God wanted to build His dwelling place with man as the material, but before this task was accomplished, Satan came in to lure away the man that God wanted to use. In order to restore fallen man, however, God established a way of redemption for man through a sacrifice—the killing of the lamb and the shedding of its blood—so that he might come back to God. However, Satan came in again and caused man to refuse and reject God’s way of redemption. Consequently, man fell under the hand of Satan.
The first thing Cain did after he had followed Satan was to build the city of Enoch (Gen. 4:17). The last city in the Bible is the New Jerusalem, and the first city is the city of Enoch built by Cain. This city was the beginning of man producing a culture for himself, making a living for his existence, and fully cooperating with Satan and setting God aside. The ultimate city, the New Jerusalem, will be the union of man and God, the expression of God within man; yet the city of Enoch was the expression of Satan within man. Therefore, the city of Enoch was developed to the extent of being filled with every manner of evil and corruption, and Satan’s evil nature was fully expressed through it.
When God could tolerate it no longer, He destroyed this city with the flood. God’s destruction of the people of that generation included His destruction of that city. But out of that city God saved Noah and his family of eight so that they might serve Him in another position.
However, some of Noah’s descendants still followed and cooperated with Satan; so Satan’s second city appeared—the city of Babel. God destroyed the first city, but Satan built a second city. The city of Babel is the city of Babylon; Babel is Hebrew and Babylon is Greek. From this point on a city in opposition to Jerusalem has been in existence.
Beginning with Genesis 11, the Bible repeatedly shows us two cities—the city of Babel and the city of Jerusalem. Babel is the city of Satan, a building related to the union of man and the devil; Jerusalem is a building related to the union of man and God. Throughout the whole Bible, Babel is always in opposition to Jerusalem. At the city of Babel, the joint rebellion of Satan and man against God reached its peak. Man rejected God’s authority and wanted to exalt himself to the heavens to replace God. Therefore, God was forced to come down and confound his language; He judged man. Both of these cities were preemptive counterfeits by Satan to keep God from completing His building.
After the judgment of Babel, God called Abraham out of this place of man’s rebellion, out from among the rebellious people. God called him out of Babel, telling him to leave his land, his relatives, and his father’s house and to go the land of Canaan. God promised the land of Canaan to him and to his seed for the building of God’s dwelling place.
God promised Abraham a portion of land and a group of descendants. The portion of land was the base for the building work, and the group of descendants were the materials for the building work. God’s intention was to build the seed of Abraham, the children of Israel, into God’s dwelling place in the land of Canaan. This was God’s selection.
God chose Abraham, called him, and promised him a portion of land and a group of descendants. At that time Abraham did not fully understand why God gave him such a promise. When Abraham passed away, his son Isaac inherited this promise. When Isaac passed away, Jacob came. We all know the story of Jacob. As a young man, Jacob fled to a distant land because he offended his brother. Genesis 28 says that while he was fleeing from his brother, he spent the night in the wilderness and received a revelation in a dream—a revelation concerning Bethel. When Jacob went to sleep, his pillow was a stone. In his dream a ladder was set up on the earth, and it reached to heaven. Angels of God were ascending and descending on it, and Jehovah was standing above it and speaking to him. After he woke up, he said that this place was the gate of heaven. He called the name of this place Bethel—the house of God. He also took the stone from under his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it, saying that the stone would be the house of God, Bethel. Through a dream God revealed His need and desire to have a house.
The significance of this dream is very rich. First, the dream reveals a homeless man and a homeless God. At that time Jacob was a wandering homeless man, and even God did not have a home in the universe. Second, this dream shows that God’s house links heaven and earth and joins God and man. Third, God’s house is not merely a place, but a stone with oil poured upon it; it is not merely the land of Luz, it is Jacob, as a stone with oil poured upon it, becoming Bethel, the house of God.
A stone denotes a regenerated person. Previously we were clay, but once we receive the Lord and His life, we are changed in nature to become a stone. As soon as Peter confessed that the Lord was the Christ, the Lord said to him, “You are Peter” (Matt. 16:18). Peter means “a stone.” Later, in his Epistle Peter says that the believers are living stones who are being built up as a spiritual house (1 Pet. 2:5). In the Bible, oil always signifies the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the manifestation of God, the transfiguration of God, and God’s reaching of man and entering into man. Oil being poured upon the stone signifies God reaching man and entering into man to be in union with him. This union of God and man is the house of God, Bethel. At this point, God’s desire to have a house in the universe was revealed.
Without Bethel, man would be homeless on the earth and God would not have a resting place in the universe. Both God and man need this house. This house, which links heaven and earth and joins God and man, is built up with God as oil poured upon those who are saved as stones.