History of Presbyterianism

by God himself, so that Jacob possessed this strength as though it were his own. It was God’s gift to him. Now in wrestling Jacob exerted all his strength -—all that was given him, all he possessed. The angel exerted no more strength than he knew Jacob would overcome. Thus, in this wrestling, God the Son is to be viewed in two distinct characters—as a combatant and as an assistant, showing greater strength as an assistant than as a combatant, wrest- ling as it were with his left hand and upholding and strengthening with his right hand: the arm of his strength. Thus we are not to look so much at Jacob’s bodily as at his spiritual strength, the strong and lively efforts which his faith had been enabled to put forth, when he wrestled with the angel and prevailed. This glorious truth is recorded for our encouragement in prayer.

Again: Why did the angel say, “Let me go for the day breaketh”? He was an uncreated angel, as we have seen; the darkness and the light are both alike to him. It was not, as some apocryphal writers aflirm, because the angels sang hymns of praise to God in the morning. The angel Jehovah might use this language for the following reasons, viz.: first, to put Jacob in mind of his own affairs—of present duty, just as Jesus taught elsewhere that however necessary and important prayer is, no Christian is to continue at that exercise to the neglect of present and urgent duty; or secondly, in kindness to Jacob, lest he should be overcome or overwhelmed with the angel’s unseen, splendid appearance in the light of

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