A Stairway to Heaven

Genesis 28:10-22
Richard Spencer | Sunday, September 18, 2022
Copyright © 2022, Richard Spencer

In our passage this morning we are dealing with the very heart of the gospel of salvation. And we all need salvation. We are all fallen creatures who have sinned against our Creator. We are sinners in need of a Savior. And we live in a fallen world. There are troubles all around us in addition to the sin within us. We are weak and sometimes feel overwhelmed by the troubles and trials of life, and we all know that someday we will die. And so, as rational creatures, we occasionally ask ourselves some very serious questions, such as: “Is there any real hope for me in this world?” And, more importantly, “What happens when I die? Is there any hope for me then?”

Satan, of course, conspires to prevent us from asking such questions, and most of us gladly give in to the tyranny of the immediate and the demands and pleasures of this life to put these questions off. After all, they are very uncomfortable questions. But they come to most everyone at some point. And they often come at a time when we are alone and troubled.

In this passage, we see Jacob completely alone, in an isolated place, in the dark, fleeing from his justly angry brother, and tired from what was probably two long days of walking. He was on his way to Haran from Beersheba and had covered about 45 miles out of what was roughly a 450- to 500-mile journey. Now, if you have ever been outside at night alone, away from civilization, you can imagine how lonely and insignificant he must have felt. As he laid down to go to sleep and looked up at the vast canopy of stars, he must have had all kinds of questions and doubts. We aren’t told whether or not he prayed, but even if he did, I’m confident that he was still filled with questions, doubts and fears. He must have felt as if his sins had caught up with him and he must have wondered what the future would hold.

And then he went to sleep and in great mercy God appeared to him in a dream. This was the first time God appeared to Jacob and, although it would not be the last, it was probably the most significant. God came to Jacob at a very low point, a point of great need, and he gave him great assurance and hope for the future.

And in order for us to profit from this passage and receive assurance and hope for ourselves, I have five points I want us to consider this morning: First, God’s love; Second, God’s providence; Third, God’s promises; Fourth, Jacob’s response; And, finally, Fifth, our response. Let’s begin by considering my first point, God’s love.

I.       God’s Love

When you look objectively at Jacob at this point in his life, it should surprise you that God would condescend to love him and appear to him to comfort and encourage him. What had Jacob ever done to merit God’s favor? The answer, of course, is nothing. Jacob was a deceiver. He was what my generation would have called a mama’s boy. He had not accomplished anything good worth mentioning. Instead, he was guilty of scheming to get his elder brother Esau’s blessing and was fleeing his father’s house and Esau’s wrath in disgrace. Heading off to a place he had never known for the purpose of finding a wife. And even that task had been given, at least in part, to get him away from his brother Esau. In addition, he had no way of knowing he would be successful, or if he would ever return to his home.

He had been raised in prosperity and was used to having most people defer to him as one of the sons of the patriarch, his father Isaac. But now he was a nobody, had nothing, was heading to an unfamiliar place, and had a very uncertain future. This is not a picture of success. And so we should ask, “Why would God love him?”

But the minute we ask that question, it begs another: “Why would God love any sinful human being?” Or, to make it more personal, “Why would God love me?” Even if a person is the most accomplished person alive, a Nobel laureate, the president of the United States, the richest person on earth, the greatest scientist in history, or even if he develops a sure-fire cure for cancer, what is that to God? Do you think he is impressed? Do you think that we can add anything to him? Or do anything that surprises and amazes him?

To ask such questions is to answer them, and the obvious answer is, “No! We can’t add anything to God and he is not impressed by anything we have done or can do.” God gave us whatever abilities and opportunities we have and no matter how successful someone is in the eyes of the world, I guarantee that he has still not used his God-given gifts to the greatest extent possible. No one ever has. And, even worse, we all begin life as God’s enemies. We deny that we are his creations. We deny that we owe him worship or obedience. We deny that he has the right to tell us what to do. And many people even deny that he exists at all.

And yet, God chose to love some people. This love was not motivated by anything in us, it was motivated by God’s own loving nature and his plan for creation. In the case of Jacob, we have the clearest possible statement that God’s love for him was not motivated by anything in him. In Romans 9:10-13 we read, “Rebekah’s children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, ‘The older will serve the younger.’ Just as it is written: ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’”

That is a remarkable statement, and one that people universally dislike unless they have been born again and thought it through properly. But it is actually a wonderful statement full of grace and mercy and indicative of a love that is absolutely incomprehensible.

