This is Spoken Gospel.

We’re dedicated to seeing
Jesus in all of scripture.

In each episode, we see
what’s happening in a Biblical text

and how it sheds light
on Jesus and his gospel.

Let’s jump in.

Jacob has received the
blessing from his father Isaac

and is instructed to flee to his
family’s homeland for two reasons.

First, his older brother Esau wants
to kill him for stealing his blessing.

Second, it’s in order to find a wife among
his own people, which Esau did not do.

As Jacob is journeying to his
family’s household, he stops for the night.

While sleeping, he receives a dream
from God that ends up changing his life.

He sees a large structure like a ladder, tower,
or staircase, reaching up from earth to heaven.

All along the ladder, he sees
angels ascending and descending on it.

Then God’s voice rings
out as he speaks to Jacob.

Even though he had
received his father’s blessing,

there was a far more important
one that he needed to receive - God’s.

So, God speaks the same covenant he made
with Abraham and Isaac, now, to Jacob.

God will make Jacob’s descendants a great nation
and will give them the land promised to Abraham.

But why the ladder?

It is the opposite of the
Tower of Babel.

At the tower, humans tried
to build a structure that would

reach up to the heavens
and allow them access to God.

They were trying to
build a gate to heaven.

But God foiled their attempts by confusing their
language and dispersing them among the nations.

In contrast to Babel, this time
God is the one who builds the tower.

He doesn’t call humans to come up,
but instead he and his angels travel down it.

God himself builds the gate to heaven.

In fact, that’s what Jacob calls the place
where he has this vision: “the gate of heaven”.

And by the end of the dream, people aren’t
dispersed among the nations as at Babel.

Instead, God promises to unite
people under one new nation in Jacob.

You see, Jacob’s ladder
shows us how God will

reverse the effects of man’s sin
typified by the Tower of Babel.

How would he do this?

God would do what
humans tried to do.

At Babel, it was man’s effort. But at
Jacob’s ladder, it was God’s.

This dream is not ultimately
fulfilled in Jacob’s life, but it is in Jesus’.

Jesus actually references this story
at the beginning of the Gospel of John.

He says that angels will descend and
ascend on him like they did at Jacob’s ladder.

What does he mean by this?

He means that he is the one that connects
earth and heaven.

How appropriate is it, then, that later in
John’s Gospel Jesus calls himself the gate.

Jesus opens up the way to God.

Getting to God is not about
building a big enough tower

of good works and effort so
that you can get where he is.

Getting to God starts with God
getting to us.

He comes down the ladder.
And he did this completely in Jesus.

God left heaven to come to earth
in order to give us access to himself.

I pray that the Holy Spirit will show you
the God who descends and comes to us,

and Jesus as the
one who built the ladder

between heaven and earth with
his own body and blood on the cross.