Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #5 of Genesis, chapter 27, and we are going to read Genesis 27:20-29:

And Isaac said unto his son, How is it that thou hast found it so quickly, my son? And he said, Because JEHOVAH thy God brought it to me. And Isaac said unto Jacob, Come near, I pray thee, that I may feel thee, my son, whether thou be my very son Esau or not. And Jacob went near unto Isaac his father; and he felt him, and said, The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. And he discerned him not, because his hands were hairy, as his brother Esau's hands: so he blessed him. And he said, Art thou my very son Esau? And he said, I am. And he said, Bring it near to me, and I will eat of my son's venison, that my soul may bless thee. And he brought it near to him, and he did eat: and he brought him wine, and he drank. And his father Isaac said unto him, Come near now, and kiss me, my son. And he came near, and kissed him: and he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed him, and said, See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which JEHOVAH hath blessed: Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine: Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee: be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee: cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee.

I will stop reading there.  Let us go over this again, so we get it clear.  Isaac is a great type of Christ.  We know that of his birth, and the time his father Abraham laid him on the altar and was about to slay his only begotten son.  We understand that clearly.  We know God said in the Bible, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau I have hated.”  So these two sons are typifying the whole of mankind, out of which God has predetermined or predestinated a few out of the whole to be saved.  This was from the counsels of eternity, when before the foundation of the world the Lord predestinated certain individuals out of all those that would ever be born: “These are my elect.”  And Jacob represents that, but we also saw in Isaiah 42 that the Lord Jesus Christ is called God’s “elect.”  In a similar way, we also know that Christ is the “seed” that was being referred to when God gave promise to Abraham that his seed would be blessed and would be as the stars of heaven for multitude.  We would expect from that promise that the seed referred to would be plural, but Galatians confirms that it was not “plural,” but “singular.”  Then it specifically declares the seed to be Jesus Christ, the seed (singular).  But the way that God is able to give the promise to Abraham that his descendants would be as the stars of heaven for multitude is that all those elect are counted for the seed in Christ.  So, in the first instance, Jesus Christ is in view, and secondly, all those that He has saved are counted for the seed.

Likewise, in the first instance, when we look at God’s elect, the Lord Jesus Christ is the elect.  “My servant,” He is called, and in Him are all the other elect that we know the Bible speaks of, the great multitude.  It could be as many as two hundred million souls that God finally saved.  That is a vast number, although it is few when set against the billions of others that have lived in the world.  And, yes, many are not saved.  Many will perish, as typified by Esau, the one who was hated.  But that is what is in view here with the bestowing of the blessing by his father Isaac, who is typifying God or the Lord Jesus Christ.  (As Jesus said, “I and my Father are one.”)  They are equal. 

So Isaac is going to give the blessing to the firstborn, which should have been Esau or Edom.  And, again, if you look in a concordance, you will see that.  Have you done that?  Are you checking out what I am saying?  As Mr. Camping used to say (and it was a good statement), “Do not trust me.  Trust the Bible.”  But in order to trust the Bible and the things I am saying, you have to check them out.  If you trust in me, then you would not check them out.  You would just say, “Oh, yeah, McCann says this, so it must be true.”   And, believe me, you should not do that.

I actually received a private message tonight from someone on Facebook, and I was very glad to hear from him because I have not heard from him for a long time, so it was good news to me to hear from him.  He was listening (and checking me out) because he noticed that in one of our studies in Genesis 8, I had given a breakdown of days into a number, and he broke down the same number of days and he came up with a different figure.  My breakdown was 314 days.  It was the time of the flood.  His was 294.  Mine was wrong because I had made an error in counting it.  Whatever happened, I missed (part of) a month, and he was right.  I am very thankful that he was listening closely, and (noticed) something did not check out.  He had to have been checking me out.  He was not just listening to the figures I had given, but he heard what I said, and then he went to the Bible and he did his own calculation.  And he saw, “Oh, McCann was wrong.”  And I am very thankful.  Because of that, we went back and edited the Genesis 8 study, and we had to cut out four minutes because I went on a little bit about it.  But that is actually what should be happening.  Hopefully, most of the time when you check me out, you will find that what I say is accurate, but when you find a mistake, it helps us all.  Our common desire is to be faithful to what the Bible says and to get the information straight, so I do hope you are checking these things out.

And if you look up the words “Edom,” the word “Adam,” and the word “man” in the concordance, you will see they have the same consonants, and you will see the proximity of their Strong’s numbers from 120 to 123 or so, and you will find all those Hebrew words.  You will then get a better idea, and you can understand why Isaiah 63 speaks of the Messiah as coming “from Edom,” and with red-dyed garments.  The word “red” is similar to the words, “Edom,” “Adam,” and “man.”  And Esau was called “Edom.”  He is a type and figure of mankind.  Mankind was the first;  God created him from the dust of the ground.  He made “Adam” or “man.”  And Adam was firstborn in that sense.  When we read the genealogy in Luke, it goes all the way back to Adam, who was said to be “the son of God.”  So God had blessings in store for Adam, his eldest, but Adam transgressed, thus despising his birthright.  That made it absolutely necessary, if there were any blessing to be given, for a substitute to  appear, and we know the Lord Jesus Christ become man  (the “second Adam.”).  He entered into the human race. 

That is the whole idea of this garment, as Rebekah wisely clothed Jacob with Esau’s garments or raiment, and then Isaac, the father (God), told him to come close.  He performed a couple of tests.  He felt his hands, and they were hairy like that of Esau.   He could not discern the “goat hair” from his son Esau’s hairy hand.  [Laughter] And that’s not very flattering to Esau, but it is a fact. 