We are God’s creation, we are capable of independent decisions for which we can be justly held accountable, and we have all rejected and spurned our Creator and rebelled against him. Therefore, unless God simply chose to love us, there is no reason at all why he should. In fact, there are many good reasons why he should not! And that is why I said that God’s loving Jacob, or anyone for that matter, is an act that is full of grace and mercy.

And God’s love also has a great effect upon us; it is a powerful love. Those whom God loves he predestines for glory. In Ephesians 1:4-10 we are told eight amazing things about this love of God: First, it was given to us, “before the creation of the world”. Second, God’s purpose is to make us, “holy and blameless in his sight” and to adopt us as his children. Third, this is done for, “the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in” Jesus Christ. Fourth, in Christ, “we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins”. In other words, our rebellion against our Creator-God is forgiven; hallelujah! Fifth, this was all done, “in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.” God’s grace is effectual. It brings about great changes. It is God’s power to change us from rebels, children of disobedience, alienated from God, into beloved children, walking in obedience and enjoying God’s manifold blessings. Sixth, God has, “made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ”. Isn’t that amazing? God has made known to us his purpose in creating this universe and redeeming a people for himself. Seventh, he has promised us that he will accomplish his purpose, including our eternal salvation. He says that it will, “be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment”. God cannot fail and no one can thwart his plan. He will ultimately save all those whom he has chosen to save. And, finally, eighth, his purpose is, “to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.” This is a glorious purpose indeed and one that brings all of God’s elect children tremendous, eternal joy and security!

In his high-priestly prayer in John 17:11 Jesus prayed, “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one.” Think about that for a minute. God is triune, one God in three persons. We can’t fully grasp what that means, but there is perfect fellowship in the godhead, unhindered by any imperfection or divergence in purpose. And we are to be one as God is one. And then, in Verse 13 Jesus prayed, “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them.” That is, again, incomprehensible. Jesus knew the joy of perfect obedience, complete trust, confidence in and fellowship with his Father. We are told in Hebrews 12:2 that he “endured the cross, scorning its shame”, “for the joy set before him”. In other words, the joy set before him was so great that he was able to willingly take our sins upon himself and endure the wrath of God in our stead. That is amazing, powerfully motivating joy. What Peter called “inexpressible and glorious joy” (1 Peter 1:8). And getting back to the high-priestly prayer, Jesus went on to pray, as we read in Verses 20-23, “My prayer is not for them alone.”, referring to the disciples who were with him at the time, “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message,” that includes us, “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” Now that blows your mind! We are not just to be united with one another, but with God himself. And Christ has given us the glory that he had, and God the Father has loved us as he loved Christ! If that doesn’t fill you with joy, I don’t know what can.

That is God’s glorious purpose for creation. To glorify himself by creating, redeeming and perfecting a people for himself. A chosen people. His adopted children. The bride of Christ. The true church.

All those whom God has loved from before the creation of the world will be glorified. We will be united with one another and with God in a way that we cannot even begin to imagine now. And we will enjoy this perfect bliss for all eternity. That is the result of God’s love for his people.

And, as I said, God’s love has a great effect on his people. We are predestined for eternal glory, but there is also a great effect in this life. The first effect is that we are regenerated so that we repent and believe God’s promises. But it doesn’t stop there. God then works in us by his Holy Spirit to sanctify us. We are new creations in Christ Jesus as Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:17. And, as John wrote in 1 John 4:19, “We love because he first loved us.” And this is not speaking about the kind of “love” that our society talks about, this is a deep, sacrificial love. Jesus gave his disciples a new command as we read in John 13:34-35, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” That is a high calling indeed. We are to love one another as Christ loved us. And he suffered the wrath of God and died for us!

And so, we have seen that God’s love is a powerful, amazing thing and it is not based on anything worthy in us or done by us. It is God’s free, sovereign choice. In Deuteronomy 7:6-8 we read that Moses told the Israelites, “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” In other words, God loved his people because he chose to love them. There is no room for our pride. And just like the Israelites were redeemed from their slavery in Egypt, so we also have been redeemed from our slavery; our slavery to sin.

And we see God’s divine election clearly in the story we are considering. Jacob was loved by God because God chose to love him. Not because Jacob was somehow uniquely lovable. And because God loved him, he came to him in this time of great distress and need and comforted him. And that brings us to my second point, God’s providence.

