A Daily Genesis
Genesis 28:15
by
, 02-29-2016 at 10:23 PM (51105 Views)
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[B][COLOR=#ff0000]†.[/COLOR] Gen 28:15 . . Remember, I am with you: I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.[/B]
Actually, hardly any of those promises were fulfilled in Jacob's lifetime-- his offspring didn't become as populous as the dust of the earth, nor did they spread out to the east and the west and to the north and to the south. Nor did all the nations of the earth bless themselves by Jacob and his descendants. So what gives? How could God say: "I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you"
I believe God has continually associated with Jacob to this very day, ever since the day of their first close encounter at Bethel. That didn't stop with Jacob's demise. No, their association goes on.
"Now even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him." (Luke 20:37-38)
In order to live "to" God (viz: live unto God) it is necessary to be in existence. God has always been with Jacob, and never left him even once-- all these many years; better than three-thousand of them by now. And all this whole time Jacob has lived under God's protection because God promised He would protect Jacob wherever he went; and in order for that promise to be meaningful, it has to include the afterlife. (cf. Ps 139:7-10, Matt 16:18)
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