Stairs are very important for us to attain access to the upper rooms of our house, or to the higher floors in a building. If it wasn’t for stairs we would live our lives on a lower level.
What about a stairway to heaven? The patriarch Jacob was pretty much a secular individual even though he had a godly heritage. He lived on the lower plane until one night as he was traveling from Beersheba to Haran. He stopped for the night and he had a dream. Gen. 28:12-13 describes the scene for us: “He 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…” Jacob’s dream of this stairway to heaven and hearing the voice of God transformed him into a believer and true follower of the LORD.
In the New Testament we hear about the angels ascending and descending once more. When the Lord Jesus called Nathaniel as one of the disciples, Jesus told him: “… Because I said to you, 'I saw you under the fig tree,' do you believe? You will see greater things than these." And He said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man”. Jacob’s ladder or his stairway to heaven is pictured again in this passage. The angels ascending and descending proclaim that the way to God is open. The stairway is none other than Jesus Himself. Through Him we have access to the Father. Through Him we ascend above this secular, earthly plane to a new life that God has opened for us. Jesus very clearly said in John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Me”.
As much as possible I try to avoid stairs. But if we ever expect to ascend above the life of this earthly realm, we must take the stairs. Jesus is God’s stairway to heaven.