You Can't Climb Jacob's Ladder

We all read our Bibles with admiration and respect for it's characters, but if you met a man like Jacob today, odds are you probably would not like him.

Jacob was a backstabbing, conniving, opportunist if there ever was one. He was all about Jacob, all of the time.

The bad news is that we are all much like Jacob in this way. We tend to be selfish and self-serving every day in every way. The good news is that even though this was the case with Jacob, we can see from the scripture that Jacob is the one that God had chosen to bless.

 


If we were to start in the Genesis account of Jacob, would find a man that had tricked his brother, and was running away from the family drama that he just had created.

On his skedaddle from his brother, Jacob stops to rest, laying his head on a rock near a place that would later be called Bethel. 

Now keep in mind, Jacob was not running towards God, or even looking for God, but (SPOILER ALERT) God was looking for Jacob.

Jacob saw a vision of a ladder that was linking heaven and earth! Contrary to popular opinion, this was not a way for Jacob to begin to work his way to God; He was not even looking for God. This was a picture that God was going to be coming down!

God comes to Jacob and says, “behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee” (Gen. 28:15). When Jacob wakes up, he exclaims, “Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not” (Gen. 28:16).

He would call this place “Bethel”, which means “the house of God”. As Tim Keller notes, “It spoke of justification by faith in the promise made by God apart from human initiative. It spoke of grace.”

Here is where we come in! We like Jacob are born running from the Word of God, the will of God, and even God Himself (Romans 3:11). But just as God came to Jacob to dwell (remember Bethel?) with him, when he was not expecting it; Jesus came to dwell with us when we were not looking for Him. John himself draws the same picture that we saw in Genesis 28 when he said of Jesus, “And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” (John 1:51)

Jacob was able to see a glimmer, or shadow, of what was to come but we have been given the full substance in the person of Jesus Christ.

May we see clearly what Jacob saw! A God who has loved us enough to robe Himself in human flesh and come to us when we were His enemies!

And when we are weighed down by this life, and the sins seem too often entangle us, may we follow Jacob back to bethel (Genesis 35), and look at the gospel again!


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