Jesus in the Old Testament 008 A ladder, A Pillar, and An Altar

Jesus in the Old Testament 008:

A Ladder, A Pillar, and An Altar

Thesis: Jacob’s ladder is a picture of Christ that Jesus Himself identifies. Christ is the only conduit whereby sinners and a Holy God can have communion.  Jacob’s life is a clear picture of the change that happens when such a conduit is employed.

1. Nutshell (<5min with kids)
1. Pass out the coloring pages and have the kids help you put the story together.
2. Tell the story of Jacob to the kids, using the pictures.
3. Main points:
1. Jesus says that the ladder represents Himself (John 1:51).  He is the way to have a relationship with God.
2. Jacob didn’t trust God’s promises until much later in life.  He made a lot of mistakes along the way and missed out on the life he could have lived if he had trusted God sooner. 
3. God was then and is now seeking a people to worship Him and live in relationship with him.  Let’s be those people.

2. Deeper
1. Genesis 28:10-23
1. Jacob a scoundrel of a man

a)    Name heel-catcher

b)    Cheated Esau out of his birthright (porridge 25:29ff)

c)    Cheated Esau out of his blessing (stew for dad 27)

d)    Eventually cheats Laban out of much of his wealth (30:25ff)

e)    His relationship with God is pragmatic, as we shall see.

2. After angering his brother by cheating him out of his birthright and blessing, he flees for his life at his mother’s urging (27:41-45) and fathers blessing (28:1-5) to get a wife.
3. At the end of a day’s journey (50 miles), he lays down to sleep near the town of Luz, later called Bethel

a)    Abraham had journeyed there and built an altar to the Lord (12:7-9).

b)    Very close to Jerusalem (Jeru), just to the north.

c)    Was occupied five times in history: early Canaanite city destroyed by Joshua; rebuilt by the Jews and destroyed by the raiding Assyrians (724 BC); rebuilt by Jews and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar’s army (597 BC); rebuilt again and destroyed again by Romans (70 AD); rebuilt again later in the current age, currently called Beitin.

d)    The text seems to indicate that he was just caught there by sunset and needed to sleep.  Perhaps more:

(1)  “Luz” was already extant, why not receive hospitality there (gates closed for the night)?

(2)  Abraham’s altar was there.  There is a reason to believe that Jacob was seeking divination by using a stone of Abraham’s altar as a pillow (Janzen, Abraham and All the Families of the Earth, p.108).

(3)  Consistent with Jacob’s “scheming” personality. 

4. The vision:

a)    First of seven encounters between God and Jacob

b)    “Ladder” better “staircase” leading up to heaven.

(1)  Middle-East paganism frequently built temples according to this scheme (Ziggurat).

(2)  Same structure as the tower of Babel (Bab-el = Gateway to God)

(3)  It could be that God used this symbolic representation for Jacob in his dream because he was used to this in his culture.

c)    Angels of God which minister to God’s people

(1)  Psa 91:11

(2)  Isa 63:9

(3)  Dan 6:22

(4)  Acts 12:7

(5)  Ascending and descending (order significant?)

(6)  Jacob has (and will still) spent his life thus far scheming his way to success.  He has cheated and fought and lied to gain favor.  Here, he sees that there is a way open to heaven.  The blessing can be had, and it is open to him.

d)    The Lord himself at the top of the ladder

(1)  A vision of God or Christ?

(2)  Ex 33:20 no person can see God and live.

e)    The promise

(1)  God identifies himself as the God who gave promises to Abraham and Isaac.

(a)  God had given promises about Jacob (25:23)

(b)  God had spoken blessings to him through his father, Isaac (27:27-29; 28:3-4).

(2)  The Promised Land would be his, although he is fleeing it now.

(3)  He will have numerous offspring, although he is now about 60 years old and single.

(4)  He will be a blessing to all the earth, although right now he has angered everyone, even his family, enough that he has to flee from them.

(5)  God will always be with him and will never leave him, even though at the moment, nobody was willing to travel with him (32:10).

(6)  Jacob has done nothing to approach God rightly or walk by faith, but God sovereignly includes him in the promise. 

f)     Four “beholds”

(1)  Vs 12: A staircase (could have been any ziggurat)

(2)  Vs 12: Angels ascending and descending (again, pagan temples were built with this assumption as the basis of their architecture)

(3)  Vs 13: God himself standing above it and speaking to his people.  Different! Most pagan deities were seen enthroned and passive or indifferent to the needs of the people below them. God is active and involved.

(4)  Vs 15: God pledges constant relationship and faithfulness.  Completely out of the picture vis-a-vis pagan deities.

5. Monument stone (pillar)

a)    Other examples: Later in this story (35); Moses after receiving the law (Ex 24:4); Joshua after crossing the Jordan (Josh 4:4-11); Joshua at Shechem--where Jacob was living later in the story (Josh 24:26-27); Samuel after God saved them from the Philistines (1Sam 7:10-12)

b)    If he took this stone from Abraham’s altar, then he has left that monument defaced in favor of his own legacy, not a problem for his personality.

c)    Jacob’s promise happened after sleeping on a stone from the altar Abraham erected after receiving his own.

d)    A memorial stone is a marker, pointing to what God has done.  It is not an altar.  Worship is not implied here, only bargaining.

