Each of the patriarchs bore some characteristics that expressed God. For example, Abel characteristically testified to the people that God condemns sin and cannot accept sinful men without redemption, because He is holy and righteous (Gen. 4:4). In the garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword guarded the way to the tree of life (3:24) to prevent sinful man from contacting God in a loose and casual manner, like Cain. Man also cannot please God by his own works, like Cain. A sinner can draw near to God only through the way of redemption established by God. According to His holiness and righteousness, God requires sinners to have a sense of guilt and to look to a sacrifice as a substitute in order to be accepted by Him. In this special matter, Abel declared God to us. Through Abel’s characteristic living, God was able to express Himself.
Enoch lived in an age in which people lived by themselves, completely without God. At the end of Genesis 4 men had already put God completely aside. They were able to invent culture by themselves and to create a godless living for themselves; thus, they were able to live without trusting in God. However, the result of a culture and living without God is death. Therefore, Genesis 5 is a record full of death. It speaks of many men who lived a number of years and then died. The Chinese language uses four words to describe the events in the course of a human life: birth, age, disease, and death. But when Genesis speaks of a man’s life, it uses only three words: lived, begot, and died. It only says that someone lived for a number of years, begot children, and died, because they all lived a life without God. These men, who lived by themselves without God in a self-made, godless culture, all ended in death. But at this time, Enoch, who lived by God, walked with God, and needed God moment by moment, did not live a life in this self-made, godless culture (5:22). Therefore, he was able to escape death and was taken by God without seeing death (v. 24). In this manner he manifested God, enabling us to see God.
When we look at Noah, we can see that during his time the people on the earth were worldly and living a godless life; the earth was filled with evil, violence, and unrighteousness. Therefore, God condemned that generation; He was not pleased with that evil generation. He determined to judge and destroy the age. But during this time, Noah lived in the presence of God and walked according to the will of God (6:8-9). Noah was an upright man, a righteous man, and he bore an anti-testimony in that age. He preached to the people, in effect, saying, “God is righteous, and He will surely judge wickedness and destroy this world. Therefore, I cannot live according to this evil world; I want to walk with God by living and acting according to the righteousness of God.” Noah’s testimony declared that God is One who judges evil. Therefore, Noah was also an expression of God.
Let us look at Abraham next. At the time of Abraham, the earth was filled with idols and human rebellion. Men wanted to exercise authority for themselves, and they wanted to exalt themselves and put God aside. Therefore, they built the tower of Babel to make a name for themselves. At the tower of Babel, that is, at Babylon, men rejected God, choosing demons and idols instead; men rejected God and cared for themselves by exalting themselves. But then Abraham was called by God, and he left that place (15:6). Coming to the land of Canaan and standing on the heavenly position, he testified for God, indicating, “This world of idols and this situation at Babel cannot be tolerated by God. God and idols cannot coexist. God will judge Babel. This is the reason I came out of Babel to stand in the land of Canaan, which is heavenly and separated. I stand on God’s side, I trust God, and I take God as everything.” By doing this he expressed the nature of God and manifested God to a great extent (17:1).
Now let us look at Isaac. The characteristic of Isaac is very simple. He showed forth only one thing: Anyone who is a son of God does not need to labor or strive for himself (Gen. 26:2-3). Everything has been prepared and accomplished by God the Father, everything is inherited, and everything is of grace. This makes known another aspect of God, and it manifests God to us.
Finally, let us look at Jacob next. Jacob’s characteristic reveals that the self-struggling and natural ability of a person who belongs to God are against God. God wants to work Himself into those who belong to Him. God wanted to turn Jacob into Israel, to turn a crafty person, a supplanter, into a prince of God so that he would be filled with the element of God to become an expression of God (Gen. 32:28; 47:31). This is the story of Jacob.
If we consider the stories of the patriarchs and look at them collectively, we can see a very meaningful line. In the beginning of Genesis, there is a sinner who needed a sacrifice as his substitute, and at the end of Genesis, there is a natural person who has been completely transformed into Israel, a prince of God. The first expression of God in a person who belongs to Him is that God has judged sin and provided a sacrifice for sinners to draw near to Him. The final expression of God in a person who belongs to Him is that God has wrought Himself into him until he, like Jacob, becomes Israel, that is, he is no longer a crooked and crafty person but one who is filled with God. The ultimate goal of God in all those who belong to Him is to make every one of us a person who is filled with God to be His expression. The sum total of the stories of the patriarchs is a picture, a photograph, that manifests and expresses God so that we may know the characteristics of God. Everything that the Spirit of God wrought into them is for the expression of God.