Isaiah Ladder to Heaven

As Jacob journeyed toward the land of Haran, night began to fall. Seeking rest, he gathered stones to use as pillows and lay down to sleep. While sleeping, he experienced a profound dream:

12 And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

Is there an actual ladder by which one can ascend to meet God? Perhaps this dream represents a spiritual reality in which, instead of physical steps on a ladder, we ascend to heaven through degrees of ascension, each level representing a different spiritual category. 

It is significant that Jacob, who became Israel, was given a vision of the ladder to heaven with angels ascending and descending because, in the book of Isaiah, the people called Jacob/Israel are invited to ascend to Zion and higher spiritual levels and then experience deliverance, or, on the other hand, descend to lower categories and face destruction. 

The book of Isaiah portrays seven spiritual categories of people. Isaiah uses the historical record of his time as a type (Isaiah 44:7) and labels the different groups of people as spiritual categories according to their fate. 

For example, during the oracles in Isaiah 1-39, Jacob or Israel, historically, was the Northern Kingdom or Ephraim, who was deeply involved in practicing idolatry and sacrificing to the other gods. They were warned that the King of Assyria was going to destroy them (Isaiah 7:4, 17,28:1-7). Then, for the Nothern Kingdom to survive, they needed to go up to the land of Jerusalem in the southern kingdom of Judah, which Isaiah references as Zion (Isaiah 1:8,27,2:3). 

If we superimpose this historical composition to an end time scenario, then we can say that Jacob/Israel represents a type of people who are in some sense “believers,” but they have the idolatry problem and do not know or trust the God of Israel. This category may represent a neutral ground that needs to decide to go up to Jerusalem/Zion or be destroyed by those who belong to the Babylon category:

And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay upon him that smote them; but shall stay upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. (Isaiah 10:20).

Those who escape, historically, literally escape to Jerusalem, and spiritually, they can represent those who ascend to the category of Zion or the pure in heart (D&C 97:21).  

Avraham Gileadi’s groundbreaking work on the seven spiritual categories or levels in Isaiah has helped to develop a whole ascension theology from the book of Isaiah. These seven spiritual levels are, from top to bottom: 

• Jehovah the God Israel 
• Seraphs and angelic emissaries 
• Son/Daughters and Servants  
• Zion/Jerusalem 
• Jacob/Israel 
• Babylon 
• Perdition

Let’s explore each category.