Now we have to go on from Noah to this complete person composed with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with Joseph. With this complete person you can see more items. This complete person was called by God as the God of glory (Gen. 12:1; Acts 7:2-3; Heb. 11:8). And even before he was called, he was chosen by God (Rom. 9:11-13). We may not have such a realization of being chosen by God. We may only realize that we have been called by God. But before calling us God selected us. He considered us as His choice. When you go to the supermarket, you don’t buy every item. You only buy your choice. God has selected us. We all are His choice. He loved us, and to His eyes we are the best. Hallelujah! God selected us! We did not select ourselves. We may reject ourselves, but He selected us and considered us as His choice. If He had not selected us we would not be here in the Lord’s recovery.
Acts 7 tells us that the very God who called Abraham appeared to him as the God of glory. Glory is the highest attraction. Look at the situation. Abraham was living in an idolatrous country with so many attractions. Suddenly the very God of glory came and called him out. The attraction to come out of that country was the very glory of God. That glory attracted Abraham.
So he was called by the God of glory. We all have been called by the God of glory. When you were called didn’t you realize that the Lord Jesus was so lovable? This means Jesus is the Jesus of glory. If He were not of glory, how could He be so lovable? Then He charmed you and attracted you to Himself by His glory. In all of the church meetings there is a kind of charming by the Lord that He might draw us to Himself. Through all the generations the Lord Jesus has charmed and called so many people. All of us have been called by the God of glory, attracted by the divine glory.
Then Abraham received God’s promise of the gospel with the Spirit as the blessing (Gen. 12:2-3; Gal. 3:8, 14). Galatians 3:8 tells us that what God spoke to Abraham in Genesis 12 was the preaching of the gospel. This is the second preaching of the gospel in the Scriptures. The first was in Genesis 3:15. The first preaching of the gospel was concerning the seed of the woman, and the second preaching of the gospel was concerning the seed of Abraham. This is the same seed. The seed of the woman is the seed of Abraham. The seed is Jesus Christ, the charming One. This is the center of the gospel. The blessing of this gospel is the Spirit. This charming Jesus today is the life-giving Spirit. This is why He is not only charming, but also prevailing. People might ask, Where is your Jesus? My Jesus is within me! He is the Spirit. He is prevailing. He is living, and He lives in me. Sometimes I can hardly bear His wonderful living within me. It is too wonderful! Hallelujah! This is the blessing of Abraham. The blessing of Abraham is just the life-giving Spirit (Gal. 3:14). When the life-giving Spirit comes to us, that is the Triune God reaching us. It is not a small thing for the life-giving Spirit to live in us. That means that the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—all are here. Our Christ is living, and He is living within us. We have received such a gospel.
Not only have we received such a gospel, but we are also inheriting all the riches of God. The riches of God were typified by the rich produce of the good land which was inherited by Isaac (Gen. 25:5; 26:4; 28:13-14). This signifies that we who have received such a gospel inherit all the riches of God. It is too rich!
After this we need to see a vision. According to the record of the Bible after Isaac inherited all the riches, his continuation, Jacob, saw a vision in a dream. He saw the vision of Bethel, of God’s house (Gen 28:12-13, 16-19). God made it clear to Jacob that what was on His heart was a house. Heaven is not God’s house. God’s house is His redeemed people. God wants His redeemed people to be His dwelling place, His house. According to Isaiah 66:1 and 2 heaven is God’s throne, and the earth is His footstool. What then is His house? Isaiah tells us clearly that man is God’s dwelling place. The heart of the contrite one is God’s house. God does not desire to dwell in heaven. He wants to dwell in you and me in a corporate way.
God showed His heart’s desire—to have Bethel, the house of God—to Jacob. We all need to have such a dream and to see such a vision. God wants a house, and today the church is God’s house (1 Tim. 3:15).
When Jacob saw the dream, he was not yet transformed. He was still a supplanter, a heel-holder. On the one hand he saw the vision of Bethel, and on the other hand he was being transformed. One day God came in to change his name from supplanter to the prince of God, from Jacob to Israel (Gen. 32:28; 41:40-41). He was transformed into the prince of God to express Him and to reign for Him on the earth.
After Jacob’s transformation, Joseph became a great steward to carry out God’s dispensation, to distribute the riches of God to feed all the hungry people on the earth. All eight of these great persons plus Joseph actually depict one complete person.
Our experience can be fully seen in these nine great men. You are Adam, and you are Abel. You are Enosh, and you are Enoch. You are Noah. You are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with Joseph. Eventually you will be transformed. Today we are on the way to be transformed. In Adam we got fallen and redeemed. In Abel we were brought back to God and suffered persecution. In Enosh we called upon the name of the Lord and lived not by ourselves but by Him. In Enoch we walked with God. And in Noah we worked with God. In Abraham we were called out by the God of glory, and in Isaac we inherited all the riches of God. In Jacob the supplanter we saw God’s choosing and the dream of God’s house. How marvelous that even the supplanters are qualified to see the vision of God’s house. In Israel we became the prince of God, and in Joseph we reigned to distribute the riches of God to the hungry ones. This is God’s dispensation. By the time you come to Israel and Joseph, God has nearly been fully infused into man. This man became the prince of God. He became one with God to express Him and to reign for Him.
This is God’s dispensing in His dispensation. God has dispensed Himself to carry out His dispensation. By this dispensing in His dispensation He could have a prince on this earth who was saturated with Himself. He could work Himself into His chosen people to express Him and to reign for Him. The end of Genesis shows us a prince of God, filled with God, saturated with God, one with God to express Him and to reign for Him. Here we can see the goal of God’s dispensation—to make God’s chosen people one with Him, bearing His image, possessing His life, and having the flow of life within to transform them into His glorious image to express Him and to reign for Him. Hallelujah for such a wonderful dispensing of God in His dispensation and its glorious goal!