Genesis 28:17, commentary and pictures

Jacob lay alone in the wilderness fleeing his brother, discouraged and feeling cut off from God, when God showed him in a dream a shining ladder reaching from earth to His throne with angels ascending and descending upon it. His fear was holy awe and reverent joy mingled with gratitude that he was spared, not terror of being harmed. By calling the place God's house and heaven's gate he recognized that where God meets sinners earth is joined to heaven and pardon and grace are found. The ladder is Christ, who in His humanity and divinity restores the broken communion and alone is the way by which people are drawn upward step by step into salvation. Heaven is therefore near and open even to the weak and surrendered, with ministering angels constantly guarding and lifting them, and awareness of that presence calls for deep reverence wherever God is worshiped.

Jacob's Night Setting

Jacob lay alone in the open country at night, a fugitive fleeing for his life from his brother's wrath after deception and falsehood, with heaven for his covering, earth for his bed and a stone for his pillow in a dreary wilderness of waste places. He was a lonely, discouraged traveler wandering in gone daylight and darkness, helpless in his flight from home.

He had left his father's house and was in danger of feeling forsaken and cut off from God and heaven because his sin had separated him from them. Even after he had sinned and fled, God had not forgotten him or forsaken him.

In that discouraged state God gave him in sleep a dream of a ladder of shining brightness, its base firmly planted and resting upon the earth and its topmost round entering heaven to the very throne of God. The light of God's glory shone along its whole length and glorified it, God stood above it looking with compassion upon sinful people and speaking words of promise — of presence and keeping, of return and blessing, of protection and mercy — while angels in shining brightness ascended and descended upon its rounds.

He awoke in the deep stillness of night when the shining forms had disappeared, and only the dim outline of the lonely hills and the star-bright heavens met his gaze. The voice still echoed, and a solemn sense of an unseen presence filled the solitude, with a vivid impression that he was in the immediate presence of God where he had not known God was while he slept. He felt angels peopling the place and God looking down upon him with compassion and love.

Dreadful Place Explained

His fear and cry that the place was dreadful was involuntary, an outburst of holy awe and amazement at what he had seen on waking from the ladder dream. Dreadful there means sacred, a reverent fear mingled with deep fervent gratitude that guilty and despairing as he was he had not been destroyed, and with holy joy. That awe kept him from further sleep, as in the deep stillness of night with the shining forms gone and only the dim outline of the lonely hills and the star-bright heavens before him and the voice still echoing, he looked expecting still to see the heavenly messengers and felt with solemn vivid impression that he was in the immediate presence of God, with unseen angels peopling the place and God looking down in compassion and love. Others hold the same words more simply as awe at the place and joy in realizing the Lord was present there, and as fear and awe calling for reverence.

By calling it none other but the house of God and the gate of heaven he recognized the place where God had met him and where he had seen the vision of angels as holy and sacred because the Lord was present there. It is the house of God and the gate of heaven because earth is there linked to heaven through the revealed pathway of communication by angels ascending and descending, and broken communication is resumed so that sinners find pardon, mercy and grace. Waking with a solemn sense that God was with him and an unseen presence filling the solitude, he declared in awe what he had not known while he slept, that the desolate wilderness where he lay was that house and gate, expressing awe at realizing heaven is near where God is present.

He remembered Bethel afterward as a sacred place because God had appeared to him there in vision. The memory of that encounter reminded him of God's promises of mercy and of his own vow that the Lord would be his God, promises he later pleaded when alone praying for deliverance, joining them with the covenant made with his fathers as his ground for confessing sin, acknowledging mercy and asking assurance of pardon. The hillside there became a sanctuary because Christ met him there, for communion with God made that natural setting sacred.

Christ the Ladder

The ladder Jacob saw in dream is Christ Himself, the Redeemer and heaven's gift to humanity, the connecting link joining earth to heaven. Its base planted firmly on the earth and its top entering heaven to the throne of God shows that He joined humanity and divinity by becoming human while remaining one with the Father. Sin had separated humanity from God, and through Him broken communion is restored so that finite people are united with God and heaven's light and help reach them. The vision was given to Jacob when he was discouraged and in danger of feeling separated from God, and God's standing above the ladder speaking blessing, presence, protection, keeping and mercy shows the Father looking with compassion on sinful people through Christ, a truth that remains significant. Angels in shining brightness ascending and descending upon it show constant communication kept up between this world and heaven, with heavenly messengers communicating with people, watching over and guarding them, as the means by which God is near and ready to help in every emergency.

