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Scripture Reading: Gen. 28:10-22; John 1:51; 14:2-6, 20; 1 Pet. 2:5
In the Scriptures there is first the creation of God and then the building of God. As we saw in the previous chapter, at the conclusion of the work of God’s creation there was the garden of Eden, and at the conclusion of the work of God’s building there is the holy city, the New Jerusalem. A city is very different from a garden. In a garden there is the natural scenery of the things created by God. A city, however, has the significance of building. It is not something of nature but something built up. We must remember these two pictures — a garden and a city.
After the completion of God’s creation in Genesis 2, there was the garden of Eden, in which God placed the man created by Him. God placed man before the tree of life because God’s intention was to build man with God by his experience of God as life (vv. 8-9). With the tree of life, there was a flowing river, and in the flow of the river there were precious materials for the building (vv. 10-12). We can see this clearly with the help of the record in the last two chapters of the Scriptures. In the last two chapters of Revelation there is a city built up with these precious materials, a city of gold, pearl, and precious stones. This reveals that after God’s creation, God intends to do another work — to build Himself into man and to build man into Himself.
The entire Scriptures reveal these two works of God, the work of creation and the work of building God into man and man into God. The building of God is the mingling of divinity with humanity. Therefore, at the end of the Scriptures there is a city as the building of God, and that city is the mingling of God with all the redeemed persons, including the Old Testament and New Testament saints, composed together as a container to contain God and be mingled and permeated with God. This is the mingling of God and man as the building of God.
In Genesis 28 God reveals for the first time that He will build Himself with man by bringing heaven to earth and earth to heaven in order to join heaven and earth together. The story of Bethel in verses 10 through 22 is wonderful and full of the divine principles concerning God’s building. The entire Scriptures are needed to expound this brief story.
Before that time, man was a wanderer. When Jacob had his dream at Bethel, he was a homeless wanderer, having no rest. He even laid his head on a bare, hard stone as his pillow. If we read this portion carefully, however, we will realize that not only was man a wanderer, a homeless person, but even God Himself was homeless, having no resting place. In this situation, God gave Jacob a simple dream about a ladder set up on the earth and reaching to heaven. On that ladder the angels of God ascended and descended. After Jacob awoke, he said something wonderful. He said, “This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” (v. 17). Truly, such a naughty young man as Jacob could not have said something so wonderful by himself.
In speaking of the gate of heaven, he indicated that heaven was open, and there was the possibility for people to enter into it. In other words, there was the possibility for people to enter into God. A ladder is a way, like a street, except it is vertical. That ladder was a vertical way between earth and heaven, that is, from man up to God and from God down to man. With this ladder, this vertical way, is the opening of heaven where God is. This signifies that there is an access for man to touch God and contact God.
As far as the opened heavens are concerned, this place is the gate of heaven, but as far as the very spot on the earth is concerned, it is Bethel, the house of God, the dwelling place and resting place for God. The resting place for God is not in heaven but on earth. We may want to go to heaven, but God wants to come down to earth. Matthew 6:10 says, “Your will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth.” God is desirous to come to earth because earth has been corrupted, usurped, and occupied in a wrong way by the enemy of God. God’s desire is to recover this earth. Today in Christianity there is a wrong concept. People often speak about a “heavenly home,” but there is not such a thing in the Scriptures. Rather, God’s intention is to have a dwelling place, a Bethel, on the earth.
All the divine principles of God’s building are in this picture. The divine building is the opening of heaven to the earth so that heaven is joined to the earth and the earth is united to heaven by the heavenly ladder. To see what this ladder is, we must refer to John 1:51, which says, “He said to him, Truly, truly, I say to you, You shall see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” No doubt, this is a reference to Genesis 28. In Genesis 28 there is a ladder upon which the angels of God ascend and descend, and in John 1 this ladder is the Son of Man, upon whom the angels of God ascend and descend. Therefore, the ladder is the Lord Jesus Himself as the Son of Man, the incarnated Christ.
Moreover, in 14:6 the Lord said, “I am the way...; no one comes to the Father except through Me.” He is not the flat way but the vertical way by whom and through whom we come to God. As the way, He is the ladder. It is He who brings heaven to earth, and it is He who unites earth with heaven. It is He who brings God into man and man into God. He is the very way, the vertical way, to bring God and man together and to make heaven and earth one.
In 1:51 the Lord said that the angels of God ascend and descend not upon the Son of God but upon the Son of Man. In the first verse of this chapter the Lord is the eternal Word in eternity past as the expression of God. Then in the last verse of this chapter the Lord is the Son of Man in eternity future. How could the eternal Word become the Son of Man? It was by becoming flesh in verse 14. The eternal Word was incarnated to be the Son of Man. The Son of Man is God mingled with man, a God-man. He is a man of heaven yet on earth, a man on the earth yet still in heaven and from heaven. This wonderful Son of Man brings God and man together and makes heaven and earth one. Therefore, He is the real ladder.