II.      God’s Providence

Nothing in this world can provide ultimate comfort and encouragement if there is doubt about the future. If you can’t be certain that things will turn out well in the end, what comfort can you be given? The answer, of course, is none. You can have momentary pleasures to keep you distracted, but there can be no real comfort, no real hope. That is why the counsel of the world is to grab all the gusto while you can because you only go around once. Or, as Paul put it when quoting Isaiah in 1 Corinthians 15:32, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

But, praise God, if we belong to Christ there is real, lasting, deep comfort and hope because we do know that things will turn out well in the end. We know this because God is absolutely sovereign over his creation and he is completely good. And we know this to be true because God has promised it to us. In Romans 8:28 we are told, “that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

And the vision that God gave to Jacob conveyed this message of hope clearly in a wonderful, symbolic way. We read in Genesis 28:12-13 that Jacob, “had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the LORD, and he said: ‘I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.’”

What a wonderful picture this is! It showed Jacob that there is a heaven, a place of eternal, perfect peace and blessedness. The place where God himself dwells. And it showed that there is a way of getting from this sin-ravaged earth to heaven. It also showed that God is in complete control of everything that goes on here on earth.

Well before the time of Jesus, the Jews interpreted this dream as representing the providence of God[1]. The idea is that that the angels ascend the stairway to get their marching orders from God and then descend to earth to carry out his will.[2] We read in Psalm 103:20, “Praise the LORD, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word.” And in Hebrews 1:14 we read, “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?”

This wonderful vision dealt directly with Jacob’s greatest need. It assured him that God is in control. Jacob didn’t need to fear anything in this world. And this is the God of his grandfather Abraham and his father Isaac, which immediately brings to mind all of the amazing miracles God had already performed for his people. But the most amazing and wonderful part of this vision is that it shows there is a way to get to heaven from earth.

And we don’t need to speculate as to this meaning, the Bible tells us explicitly. When Jesus called Nathanael into his service as an apostle, we are told that Nathanael was astounded that Jesus knew he had been sitting under a fig tree before his friend Philip called him. And, in John 1:50-51, we read that Jesus said to him, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that. I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

This is a clear reference to the stairway in Jacob’s dream, and it shows us that Jesus himself is the stairway to heaven! And we don’t need to look hard to find the way to heaven. The apostle Thomas asked Jesus how he could know the way to heaven and in John 14:6 Jesus responded by saying that “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

God’s providential control of this world includes his plan of salvation. In fact, that is the focal point for all of history. The main purpose, as I noted before, is the creation of the bride of Christ, the true church. And the only way God could redeem a people for himself was to provide a perfect substitute to pay the penalty we owe. That substitute had to be a man because it is man who sinned. But he couldn’t be just a man because no man could possibly pay the price of our redemption (Psalm 49:7-9). Therefore, the Redeemer had to be both fully God and fully man. And that Redeemer is Jesus Christ, the only God-man, the unique Redeemer. Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 2:5-6 that “there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men”.

The stairway to heaven in this dream represents Christ, the only mediator between God and man. And while Jacob certainly did not fully comprehend all of the symbolism, the dream nonetheless served to supply him with the comfort and encouragement he needed to go on with his earthly journey.

We have the advantage of looking back on this history and we know that Jacob did indeed find a wife, in fact, he found two wives, the sisters Leah and Rachel. And he went on to have twelve sons by these wives and their maidservants. And those twelve sons became the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel. We also know that Jacob did, in fact, return to his homeland and, on his way back, he wrestled with God and was renamed Israel, which literally means “he struggles with God.” But at this point in time, Jacob didn’t know any of this and so God also gave him glorious promises in this dream, and that is my third point; God’s promises.

III.    God’s Promises

We read the promises given to Jacob in Verses 13-15 of our passage in Genesis 28. After saying that he is the God of Abraham and Isaac, God goes on to tell Jacob, “I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

What a glorious and comforting thing this must have been for Jacob! God began by repeating the promises he had given to Abraham and Isaac – that they would possess the land, that their descendants would be numerous, and that all the peoples on earth would be blessed through them. And then he went on to give a specific promise to Jacob. He said, “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

What more could Jacob have asked for? What more could anyone ask for? God would be with him and watch over him and would bring him back to his land. And this was the only infinite, eternal, unchangeable Creator God speaking. He cannot lie and his promises are certain. No one can defeat his plans. What he plans, he accomplishes. Always.

