So often we feel that our naked and exposed position before the Father is one in which we stand alone, with the singular hope that we’ll be accepted, but acutely aware of our sin now glaring in contrast to the holiness of God.

The prophet Isaiah was given a vision by God, probably at the beginning of his ministry. The vision is of the Lord sitting on the throne. When Isaiah sees Him, he cries out, “woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts.” (Isaiah 6:5) Isaiah was responding out of a place of deep grief, to the contrast between God’s holiness and the sin of man.

Another prophet of God, Moses, when he was asked by God what he desired, asked to see God’s glory. God replied that if Moses was able to look upon His face, the full radiance of God’s glory would kill him. God said, “You cannot see my face; for no man shall see me, and live.” (Exodus 33:22). Sin cannot be in the presence of God. God’s holiness is so unapproachable from those who have sin that it places anyone who has it in mortal danger if they enter His presence, because God’s righteous nature compels Him to bring judgement against sin. If sin enters His presence and He is not executing judgement, He isn’t being true to His character.

In Isaiah’s vision, he sees Jesus seated on the throne.

The author of Hebrews in chapter 1:1-3 tells us, “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds (John 1:1); 3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” There have been no more prophets since Jesus because Jesus resolved man’s sin problem before God through His blood on the cross. He, alone, became the penal substitutionary atonement. Christ died on the cross as a substitute for sinners. God imputed the guilt of our sins to Christ, and he, in our place, bore the punishment that we deserve. This was a full payment for sins, which satisfied both the wrath and the righteousness of God, so that He could forgive sinners without compromising His own holy standard. We can be in the presence of God only as long as we’ve been washed by the blood of Jesus.

In the last verse of John 1, Jesus reveals an intimate element of his role to us through His reply to Nathanael. In verses 50-51, “Jesus answered and said to 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, thereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” The reply that Jesus gives Nathanael should have sparked an image for him of the Old Testament character, Jacob.

Jacob (deceiver or trickster), the one to whom the reference to Nathanael was first made, was a twin. He was the younger twin and when his father, Isaac, was old and intending to bless the older son as was customary for this time, Jacob tricked their father into giving him the blessing, and bribed Esau with a bowl of stew in exchange for the birthright. When it was discovered what Jacob had done Esau threatened to kill him. Their mother, Rebekah, tells him to flee. As Jacob is about to leave the land of his fathers he probably is wondering, human nature would have us worrying, that once we’re out of the right jurisdiction that God will no longer be with us. God blesses Jacob with a dream that assures him that God is not confined to the boundaries of men. In Genesis 28:10-16, Moses records, “Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran. 11 So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. 12 Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 And behold, the LORD God stood above it and said, “I am the LORD God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. 14 Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. 15 Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.” 16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.”

In Jacob’s dream, the ladder reflected God’s promise to be with Jacob and to minister to him by way of angels. When he woke, his worries that God was no longer with him were assuaged, and he says, ‘and yet, I did not know it.’ Jacob hadn’t realized how close God could be to him in his life on earth. God was capable and willing of descending from heaven and reaching down to earth. God did so through intercessors, angels appointed to minister to the saints. But, also in that dream was a picture of Christ himself.

Jesus is the intercessor Who came to earth to reveal the Father to men and to make a way for men to enter Heaven. In verse 51, Jesus repaints the picture of this image from angels ascending and descending on the ladder to ascending and descending on the Son of Man: on Jesus. Jesus tells Nathanael you will see in full what Jacob saw in limited form.

Wrapping up this first week of advent, Jesus is the light and life by which all was created. He is the payment by which the way of entry into God’s presence was made. And He is the intercession between God and man, through which God has fully revealed Himself to us. Spend the weekend reflecting and meditating on these intimate truths, remembering that there is nowhere you are hidden from God’s presence, nowhere He can’t reach you. From beneath the figs He sees you and His desire is for you. Abide in His mercy, grace, and forgiveness through His son, Jesus Christ, today.