Christ alone is the gate of heaven and the appointed way of life and salvation, and salvation is possible only by clinging to Him. United with His divinity, people are drawn upward step by step through God's love, saved by His merits and sacrifice, given moral power, and led toward heaven to receive everlasting life. To the believer He becomes wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, calling people to follow His example and to walk in heaven's light while doing God's work in a world darkened by sin. Without this connection humanity could do nothing and all would be lost. He is the hope in whom lives center, the source of power and the secret of success in service for God, from foundation to topstone the church being built up on Christ and in Christ.

Ascending the ladder pictures the way to enter the heavenly city and the everlasting kingdom. God is above the ladder with His glory shining upon its rounds and His brightness guiding climbers heavenward, watching and helping them when their grip weakens or their steps falter. He strengthens them to press upward round after round until they step off the highest round into the everlasting kingdom of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To ascend means to grow in spiritual life and to follow on to know the Lord, with husband and wife helping each other upward and refusing to remain content with a low spiritual condition. It requires a course in harmony with the great truths of the gospel, with qualifications refined, sanctified and rightly employed to become a channel for communicating light for the saving of souls, while choosing one's own selfish way and interest in gatherings for pleasure eclipses the light of heaven, works against truth and righteousness, and separates souls from God so they do not ascend.

That night the love of Jesus sought Jacob as a lonely discouraged traveler wandering in dreary wilderness with a stone for pillow, and gave him a glorious vision of a ladder of shining brightness glorified by God's brightness streaming from heaven to earth. There in his discouraged wandering he experienced the new birth unto God and became a child of God. So the light that came to him in his discouraged state was most precious, and the hard stone became the most desirable and precious resting place his head had ever rested upon. The ladder is the ladder that all who love God ascend round after round heavenward, showing that no place is beyond the loving Father finding His faithful sons and their finding Him.

Heaven Near Believers

Heaven is near now, nearer than many suppose, and Jacob's cry after his ladder dream when alone and discouraged after leaving his father's house expresses the realization that he was not forsaken. The ladder stood with its base on earth and its top reaching into heaven, with the light of God's glory shining along its whole length while angels in shining brightness ascended and descended upon it, recalling the teachings of Abraham and Isaac. Heaven is opened to the sinner and to people even in weakness when they fully surrender, with God ready to meet them and encourage them with His presence. Heavenly things are discerned by spiritual vision and faith, not by natural sight, and believers are to walk in heaven's light while doing God's work in a world darkened by sin, with Christ as the only way to salvation.

Heaven keeps up constant communication between this world and heaven through angels ascending and descending on the ladder that joins earth and heaven and represents the Redeemer who links them. Those heavenly messengers communicate with people, watch over them and guard them, and their whole work is to draw those who shall be heirs of salvation and to keep back the powers of Satan. They lift people toward the unseen and eternal, bringing heaven near to earth. Whenever a person takes a step toward Jesus, Jesus takes steps toward him, so that heaven's light and help reach people through the connecting link by whom they are united with God.

God showed He is near and ready to help in every emergency, encouraging Jacob when discouraged and in danger of feeling separated from Him by his sin. The vision of the constant connection between earth and heaven comforted Jacob and gave him confidence in God despite his continuing difficulties. The same nearness of Jesus brings comfort, peace, hope and joy in a room during pain and discouragement, as Jacob recognized God's presence in the desolate wilderness and understood the place as holy.

The story showed that God is present with His people wherever they are driven, making a place of exile a place of divine protection through His presence and promises. The angels who came to instruct, comfort and protect Jacob in his need showed that God was with him and kept His promises, and this taught Joseph in exile that the God of his fathers could be his own God. John's desolate exile on Patmos likewise became a place of communion where, though cut off from ordinary life and active ministry, he could draw near to God through Scripture and nature declaring the Creator's power and glory, because a place is a gate of heaven where God is present.

Reverence for Presence

Awareness that God is present where He is worshiped and where He meets with His people calls for reverence, for the place where the vision of angels was seen was recognized as sacred because God was present there, as God's house and heaven's gate. The hour and place of prayer are sacred, and the place where God makes His presence known is solemn and calls forth awe. Awareness of God's presence makes a place holy and inspires awe and humble reverence, and those who truly realize His presence respond with humble reverence. True reverence is inspired by a sense of God's infinite greatness and a realization of His presence, and with that sense of the Unseen every heart should be deeply impressed, while reverence shown in attitude and demeanor deepens the feeling that inspires it.

