It is Jesus himself who is the ladder by which sinners get to God, not by them climbing up but by God climbing down.
Undue attention is given to Jacob’s infamous “ladder” that appears to him in a dream in Genesis 28, especially in light of how he describes that place as the “gate of heaven.” Scholars and skeptics alike have exasperated themselves attempting to ascertain what Jacob saw that night and what it all means. Patristic theologians in the third and fourth centuries interpreted this ladder as a symbol of the soul’s growth in virtue and goodness. The Christian life, therefore, was understood through the paradigm of “climbing Jacob’s ladder” until you reach heaven’s gate. In popular culture as well, the ladder has become a symbol of self-reliance, progress, and the pursuit of something higher.
Rather than focusing on the ladder that Jacob sees, our attention is drawn to the God who climbs down it.
As ubiquitous as this persuasion may be, it is a categorical failure to accurately interpret the biblical narrative, missing the entire point of Jacob’s encounter with God. His story is not about you nor does it have anything to do with how you can “climb” all the rungs of spirituality on your way to glory. In fact, those words never make an appearance; God never beckons Jacob to climb. “Jacob’s Ladder” is not an analogy for our ascent to heaven, it is the surprising revelation of the willingness of God to descend to where we are to carry out his promise of redemption. The point of Genesis 28 is the sudden and surprising way in which God reveals himself to Jacob and the rest of humanity. Rather than focusing on the ladder that Jacob sees, our attention is drawn to the God who climbs down it.
The surprise of God’s presence.
When the author of Genesis relays Jacob’s coordinates, we get our first glimpse of God’s troubled patriarch away from home (Gen. 28:10–11). In what was supposed to be a short getaway, Jacob finds himself on the first leg of a twenty-year flight from the family estate to escape his brother’s death wish. In addition to his searing loneliness, Jacob the fugitive finds himself in a most unenviable position, uncomfortable and vulnerable. After all, what good are your tricks and schemes if you are by yourself? This was everything Jacob wanted to avoid. As he journeys northward, he comes to “a certain place” where he decides to set up camp and get some shuteye. He is physically and emotionally spent.
I wonder what thoughts raced through his mind as he slept under the stars, with the wide-open sky looming above him. Needless to say, he had zero clue what God had in store for him that night, which is precisely the point. “Jacob,” notes Chad Bird, “was not looking for God when God came looking for him” (60). Jacob was not eager for divine insight nor was he expecting to “find God” in that place. 28:11). The only reason Jacob chose that location was because it was a good place to pitch a tent, yet this “random place” is none other than Bethel (Gen. 28:19).
Bethel would become a site of extreme importance, especially during the Age of the Kings of Israel (see especially 1 Kings 12:25—13:10). Bethel has no significance of its own. Rather, it is made significant because of who showed up there. Despite how random that campsite was, it was in that nondescript place in the middle of nowhere that God made his presence known (Gen. 28:12–13).
The ladder is not a symbol of Jacob’s ability to “find” God but of God’s penchant to find Jacob.
This comes as a complete surprise. “Surely the Lord is in this place,” Jacob declared when he awoke, “and I did not know it” (Gen. 28:16). Consequently, the ladder is not a symbol of Jacob’s ability to “find” God but of God’s penchant to find Jacob. Jacob needed far more than sleep that night. He was desperate for grace, hope, and direction, which are the very things that the Lord was willingly offering him. God’s surprising presence for Jacob, therefore, reminds us that even in those places where we have strayed from God, he is not far from us. The psalmist David makes the same point in a very memorable stanza:
Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me,and your right hand shall hold me (Ps. 139:7–10).
This, we might say, is what the ladder preaches to us — namely, that ours is a God who is unafraid to visit us in the places where we least expect to find him. He is not far away from the places that worry us or haunt us. Even for you who are feeling the weight of your choices, failures, and regrets, even for you who are wondering where God is in all of this, God’s gracious surprise tells us that he is right there, where he has been all along. “Behold, I am with you” (Gen. 28:15).
The surprise of God’s persistence.
The prospect of God visiting you and speaking to you in a dream sounds enthralling, but Jacob’s spot is not one that we should envy. A cloud of uncertainty hung over his head, with everything in front of him colored in questions. He had the birthright and the blessing, but now everything was upside down. Everything had gone to pot. He found himself in the middle of nowhere, in a no-name place, with a rock for a pillow and with little to no indication that any of those promises would ever come true. Jacob’s life was unraveling at the seams as all of his schemes went up in smoke. It is hard to feel sorry for him, especially since this whole fiasco is his fault. “Serves you right!” we judge. But even though all of that is true, God still shows up to give his beleaguered patriarch a word of promise:
Behold, the Lord stood above [the ladder] and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” (Gen. 28:13–15).
These words are filled with grace as God doubles down on the plans he first made with Abraham by reiterating them to Jacob — plans involving the very land upon which Jacob was sleeping being given to his descendants so that the whole earth might be “blessed” (cf. Gen. 12:1–3; 13:14–16; 26:2–4). What is so surprising is that Jacob is not only leaving the land that God says will one day be his but he also has no wife to speak of. Yet, in the middle of his confusion, God shows up to remind him that his plans are still on track. As Jacob dreams, God visits to show him that nothing can thwart or upset what he has purposed, not even Jacob’s sins.