Do not forget that John 1:51 is a reference to Genesis 28. With the heavenly ladder in Genesis 28 there was an open heaven and Bethel, the house of God on earth. This shows us that with the Lord Jesus as the heavenly, vertical way there is the opening of heaven and the house of God on the earth.
Genesis 28:18-19a says, “Jacob rose up early in the morning and took the stone that he had put under his head, and he set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. And he called the name of that place Bethel.” Jacob gave the name Bethel not only to that place but to the stone. This is very significant. That stone, which was Bethel, the house of God, was the resting place of the wanderer where he could lay his head. Moreover, this resting place for man is also the very dwelling place of God. Not only the place, but the stone that had oil poured upon it, the pillow upon which man rested, is a Bethel, the house of God. Where man rests, God dwells.
For there to be a house of God on earth, there must be stones upon which oil is poured. In the Scriptures, oil signifies the Holy Spirit, the third of the Triune God who comes to visit man. When God is hidden in the heavens, He is the Father. No one can know the Father in Himself, and no one has ever seen the Father. When God comes out to express Himself to man and among man, He is the Son, Christ. Then when God comes upon people and into people to visit them in a subjective way, He is the Spirit. Therefore, oil is a symbol of the Triune God visiting people in a subjective way.
What then is the stone? To be sure, the stone is the material for the building. That is why in Jacob’s dream there was first the stone as the material and then the house of God, the building. After the oil was poured upon the stone, it became the house. Likewise, when we come to the Lord, we are living stones who are being built up as a spiritual house in the Spirit, by the Spirit, and with the Spirit (1 Pet. 2:5). We are the stones upon whom the Triune God has poured the Holy Spirit as the oil.
The building of God is a matter of God pouring Himself upon us as the Spirit. We are the stones, and He is the oil. When He pours Himself upon us, we with the oil become Bethel, the house of God, the temple of God in which the Spirit of God dwells.
The main principle of the building of God is that God is brought into us and we are being brought into God. As we have seen, the Lord is the Son of Man as the heavenly ladder bringing God down to man and man up to God. By His incarnation He brought God to man. When He became flesh, He brought God into man. Before that time, God had never been in the flesh, but by the incarnation of the Lord, God came into man. Following this, there is a “U-turn.” After coming down with God, the Lord goes up with man. He brought God into man by incarnation, and then He brought man back into God by death and resurrection.
In the Gospel of John there is the Lord’s coming and the Lord’s going. His coming was His incarnation, and His going was His death and resurrection. By His coming, He brought God into man, and by His going, He brought man into God. In John 7:33-34 the Lord told the people that He was going to a place where at that time they could not go, but after a while, in 14:2-6, He told His disciples that He would bring them to the place where He was. The place where He was is not heaven but God Himself. It is as if He was saying, “I am in the Father. The Father is the place where I am. I have brought God to you by My incarnation, but there is now the need for Me to die and resurrect. By My death and resurrection I will bring you into God. Then at that time you will be where I am.”
Christ is the way through which man can come not to the place of the Father but to the Father Himself. Verse 20 says, “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” These perplexing “ins” tell us that because Christ is in the Father and we are in Christ, we are in the Father. Therefore, where He is, we also are (v. 3). Before His death and resurrection, however, He had only brought God into man. Bringing man into God was accomplished by His death and resurrection.
Read the Gospel of John again. Then you will see the Lord’s coming and the Lord’s going. The Lord’s coming and going are the process of the divine building. The coming of the Lord brings God into us, and the going of the Lord brings us into God. By His coming and His going He mingles God with us.
The Lord did not speak in vain of the heavenly ladder in 1:51. The principle of the heavenly ladder is found throughout the entire book of John. This is a full picture of eternity to come. If we have the spiritual insight today, we will say, “O Lord, You are the heavenly ladder. Day by day the angels of God ascend and descend upon You. Day by day You bring something heavenly to earth and something of earth to heaven.”
On the day we repented and believed in the Lord, He as the heavenly ladder brought something heavenly into us, and He brought something of earth into God. The moment we received the Lord Jesus, He was the real heavenly ladder. At that time there was the opening of heaven, and there was a Bethel on the earth, the house of God as the dwelling place of God and the resting place of man. The Lord as the heavenly ladder brought God into us and brought us into God. He is the heavenly ladder to join heaven with earth and unite earth with heaven, that is, to mingle God and us, us and God, with one another.
This mingling is the divine building, the building of God. Throughout all the generations and unto the end of this age, what God has been doing — and what He still will do — is to accomplish this divine building. God continually brings Himself through Christ to man, and brings man through Christ to Himself. This is the building of God.
Sometime after the naughty Jacob had his dream, he became the father of a great house. The Old Testament speaks not of the house of Abraham or the house of Isaac but of the house of Jacob, the house of Israel. The house of Israel is the house of God. How could the house of a naughty young man become the house of God? It was by God coming to the people of his house and bringing them to God. This is the story of the people of Israel. God came to the people of Israel, and God brought the people of Israel to Himself.
