Jacob's Ladder

The original stairway to heaven, Jacob’s Ladder was a dream experienced by Abraham’s grandson. The second son of Isaac, Jacob had connived his way into receiving the blessing–and therefore inheritance–rightly due to his older brother, the ginger-haired Esau.

Resting his head on a rock, Jacob:

had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” (Gen 28:12-15)

In fact, Jacob had not needed to steal the inheritance. God had already promised his mother that he would receive it.

Two nations are in your womb,
   and two peoples from within you will be separated;
one people will be stronger than the other,
   and the older will serve the younger. (Gen 25:23)

God’s people grasping after promises already made to them is a recurring theme in the Bible. In Jacob’s case, his name refers to him “grasping his brother’s heel” as he is born. Jacob would go on to literally wrestle with God, as a result of which he was told:

Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome (Gen 32:28)

Centuries later, the reformer Martin Luther would preach on Jacob’s Ladder (Luther’s Works 5:212-225). The story goes that Luther had climbed the Holy Stairs in Rome on his knees, hoping thereby to find forgiveness. Somewhere on the way he realised that salvation doesn’t come through our ascending to heaven, but through God descending to man. Luther realised:

He who is the highest, so that the angels do not grasp Him, is not only comprehended but is so finite that nothing is more finite and confined. Faith takes hold of this Word, namely, “I believe in the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the third day He rose from the dead; He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, after subjecting all the angels to Himself.”

Here there is God and man, the highest and the lowest, infinite and finite in one Person, emptying and filling all things. This, then, is the ascent and descent of the angels of God and of the blessed.

Similarly, Jesus, talking to Nathaniel, said: “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit … you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’ the Son of Man” (John 1:47-51)