And, yet, that did not fully convince Isaac because of the voice, so he said, “Come near now, and kiss me, my son.”  And when he kissed him, he took a deep whiff, and he smelled the smell of Esau, and this satisfied him.  This was like a pleasing aroma.  Remember that we went to Genesis 8, where it was after the flood, and it says in Genesis 8:20-21:

And Noah builded an altar unto JEHOVAH; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And JEHOVAH smelled a sweet savour; and JEHOVAH said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake…

The word “savour” is our word for “smell,” and the idea is that of the aroma of the sacrifice.  That is what He smelled that was a sweet smell and an acceptable savour, or a sweet smelling savour unto the Lord.  And we find that kind of language in many Scriptures describing the sacrifices, and the sacrifices pointed to that one (sufficient) sacrifice performed by the Lord Jesus at the foundation of the world when He was said to be “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”  And through that sacrifice, there was acceptance, and now God could bring mankind close to Him.  Of course, it was only a portion of mankind, the elect, whose sins were laid upon Jesus and paid for, and that is what is in view with Isaac embracing his son and smelling the savoury smell.  And this confirms that the Lord Jesus Christ was the “acceptable sacrifice,” because He was “man” or “Edom” or “Adam.”  He was the “second Adam,” we are told and, therefore, He could make payment for the sins of man.  Animals could not pay for the sins of men.  No – it required a man to pay for the sins of man, but it could not be an ordinary man because ordinary man has his own sin.  If man paid for his own sin, the payment (death) would destroy him.  Therefore, they could not pay for the sins of anyone else because they would be destroyed for their own sins. 

So it required a “man,” and it required a very strong and powerful man – it required the “God man.”  Only God could bear the tremendous weight of ugly sins that was laid upon Him.  Only God could pay for the sins of as many as, perhaps, 200,000,000 individuals (and not be destroyed).  The enormous mass of wickedness would crush 200,000,000 men, and they would have to individually bear their own sins and they would be destroyed in the payment.  So this was no ordinary man.  This was the perfect man.  This was God who became man.  That, of course, is what the Bible tells us.

It is a wonder that we acknowledge and recognize this every year around Christmas time, as we read in Isaiah 7:14:

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

It is amazing that a virgin would conceive.  And, yes, we would expect that He would be a special “man,” but it really does not give the full and powerful weight of what is in view here when we read it in the English that his name would be Immanuel.  The name “Immanuel” is made up of different Hebrew words that literally mean “God with us.”  You know, God did not leave this important statement to man’s ability to translate the Hebrew.  No – He translated it Himself in the New Testament in Matthew 1:21-23:

And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

So we know it is the very same verse we looked at in Isaiah, except that God added the interpretation, “God with us.”  How anyone can read these verses and then conclude that Jesus is not God, but some form of high angel?  They come up with all kinds of ungodly ideas and all kinds of erroneous imaginations regarding who Jesus actually was, this man that was born of a Virgin.  But God has told us: “God with us.”  God in the flesh.  It is God that entered the human race and walked among us.  That is what it says in John 1:1:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The “Word” is defined for us.  Who is the Word?  According to John 1:1, He was God.  Again, some men do not like this.  I do not know why – they are blind.  This is probably the most incredible, beautiful and awesome truth imaginable.  God became man, as one of us.  And, yet, there are people that are hostile to that idea and they reject it because their peanut-sized minds cannot understand how God can be in heaven and Jesus could be God in the flesh on earth.  “No – no.  God is one God and you have two Gods.”  No – we have one God who the Bible reveals as Three Persons.  I do not understand that.  It is a mystery.  It is far beyond my peanut-sized mind and man’s peanut-sized man to comprehend, and that is all we have to recognize.  And I think that is the problem area, because men are proud.  They think their minds are vast and full of knowledge, and if they cannot understand something, then it is not true, and it cannot be.

Just ask these same people to explain “eternity.”  How can God be eternal?  How is that possible?  They cannot explain that.  But that actually proves that there are things of God that are just beyond our ability to grab ahold of and explain.  God is an infinite Being, and His Being is glorious.  His Person is three – One God, Three Persons.  And that is where we must leave it, but some do not leave it there, so they say, “No – Jesus is not God,” despite the fact that the Bible says, “the Word was God.”  Then the Bible says this a little further down, in John 1:14:

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

There are two things.   God with us, “Emmanuel,”  according to Matthew 1; and the Word was God and the Word was made flesh.  The Word is who?  The Word was God.  And the Word was made what?  The Word was made flesh.  This means that if you can add “1 + 1,” in this case it equals “God in the flesh.”  God was manifested in the flesh, which is exactly what it says in 1Timothy 3:16:

And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

Who was manifest in the flesh?  God was manifest in the flesh.  The Word was God.  The Word was made flesh.  Of course, it was “Emmanuel,” the one born of a Virgin.  He is “God with us.”  So, again, that is the mind-boggling fact that the Bible presents: Jesus is God. 

And that is the picture in view with Jacob when he put on Esau’s raiment, and he went before his father, and his father smelled the smell of Esau or “man,” and it was an acceptable smell.  It pleased him and Isaac received him as his son, and that is teaching us that God was pleased and He accepted Christ when He wore the “human garment,” as it were, when He took upon Himself man’s condition, as it says in Philippians 2:5-8:

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

He was in the form of God, but He took upon Himself the form of a servant, made in the likeness of man.  The first Adam was man made in the likeness of God; the second Adam was God made in the likeness of man.  That is the tremendous and glorious truth the Gospel presents to its readers, so we can thank God for this.  And we can see this in view in this historical parable in Genesis 27.  There is acceptance of Jacob in the form of Esau.  And, again, Jacob, the elect, is first pointing to Jesus.  God the Father, as typified by Isaac, embraces Him and accepts Him.  Yes – He was the acceptable sacrifice, a sweet savour unto the Lord.