But these promises are not just given to Jacob. The same promises are given to every child of God. If you have been born again, they have been given to you. In the great commission, Jesus Christ commanded his disciples, saying, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

And so we see that we have the same promise. Jesus Christ, who is God, will be with us always. God repeated this promise several times in his word. Moses told the Israelites prior to their going into the Promised Land, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31:6) And the writer of Hebrews draws a conclusion from this promise. In Hebrews 13:5 we are commanded, “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’”

Friends, we must be content with what God has given to us and we must avoid the love of money or anything else in this life. God has promised us something infinitely greater than any of this world’s riches; he has promised us eternal life with him! The apostle John wrote, in 1 John 2:15, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

If we have even the most rudimentary understanding of our sinful nature and guilt before God, and of the horrors of spending eternity being justly punished for our sins, and of the inexpressible joy and glory of heaven, we cannot help but respond with tremendous thanksgiving and praise to this incredible, merciful offer of salvation in Jesus Christ. And that brings me to my fourth point, let’s examine Jacob’s response.

IV.    Jacob’s Response

In Verses 16 and 17 of our passage we read that “When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, ‘Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.’ He was afraid and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.’”

And we are most often just as clueless as Jacob was about God’s presence. God is a spirit. He is the Creator of this physical world, not a part of it. And he is present everywhere. Nothing in this universe is outside of his knowledge and control. David understood this and wrote, in Psalm 139:7-10, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”

God’s sovereign control over every detail of life is made plain in a number of places in Scripture. For example, in Matthew 10:29-30 Jesus said, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.”

God knows every sparrow. In fact, he knows every creature no matter how big or small. And he knows the number of hairs on our head. God knows everything about us and everything that will ever happen to us, and it is all under his control. David went on in Psalm 139:16 to say that “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

Now that provides comfort! There is no such thing as chance. Chance, or randomness, is a useful concept for us as finite creatures, but it is really nothing more than a term that describes our ignorance or inability to deal with complexity. God is in control of everything, even things that appear to us to be random. We read in Proverbs 16:33 that “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.”

And so, no matter where we are, we can join with Jacob and say, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” And that realization should produce the same effect in us that it did in Jacob, he was afraid. Now there are different kinds of fear and different causes of fear. Something truly evil and powerful, for example, produces fear. But that is not the case here. In this case, the fear is caused by the fact that God is absolutely holy and just, all-knowing and all-powerful, the only evil that was present was in Jacob, not God! And if we come to know that we are sinners in God’s holy presence and cannot escape, that brings fear. We will respond like the apostle Peter, when he exclaimed, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8) If we are still God’s enemies, that fear is the fear of his judgment. But even if we are his adopted children, there is still a reverential fear that is the beginning of wisdom and keeps us from sinning.

And Jacob then went on to say, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.” In Hebrew, the “house of God” is Bethel, and the town is well-known in biblical history. But the New Testament makes clear to us that the gate of heaven is not in any one place, it is Jesus Christ himself. In John 10:9 we read that Jesus declared, “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture.”

Jesus is the stairway, he is the gate, he is the only way to heaven. We must, ultimately, abandon all trust in ourselves or anything in this world and we must trust in Jesus Christ and his redeeming work alone. And, while Jacob certainly did not know all of this, he knew that God had made great promises to his people, including the promise of a redeemer, which had been made to Adam and Eve in the Garden. And Jacob wanted to create a memorial to help him remember this place and to be able to identify it when God’s promise of bringing him back came true.

Therefore, we read in Verses 18-22 that “Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz. Then Jacob made a vow, saying, ‘If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father’s house, then the LORD will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.’”

Pouring oil on the pillar consecrated it as something holy, or set apart, to God. And when Jacob said, “If God will be with me” and do all that he promised, it isn’t necessary to think that he was expressing doubt about God’s promise, although some good commentators think that he was[3]. He could simply have been saying that once these things have been done, then I will keep the vows I make. And notice Jacob’s humble request. He didn’t ask that God provide him with riches and fame, or even a wife, he merely asked for food to eat and clothes to wear. It reminds us of what Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 6:8, that “if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.”

And Jacob then gives us the heart of the covenant, he says that “the LORD will be my God”, and he goes on to vow that God’s house will be in Bethel and Jacob will give God a tenth of all he receives. It is worth noting that the biblical requirement to tithe a tenth of everything we receive had not yet been instituted, although Abraham had set an example by giving a tenth of the plunder to Melchizedek.

