See God Face to Face (Gen 32:22-32)

Genesis 32:22-32; Key Verse: Gen 32:30

"I saw God face to face..."

Do you see God face to face? Is God real to you? After a mystery man struggled and wrestled with Jacob all night, Jacob said, "I saw God face to face..." In this text, we see how we may each have a real personal face to face encounter with God. Rhoel previously preached on this passage with the title, Meeting God Personally (12/27/2009). Yet, this perennial text is so good to study again and again from different angles. {Tim Keller gave 4 sermons with these titles: Jacob and the Wrestler (1996); A Con Artist's Struggle (1997); The Fight of Your Life (2001); Jacob's Prayer for Joy (2007).}

Recap: In last week's sermon, The Search for One True Love (Gen 29:15-35), both Jacob and Leah turned their love interest into an idolatry that brought forth devastating consequences. Jacob's love for Rachel blinded him, so much so that Laban easily took full advantage of him and deceived him into marrying the wrong woman Leah instead of Rachel, whom he waited 7 years for (Gen 29:20). Also, Leah's love for Jacob caused her to experience feeling "hated" by the man she loved since he loved another (Gen 29:31). Their stories portray the heart breaking cycle of all people where the desire for love invariably leads to disappointment, disillusionment, and devastation. In life, though we go to bed with Rachel, in the morning it is always Leah (Gen 29:25). Can this vicious cycle ever be broken? The deconstruction of love is possible only when we see how Jesus is our true Rachel, our true beauty which never fades; he never becomes Leah in the morning. As Leah was the girl nobody wanted--not by her father and her husband--Jesus became the man nobody wanted (Jn 1:10-11). Jesus became the son of Leah, the "ugly one," not the son of Rachel, the natural beauty. Jesus became Leah, for "he had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him" (Isa 53:2). When we know how Jesus was unwanted, even despised and abandoned for our sakes, we experience the love of God that satisfies the utmost longing for love in our own hearts.

Before studying the text, let's briefly examine a major overarching theme of Genesis, which is God's grace, which is the gospel (Acts 20:24).

God's Grace--the Gospel in Genesis
People, including many Christians, do not understand the Bible. People, including Christians, read the Bible as though it is primarily a book of instructions, principles, morals, and ethics for good godly holy Christian living. They think of the BIBLE as Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. But when we read Genesis without any prior preconceptions, we find that the main characters or "heroes" in Genesis are truly quite scummy and not worth emulating.

• Noah was a naked drunkard.
• Abraham was a liar and a coward whose primary concern was his own personal safety and well being, and not that of his dear wife.
• Sarah, his wife, was vile and vindictive, cruel and heartless, toward Hagar, her slave girl, when she bore Abraham's child, and when she drove her out of the home with her young son, Ishmael.
• Isaac, Abraham's son, blindly showed favoritism and royally messed up the lives of both his twin sons: Esau, the favored one, became a spoiled brat. Jacob became a deceiver.
• Rebekah, Isaac's wife, taught Jacob how to lie and be deceitful like a pro.
• Jacob was truly an unlikable character in possibly every way conceivable, because he was always striving to gain an advantage over others, be it by fair means or foul.
• Even Joseph, who is known as the shadow of Christ in the OT, was a tattle tale snitch and a self-centered sociopath who had no idea he was causing his own brothers to hate him with a passion.
  

Why does Genesis give us such unappealing characters? Not only that, but God chose to refer to himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God chose to reveal himself as the God of a liar (Abraham), a blindly partial man (Isaac), and a crook and a deceiver (Jacob). What is God trying to reveal to us through these unsavory flawed people? God wants us to know that his way of operation is always through the agency of grace, not merit. This has profound implications.

What is grace? Grace is what comes to those who do not deserve it, who do not seek it, who continually resist it, and who do not appreciate it even after they receive it. Only because of God's grace was it possible for there to be the men and women of God in the Bible. They never earned or deserved grace. But God freely extended it to them again and again, and over and over, until their lives were changed and transformed by grace.

Introduction: In today's text, Jacob was at the end of his rope. He was at the central pivotal moment of his life where a mystery man wrestles with him all night. Jacob soon realized that it was his personal face to face encounter with God. The result of this wrestling match is Jacob's confession that he saw God face to face. How might each of us meet God so intimately as Jacob did?

