Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #6 of Genesis, chapter 27, and we are going to read Genesis 27:26-29:

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.   Once again, we are looking at this passage.  It is not that difficult to see the historical and literal meaning, which is why it is so foolish that so many in the churches teach that method of understanding the Bible, especially when it is just completely misapplied and not fitting in any way, because Christ spoke in parables.  Much of the Bible is written in parabolic form, like the book of Proverbs, much of Ezekiel, much of Daniel, Revelation, and Job.  (We read that “Job continued his parable.”)  It is not a very good way, in general, to approach the Bible, especially since Christ is the Word and in speaking in parables, He taught us to understand the entire Bible – look for the deeper spiritual meaning.  In addition to that, God takes verses from His Law, like having to do with “muzzling an ox” or having to do with Sarah and Hagar and their sons, and God says of them that they were “an allegory.”  Or, He said of the Law regarding the ox, “Doth God take care for oxen?”  The answer: “Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written.”  That is, there is deeper spiritual meaning.  We will not go into that.  I think that at EBible Fellowship, we have emphasized that pretty well, and most of our listeners realize that is the way we must understand the Bible. 

So that is what we are doing as we take a look at this passage.  First, we have to look at the characters involved, and we see Isaac as a type of God.  Jacob, on one hand, represents the elect and, on the other hand, he represents Christ because Jacob is going to obtain the blessing from Isaac, a picture of God.  And the only way that Jacob, typifying the elect, can obtain the blessing for himself and all the elect he represents, is for Jacob to also represent the Lord Jesus Christ, in the first instance.  He is “mine elect,” as Isaiah 42:1 says, pointing to the Lord Jesus.  That is why when Isaac calls him near and kisses him.  It was a test and he wanted to smell him because his eyesight was so bad.  He wanted to smell the smell of his raiment.  He smelled a sweet savour, and we have talked about that.  You can go to Genesis 8:20-21 and read about the sacrificial offering on the altar and God smelling a sweet smelling savour.  It was pleasing to Him, pointing to the acceptable sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Here, too, Isaac is receiving the venison.  He is receiving Esau and he smelled his smell, and then blessed (him).  It is indicating that this is the Lord Jesus who had become man.  We discussed how Esau is “Edom,” a type and figure of mankind.  By putting on Esau’s raiment, it is pointing to Jesus putting on “humanity” and entering into the human race.  The Word was with God.  The Word was God.  The Word was made flesh.

And now Isaac smelled the smell of his son, and he said, “See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which JEHOVAH hath blessed: Therefore…”   That is, because Jesus is the acceptable sacrifice and acceptable aroma that God receives on behalf of all the elect, typified by Jacob, Isaac blessed Esau, who was actually Jacob, who was actually Christ typifying mankind.  So Christ was the one obtaining the blessing and, therefore, because of what Jesus had done in His atoning work, it goes on to say in Genesis 27:28:

Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine:

When we search out this language, we find it identifies with the Gospel and the sending forth of the Gospel into the world which produced fruit.  This is really, as it were, the blessing that God has blessed His elect with, who is Christ.  And in obtaining the blessing, He is obtaining or receiving a people for Himself, typified by the corn and wine.  So let us take a look at this (blessing). 

First, it says, in Genesis 27:28:

Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven…

It mentions the “dew of heaven.”  Let us go to Deuteronomy 32:1-3:

Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass: Because I will publish the name of JEHOVAH: ascribe ye greatness unto our God.

Again, it says, “My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew,”   Oftentimes, when we have discussed God’s salvation program and its various seasons, we have talked about the “rain.”  There was the former rain, the early righteous rain and the Latter Rain.  The Bible looks at the Old Testament when the Word of God that came forth at that time as the “former righteous rain” finally producing “the first of the firstfruits,” who was Jesus Himself.  Then came the early rain or the first rain, and this rain fell over the course of the church age for 1,955 years and produced the fruit of the “firstfruits.”  That is why the church age began on Pentecost (in 33 A. D.)  and ended the day before Pentecost (in 1988).   Then after the 2,300 evening mornings came the Latter Rain (in 1994) during the second part of the Great Tribulation period when God saved the great multitude out of the nations that were outside of the churches and congregations.  So these were the periods of rain, and the rain produced the fruit, and the fruit typified the elect.

You know, we say this a lot, and there may be some people that are “scratching their heads,” and say, “Well, why would you speak of the rain in this way?”  I know that when I first heard about the Latter Rain and the early rain, it can be a little hard to grab ahold of.  But we see this is the language of the Bible.  Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.”  Then He spoke of those that bring forth fruit and abiding in them, and those that do not are cast forth as branches and they wither.  Of course, Jesus was not a vine and God was not a literal husbandman, but that is the picture He uses.  The whole idea is that rain produces crops and the crops represent the ones He has saved, and this is very Biblical throughout the Bible, and we find it is referred to here, in Deuteronomy 32.

