Daily Word
A word of encouragement for your day.
AN OPEN HEAVEN
"Amen, amen, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."
Jesus promises His disciples "an open heaven".
"Heaven" is the same as "the kingdom of God" or the spiritual world, the Spiritual Reality. And it is just as real and tangible as the visible, physical world.
To "see" means to experience and perceive this Reality, just as you see, experience and perceive the material world.
The words of Jesus here refer to Genesis.28:12 where we read that Jakob in a dream saw "a ladder set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it."
What Jesus wants to say is consequently that He Himself is this ladder reaching to heaven, the connection between heaven and earth, the visible and the invisible world.
He is "the Son of Man" who has come down from heaven to take you up to Himself, into the Spiritual Reality.
Through His death (His exaltation on the Cross) and His glorification (His exaltation to the Throne), He has raised up the ladder to heaven for you and He who descended to earth and ascended to heaven again is Himself this ladder – the "living way into the holy of holies."
Therefore, it is only in a life-connection with Him, by taking part of Eternal Life, that you can begin to ascend into the spiritual world.
"Unless one is born again (litt. "born from above" = born of God and thereby partaker of the heavenly Life) he cannot see the kingdom of God." It is impossible to experience the spiritual Reality without having spiritual life: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh (limited to the visible, physical world) and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."
Through the new birth you enter into the spiritual world. Your spiritual organism is made alive and you have all the qualifications to "see the kingdom of God" – partake in the spiritual realities and explore the heavenly realm.
Through seven "I AM" Jesus reveals the truth about Himself in the Gospel of John. These majestic, divine proclamations are like seven rungs on the Jacob ladder on which you can climb higher and higher up into the Heavenly Realm and learn to live with an "open heaven"!