AP

Genesis 28:20-22  Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the LORD will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth. ”

The word ‘if’ is an interesting word in the English language.  It can be used to express a certainty (i.e. as a synonym of ‘because’), or as a ‘conditional’ hope.  If I say, ‘If you lend me your lawmower I will mow your lawn as well’, I am using it in the second sense (my mowing your lawn is conditional upon you lending me your mower).  If I say ‘If (as you have indicated) you are going to be near my place on Australia Day you can join us for a BBQ’, I am using it in the first sense.

When John Newton wrote “Saviour, if of Zion’s city I, through grace, a member am, let the world deride or pity I will glory in thy name.” in ‘Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken’, he was obviously meaning it in the first sense: ie ‘Because, by God’s grace alone (sola gratia) I am a member of ‘Zion’s city’, I  couldn’t care less what the world thinks about me, I will glory in his name (soli deo gloria)’.  Sadly, compilers of modern hymnaries don’t realise this subtlety and so they change Newton’s words to “Saviour, since of Zion’s city I, through grace, a member am, let the world deride or pity I will glory in thy name.”

I mention all this in case modern readers of today’s verses think (wrongly) that Jacob is saying, “On the condition that God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father’s household, then [and only then] the LORD will be my God”.  But this would be to misunderstand Jacob’s established worldview.  Jacob lived his whole life fully trusting all the promises his faithful God had already given him, and so in this instance he was truly saying, “Because God [has promised to] be with me and [to] watch over me on this journey I am taking and [to] give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father’s household, [therefore] the LORD will be my God”.  It was a firm decision and commitment he was making on the basis of God’s proven faithfulness!

In the light of all this, Jacob encourages me to “continue to work out [my] salvation with fear and trembling, [because] it is God who works in [me] [by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone] to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose [for his glory alone].(Philippians 2:12b-13).

– Bruce Christian