Jacob also experienced a progressive advancement in the matter of God's appearing. God appeared to him in a dream in chapter twenty-eight, but that appearing was not substantial. Nothing that we see in a dream is substantial. It may be correct, but it is not concrete. Nebuchadnezzar saw a great image of a human body in a dream (Dan. 2:31), but that image was not as substantial as a real human body, and the two iron legs in the dream were not as solid as the two sections of the Roman Empire. While Nebuchadnezzar beheld those things in a dream, he had no experience of them. Likewise, although Jacob experienced God's appearing in his dream, in El-Bethel he solidly experienced God's appearing. The Lord spoke to Jacob when he was in Padan-aram (31:3), but that was not a solid appearing of the Lord. In 35:1, the Lord also spoke to him, but that also was not a solid appearing. Only in El-Bethel did Jacob experience God's appearing in a substantial way. This is the progress in Jacob's experience of God's appearing.
Many of us can testify that before entering into the church life we had some experience of God's appearing. God did appear to us, but that appearing was not solid. But after coming to the church life and being in it for a time, we can testify that here God's appearing is not only real but also solid. If anyone would leave the church life after remaining in it for a time, he could never deny that while he was in the church life he had experienced the appearing of God in a solid way. Before we came into the church life, the appearing of God was rather vague. But the appearing of God in the church is always substantial. It is so concrete that it seems that we can almost touch it. The best experience of God's appearing is only in the church.
There is also a progression in God's blessing. In the vision in Bethel (28:13-15), in Padan-aram, and in Shechem (31:3; 35:1), Jacob was not given God's blessing. God did bless Jacob in Peniel, but there He did not bless him solidly (32:29). Jacob was not given God's substantial blessing because he was not yet in the place where God intended him to be. At Peniel, we are told that God blessed Jacob, but we are not told in what way He blessed him. However, in chapter thirty-five, at Bethel, the blessing is very solid. There, God blessed Jacob, saying, "I am God, all-sufficient: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins; and the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land" (vv. 11-12, Heb.). These are the solid items of God's blessing in Bethel.
In Bethel, Jacob experienced his new name. His name had been changed at Peniel (32:28, 30), but he experienced his new name at Bethel (35:10). At Bethel, Jacob's entire being was changed and he became a new person—Israel. No matter how good we were as Christians before we came into the church life, we were not new. But after we came into the church life, something within demanded us to be new. We had to be a new husband, a new parent, a new child. We all experience this inward demanding daily. We realize that, from now on, we must be another person. This is the experience of transformation.
The church life is a transforming life. In the church, everyone is under the process of renewal. We are being renewed day by day (Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 4:16). We are not being corrected, for that means nothing, but we are being renewed. The church is altogether a new man (Eph. 2:15), and the church life is the life of the transformed Israel. It is a new life with a new person and a new being. Here, in Bethel, we experience the new life, which is God in Christ. Here, in the church life, we are becoming newer every day. The longer we stay in the proper church life, the newer we become. Your chronological age may get older, but your being becomes newer. All the elderly brothers and sisters must become newer, quicker, stronger, and fresher. In their sharing they need to be louder and faster than the young people.
I expect that all the points in this message will become your practical experience. In the church life, we need the highest consecration, the consecration for the house of God, not for individual enrichment. If we have this, then we shall have God's appearing in a substantial way and enjoy His full blessing. Then we shall daily become newer and newer. This is the experience at Bethel, the experience of the church life.