ASCENSION and DESCENSION

ASCENSION and DESCENSION
John 3:13
"No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.
The New Testament text here is talking about the ascension, and in this particular part it says that "No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man."

Also The Apostle Paul echoes this view in his letter to the Romans, writing that "Don't say in your heart 'Who will ascend into heaven?' (that is, to bring Christ down); or, 'Who will descend into the abyss?' (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead.)"
Who echoes who here it might be a question, as Paul wrote his letter to the Romans in the middle of the first century, meanwhile the Gospel of John was not around until the second century.

Nonetheless, it is a very strange statement for as we know that according to the Bible, beside Jesus, Patriarch Enoch and Elijah the prophet ascended to Heaven without any biblical doubt and it also looks like, when the Bible says that Moses was buried by the very hand of God and nobody had seen his grave but ever, it also should have meant that Moses ascended as well.

Even just having the first two proven cases, it means, that's not only Jesus, the Son of Man, ascended into heaven but others too, albeit the title of the Son of Man is a bit mysterious in itself, as well.
In the Hebrew Bible the term often contrasts foreign nations like Persia, Greece, Babylon, etc., which are often represented as animals in apocalyptic writings (like Bear, Leopard, Winged Lion, etc.), with Israel which is represented as human (a "son of man").

It is not that rare, the Cheyenne nation self designation, also means, human beings.
Some Bible texts depict a single person as the Son of Man like the Prophet Ezekiel, or they depict an eschatological human figure, like the one in the Book of Daniel.
As it is written in chapter seven, that he saw in the night-visions, that, "behold, there came with the clouds of the sky one like a son of man, and he came even to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. There was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed."

Most of the Bible verses, which mention the word descend, refer to humans entering the pit of the Sheol or the Netherworld. A few texts refer to God, as descending from Heaven. So in this case, in the Gospel of John, chapter three, the terms ascend and descend refer to the direction of a journey, to Heaven or from Heaven.

Ascension and Descension when they refer to Heaven as phenomenal events, they belong to each other. However, descending from Heaven or ascending to Heaven is different what we mean by descending from the skies aka space or ascending to the skies. The circumstances are not always very clear in the Bible, especially when it is obvious that the authors of the Bible copy pasted some Mesopotamian-Sumer-Babylonian myths, though in their retrofitted versions.

Also there are some cultures on Earth, which maintain that their ancestors came from the stars, and through millennia star people kept coming and visiting Earth.
It is in the very Book of Genesis, chapter six, when the narrative says that "It happened, when men began to multiply on the surface of the ground, and daughters were born to them, that God's sons saw that men's daughters were beautiful, and they took for themselves wives of all that they chose.”

Some bible scholars think, that the angels interbred with humans, however for that purposeful population booster, there would have been a need two biologically compatible species, or almost an all powerful bio-lab to solve DNA problems. Thus, implicating star people is more plausible.

The first pyramids, ever, had been built in ancient Sumeria, according to archaeology.  They were step pyramids, architectural structures that use flat platforms, or steps, receding from the ground up, to achieve a completed shape similar to a geometric pyramid, in Sumeria, always with a terrace or a shrine on the top.

The big ones had at least seven floors in receding tiers, having access by several ramps to the summit and its temple. The magnificent edifice was called the Hill of Heaven or the Mountain of the gods. On the stairs of the ramps people could ascend to the height and from the height they were able to descend to the ground.
This structure is mirrored in the Hebrew tradition which holds that heavens is tiered, and its structure has stratification. Just as The Apostle Paul wrote about himself in his second letter to the Corinthians that "I know a man in Christ, fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I don't know, or whether out of the body, I don't know; God knows), such a one caught up into the third heaven.”

The stepped access to Heaven is mirrored in the story of the ladder of Jacob, as he saw in his dream, that a miraculous ladder set up on the Earth; the top of it reaches to heaven with angels ascending and descending on it.
Jacob saw the angel of the Lord, representing God, was descending on the ladder from heaven. After his famous struggle with the angel the angel renamed him Israel.
Jacob called the place Bethel, which means the house of God, because he said to himself that "How dreadful is this place! This is none other than God's house, and this is the gate of heaven."

Jacob made a sacred pillar on the spot and took an oath that he will return to that place.

There are certainly sacred places on Earth, designated to worship, contemplation and prayers, but we have to assert that one of the most sacred place must be the human heart. That is why Jacob was named Israel, and wherever he went, he took his heart with him, and the ladder to Heaven went with him.

The human heart which carries the God given soul is a mysterious vehicle, which may carry great portions of Heaven in it, as it is written in the Gospel of John chapter one, when Jesus told Nathanael that: "Most assuredly, I tell you, hereafter you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."

In every human heart the ladder of Jacob is readily there. The ladder of ascension and descension, as the angels are using the spiritual highway to the human soul.
May we pray that our hearts become a solid ground for the ladder of Jacob, that our lives become a house for the Lord, and that our prayers be heard in Heaven.
AMEN