R.C. Sproul

not the best out of three falls, not 15 rounds, three minutes around with the rest of one minute in between, nothing like that, but a wrestling match that goes on through the day and all night.

And in the course of this combat between Jacob and the angel, Jacob pleads that this representative of God would bless him.

And in answer to this, after the angel defeats Jacob in the match, injures his hip permanently, leaving him with a limp for the rest of his life that he will never forget this moment when he engaged the representative of God himself in combat.

The angel said, what's your name?

Now, what's the significance of that?

Why did the angel who had wrestled with this man all night ask him his name?

Do you think for a moment that the angel of God did not know the identity of the one with whom he was locked in mortal combat for the whole night?

He knew his name.

But what he was asking for was for Jacob to surrender.

Because by revealing his name, he is, in a sense, in Hebrew categories at least, placing himself in a position of subordination to the one to whom he reveals his name.

Now, that idea goes all the way back to creation, where we remember that when God created mankind, Adam and Eve, male and female, and placed him in the garden, that God gave to our primordial parents dominion over the earth.

There was a responsibility that attended that to dress and to till and to keep the earth and so on.

But in that act of dominion, a task was given to Adam and Eve.

You might say that this was the origin of the scientific enterprise because the task was to do what?

to name the animals.

Now, we can read that in simplistic terms and say, oh, I see.

We're just supposed to run around and say, well, there's a gorilla and there's a horse and there's an orangutan and so on.

No, no, no, no.

By naming the animals, the whole task of classification, which is at the heart of science, was begun.

whereby we distinguish between flowers and animals.