Life is a struggle: Every person without exception, Christian or non-Christian, has some agonizing struggle in his/her own heart. Virtually all men, young and old, struggle with temptations related to lust, pornography, immorality, sports, entertainment, video games and self-righteous pride. Virtually all women struggle with temptations of romantic love, and the utmost need for security. All of us have struggles related to our own significance in life. Or we struggle because of one person--a family member, relative, friend, or even a Christian--who has hurt and wounded us deeply. The question then is this: In the midst of our agonizing struggles, do we see God face to face, as Jacob did? Or do we see the face of sneaky Laban who deceived us, or an angry Esau, whom was intent on killing Jacob? Is God real to you when you are in the very throes of an agonizing temptation or struggle that feels as though it would take you down and keep you pinned down on the ground permanently in defeat?

Big Picture Theme: Before self-sufficient Jacob can enter the Promised Land, God needs to change Jacob into Israel, a person who strives with God for his blessing.

Goal: To warn Israel/Christians that God will not allow independent, self-sufficient people to enter the Promised Land but only those who rely on God.

In Gen 32:22-32, Jacob is finally returning to his homeland after 20 years. When he left, his older twin brother Esau wanted to kill him for deceiving his father and him by deceitfully stealing his blessing of the firstborn. While Jacob was away from home he had built up a large family with 4 wives, 11 sons and much wealth, in accordance with God's promise to be with him and to bless him (Gen 28:13-15; 32:10).

Before his dreaded meeting with Esau, a mystery man attacked him, wrestled with him and wrenched his hip (Gen 32:24-25), which crippled him for life (Gen 32:31). This is one of the most powerful, dramatic and mysterious narratives in the Bible. It is also the centerpiece of Jacob's life, because through this event Jacob met God in a real way--face to face--and it transformed his life.

What was the process by which Jacob met God face to face?

1. God attacks him (Gen 32:24-25). God wrestles and maims him.
2. God lost to him (Gen 32:25-26). Almighty God could not overpower him and says, "Let me go."
3. God blesses him (Gen 32:27-29; 30-32). God knows him/changes him/renames him. Basically, God:
1. broke him
2. renamed him
3. blessed him

I. God Attacks Jacob (Gen 32:24-25)

What does God do when you are doing what is right? This may be the first time Jacob is beginning to do things right. He is going home to meet Esau after 20 years. The last time he met him, Esau wanted to kill him. So why doesn't Jacob just flee? Why go back home to meet him? He wants to obey God (Gen 31:3), even at the risk of his life. Next, Jacob prays a very good prayer from his heart (Gen 32:9-12). How does God respond to one who wants to obey him at the risk of his life to follow God's will, and who seeks God in prayer, even though he is filled with fear, feeling as though he is at the end of his rope? How does God respond to such a man? God attacks him, assaults him, clobbers him, wrestles him to the ground, and maims him for the rest of his life. What kind of God is this? This is not the God that most people think is God. This is not the God of liberal religions who believe that God loves everybody. Is this the traditional conservative religious God that many Christians and churches talk about?

Most Christians think that if we obey God, study the Bible, are willing to suffer loss for God, pray, seek his will, go to church, will God clobber you as he did Jacob? Knock you down? Cripple you for the rest of your life? This is not a God of anybody's religion, of anybody's imagination. Who in their right mind would have thought up such an "unpleasant" God? What kind of an idiot would think of a God like this? Who could have imagined a God like this? This must be the real God because no one could have invented him by making up such a God who clobbers you when you are seeking him and trying to live and do what is right.

Is God safe? In C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, the characters were taking about Aslam, the Christ figure and they say, "Is he—quite safe?" "Safe? Safe? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King I tell you." What does this teach us? God allows us to experience suffering. God allowed Mary and Martha to experience the death of their dear brother Lazarus. But Jesus wept when he saw the people mourning before death. Though God allows us to experience suffering, he is intricately and intimately involved with us in our suffering. God "attacked" Jacob in this passage. Why? Because in general God does not comfort us into a transformed life, but he wrestles us into a transformed life.

