He then added, “Very truly I tell you, you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’ the Son of Man.”
John 1:51 NIV
Genesis 28:10-22 recalls an incident in Jacob’s life as he fled from his brother Esau. Jacob had stopped for the night. And as he slept, he dreamed of a stairway reaching from the earth to heaven. Angels were ascending and descending on this staircase. And God stood at the head of the staircase. When Jacob woke up, he declared that place to be the house of God, the gate of heaven. It was a place where heaven and earth met.
In John 1:51, Jesus referred back to that story when responding to Nathanael’s declaration that Jesus was the Son of God, the king of Israel. But rather than having angels ascending and descending on a staircase from the earth to heaven, they are ascending and descending on the Son of Man, a term Jesus used for himself.
Jacob’s dream of a staircase connecting heaven and earth looked forward to the Tabernacle/Temple, where God’s presence would dwell among his people. But it is in Jesus, the one who is fully God and fully human, where heaven and earth most fully meet. And it is in Jesus that heaven is opened up to us. He is the way, the staircase that we can ascend into the presence of God (John 14:6).
