08/09/2026
The Beautiful Gospel
There is a beautiful gospel thread running through Genesis 33 that fits remarkably well with the study I’m doing of Jesus revealing the Father.
It’s the story of Jacob and Esau that fascinated me in 2022 when I saw something I’ve never heard preached in the churches I’ve been involved in. Although Genesis doesn't explicitly describe an inner conversion or repentance in Esau.
But isn’t what Esau did an act of repentance in itself? Isn’t repentance all about “changing once mind?”
What the text does unmistakably show is that Jacob anticipated one angry brother, a brother who held a grudge against him, a brother who intended to kill him after he had finished mourning his father’s death, but encountered another.
Jacob's statement in Genesis 33:10 is extraordinary: he interprets Esau's face as revealing something of God's face toward him.
There is a remarkable contrast that caught my attention in this story between the two brother.
Esau had previously said:
So Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father blessed him, and Esau said in his heart, “The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”— Genesis 27:41
That wasn't a vague irritation. He was contemplating to kill Jacob. Jacob therefore had every reason to interpret Esau's approach through the lens of that previous threat which was haunting him.
Yet years later, Esau doesn't act like the man Jacob expected. Instead he was met with overwhelming kindness.
He runs toward Jacob, embraces him, falls on his neck, kisses him, and weeps (Genesis 33:4).
And then Jacob makes that astonishing statement:
“Inasmuch I have seen your face as though I had seen the face of God, and you were pleased with me.”
— Genesis 33:10
Something happened in Esau that Genesis doesn't explain to us, but his actions reveal something profound.
The Bible doesn't give us the details of Esau's journey between Genesis 27 and Genesis 33. We aren't told, “Esau encountered God, repented, and therefore forgave Jacob.”
My question is:
Isn’t what Esau did in itself an act of “repentance?”
Doesn’t repentance mean “changing the way we think?”
Or we can ask a very legitimate question:
What could produce such a radical change
👉 The man who once wanted to kill his brother now runs to embrace him.
👉 The man Jacob expected to be his executioner becomes the one who embraces him.
👉 The man Jacob expected to be full of rage becomes the man through whom Jacob says, “I have seen the face of God.”
Esau's actions become the evidence of something that happened within him, even though the text doesn't tell us exactly how it happened.
And that gives us an incredible connection to Jesus. Because we’ve often imagine God according to the same way Jacob imagined Esau. Jacob brought gifts to appease his brother’s anger towards him thinking that his gifts will perhaps change Esau’s mind.
Aren’t we exactly the same as Jacob?
“I've done wrong. God knows what I've done. Therefore I know what God must be like toward me and what must I now do to appease his anger.
Perhaps if:
I pray more
I read my Bible more
I give more into the offering bucket
I fast for a certain number of days
I evangelise
I punish myself enough
May be God will be gracious to Me.
We can build our theology of God around what we think He ought to do to us because of what we've done.
Then Jesus comes and says, essentially:
“You've misunderstood the Father's Heart.”
“If you have seen me you have seen the Father”
—John 14:9
Look at Me.
Look at how I treat mankind.
Look at how I respond to failure.
Look at how I touch the unclean.
Look at how I welcome the rejected.
Look at how I forgive My enemies.
Look at how I am kind to the unkind
This is what the Father is like.
Every act of kindness you see me do it’s my Father in Me who does them. I do not do anything or say anything unless I see and hear My Father voice.
Three powerful keys I observed in this story.
1. Jacob expected the God of his guilt, but encountered the God of grace.
Jacob approached Esau carrying the weight of his past- Although he had a powerful encounter with God Jacob still carries the guilt of his past. He was extremely anxious and fearful. Just like we are sometimes, I’ve had several encounters with God but somehow I carried a lot of guilt and shame until I had a revelation of the Father’s love toward me.
Esau didn't meet Jacob according to Jacob's expectation. Something happened, something significant that Genesis doesn’t reveal.
Grace often surprises us because we expect God to respond to us according to our past, while God responds to us according to His heart.
2. Esau's changed behaviour revealed a changed heart.
We don't know exactly what happened in Esau's journey, but we know what came out of his heart. Perhaps he had an encounter in the desert, I remember being alone with God in the wilderness changed my own heart toward God and toward others. It was in the wilderness that I rediscovered who God was to me and how God viewed me as his beloved son.
The heart that once wanted Jacob dead now wanted Jacob embraced.
That's what grace does. It doesn't simply remove punishment. It transforms the posture of the heart.
3. Jacob recognised God's face in the face of someone he expected to hate him.
This is perhaps is the most powerful part.
Jacob doesn't merely say:
“Esau was nice to me.”
He says:
“Seeing your face as though I had seen the face of God.”
That's extraordinary.
Jacob's encounter with Esau became a revelation of what he believed God was like.
And then Paul the apostle in the New Testament takes this revelation even further:
For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
— 2 Corinthians 4:6
This is such a profound revelation to me.
The way I understand His glory, for me it is the revealed beauty, goodness, and God’s character — it’s what makes God who He truly Is. It’s the very essence of His being, it’s who God is.
God is Light.
God is Love.
God is Life.
That’s who He is. He cannot be anything else.
So, Jesus came to reveal what God is like.
Jesus says:
“Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father.”
— John 14:9
So there is a beautiful progression:
Jacob saw the face of God in the face of a forgiving, compassionate, loving Esau.
�Paul says we see the glory of God in the face of Christ.
�Jesus says that when we see Him, we have seen the Father.
“Jacob expected the full wrath of his brother, but encountered grace. He expected revenge, but encountered reconciliation. And when he looked into the face of the brother he feared, he said, ‘I have seen the face of God.’
Perhaps one of the greatest revelations of grace is discovering that the face we thought would condemn us is actually the face that welcomes us.”
I think the challenging question for all of us is this:
“Is mankind seeing the face of God when they see us?”