When does Jacob figure out that the wrestler is God? When was the turning point when Jacob realized that this mystery wrestling man who wounded him is God? God reveals himself in Gen 32:28 by saying that Jacob had wrestled with God. At the beginning of this wrestling match, Jacob didn't know he was God, and at the end he certainly did. Jacob must have known of his grandparents Abraham and Sarah meeting God, and of Hagar, Abraham's other wife, meeting God. At the end of this wrestling match, Jacob also met this God of his ancestors. But when was the exact point when the blinders came off and he realized and recognized that this wrestler was God? When was the point Jacob began to fighting against God to clinging to God and never ever wanting to loose him?

Why so much pain? Most scholars say that it is in Gen 32:25. The Hebrew word for "touched" has the meaning of "the merest mild touch," a tap, a mere contact. After wrestling with this powerful wrestler for some hours perhaps, he simply taps Jacob's hip and cripples him for life. Jacob must have realized at that moment that this man would have totally destroyed him with a jab to the jaw since he was so powerful that a mere tap wrenched his hip out of its socket. That's the turning point. So Jacob changed his strategy from Gen 32:25 to Gen 32:26 from trying to overpower the wrestler to clinging on and to never let him go. When did this happen? At the moment of pain. Jacob realized God's very presence at the moment of weakness, at the moment he knew he was utterly helpless and defenseless. That is why God is scary. He is NOT SAFE, but he is good. As a Christian, we know that God wants us to be transformed, changed, live a holy life, and stop the sinful patterns and habits in our life that have only hurt ourselves. How does God do this? Not through moments of comfort and ease, but through pain and suffering. We all know that this is true in our own life. We don't change when things go well. We change when we fell some agony, struggle and helplessness.

C.S. Lewis said in The Problem of Pain (1940), "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."
Why does God attack us, wrestle us, weaken us and wound us when we cry out to him in prayer as Jacob did? John Newton answers in a poem:

I asked the Lord that I might grow,
In faith and love and every grace,
Might more of His salvation know,
And seek more earnestly His face.

It was He who taught me thus to pray,
And He I trust has answered prayer.
But it has been in such a way,
As almost drove me to despair.

I hoped that in some favored hour,
At once He'd answer my request.
And by His love's constraining power,
Subdue my sins and give me rest.

Instead of this, He made me feel,
The hidden evils of my heart.
And let the angry powers of hell,
Assault my soul in every part.

Yes, more with His own hand, He seemed,
Intent to aggravate my woe.
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourds (joy), and laid me low.

"Lord, why is this?" I trembling cried.
Will You pursue Your worm to death?"
"This is the way" the Lord replied,
"I answer prayer for grace and strength."
"These inward trials I employ,
From self, and pride, to set you free;
And break your schemes of earthly joy,
That you may find thy all in Me."

God made himself the enemy of our old self, the self that is not built on God, so that our new self may begin to blossom from within us.

What was Jacob's problem? The immediate problem was facing Esau the next day. Esau wanted to kill him. His inner fear and distress was great. To Jacob, his problem was his struggle with Esau since his youth and which was coming to a head the next day. But to God the problem beneath all his problems was that Jacob was fighting and resisting God all of his life. Jacob always wanted something else other than God in his center, or in addition to God: his father's love, his brother's blessing of the firstborn, Rachel, Laban's wealth. Functionally, Jacob wanted to be his own savior and lord through his idols. God was never Jacob's center. God attacked him, wrestled him, and wrenched his hip to help him realize that none of the things he had sought all of his life to be his center could ever satisfy him. Jacob was always wrestling others: Isaac, Esau, Laban to get what he wanted. But Jacob needs to know that he has only been wrestling with God and resisting God all of his life. The reason his life has been messed up is that God has never been the center of his heart and life. Thus, he could never truly know himself either. Wrestling with others had always characterized his life.

II. God Lost to Jacob (Gen 32:25-26a)

There are 2 astounding verses here. "...the man saw that he could not overpower him" (Gen 32:25a). The man said, "Let me go..." (Gen 32:26a). These verses are astounding because of who this mysterious man is. Why could God not overpower Jacob? Why would Almighty God have to ask Jacob to let him go? God made himself weak, so that he failed to overpower Jacob. So did God fail, or did God not fail? If God had overpowered him, he would have killed Jacob, and God could not have changed him and blessed him with a new heart and a new life. So by winning, God would have lost Jacob. But by losing, God could win Jacob over. If God won, he would have lost. But because God lost he won. God failed in order to succeed. This points to the ultimate place where God won through losing, and triumphed through defeat. It was on the cross.