In Exodus, God told the people of Israel to build a tabernacle. Throughout the tabernacle there is the mingling of two materials, gold and acacia wood. Gold signifies the divine nature, and acacia wood signifies the human nature. The building of God is the mingling of the divine nature with the human nature. We stress this matter so much because we need to realize that the building of the church is nothing other than the mingling of these two natures. We must have God mingled with us day by day by means of the heavenly ladder with an open heaven. This produces Bethel.
As Christians, we have many meetings. Meetings are a part of our life. To not meet is to commit spiritual suicide. When we meet, however, how can we give people the sense, the feeling, that with us there is the opening of heaven, the vertical way from us to God and from God to us? How can we give the sense that our meeting together is Bethel, the house of God? The way is to have God mingled with us all the time. The more God is mingled with us when we come together, the more we cause people to sense the presence of God, an open heaven, Bethel, and the vertical way as the heavenly ladder bringing God to man and man to God.
When people come to our meetings, they may be naughty young men like Jacob. They may simply be wanderers, but if we are mingled with God, they will sense a dream among us. They will sense the opening of heaven with a ladder and something ascending from the earth and descending from heaven. They will sense Bethel. We need to give people this sense. The wandering Jacobs who come into our meetings need to have such a dream. They should say, “What is this? Is there such a thing on the earth? I am in a dream!” They should see something different, wonderful, and strange. Eventually the naughty Jacobs will awake and say, “Here is none other than the opening of the heavens, the ladder as the vertical way for people to contact God, and Bethel, the house of God.” This is the church and the church life.
The church life is not merely to minister, to sing hymns, and to shout and cry out. If we are mingled with God, then even if we sit silently without praying or shouting, people will sense the presence of God. If we are not mingled with God, however, the more we shout, the more people will be disgusted. They will say, “What is this? If we want to hear shouting, it is better to go to a stadium. The shouting is better there. Why do we need to come here?”
Our coming together depends only on the mingling of God with us. Day by day we must realize what the real meaning is of the pouring of the oil upon the stone. We must truly know the mingling of God as the Spirit of life with us. If we have a daily life in the practical way of always experiencing the mingling with God, then whenever we come together, people will sense that they are in a wonderful dream. They could not have imagined that there is such a place on the earth. They will realize the opening of heaven and Bethel, the house of God on earth with a vertical way to bring God to man and man to God.
I have been to this kind of meeting many times. The first time I came to visit Brother Watchman Nee, I stayed in Shanghai. Many times in the meetings I felt that I was in a wonderful dream. The meetings were like a dream to me. I had not imagined that there could be such a fine thing on the earth. If someone had asked me how I felt at the time, I would have said, “This is the opening of heaven and the presence of the Lord!” Even when we went into the meeting hall before the meeting started, we sensed the Lord there. When we stepped into the meeting, no one dared to talk in a loose way, because the presence of the Lord caused people to be reverent. The meetings were often quiet. They started with gentle singing and silent prayers being offered, but we could sense the opening of heaven. We sensed the presence of the Lord as at Bethel. I can never forget what I experienced in those years.
By the sovereignty of the Lord, I was born into Christianity, and I was brought up in various Christian environments. I attended many different kinds of Christian meetings, including fundamental, Presbyterian, Baptist, Brethren, and Pentecostal meetings. Through all these experiences I can testify that the right kind of Christian meeting is not this or that but a meeting in which anyone who comes can sense the presence of the Lord, an open heaven, Bethel on the earth, and a heavenly ladder between heaven and earth, bringing God to man and man to God. This is a meeting of Christians as a building, a meeting of God and man.
This was a dream to Jacob as a wandering young man, but praise the Lord, this dream has become a reality! Throughout all the generations on the earth this dream has been fulfilled and will still be fulfilled. If we mean business with the Lord, we will experience the mingling of God with us. Then when we come together, we will have Bethel, which is the place with the opening of heaven, and Christ, who is the Son of Man as the heavenly ladder, the vertical way for people to contact God and for God to come to visit people to be mingled with humanity. This is the building of God. If we are going to talk about the building of the church, we must realize this. We need to have the dream of that wandering young man. Then we will have a resting place as the dwelling of God.
May the Lord be merciful to us for this. In these days we need to look to the Lord that He will deliver us from many different, improper concepts that we may realize the real way for Him to have a building on the earth. The real building is Bethel.
On the one hand, God has a church today, but on the other hand, He is still a homeless God. At the same time many people are wandering in the wilderness, restless and homeless. They need a dream. May we be faithful to see the mingling of God among us so that we can afford them such a dream. Whenever those wandering people come among us, they must have a dream that heaven is opened to us, that on this earth there is a Bethel, and that between these two there is the heavenly ladder, the Son of Man, the Lord Jesus.
