Jacob also called the place where he met God the gate of heaven (v. 17). Whatever he saw there pointed to heaven. It was a place on earth, but it was joined to heaven. Hence, he called it the gate of heaven. Whenever we have a spiritual vision, we sense that we are at the gate of heaven. We are on earth, but we see and experience the things of heaven.
Verse 18 says, "Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had made his pillow, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it" (Heb.). How peculiar it was that Jacob set up the stone for a pillar. If I had been he, I would never have done that with the stone. What is the meaning of this? It certainly corresponds to the whole revelation of the Bible. The most striking thing here is the anointing of the stone with oil. It was sovereign that the oil was there. Where did Jacob get it? Did he, an escapee, bring it with him when he fled from home? I do not know. According to my opinion, pouring oil upon the stone would only have caused a mess. But according to the Bible, this act is very significant. In the Bible, the stone undoubtedly signifies a transformed man, a lump of clay which has been transformed into a stone. In typology, the oil signifies the third Person of God reaching people. When God reaches you, He is the Spirit. Thus, the stone which was set up as a pillar and which had the oil poured upon it, is a symbol that the transformed man is one with the Triune God. Now the Triune God is not only in heaven but also on a transformed man and is one with this transformed man. This man is God's expression on earth. When you look at the stone, you see the oil. When you look at the transformed man standing on the earth, you see the expression of God. How did Jacob know to pour oil on the stone? Before chapter twenty-eight, there is no record of this type of action. Nevertheless, after waking up from his dream, Jacob did this.
After pouring oil upon the top of the pillar, Jacob "called the name of that place Bethel" (v. 19). Why did Jacob call the name of that place Bethel, the house of God? As he was anointing the pillar, he was under the anointing of the Spirit. That pillar represented himself, the transformed Jacob. I do not believe that at that time Jacob understood what he was doing. He was not as clear as we are today.
In John 1:51 the Lord Jesus said to Nathanael, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you shall see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man." The title the Son of Man indicates that God no longer is merely God but that He has become a man. This reveals that God is no longer just in the heavens but that He has become a man living on the earth. The ladder has been set up on earth because God has become a man. Before He was incarnated, He could not be called the Son of Man. When the Lord Jesus told Nathanael that he would see the angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man, Nathanael must have realized immediately that this was the fulfillment of Jacob's dream.
Jacob's dream is a revelation of Christ, for Christ as the ladder is the center, the focus, of this dream. Here with this heavenly ladder we have an open heaven, the transformed man, the anointing upon this man, and the building up of the house of God with this man. The church life today is the complete fulfillment of Jacob's dream because the church life is the gate of heaven, the place where the pillar and ladder are, and the place where the angels ascend to heaven bearing good news and descend to earth bringing something heavenly. Bethel is here in the church life. We are today's Bethel. In Genesis 28, both the place and the stone were called Bethel. The stone was not only called Bethel; it was made Bethel. Why was the place called Bethel? Because the Bethel stone was there. The church life is like this. We all need to see this marvelous dream.