III. God Blesses Jacob (Gen 32:26b; 27-29; 30-32)

What it the theme of Jacob's life? As the theme of Abraham's life is the promise, the theme of Jacob's life is the blessing. Jacob grew up devoid of any blessing. He grew up with an inner vacuum, a big gaping hole in his heart, because his father loved his older twin brother Esau, not him. He was not convinced of his own beauty or of his own worth or of his own value. So why was he wrestling with everybody? He was trying to fill that vacuum, that inner hole. He struggled to get the approval of his father to give himself that inner blessing. He longed for beautiful Rachel to fill his inner vacuum and to give himself that inner blessing. He longed for wealth to fill his inner vacuum to give himself that inner blessing. But one day the penny drops. He began to come to his senses.

Jonathan Edwards, in his classic Religious Affections, distinguishes between a nominal Christian (a person who believes things about God), and a committed Christian (a person who knows God personally). That is the gist of his book. Jacob has been using God as a means to an end. He talks to God. He negotiates with God. He bargains with God. But he is only using God to get what he wants (Gen 28:20-22). Jacob is telling God the blessing that he wants: food, clothing, safety, love, wealth, security. Jacob is saying, "Sure, I will serve you---if you help me to get those blessings." But this wrestling match with God, the penny drops, and he finally gets it.

What is the blessing that you want? When God first wrestled with him, he was trying to fight God off. But when he begins to realize who God is, he begins to cling on for dear life. He said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me" (26b). Jacob began to realize what he was looking for all of his life. In meeting God, he realizes that here is the approval he was looking for from his father. Here is the beauty he was looking for in his wife Rachel. Here is the wealth he was looking for by becoming richer than Laban. Here is the approval behind the approval, the beauty behind the beauty, the wealth behind the wealth. Jacob realizes that he has only been using God all of his life to try to get the true blessing which only God could give him. How do we know when we are truly changed as a Christian? We go from using God to get the blessing that we want, to desiring only God as the only blessing that we need.

How intense and passionate was Jacob in holding onto God and never letting go? He no longer cared about anything else, as long as he had God as his blessing. When God said, "Let me go for it is daybreak" (26a), Jacob basically said, "Never! Even if I am in pain, in peril, and even if I die, I will never let go. I get it now. Regardless of anything else, I only want you as my blessing." God was hinting that he might die if he sees God's divine face in the dawning light, but Jacob didn't care about his own life anymore. Jacob finally realized that if he did not receive God as his blessing, he did not have anything of any value. To Jacob, he could no longer go back to Rachel, or to Esau, or to his father, if he did not have the blessing of God Himself.

When we first go to God, we always want to use God to get something else, such as a nice boy or a nice girl. If they dump you, we go to God to get them back, or to get someone else. God is very sorry when that is our attitude, to use him as a means to a goal. God will never be real to us with such an attitude. We will never be able to see God face to face for the true beauty and blessing that he is.

Blessed for living in sin?? When Jacob gets it, God says, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.... Then he blessed him there" (28, 29b). Do you realize the grace of God in this verse? Jacob was a Jacob all of his life. He was a deceiver, a liar, a crook, a conniving person all of his life. Then when Jacob realizes who he is and clings to God with all his heart, God blesses him. Here is Jacob, crippled, weakened, helpless, vulnerable, hanging on to dear life, in this wrestling match, and God says and declares him, "Winner!" How can God say winner to a loser? How can God say good to a bad. How can God say accepted to the unacceptable? How can the holy accept the unholy? How can a holy God simply bless an unholy person like Jacob or like each of us?

Jacob himself was astounded by the paradox. He realized how rotten he was for the first time, and as he began to see the lines of God's face in the early dawning light, he realized that his life was spared when it shouldn't have been spared. He was not destroyed for being the lying, cheating, horrible despicable sinful person that he was. "So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, 'It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared'" (30). All he got for all of his utter rottenness was not a blow that killed him, but only a light blow that just wrenched his hip. How could he have fought with others all his life, and resisted God all his life, and God blessing him, rewarding him, and declaring him, "Winner"? How can God do this?