6. Jacob’s declaration that the vision he received was because of the rock lends credibility to the story that he journeyed to the altar to seek a vision.
7. God did not speak to Jacob when he was awake, because when he was awake, he was a chump. God spoke to Jacob when he was asleep, and then Jacob woke up to the fact that God had been there all along.
8. Jacob’s vow:

a)    If/Then.  Totally conditional.

b)    He doesn't take God at his word.

c)    Withholds worship until he is blessed.  Still a selfish schemer.

d)    His sights are set way lower than God’s purpose:

(1)  God said he would get the whole land.  Jacob just wants to go home.

(2)  God said he would have a massive family like the dust of the earth. Jacob just wants food and clothing.

(3)  God said he would be with him always.  Jacob just wants to be kept alive.

(4)  God has promised Jacob God-sized destiny.  Jacob wants to be kept “in the way that I go.” 

e)    The Tithe is mentioned here again, as in Abraham’s encounter with Melchizedek, centuries before the law.

f)     “Unlike Abraham, whose faith carried him to an unknown land, Jacob fled to a faraway place to escape a dangerous situation his own misdeeds had created. When the God of heaven approached him at Bethel—declaring promises of protection, blessing, and prosperity—Jacob was in awe, but he still wasn’t ready to trust Him. It’s one thing to hear about what God can do; it’s another to experience it in your own lives. Jacob responded to God’s generous promises with a deal: God, if you will do this, then I will let you be my God.” --Brown, D. R., Custis, M., Mangum, D., & Widder, W. (2013). Jacob: Discerning God’s Presence. (J. D. Barry, Ed.) (Ge 27:41–28:22). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

2. Genesis 35:1-15
1. It had been a long time (~40 years) since his vow to the Lord in Bethel.  God had performed his purpose for Jacob.  Jacob had not followed through on his promise to honor the Lord.

a)    There are still household gods in his camp.

b)    He has not followed through on his tithe or lived in a way to honor the Lord.

2. God appears to Jacob to hold him to his vow (Ecc 5:4; Ps 66:13-14).
3. Jacob’s act of purification is all external, but it is meant to reflect an inward reality.

a)    Buries the idols and symbols of Pagan devotion.

b)    Has people purify themselves, wash

c)    Change their clothes

4. Idols buried under the Oaks of Shechem, a location significant in deciding to follow or reject God’s Lordship of Israel.

a)    Where Abraham first received the promise of God (12:6-7) and built an altar.

b)    Where Jacob lived after returning from Haram

c)    Where Jacob devotes himself and his family by burying the idols

d)    Where Joseph is buried (Josh 24:32)

e)    Where the memorial stones of blessing and cursing are put (Deut 27:2-13)

f)     Where Joshua makes his famous appeal to put away foreign Gods, just as Jacob had done (Josh 24:14-28)

g)    Israel rejected God’s kingship and made Abimelech king at the pillar of Shechem (Judges 9:6)

h)    10 tribes reject the Davidic king and follow Jeroboam at Shechem (1Kings 12:1-19)

i)      Jeroboam builds an altar to Baal and uses it as a center for Paganism. 

j)      God promised to judge Shechem in response to its treachery (Ps 60:6; 108:7)

5. Jacob arrives as Bethel, builds an altar, and fulfills his vow.

a)    God renames him “Israel”

b)    Re-states, again, the promise of a multitude from his body, which no can be seen in his 12 sons.

c)    Jacob leaves again, still not dwelling in the house of God. He goes to stay with his family in Haran. 

3. Jesus and the Ladder: John 1:43-51
1. Nathaniel, an Israelite without guile.  Definitely not Jacob!
2. The Ladder is Christ himself.  He is the conduit of the relationship between a lost world and God.

a)    John 14:6

b)    1 Tim 2:5

3. Jesus promised to be with us until the end of the age (Matt 28:20), just like He promised to Joseph (28:15). 

a)    When He purposes and promises, he will accomplish it (Phil 1:6)

b)    When we pray, “God be with me,” It’s redundant.  We don’t have to ask him to do what He’s promised to do.  What we have to do is wake up to the fact that He’s already doing it!

4. Negotiates with God to get God to do what He just promised he would do.  A perfect example of a lack of faith.

a)    Mark 11:20-25

b)    James 1:5-8

c)    Prayers must be according to the will of God, not ours

(1)  Jas 4:1-3

(2)  1Jn 5:14-15

4. John 4:16-26. One other significant event in Shechem, which in the NT was called Sychar. 
1. Jesus demonstrates his authority through the knowledge of the woman’s situation, and she immediately turns the conversation to the question for which her town is known: Whom shall we worship, and how?
2. Jesus brings it back to the first time that this question is asked and answered with Abraham and later with Jacob (vs 23).

a)    God seeking true worshippers

b)    Worship is of the heart, in Spirit and in truth

5. Application
1. Jacob took until he was nearly 100 to repent of his self-focused scheming and conniving and surrender to the Lordship of God.  Don’t wait that long.  Give in to the Lord today and enjoy the balance of your days as a worshipper “in spirit and in truth.”

Discussion Questions

1. Have the youngest member of your family recount the basic story of Jacob that we covered tonight.
2. It is the purpose of work of Jesus to reveal the will and purposes of the Father.  He does that through the vision of himself as the only conduit to God. Are you trusting in Him alone for a relationship with God?
3. Jacob did not trust God’s promise and purpose for His life.  He did not take God at His word.  What has God purposed for you?  Are you resting in that purpose and promise, or are you still withholding your worship until He proves Himself to you?
4. God used Shechem as a place to deal with competing gods and claim his unique right to be worshiped.  Are you sharing your heart’s worship between the Lord and others?