We are well-versed in Jacob’s blunders by this point. We have seen him trick, cheat, and lie his way through life. Jacob’s number one concern was always Jacob. God’s promise is delivered when he can offer nothing in return. Jacob is asleep the entire time, which makes him a passive recipient of the grace God desires to give him.
This is how grace works with us, too. God’s penchant for giving sinners what they do not deserve has not waned or wavered one bit. In fact, what is found in Scripture is scene after scene where this moment of God’s word of promise being given to unlikely, unworthy, and undeserving sinners is repeated, over and over again. Yet, despite their sin, the grace of God persists precisely for them — and the same is true for us. The word of God’s gospel is the surprising announcement that his grace is for us in spite of what we have done, even with all our sins, failures, weaknesses, and doubts readily apparent. Consequently, this ladder preaches to us a message of grace that never goes away and never abandons us.
The surprise of God’s position.
Awestruck and overcome by the presence and vision of the Lord Almighty, Jacob fashions a pillar out of the stones upon which he sleeping, anointing it with oil and consecrating it as “Bethel,” which means “the house of God.” He then proceeds to make a vow to the Lord, which is a moment that has caused much confusion among scholars and students alike. At first glance, Jacob appears to question the very words God has just conveyed. “If God will be with me . . .” Some have taken this seemingly suspicious rely as an indication of Jacob’s weak faith and his desire to always be on top. However, Jacob’s “if” need not be only an indication of doubt or of his proclivity to make deals. Rather, it could be a confirmation of what God has just said and his response in light of it. “If the God of my father, who is my God as well, is going to do this, then I will do this,” we might render his words.
Jacob’s vow is a statement of devotion to God, which is confirmed by his willingness to “give a tenth” back to God (Gen. 28:22). [1] But what compelled Jacob to make such a vow? It is his dream, of course, or, more precisely, who showed up in it. While the runaway patriarch dreamed, he saw a vision of angels going up and down a ladder as the voice of God spoke to him. The true meaning of what is going on here is often lost on us, mostly because of the confusing way God’s position is translated.
According to the KJV, ESV, and NASB, the Lord “stood above it,” that is he is at the top of the ladder, which is likely where those ideas of climbing “Jacob’s Ladder” emerge. “If you want to get to where God is, you better start climbing!” A better translation for “stood above,” however, is “stood next to,” “at the base of,” or “beside,” as the CSB and NRSV render it, which fundamentally alters the entire scene. God is not at the top of the ladder shouting down to his patriarch an implicit message of moral ascent as the way into divine favor. Rather, much to everyone’s surprise, God shows up at the bottom of the ladder. He is found at its base, not its summit. He comes right up next to Jacob to offer words of promise, peace, and blessing to him.
Over and over and over again, God maintains that he is “with” his people (likely because we so often forget it). But what deepens this moment is the arrival of God’s Word in the flesh and the angel who reveals to Joseph that his wife-to-be is carrying none other than Immanuel himself: “See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will name him Immanuel, which is translated ‘God is with us’” (Matt. 1:23, CSB).
Jesus is God with us. He is “with us” through all the worst sort of circumstances we face, even the self-inflicted ones. It is Jesus who puts into “flesh and blood” what Jacob saw only in a dream. In other words, it is Jesus himself who is the ladder by which sinners get to God, not by them climbing up but by God climbing down. This becomes evident in the Gospel of John when Philip invites Nathanael to join him as he follows an up-and-coming Rabbi from Nazareth (John 1:43–50). Nathanael is confounded by such a notion. “No one who amounts to anything ever comes from Nazareth,” he ridicules. But, after tagging along anyway, Jesus greets him and stuns him with how intimately he knows him, prompting Nathanael to confess that Jesus is the Son of God. It is at this point that I imagine Jesus smirking before he replied, “Just wait, you haven’t seen anything yet.” “Truly, truly, I say to you,” the Lord declares, “you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (John 1:51).
While Jesus’s allusion to the angels is clarified when you recall what causes angels to marvel: “It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look” (1 Pet. 1:11–12).
According to the apostle Peter, heaven’s angels are curious about the salvation offered to mankind, especially since this salvation is made possible through the person of God’s Son. The “ascending and descending” angels are marveling at the condescension of God in the person of Jesus who comes to save the world from sin. It is the Christ of God who is the glory of God “with us,” come to where we are at the bottom, in the dust. He is the embodiment of God’s heart to redeem and reconcile all things to himself. The ladder that links heaven and earth is Jesus who is the incarnate Word of God. Like Jacob, we are not summoned to climb. Rather, we are invited to accept by faith what the ladder preaches to us — namely, that the Lord himself has come down.
This is who God is for you. He is the God who surprises us with his presence, persistence, and position on the cross, as he does for us what we could never do for ourselves, offering the promise of salvation from sin and the assurance that he will never leave us.