And this is how we come to understand (Biblical) types and figures.  We did a series on “types and figures” at EBible Fellowship, and you may have heard it aired at times.  We also have a booklet, “Fifty Types and Figures in the Bible.”  I am not sure if this is one of them, but it would be a good one to add, if we did not.  But the way we come to understand “types and figures” or, really, the way we come to understand the Bible is to look for defining words.  You can find the word “rain” in numerous verses, but what does “rain” represent spiritually?  And this is a defining verse in Deuteronomy 32:1: “My doctrine shall drop as the rain.”  It is defining a term that is used by God in a parabolic way in many places, so when you get this definition it prepares you in understanding other references to rain. 

In support of this, we could go to Isaiah 55:10:

For as the rain cometh down…

And, again, notice it says, “as the rain.”

Again, it says in Isaiah 55:10:

For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:

And, by the way, there is another figure that Jesus used in one of His parables, the parable of the sower.  The sower went forth and sowed seed, and he sowed it here and there on various types of ground.  It has everything to do with salvation.  In order to get the seed to produce, it “watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater.”

Then it goes on to say in Isaiah 55:11:

So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

If you listen closely and reading carefully, you make the link.  Of course, more important than reading carefully and listening closely is that you must have “ears to hear” and “eyes to see.”  If God has opened your eyes and your ears, you can make the link: “As the rain, so shall my Word be.”  It is an identical link to that found in Deuteronomy 32:2:

My doctrine shall drop as the rain…

What is doctrine?  It is the teaching of the Word of God, the Bible.  In order to get doctrine, you have to have the Word, and it is really synonymous with dew: ““My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew,”  

God’s “speech” or the Word of God distils as the dew coming down from heaven upon the tender grass, and it is wet (with dew).  And that is what God did in sending forth His Word in times past during the day of salvation, as that Word accomplished the purpose of saving sinners, resurrecting their souls, and giving them life.  This is what the Word of God performed, and that is why in Joel 2 where God speaks of the various rains, it says in Joel 2:23:

Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in JEHOVAH your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately…

That is, the “former righteous rain” that identified with the Old Testament period that produced the crop of Christ. 

Then it goes on to say in Joel 2:23:

…and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.

If you read the natural-minded theologians that teach the plain, historical, literal method of Bible interpretation, when they read these verses that speak of rain, they tie it into earthly blessings.  They relate it to receiving an earthly harvest, because they have not had their minds trained by God the Holy Spirit.  They reject God’s methodology of comparing spiritual with spiritual and Scripture with Scripture to develop doctrine.  They do not have an understanding of these defining terms that help us to see the spiritual meaning.  But that is exactly what should be done when we read of  rain or these seasons of rain: “the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.”  We have to search the Bible elsewhere, and we find that it says, “For as the rain cometh down…so shall my word be,” and it says, “My doctrine shall drop as the rain.”  Then we can understand what is in view, and we can understand the “seasons of rain.”  Why did God have His people to observe Pentecost in the manner He prescribed?  Why was the Holy Spirit poured out on the Day of Pentecost, which identifies with the firstfruits of the harvest?  Then we understand that is the “early rain” that would fall over the course of the church age to produce the fruit that God intended for it to produce. 

So we see that picture, and then we go to the Psalms, we read in Psalm 33:3:

As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion…

Hermon and Zion are also elements that we tend to refer to as Hebrew parallelism, where the first part of the statement matches the second part, but is worded slightly differently.  Hermon and Zion are one and the same, if you turn to Deuteronomy 4:38, where it says, “even unto mount Sion, which is Hermon.”  That is why Psalm 33:3 is using Hebrew parallelism. 

Again it says in the next part of the verse, in Psalm 133:3:

…for there JEHOVAH commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.

The “dew of Hermon” descended upon the mountains of Zion, and there we see salvation or life for evermore.  That is the blessing of God, and this is the blessing that was in view with the blessing of Esau, who was actually Jacob and, in turn, who was spiritually representing the Lord Jesus Christ, who received the blessing along with those He stood in for as substitute in their stead.

So that is why the first thing Isaac said was, “God give thee of the dew of heaven.”  This “dew” would be the Word of God coming down from above, giving the blessing of salvation and life for evermore for those that were typified by Jacob or for those that would be counted for the elect by He who was the elect, the Lord Jesus Christ.

We can also go to Deuteronomy 11:13-17:

And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love JEHOVAH your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, That I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. And I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full. Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them; And then JEHOVAH'S wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and lest ye perish quickly from off the good land which JEHOVAH giveth you.

This is really a summation of God’s magnificent salvation program.  We read of the rain being given in “due season,” the first rain and the Latter Rain, which would produce the crops of corn, wine and oil.  And we could have seen some of these things back in Joel, if we had read further.  It would produce harvest or fruit.

If  they turned aside and went after other gods, like Israel did, they were cut off, or if they went after other gods, like the churches did, they were cut off.  The churches did not receive the Latter Rain.  There was no rain within the churches and congregations; that is, there was no blessing upon the Word of God to produce spiritual fruit during the time of the Great Tribulation when judgment began at the house of God.

So, going back to Genesis 27, we read in Genesis 27:28:

Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine:

The Word would bring forth fruit.  This is the blessing that Jacob obtained, even though Isaac was assuming it was for Esau, because it represents Christ coming as “man,” and as man, He obtained the blessing for all those that are in Him.