The Angels of God
And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it!
GENESIS 28:12
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The Angels of God
[Christ] did all this for us. He descended into hell and ascended into heaven. This sight the angels enjoy forever in heaven, and this is what Christ means when He says (Matthew 18:10): "Their angels always behold the face of My Father who is in heaven." They look constantly at the divinity. And now they descend from heaven after He has been made man. Now they look upon Christ and wonder at the work of the incarnation. They see that He has been made man, humiliated, and placed on His mother's lap. They adore the man who was crucified and rejected, and they acknowledge Him as the Son of God. . .. Later there is another union—a union between us and Christ. . .. [Christ] says: "You in Me, and I in you" (John 14:20). This is the allegorical meaning of the ladder. But the allegory should nourish faith and not teach about our affairs or our works. Therefore we are carried along by faith and become one flesh with Him, as Christ says in John 17:21: "That they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us." In this way we ascend into Him and are carried along through the Word and the Holy Spirit. And through faith we cling to Him, since we become one body with Him and He with us. He is the Head; we are the members. On the other hand, He descends to us through the Word and the Sacraments by teaching and by exercising us in the knowledge of Him.
GENESIS 28:12
+
The Angels of God
[Christ] did all this for us. He descended into hell and ascended into heaven. This sight the angels enjoy forever in heaven, and this is what Christ means when He says (Matthew 18:10): "Their angels always behold the face of My Father who is in heaven." They look constantly at the divinity. And now they descend from heaven after He has been made man. Now they look upon Christ and wonder at the work of the incarnation. They see that He has been made man, humiliated, and placed on His mother's lap. They adore the man who was crucified and rejected, and they acknowledge Him as the Son of God. . .. Later there is another union—a union between us and Christ. . .. [Christ] says: "You in Me, and I in you" (John 14:20). This is the allegorical meaning of the ladder. But the allegory should nourish faith and not teach about our affairs or our works. Therefore we are carried along by faith and become one flesh with Him, as Christ says in John 17:21: "That they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us." In this way we ascend into Him and are carried along through the Word and the Holy Spirit. And through faith we cling to Him, since we become one body with Him and He with us. He is the Head; we are the members. On the other hand, He descends to us through the Word and the Sacraments by teaching and by exercising us in the knowledge of Him.
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