Ladder to Heaven?

Galatians 4:4-5

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Ladders can be very useful. I saw my neighbor the other day using a ladder to put up his Christmas decorations. Have you ever imagined a type of spiritual ladder that you are climbing in order to get to heaven? Adolph Koberle once spoke of three different ladders that humans often imagine that they can use to climb to heaven and to get closer to God. There is the ladder of moralism, the ladder of mysticism and the ladder of rationalism. Let me explain.

The first ladder, moralism, is the ladder of the will. This is the thought that you might have that if I can have a good moral life, if I can do enough good works, I can climb my way up to God. God will look down at me and go, Oh, I have to let that person into heaven. They’re so good.

The second ladder, that of mysticism, this is the ladder of the emotion. This is the ladder of feelings. And this is the idea when we think that, well, if I can just get in the right emotional state, if I can just get worked up with my feelings, then maybe I will feel the presence of God.

The third ladder, rationalism, this is the ladder of the mind. This is when people think that they can climb a ladder to God if they can just think deeply enough about him, if they can just come up with the right philosophy or the right ideology, then I can climb and I can grasp God with my mind.

Now, the problem with all of these ladders is sin. Imagine you have a spiritual backpack on and in that backpack, all of your sins and all of your guilt from your failings before God. These things weigh us down. They make it impossible for us to climb any kind of ladder to heaven. In fact, they pull us in the exact opposite direction towards hell. This is why we rejoice at Christmas time. Galatians Chapter 4 verses 4 and 5 says

But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son to be born of a woman, so that he would be born under the law, in order to redeem those under the law, so that we would be adopted as sons. (Galatians 4:4-5)

The Son of God left the throne of heaven, and he came down to our earth. He assumed the humanity in the baby Jesus. There’s no ladder to climb. No, rather, God came down to us. Jesus was born under the law to fulfill what we couldn’t. And Jesus redeemed you and me at the cross. There Jesus took your backpack off of your back with all of its sin, all of its guilt, and he put that heavy backpack on himself. And he took all of the world’s backpacks and he put them on himself. And there he suffered and died with them in order to redeem you and the entire world of our sins.

The Lord demonstrated that he had accomplished this in his resurrection from the dead. And now you can know that you have heaven, not because you are climbing it, no, ladders don’t get us to heaven. Rather because Jesus climbed it already for you. He has accomplished everything. And heaven is yours through faith in Jesus. Amen.