Bible Studies

Dual Names Dual Natures

by Terry Barlow
01/16/16
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There is good reason why the Old Testament of the Bible seems to interchange or alternate referring to the Hebrew nation as Jacob and then as Israel.  The meaning of the name Jacob is "supplanter"or "deceiver" and the meaning of Israel is "Prince with God" or "God fights."  These names clearly reflect two different natures, a lower one and a higher one, natures referred to in the New Testament as the flesh or flesh nature and the new nature.   At any given moment we are as individuals operating in one or the other of those natures,  the more mature we become as believers the more of our time we spend cultivating the new nature and reckoning the flesh or old nature crucified with Christ. (Galatians 2 v20)

An individual believer cultivating the new nature in Christ is more inclined to let God do the fighting in his or her behalf ( Remember that Israel=God fights) than to try to fight ones own battles or try to "get even" with others.  So too a nation can conduct itself more nobly under the governance of God than under the sway of its own selfish, reactive impulses or seeking its own vengeance.  "Vengeance is mine" says the Lord, "I will repay." (Romans 12 v.19, Deuteronomy 32 v35)

As it is with human individuals so it can be with nations, especially with relatively young nations that their conduct can be erratic and their character inconsistent as was often the case of the Hebrew nation, a people pulled in two opposite directions, God's and that of the surrounding idolatries of the nations they superseded  and were superceded by eventually.