:14; Gal. 3:8; Heb. 6:13-18). A revelation of God’s purpose turns our certain place into awesome place.
Passion
A third factor helps turn Luz into Bethel. There is passionate response for the presence and purpose of God (Gen. 28:18-22). Luz was Luz and it always was until Jacob arrived. But when this son of the covenant arrived, God arrived and changed everything. God takes the initiative by revealing His presence and purpose. Then it’s our move. We must respond. Without human partnership the transformation will not occur (1 Cor. 1:21). Consider Jacob’s proactive response: awakening, announcing and anointing. (Gen.28:16-19).
First, he awakes. Today some are fast asleep in their certain place with no sense of God’s presence or purpose. No wonder people sleep in church! Pleasant dreams. But when God arrives and speaks it’s time to wake up and respond.
Second, Jacob announces the transformation with a prophetic declaration: This is God’s house! This is the gate of heaven! (v.17). He’s not a passive spectator, but a proactive participant in the transformation process.
And third, he takes that cold stone pillow and anoints it as a pillar in God’s house. His faith-filled response turned a stumbling stone into a building block. What will you do with the stone God gives you in your certain place? You can kick it, curse it, can it, or transform it!
Remember our question. What will it take to turn our Luz into Bethel, a gateway to God for so many persons and peoples? Do you feel passionately, like Jacob, about your mission and destiny in God’s great purpose to transform our world? Or can you just take it or leave it? Scripture makes a frightful contrast between Jacob and Esau. Esau despised his inheritance (Gen. 25:34; Heb. 12:16). But from the womb to the tomb, Jacob was always passionate for the covenant blessing (Gen. 25:22). He was never a nominal patriarch. Look at his response here in Gen. 28:18-22. He is not neutral or mediocre about what God promised. He spends the rest of his life in pursuit of God’s dream.
God is ready to manifest His presence glory among the broken peoples of this world. But He’s waiting for men and women, sons and daughters of the covenant, to arise with a passion that would make Jacob jealous. Popular language has compromised the word “passion.” Mel Gibson has helped redeem it with the movie, The Passion of the Christ. Jesus gave His all, suffered and died passionately, for the joy that was awaiting Him – thy kingdom come, thy world transformed. (2 Cor. 5:19).
An aspiring preacher once asked the riveting speaker, D.L. Moody, what was the secret of his success. Moody said, “Young man I suggest you go out and set yourself on fire, and people will come just to watch you burn.” Until we awaken with renewed zeal and fire and lay claim to the promise of God concerning lost, the certain place remains the certain place. The unreached peoples remain unreached. The poor and needy remain poor and needy. Pray that, like Jacob, we will be responsible and obedient to God’s call upon our lives and our churches. Ask God to make us people of passion for His presence, purpose, and promise of personal, community, national, and global transformation.
Jacob@Peniel – Personal Transformation
Jacob’s encounter at Bethel was just a beginning. Luz’s metamorphosis had already occurred in God’s order of things, but not in history. When Jacob moved on, it was still Luz as far as the Canaanites were concerned. They didn’t change the sign board. And Jacob was still a fugitive with a broken family. Now he goes into exile from the Promised Land – never a good thing for a patriarch. But some 20 or 30 years on, two wives and 11 sons later, God called Jacob back to Bethel, the place of Presence, purpose and promise. (Gen. 31:3,13).
But there is a problem. On hearing that Jacob was homeward-bound, Esau marched out to intercept him with 400 men. Not a welcoming part (Gen. 32:6-11). Cornered between a rock and a hard place again, Jacob is unaware that the pressure is a set-up for another encounter with the presence of God – round two in the transformation process. This time, however, the object of transformation is not the place but the person. The promise of community, national, and global transformation at Bethel is contingent upon the transformation of the patriarch at Peniel. Personal transformation is the gateway to community transformation. This is the biblical paradigm.
And so we come to Peniel, the place of personal transformation. (Gen.32:21-34). If you think Bethel was strange, wait till you see this. As at Bethel, Jacob is alone again, naturally. Deprived of the security of family and possessions, he faces another dark night. And guess who shows up? A Stranger in the night (and it’s not Frank Sinatra). He’s wearing boxing gloves! This is going to be a frightful, painful night. At Bethel, we meet the God who comforts us. At Peniel, we meet the God who confronts us. Why? Because the greatest obstacle on the way home, and the greatest threat to the covenant of transformation, is not Esau but Jacob. The natural man Jacob must give way to the spiritual man Israel. That’s why God confronts us. It happens at Peniel, in the face of God. (Peniel means face of God.)
