Genesis 28

Jacob's vision! A great ladder connecting the heavens to the earth, with angels upon it ascending and descending! Again I have stumbled upon some profound connections. As I said in my preface, as one advances through Scripture, it seems God keeps adding pieces to a puzzle. In Genesis 22 we saw Isaac clearly representing the self-sacrifice that Jesus Christ would one day endure for us. And now in Genesis 28 we see God granting Jacob a vision of something terribly mysterious. A ladder? What could be the purpose of that? Well, several theories have been put forth, but the one that is most common and with which I agree, is that the ladder represents the Son of God, the Great Mediator. Now, Jacob doesn't seem to see the ladder and immediately think, "The Son of God!" But perhaps the vision wasn't only for Jacob.

We know that it is through the line of Abraham-Isaac-Jacob, through their posterity, that Jesus would be born. Therefore it is pertinent that God would give Jacob this vision of a ladder, a gateway to Heaven, to show that the Way is to come through Jacob's line. The specific verse in Genesis (28:12) is as follows:

"[Jacob] saw in his sleep a ladder standing upon the earth, and the top thereof touching heaven: the angels also of God ascending and descending by it."

In a very interesting connection, Jesus, thousands of years later, speaks in very similar terms: "Amen, amen, I say to you, you shall see the heaven opened, and the Angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man" (John 1:51). On another occasion, Jesus again speaks in terms of a "way," a "passage," a "mediation" of sorts between the Father and the Son: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me" (John 14:6). Jesus clearly is the ladder that connects heaven and earth, God and us. Jacob's vision may have been multi-dimensional, with the more complete meaning meant to be revealed at a much later time.