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27 So He said to him, “What is your name?” He said, “Jacob.” 28 And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked, saying, “Tell me Your name, I pray.” And He said, “Why is it that you ask about My name?” And He blessed him there. 30 So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: “For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” 31 Just as he crossed over Penuel the sun rose on him, and he limped on his hip. 32 Therefore to this day the children of Israel do not eat the muscle that shrank, which is on the hip socket, because He touched the socket of Jacob’s hip in the muscle that shrank. ~ Genesis 32:27-32
Today, we conclude our study of Genesis 32 where we have just witnessed the first fixed wrestling match in the history of man. Of course, for quite some time we have been witnessing the sanctification of Jacob or the changing of his soul from being self-defined to being God-defined. Like Jacob, we will never be fully sanctified this side of heaven, but the point of our sanctification isn't really about us, it is about others seeing God at work in our yielded lives. Jacob's story with God is that of being broken to the point of resisting his stubborn self-reliance, his feeling that it all depends on him, that he has got to do it or else it is not going to get done. Jacob did not prevail over God by wrestling. The moment of prevailing came when the deceiver was absolutely helpless and could do nothing but depend upon God.
In v.27 of today's passage we read, "So He said to him, 'What is your name?' He said, 'Jacob.'"
This is the second question God asked of Jacob. Here we find another divine question like those asked in the Garden of Eden. God, of course, knew Jacob's name, but Jacob needed to confess. As you know, "Jacob" means, "deceiver." When he answered God's question, Jacob confessed and was reminded of his condition apart from God. Since Jacob had entered into a personal relationship with the God who overcame sin and death, Jacob had to be renamed.
We are all just like Jacob, we are all good at covering up who we really are. We, like Jacob, pretend to be those whom we are not. We do this for a variety of reasons, self-preservation is the chief of them all. And then, our dreams we find are being built on such deception. It is only a matter of time that we gain the wisdom to recognize that such dreams built on such poor theology do not last. It is not until we lose the life of our dreams that we will be able to receive the dreams the Lord Jesus died to give us. This is the point of our sanctification.
In v.28 of today's passage we read, "And He said, 'Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.'"
God now tells Jacob that he has been struggling with none other than God Himself. Like Jacob, all of our struggles with others and even ourselves are products of our struggles with letting God be God in our lives. The Lord above the ladder was the very same Man who wrestled Jacob in the dark. Jacob struggled with man throughout his life and he prevailed. Here, he struggled with God and the same was true. Jacob's change of name was a reflection of the change at the helm of his life. Oh, Jacob didn't become perfect, he had just gained enough wisdom to recognize the stupidity behind resisting being defined by God.
The giving of a name implies ownership. God was gaining ownership over this once self-absorbed man. The name God gave to Jacob was "Israel" which means "Prince before God." When God defined Jacob, Jacob became a prince with God. Jacob didn't earn the favor of God, he yielded to the favor of God. There is that concept once again, Grace! If it were not for God's grace, we would all be without hope. Grace, when grasped, is always fueled by our willingness to let it do the work in, to and through us that God desires to do.
In v.29 of today's passage we read, "Then Jacob asked, saying, 'Tell me Your name, I pray.' And He said, 'Why is it that you ask about My name?' And He blessed him there."
Asking for a name is asking for an understanding of the individual. By asking for the name, Jacob was looking to understanding the nature of God better. Then the Lord asked Jacob, "Why is it that you ask about my name?" Jacob never answered that question because Jacob knew that he was already known by God who stood before him.
In v.30 of today's passage we read, "So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: 'For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.'"
Jacob named that place Peniel which means "Face of God." There is a place where man can see God and not die, which sounds contrary to the very words of Scripture. At the cross of Calvary, when God united with humanity, He was no less God, but the humanity of the Lord Jesus allowed for what is otherwise not possible. The eternal Christ wrestled with Jacob in the dust and spoke to him face to face, and Jacob lived because of the work that had been accomplished in the realm of eternity. It just had not been accomplished in the realm of time yet.
In v.31-32 of today's passage we read, "31 Just as he crossed over Penuel the sun rose on him, and he limped on his hip. 32 Therefore to this day the children of Israel do not eat the muscle that shrank, which is on the hip socket, because He touched the socket of Jacob’s hip in the muscle that shrank."
Penuel means the same thing as Peniel, but they are spelled differently. They both mean "Face of God," but they aren’t at all speaking about the same thing. Peniel references a location while Penuel is a reference to the relationship that God granted to Jacob with Him. Jacob crossed over to the Face of God. because God allowed it. Jacob was like Abraham and Sarah, he had it up to his neck with the ways of the flesh and now, he was pursuing God.
In 2 Corinthians 4:6 we read, "For it is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."
The Lord Jesus Christ is Penuel. Through the person of God, the power of God is revealed through the weakness of a broken and yielded life. The work of Christ reveals God’s power and yet it shows us that our uniting with Him is a bond which He Himself will not break because He cannot break it. It is an eternal and unchangeable part of His very being.
The practice of not eating the muscle on the hip socket became a ritual in Israel, designed to remind them that the moment when prayer is most effective is when we really believe God is going to do something because we can do nothing. Over and over again throughout the Scripture we find that God's great struggle with us is to teach us to stop thinking we have to do it all ourselves. We only overcome by that upward look which reveals that we have come to the end of the self. Any battle for victory, power and deliverance from ourselves and from sin which is not based constantly upon the gazing and the beholding of the Lord Jesus, with the heart and life lifted up to him, is doomed to failure. Jacob limped the rest of his life, as a constant reminder to him that he needed God most desperately.