Kenneth Clark, the producer of the acclaimed BBC series, CIVILIZATION, and a secular man, shared this in his biography, "When I was living in a villa in France-there was a curious episode. I had a religious experience. It took place in the church of Saint Lorenzo, but it did not seem to be connected with the beauty of the architecture. I can only say that for a few minutes, my whole being was radiated with a heavenly joy-more intense than anything I had ever experienced before...and wonderful as it was, it caused an awkward problem in terms of action.  My life was far from blameless. I would have to reform. My family would think I was going mad. And perhaps, I thought, it was a delusion, for (on moral terms) I was completely unworthy of such a flood of grace. So gradually the effect wore off, and I made no effort to retain it...I was too deeply embedded in the world to change course. I had felt the finger of God, I am quite sure..." He felt a love and joy beyond anything he could have imagined. He knew that he had done nothing to deserve such a deeply joyous and peaceful religious experience. Though he had lived a totally irreligious life, he instinctively sensed that it was a holy presence that he knew he was totally unqualified for. He was confused and confounded as to why God would favor him when he was totally unworthy of it. He experienced what Jacob experienced when he saw God face to face.

How could God bless someone so flawed as Jacob or as Kenneth Clark or as I?When God wrestled with Jacob, God made himself weak; God "weakened" himself. He could have, but he did not overpower him. He gently touched his hip, which wrenched it permanently. But Jesus is the true Jacob, who faced God on the cross with God's full divine power expressed from heaven. With Jacob, God was like a light feather weight. So all Jacob received was a blow that woke him up and did not destroy him. But on the cross with Jesus, God faced him with his full weight of omnipotence, and his full weight of divine justice and retribution for the sins of the world. It was unbearable for Jesus as he cried out in agony. But Jesus held on. Jacob held on to God in order to be blessed. But Jesus held on to God in order to be cursed in my place. Jesus held on until we, who should be cursed, get the blessing. This is the only way that anyone can ever meet God face to face. We have to meet him at the cross. We have to meet him in his utter weakness and helplessness. Jacob met God when God allowed himself to be weak in order to bless him. We can meet God when we realize how God made himself weak--totally helpless--on the cross in our place. The only reason God can bless those who deserve to be cursed, is because on the cross God cursed the one who deserved a blessing. This is the gospel. This is the paradox of life.

On the cross, Jesus was taking the curse of the law which we break, so that we can get the blessing even though we broke the law. Jesus is indeed the ultimate Jacob who took the devastating blow of justice so that we receive the blows of love that wakes us up. Jesus received all the weight of justice and omnipotence and received the devastating blow of God's justice, so that we can get the bearable blows of love and grace that touches our hearts and transforms us. In essence, God was voluntarily allowing Jacob to prevail so that He could show him mercy and not destroy him. But there was a day when God did not allow Jacob to prevail. There was a day when God did not voluntarily hold back His power on Jacob. There was a day when God did pour out His wrath upon Jacob. That day was at Calvary when Jesus Christ stood in Jacobs' place as his representative and substitutionary atonement.

There is nothing more loving than a God who emptied himself of his power and glory for us who have no power and no glory. He emptied himself to come as a servant and a nobody to die on the cross in our place. There is nothing more loving than a weak God. Only a holy God of justice will have to be weak.

Can a God who just loves everybody truly help us in our struggles? People generally hate the idea of judgment, wrath, hell, Jesus dying on the cross for us to pay the penalty for our sins. Then we do not have a weak God but only a God who just loves everybody. But a God who just loves everybody can never solve the problem of one with an inner emptiness, one who lacks inner blessing to be healed just by being told that God just loves everybody. This never changes anyone. What can change us is knowing that God was willing to go through hell for me, become weak for me, die for me. Only then can I find strength in his weakness, victory in his defeat, triumph in his failure, life in his death. Only a God who becomes weak for me, suffer and die for me, does it really change me and touch me. I go from just knowing things about God to having a real personal face to face encounter with God.

Only a holy God of justice who is loving enough to become weak can truly touch and transform our hearts and lives. If you feel jumped and attacked by God, know that God only jumps and attacks us to bless us, and to help us to see him intimately and personally face to face.

What must I do? If you feel weak and helpless what can you do? Hold on as Jacob held on. Remember Jesus who held on to suffer and die for us, so that we can hold on to enjoy life and blessing. Jacob held on in pain, in weakness, in peril of death, and he experienced the victory and the intimacy of seeing God face to face. This is the ultimate fight of our life. When we surrender to him we experience the victory he purchased for us by becoming weak and dying in our place, on our behalf.