Jacob brought the Stranger to a draw and imposed on him a demand: “I won’t let you go unless you bless me.” From the womb to the tomb, Jacob orients his entire around this covenant blessing. He doesn’t fully understand it. But he clings to it (and now to the Giver) with all his might, “I won’t let you go unless you bless me.” And God blessed him in the strangest of ways; a dislocated hip (a new walk, Gen. 32:25, 31); a changed name (a new identity, v. 28); and a beautiful sunrise (a new day, v. 31). The blessing is transformation.
A New Walk
“He struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him” (Gen. 32:25). For the rest of his life the patriarch limps along with a staff. The point is subtle but striking. God wounds Jacob – to heal him. It’s the wound of God that heals the heart. When he finally returns to Bethel to realize the promise of transformation, he doesn’t strut in like Sylvester Stallone. He lumbers in with a limp. Like Moses after 40 years in the desert. Like Naomi after exile and bereavement. Like Joseph after the pit and the prison. Like Jesus on the cross. Like Saul blind in Damascus. Like so many others in the Bible and history. Blessed are the broken for they shall inherit the blessing. Nobody struts into the kingdom. We limp. Is it time to change our walk?
A New Name
Like many today, Jacob goes about ‘the ministry’ in a way that offends others. He fought with Esau in the womb (Gen. 25:22). He bartered for the birthright with a bowl of beans. He deceived his aged father for the blessing. He offended his father-in-law Laban. And now it all comes back to haunt him. But God confronts him to change him: “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel” (Gen.32:28). The point is again subtle but striking. Jacob cannot return to the awesome place. Only Israel can. Jacob cannot reconcile with Esau, only Israel can. Jacob cannot become a great nation and a blessing to all peoples. Only Israel can. Jacob the heel must become God’s Israel in order to heal God’s broken world. And so must we. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Is it time to change your name (identity)?
A New Day
“The sun rose upon him as he passed Peniel, limping because of his hip” (Gen. 32:31). When Jacob arrived at Bethel, “the sun had set.” (Gen. 28:11). But after Peniel, “the sun rose upon him.” It was long dark night of exile and alienation from the awesome place of presence, purpose, promise and power. But after Peniel the night is ended. Arise and shine for your light has come! It’s a new day, a new beginning, a new season. It’s time to change your calendar.
After Peniel, a most amazing thing happens. The first person Jacob sees is Esau. Perfect timing. Before Peniel, Esau was Jacob’s worst enemy. After Peniel, Jacob looks into his face and says, “To see your face is like seeing the face of God” (Gen. 33:10). This is the miracle of transformation. When we can look into our enemy’s eyes and see God’s face, we know we have been to Peniel. It’s not Esau who has changed, but Jacob. With “Jacob” pinned to the ground and “Israel” learning to walk – not on people but with people – the patriarch can now return to the Land to catalyze the promised transformation. He comes back to Bethel and finds God waiting:
God said to him, “I am God Almighty; be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall spring from you. The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.” Then God went up from him at the place where he had spoken with him. Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he had spoken with him, a pillar of stone; and he poured out a drink offering on it, and poured oil on it. So Jacob called the place where God had spoken with him
Bethel. (Gen. 35:11-15).
Personal transformation, community transformation, national transformation, global transformation. This is the big story of the Bible. From fallen Adam to the Second Adam to the new heaven and the new earth. It’s God’s story. It’s our story. Like Jacob, we all have a part in it. Where is your Luz-to-become-Bethel? What stone will you anoint as a pillar in God’s house? Have you been to Peniel to secure that blessing personally and directly from God?
This is the legacy of Bethel (house of God) and Peniel (face of God): spiritual blessing can only be obtained by spiritual means. Neither Esau, nor Isaac, nor Laban, nor Rachael nor Leah can give Jacob what he needs. Al these play a part. But God alone gives the ultimate blessing – transformation. It took Jacob many years and a disjointed hip to learn this. When will we learn? When will we learn that “the things of men” cannot bring in the kingdom of God? Our degrees and titles, institutions and traditions, flowcharts and committees, timelines and strategies, goals and objectives all play a key part. But until we touch God personally and directly, until He touches us deeply and painfully, we can never realize the transformation that He has willed for our community, nation and world. “Israel” strives with man and with God and prevails, because God prevails over him and transforms him into a blessing to all peoples.
Taken from the book of Transformation: A Unifying Vision of the Church’s Mission
2004 Forum for World Evangelization, Thailand – September 2004
Edited by Luis K. Bush, Foreword by Paul Cedar
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