Who is This "God of Jacob"???

This little Psalm brings up a fascinating underlying question when it says,

Happy is he that has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God.

The question that comes to mind is. “And just who might that be?” "Who is this God of Jacob?" This name directs our thoughts back over the life of Jacob and the dealings that his God had with him. We find them in the book of Genesis. And, when one considers them, they will doubtless come to the conclusion that the greatest revelation that Jacob received of just who his God was ... occurred on that dark night beside the river Jabbok when the God of Jacob took human form … stepped into the firelight … and physically laid hold on Jacob commencing a fight that lasted throughout the night (Gen 32).

After that night, physically, Jacob was forever changed … his hip having been permanently injured … so that forever afterward he walked with a limp. But, more importantly, Jacob was forever altered spiritually as well. Up until that night, Jacob’s life consisted mainly of living up to his name which meant “the schemer.” After that night, however, he was so changed that the God of Jacob gave him a new name … “Israel” … which means “prince with God.”

Praise the God of Jacob, aye!? The God of Jacob is in the people changing business. As you have it in 2 Cor 3:18,

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed..into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

This is the true and living God … the people changing God … the God of Jacob who you and I have come to know, dear saint. He is the God who is involved with his people ... the God who is living and reveals himself to you and me ... the God who intervened in history … and intervenes in the lives of his children. And, afterwards, neither history nor you nor I are ever the same again. “Happy” indeed are all those who have “the God of Jacob” for their “help.”

Beginning at verse 6, the Psalm further enlightens us as to who this God of Jacob is. Let's list them. The God of Jacob is:

1. Verse 6 … the Creator… source of all truth.
2. Verse 7 …the Judge… advocate for the oppressed … feeder of the hungry and releaser of prisoners
3. Verse 8 … the Healer… opener of blind eyes … lifter upper of the emotionally distraught.
4. Verse … the Protector and Avenger… the one who stands up for the stranger and fatherless … up-ender of the apple cart of the wicked.

Sound like anyone you know?Ah, does not Jesus come to mind?He, the supreme revelation of who God is, the God who became flesh and lived among us … he comes to mind, does he not?

Remember all that he did? Creator: fed thousands on more than one occasion. Truth: as one eyewitness put it,

“And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14b

Judge: on two occasions he overturned and drove out the moneychangers at the temple who were gouging the poor. Healer: he healed lepers, blind, possessed, mentally ill … the list of Jesus’ healing ministry in the New Testament is extensive. Protector and Avenger: as for strangers, the story of the woman of Tyre comes to mind … as to turning upside down the way of the wicked, the numerous accounts of his irresistible rebukes to the Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes and Rulers of Israel come to mind.

Who is the God of Jacob? Hebrews 1:1-3 says it best,

“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high…”

Jesus is the God of Jacob.

Created 5 months ago