One of the most intriguing stories of the Old Testament Scripture is Jacob’s dream of Genesis 28. He saw a “ladder” from the earth to heaven upon which angels were ascending and descending. You would expect that this angelic movement would have been the other way round. But in this dream, it was not so!
When we think of a “ladder,” what readily comes to mind is a pair of wooden side rails with rungs running through them.
However, the word that was translated as “ladder” in most English translations is “sulam” which is difficult to accurately translate. The fact that this word occurred only once in the whole of the Hebrew Bible has not made it any easier for translators. However, Jewish rabbis believe that a “ramp” or “stairway” built of rocks would be a closer depiction of what was being described. Beyond the stuff that the “ladder” was made of and what it looked like were other important details in that dream.
One of such is that the stairway or “ladder” was set up from earth to heaven. Another important fact is that the stairway linked earth to heaven and its top reached heaven. Again, upon that sight, Jacob received a re-affirmation of the oath that God made to Abraham. This means that this dream pointed to the promise that God made to Abraham.
At the end of that experience, Jacob did something prophetic, signifying what God would accomplish in the future.
What was the significance of this dream?
We know that the Old Testament was the message of God to man communicated through prophecies, visions, dreams, and parables in types and shadow. Howbeit, to the natural man it was a mystery which would be unveiled and explained in the fullness of time. This explanation or revelation of the mystery, we find in the New Testament writings.
Jesus upon his resurrection showed us this as the appropriate method of interpreting the scriptures when he went through the scriptures; Moses, the Prophets, and Psalms (divisions of the Bible that the Jews recognized as the Torah, or “Teaching,” also called the Pentateuch or the “Five Books of Moses”; the Neviʾim, or Prophets; and the Ketuvim, or Writings) to teach his disciples the things concerning himself (Luke 24:27, 44).
In fact, in John 5:39, Jesus had declared that the scriptures of the Old were about him – they testified of him.
This will mean that we can only find the interpretation of this Jacob’s all important dream in the New Testament. Jesus himself employing a teaching method we often see him use, hinted that he was that stairway/ladder that Jacob saw which linked heaven to earth and upon which angels were ascending and descending.
John 1:51 NASB “And He said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
The Son of Man was the titled that identified him as a man and at the same time divine. He is the stairway that Jacob saw.
Why was the “ladder” set up from earth to heaven instead of the other way round? The stairway or “ladder” symbolizes God’s reconciliation to man. However, it had to be set up from the earth. God in flesh had to be that reconciliation. He had to take up the nature of earth – of humanity in order to accomplish the task.
The One who was in the beginning with God and was God had to become flesh (John 1:1-4,14; Philippians 2:6-8; Hebrews 2:10-18). No wonder in John 14:6 He declared that “I am the way, the truth, and life. Nobody can come to the Father but by Me.”
He had to be a man. Paul attesting to this truth said, “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). So, Jesus became the sacrifice (Romans 3:24-25; 1 Corinthians 1:30; Hebrews 10:1-18; 1 John 2:2); the redeemer to reconcile the world to God. The Bible says that he gave himself a ransom (1Timothy 2:6). I love how this truth is captured in a song I heard not too long ago: “God in man, who died for man, and he rose as a man.”
This was the same gospel that was preached to Abraham, what God would do in all the earth through the promised Seed – the oath God made to him (Galatians 3:8; Hebrews 11:8-20) and reiterated to Jacob in the dream. This message, Jacob attempted to express by building an altar and naming the place the “house of God.” Of course, it would take a man who would be both the sacrifice and the “house of God” at the same time to bear the sins of humanity as a ransom . This was the blessed hope the Old Testament believers looked forward to (Psalm 32:1-2; Romans 4:6-13).
Today, that which Jacob saw is no longer a far-distant promise. God has fulfilled the promise made to Abraham (Luke 1:55,71-73; Acts 13:32-33). He has accomplished our reconciliation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:18). What Jesus talked about in John 1:51 in reference to Jacob’s dream as a future that would bring about a persistent connectivity, perpetual access, coming together of heaven and earth, and inseparable relationship between humanity and divinity, became available upon his finished work – his death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.
What about the angelic activities mentioned by Jacob and also Jesus? The writer of the book of Hebrews in chapters 1:14 and 12:22 helps us see the reality of innumerable company of angels around us and their role as ministering spirits to heirs of salvation in the new city, “in Christ” even though they are not our focus.
This is the reality of believers in Christ. Jesus said “You all” will see this glory of heaven, referring to his disciples, and by extension, all believers.
If not yet, received this gift of reconciliation extended to humanity by God. You do not have to suffer for the consequences of sin, which is separation from God. All you have to do is to believe and receive what Christ has done for you in His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:20).
Let the coming together of earth and heaven as was seen by Jacob in a dream in the form of a stairway/ladder be your present day reality.
You can see and enter this glory of heaven, today.
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