Is Your Life Defined By A Ladder Or A Cross?

TULLIAN TCHIVIDJIAN|7:39 AM CT

Believe it or not, the familiar story of the Tower of Babel teaches us more than we ever thought about the nature of sin, God’s grace, and the reality of descending one-way love. It’s the entire message of the Bible in a nutshell:

There are things in life that can tell us what kind of person you are: chunky peanut butter, or smooth? Regular cola, or diet? It seems to me that the same is true when it comes to reading the Bible. Do you read the Bible as a helpful tool in your climb up toward moral betterment or as the story of God coming down to broken, sinful people?

In a very real way, our lives are defined by how we answer that question. Specifically, our lives are defined either by a cross or by a ladder. The ladder symbolizes our ascension—our effort to “go up.” The cross symbolizes God’s descension—his coming down.

There is no better story in the Old Testament, or perhaps the whole Bible, for depicting the difference between the ladder-defined life and the cross-defined life than that of the Tower of Babel.

Read the rest here.