While Abraham lived in the tent, his nephew fell into the city of Sodom which was another counterfeit building of Satan (Gen. 13:12-13; 18:20; 19:1). According to history, Babel was a city of idols, and Sodom was a city of sin.
With Babel and Sodom as the background, God, according to His selection, visited Jacob, “a supplanter.” Jacob knew nothing of God’s selection; he only knew how to be crafty. Nevertheless, God was sovereign, forcing him to leave his parents’ home. While he was wandering, he slept one night in the open air. That night he had a dream in which he saw a ladder set up from the earth to the heavens (Gen. 28:10-22). The angels of God were ascending and descending upon this ladder. When Jacob awoke from his sleep he said, “How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” As we have already pointed out, Bethel means the house of God. Genesis 28:18-19 says that Jacob “took the stone that he had put for his pillow, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. And he called the name of that place Bethel.” Scripturally speaking, a stone symbolizes a transformed person. According to the Bible, the oil symbolizes the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Godhead, reaching human beings. Whenever the Triune God reaches a human being through the Person of the Holy Spirit, that man will become a part of Bethel, the house of God. We all are stones which have been anointed with oil. Thus, we are the Bethel. Although I do not know where Jacob acquired the oil, he nevertheless anointed the stone with it and called it Bethel.
However, Jacob’s descendants did not stay in the promised land, but went down into Egypt where they were forced to build Pharaoh’s treasure cities (Exo. 1:11-14), which were further counterfeits of Satan. Have you noticed the alternation between the positive and the negative, between God’s building and Satan’s counterfeit? This resembles the alternation of night and day. After each night we have a day, and after each day we have a night. After Jacob’s positive dream, we have the building of Pharaoh’s treasure cities, cities of worldly enjoyment.
After the “night” of Pharaoh’s treasure cities, we have the “day” of the building of the tabernacle (Exo. 25:1-9). In the midst of all the cities on the negative side we have the building of God’s tabernacle on the positive side. Jacob’s descendants were rescued from Egypt and brought to Mt. Sinai. After they were released from the bondage of Pharaoh, they became God’s freed people, being made by God’s mercy and grace a “kingdom of priests” (Exo. 19:6). Then God charged them to build a tabernacle as His dwelling place among them on earth, and He showed them the heavenly pattern that they might build it according to God’s plan and design. And they did accordingly. From that time there was a real and practical building of God as His habitation on earth. That tabernacle with the altar was the enlargement of Noah’s and Abraham’s tents and altars. It was not only God’s dwelling place, but also a place for God’s priests to stay with God. It was not only a full type of Christ, but also a prefigure of the church as the enlargement of Christ. All the utensils within it were types of the different aspects of Christ as the content of the church. It fulfilled God’s plan in the way of type, expressed the heart’s desire of God, and satisfied Him. Thus, after it was builded and erected, God’s glory filled it (Exo. 40:17, 34).
After the tabernacle was built, it was carried through the wilderness and was brought into God’s promised land, remaining there as God’s habitation on earth until the temple was built (1 Kings 6:1-10). Its history lasted for about five hundred years, from approximately 1500 to approximately 1000 B.C., and is recorded from Exodus to 1 Kings. The temple was bigger and more solid than the tabernacle, but its purpose and function were the same. It was the type of both Christ and the church in a full way. With the building of the temple, Jacob’s dream, at least to some extent, was fulfilled. There was, on earth, a house of God built with stones on a solid foundation. It was much more solid in form than was the tabernacle. Its history lasted for about four hundred years, from about 1000 B.C. until it was destroyed by the Babylonians in approximately 600 B.C., and is recorded from 1 Kings to Ezra.
In opposition to the temple with its city, Jerusalem, Satan built the city of Babylon (Dan. 4:28-30), which was a bigger counterfeit. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, with his army destroyed the temple of God and brought its utensils to Babylon, putting them in his temple of idols (2 Chron. 36:7, 18-19). By this we can see how Satan has been constantly frustrating and damaging God’s building as His habitation on earth.