To the humble, believing soul God's house on earth is the gate of heaven. The song of praise, the prayer, and the words spoken by Christ's representatives are God's appointed agencies to prepare a people for the church above, for that loftier worship and pure worship into which nothing that defiles, nothing impure or unholy, can enter. The sacredness that belonged to the earthly sanctuary teaches how to regard the place where the Lord meets with His people, for God Himself gave the order of His service and exalted it high above everything temporal, and the precious sacred things that connect with God must be held in reverence and not brought down to the level of common things.

When the Lord manifests His presence the place becomes awful and dreadful and awfully solemn because God is there, and the words awfully solemn describe reverent awe at the presence of the Most High. That awfulness is painful and terrifying to those who oppose God and oppress His people, so that they stagger, fall backward, are filled with terror, and are driven out and checked in their power. At the same time the same presence fills the room with power and gives strength to God's servants to rebuke darkness without fear. It lets the sweet Spirit of the Lord rest upon His bound and fearful children to set them free to breathe and rejoice.

House of God Today

When people gather in faith to testify to the truth, hearers can be brought through grace into communication with Christ and come to recognize that the Lord is among them, regarding the place of worship as God's house and heaven's gate. This was the joy of believers in 1843 and 1844 who felt the Lord among them as they testified. Where the Holy Spirit's presence is deeply felt and prayer and intercession are fervent, those present experience God's nearness as a blessed, unforgettable season.

God's presence is not confined to a splendid edifice, for Jacob's humble outdoor resting-place was consecrated by a manifestation of divine glory and became the house of God and the gate of heaven. He makes sacred the hillside, the caves of the earth, the forest, the humble barn and the cotton tent, and each becomes a tabernacle where He meets and blesses servants who humbly seek after truth and peace and righteousness. A place of worship however humble is acknowledged by Him as the gate of heaven when people worship in spirit and truth and in holiness. The grandest cathedral and marvel of architecture, if it encloses pride, dead forms and hollow hypocrisy, is repulsive in His sight, for He seeks those who worship in spirit and in truth. The phrase gate of heaven applied to the Roman Church is an attractive but false claim, for its ceremonial splendor leads many to regard it as the way to heaven while that appearance deceives them.

A camp meeting becomes to the soul like the gate of heaven when preparation has been done at home. That preparation is working at home, praying as never before, letting the heart break before God, setting the house in order, preparing children to appear before God with clean hands and pure hearts rather than with fine clothes, and removing every obstacle and difference between family members through prayer, heart-searching, putting relationships right and seeking Christ's righteousness. By so doing His presence is invited into the home, holy angels attend on the way to the meeting, and their light and presence press back the darkness of evil angels so that even unbelievers feel the holy atmosphere on entering the encampment. Without this work preaching may please and animate and revive, but the converting, reforming power of God is not felt in the heart in deep, thorough, lasting work; with pride crucified and the soul clad with the priceless robe of Christ's righteousness, the meeting is enjoyed as the gate of heaven to the soul.

Ordinary places become a Bethel, the house of God and the gate of heaven, when Christ is brought into them. A mother closely connected with Christ makes her home a Bethel through her ministry of love, bringing God into her children's thoughts in ordinary family life. Every room in publishing houses, health institutions, colleges and missions is transformed when workers keep thoughts and impulses under control and ever keep a winning, courteous, kind spirit, so angels work with their efforts and unbelievers who visit are favorably impressed and more inclined to accept the truth. A room during pain and discouragement can bring the same nearness of Jesus with comfort, peace, hope and joy, and a place where His presence is felt in prayer can seem like God's house and heaven's gate with glory shining from His throne, with peace, gladness and praise lifting the heart above weakness in a room of prayer and pain and in a stateroom in sickness. A boat amid danger at sea became a floating Bethel because God delivered the travelers and they responded with trust, thanksgiving and praise.

Even a cross and woes can lift nearer to God, for Jacob as a wanderer in gone daylight and darkness with a stone for rest found nearness to God in dreams in that dreadful place, and the place where God met him became God's dwelling and the opening to heaven. Waking from that night leads to thoughts bright with praise and to raising a Bethel out of stony griefs, so sorrow itself becomes the means of drawing nearer to God. The image of heaven's gate being ajar means that divine light and hope can reach a person's path even amid grief and loss.