Why can Jacob come so close to God and still have his life spared (Gen 32:30)? It is because Jesus came in weakness and died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin. As a result, his weakness became our strength, his defeat our victory. Tim Keller says, "Jesus is the true and better Jacob who wrestled and took the blow of justice we deserved, so we, like Jacob, only receive the wounds of grace to wake us up and discipline us." Jesus was the ultimate Jacob, who came and was overpowered by the justice of God. He took the devastating blow of justice we deserved, so that we like Jacob could only receive the bearable wounds of love and grace to wake us up and transform us! This is the way we see God face to face. This is the way God becomes real to us.

Practical Application (Addendum):

1. Meet God in 4 ways: alone (Gen 32:24a), in our weakness (Gen 32:25), in our center (Gen 32:27), in His weakness (Gen 32:26).
1. We can only meet God alone, not through the spiritual experiences of others experiencing God in the church. The most important life issues that we will ever face, we have to face them alone: tragedy, emergency, terminal illness, death.
2. We have to meet God in our weakness, in pain, in helplessness, in vulnerability. This is scary.
3. We have to meet God in our center. What do I really want? More money. Rachel. A nice happy family. My kids being successful. Having a bigger ministry. Becoming more significant and influential.
4. We have to meet God in His weakness. Jesus became weak so that we may become strong. Jesus lost, so that we may win. Jesus was cursed so that we may be blessed. Jesus held on to God to die. We hold on to God to live.
2. God's attacks and wounds are his love. Go from resisting God to clinging to God.
3. God's "weakness" is his grace that changes us (not our effort). We are still "me, but not me" (Gal 2:20).
   
4. God wants us to know who we truly are; what we truly want. Jacob always wanted something else: his father's love, his father's blessing of the firstborn, Rachel's love, Laban's wealth. None of these things, as desperately as he wanted and desired them, could quench the inner thirst of his heart and soul. None of these blessings felt like blessings. God wanted him to know what the true blessing was.
   
5. Grace transforms us to experience the true blessing of seeing and knowing God. Grace gives boldness and courage, even if we limp. So, we limp (because of sin), yet are bold (being justified by grace). We joyfully limp/experience the sun rising even though we limp visibly (Gen 32:31). Simul justus et peccator.
6. Godly help is always from a position of weakness, not strength/power (Mk 10:42-45).
   

References:

1. Greidanus, Sidney, Preaching Christ from Genesis. Chap. 17. Jacob's Wrestling with God at Peniel (Gen 32:22-32). Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmas Publishing Co. 2007, 315-334.
2. Keller, Timothy J, What were we put in the world to do? New York: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2006,202-211.
3. Keller, Timothy J. Jacob and the Wrestler (Gen 32:22-32). Sep 8, 1996.
4. Duncan, Ligon. A Stormy Walk--Clinging to God (Gen 32:22-32). Dec 5, 1999.
5. Keller, Tim. Moralism Vs. Christ-Centered Exposition.
• There is, in the end, only two ways to read the Bible: is it basically about me or basically about Jesus? In other words, is it basically about what I must do, or basically about what he has done? If I read David and Goliath as basically giving me an example, then the story is really about me. I must summons up the faith and courage to fight the giants in my life. But if I read David and Goliath as basically showing me salvation through Jesus, then the story is really about him. Until I see that Jesus fought the real giants (sin, law, death) for me, I will never have the courage to be able to fight ordinary giants in life (suffering, disappointment, failure, criticism, hardship). For example how can I ever fight the "giant" of failure, unless I have a deep security that God will not abandon me? If I see David as my example, the story will never help me fight the failure/giant. But if I see David/Jesus as my substitute, whose victory is imputed to me, then I can stand before the failure/giant. As another example, how can I ever fight the "giant" of persecution or criticism? Unless I can see him forgiving me on the cross, I won't be able to forgive others.
• So reading the OT Christocentrically is not just a "additional" dimension. It is not something you can just tack on - to the end of a study and sermon. ("Oh, and by the way, this also points us to Christ".) Rather, the Christocentric reading provides a fundamentally different application and meaning to the text. Without relating it to Christ, the story of Abraham and Isaac means: "You must be willing to even kill your own son for him." Without relating it to Christ, the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel means: "You have to wrestle with God, even when he is inexplicable-even when he is crippling you. You must never give up." These 'morals-of-the-story' are crushing because they essentially are read as being about us and what we must do.