Good Bible commentators have come to completely different conclusions about this vow of Jacobs. Some think it was humble and heartfelt and some find it sorely lacking and even sinful.[4] We certainly must admit that there is no overt sign of repentance here, but I don’t think it is necessary for us to try and probe the motivation behind this vow. Jacob had to give an answer to God for it, but we don’t. We need to seek to learn from this vision given to Jacob.

So, what can we say for sure? And what can we learn that is useful to us? First, we can be sure that Jacob was significantly affected by the vision and that it caused him to be aware of God’s presence, reminded of his promises, and encouraged in his faith. And, secondly, although he certainly does not live a sinless life from this point on, he does go on and, eventually, becomes a wonderful example of a faithful Christian man. So, at the very least, we can see from the life of Jacob that God is faithful and will accomplish all the good that he has planned for his people. Paul told his readers in Philippians 1:6 that he was confident that God would complete the work he had begun in them.

And now, we must consider my last point, which is what our response should be.

V.      Our Response

As I noted earlier, we will not have to give an account to God for Jacob’s response, but we certainly will give an account to God for our response! Although this vision was given to Jacob alone, it has been recorded in God’s word for our benefit and we can conclude that God’s love for his people as a whole was part of the motivation for this vision. God is always thinking about the bride of Christ as a whole, not just as individuals. Only together will we be perfected and glorified we are told in Hebrews 11:40. And, as Paul says in Romans 15:4, “everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” And we need hope. We need encouragement to be able to live godly lives as we wait for Christ to come again.

We are not patriarchs or apostles of Christ, but we have the same faith, the same hope, the same promises. I already noted that in his high-priestly prayer, in John 17:20, Jesus said, “My prayer is not for them alone.” Meaning his disciples, “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message”. Friends, we have a great cloud of witnesses. We have the word of God. We have the testimony of history, and if you have been born again you have the indwelling Holy Spirit. All of these testify to the truth of God’s word. His promises are certain.

And Jacob was not the only person to have some glimpse of the reality of heaven. In Acts 7:56 we read that as the first Christian martyr, Stephen, was dying, he said “Look, I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” And in 2 Corinthians 12:2 the apostle Paul, speaking about himself, wrote that “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows.”

Also, the prophet Isaiah was famously given a glorious vision of Heaven. In Isaiah 6:1 the prophet tells us that “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.” And while the apostle John was on the island of Patmos, he was given a wonderful vision. In Revelation 1:12-13 John wrote, “I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone ‘like a son of man,’ dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest.” The reference to the “Son of man” is a reference to Jesus Christ and comes from Daniel 7:13. And John gives us other amazing descriptions of the throne of God as well.

The conclusion from all of this is simple; heaven is a real place. It is where God dwells with his holy angels and with the perfected spirits of his people who have already departed this life as we are told in Hebrews 12:23. And, in addition, there is a way to get to heaven. Jesus Christ is that way. We must humble ourselves, repent of our sins, trust in the redeeming work of Christ alone and we will be saved. There is no greater comfort or joy than knowing that no matter what happens in this life, you have an eternal home with God in heaven.

And then there is also great hope for us in this life, because as Jacob’s dream and many other passages of Scripture reveal, God is sovereign over all the affairs of man. His holy angels are ministering spirits and, in addition, God has complete control over all creatures in this physical world. Nothing can happen to us that is not part of God’s good, eternal plan. And if we are in Christ, that should bring us great hope.

Therefore, our proper response to Jacob’s vision is twofold: First, we must make our own calling and election sure. And we do that by walking in humble obedience day by day. This requires that we confess our sins, repent of them, trust in Christ alone, and strive to be filled with God’s Spirit and to walk in the obedience of faith. And second, we should take great encouragement from the fact that God is sovereign. We all have work to do. In fact, we are God’s creation in Christ Jesus, created to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10). But our eternal salvation does not, ultimately, depend on us. Without good works we have no basis for assurance that we are saved, but we are not saved by our good works. God will certainly save all those whom he has chosen. We should trust in his promises, seek the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and have great confidence and boldness in serving God.

[1] See Calvin’s commentary on this passage – although he dismisses the Jewish view, I agree with Matthew Henry that it has merit (See Ref 2).

[2] e.g., see Matthew Henry’s commentary on this passage.

[3] e.g., Martin Luther thought so. See James Boice, Genesis: An Expositional Commentary, Zondervan, 1985, Vol. 2

[4] e.g., contrast Calvin’s commentary with James Boice, Genesis: An Expositional Commentary, Zondervan, 1985, Vol. 2