When Heaven’s Ladder Refused a Middleman

How Yeshua dismantles religious hierarchy and the kingdoms we build in His Name

I can’t read Matthew 4 the same way anymore.

Not because the temptation scene is unfamiliar — but because of what the adversary was really after. In Hebrew thought, ha-satan is “the adversary” — an opposing role, the one who resists, accuses, and stands in the way. And that’s exactly what’s happening on that mountain.

He wasn’t trying to get Yeshua to sin just for the sake of sin. He was reaching for a role. A place. A position.

He wanted to wedge himself between the Son and the Father.

“All these I will give You, if You will fall down and worship me.”

If Yeshua bowed — even for a breath — the adversary becomes the hinge. The access point. The broker of blessing. The one who stands in the middle between God and man.

A counterfeit mediator.

A spiritual third party.

A middleman in a universe where that role does not belong to him or to any other created being.

Yeshua doesn’t negotiate. He detonates the entire idea with one line:

“You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him alone shall you serve.”

God alone.

No intermediaries.

No spiritual middle-management.

Yeshua: The Only “Mediator” Who Isn’t a Middleman

Scripture does mention a mediator — but not the way religion imagines it.

“For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Messiah Yeshua.” (1 Timothy 2:5)

He’s not a hired go-between.

He is the God-Man — one with the Father, bearing His nature, revealing His heart.

He doesn’t block access to the Father.

He is the access:

“No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)

That’s not God tightening the rules.

That’s God revealing the reality:

The only One who bridges the gap is the One who is God and stepped into flesh.

God did not subcontract reconciliation.

God Himself came near.

“You Don’t Need Another Rabbi”

Later, in Matthew 23, Yeshua goes after the human version of the same problem — the religious system that loved titles, hierarchy, and spiritual dependency.

“You are not to be called Rabbi, for One is your Teacher, the Messiah, and you are all brothers.

Do not call anyone on earth your father, for One is your Father, He who is in heaven.

Do not be called leaders, for One is your Leader, that is, Messiah.” (Matthew 23:8–10)

He’s not nitpicking what people put on business cards.

He’s attacking the underlying assumption:

that some humans should occupy a higher spiritual tier that everyone else must go through.

Teacher? Yes.

Shepherd? Yes.

Servant-leader? Yes.

But none of them as mediators.

The moment a man becomes the functional way to God — the validator, the interpreter, the gatekeeper — he has stepped into the logic of the adversary:

“Come through me.”

“Bow here.”

“I’m the hinge.”

Hebrews and the Priesthood We Keep Trying to Resurrect

Hebrews tells us Yeshua, our High Priest, entered the heavenly Holy of Holies once for all (Hebrews 9:11–12). He went in with His own blood, secured eternal redemption, and sat down at the right hand of Majesty.

Once.

For all.

Finished.

Yet we keep resurrecting priesthoods in new clothing:

• celebrity pastors

• “apostolic coverings”

• personality-driven movements

• denominational identities that override Scripture

• spiritual “fathers” whose word is treated as final

We claim all of it is “for the Kingdom,”

but the structure quietly trains people to believe:

• I hear God mainly through this leader.

• I understand Scripture because of this one teacher.

• I’m safe as long as I’m under this person or brand.

That isn’t the pattern of Hebrews.

It’s the pattern of Israel in 1 Samuel 8:

“Now appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations.” (1 Samuel 8:5)

They had God as King.

They wanted something visible, controllable, predictable.

We’re no different.

God offers direct access through the God-Man — and we say, “That’s great, but can You also give us a system and a man to center all this around?”

Kingdoms Built in His Name

You know this already, but let’s say it plainly:

Much of what we call “organized religion” runs on the assumption that people need a professional Christian to connect them to God.

It’s why ministries are built around one name.

It’s why churches lose their identity the second one man retires or falls.

It’s why believers feel spiritually lost if they leave a particular movement.

We’ve replaced the priesthood of all believers with a stage, a brand, and a chain of command. And we pretend it’s the same thing.

Here’s the reality:

If your ministry collapses when you remove one personality, it was never centered on the God-Man.

It was centered on a man.

Yeshua stripped the adversary of any right to stand between us and God.

He did not hand that right to religious professionals instead.

A First-Hand Faith, Not a Second-Hand System

Matthew 4 and Matthew 23 are telling the same story from two angles.

On the mountain, the adversary tries to become the mediator.

In the religious system, humans try to become the mediators.

Yeshua rejects both.

He offers something simpler and more terrifying:

a first-hand faith.

No borrowed conviction.

No filtered relationship.

No “I belong to God because I belong to this man’s ministry.”

Just this:

The living God, revealed in the God-Man, inviting you into covenant — directly.

A Challenge to the Modern Pastor

So let’s talk straight to the ones in pulpits.

You say you’re leading a church.

Fine. Then lead — don’t mediate.

If Yeshua meant it when He said, “One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers,” then you have a decision to make.

Now what do you do, modern pastor?

Do you protect your platform as the primary voice?

Do you keep the congregation dependent on your weekly download?

Do you preserve a structure where all meaning, guidance, and “word from the Lord” must come through you?

Or do you imitate the God-Man you claim to follow — and reject the role the adversary reached for on that mountain?

How about elevating the voices no one expects?

• The man with no seminary degree but a backbone of prayer.

• The single mom who has learned trust in the dark.

• The teenager who just discovered that grace isn’t cheap.

• The old saint in the back row who has quietly walked with God for forty years.

How about letting them speak to the family — not as performers, but as brothers and sisters?

How about creating space where ordinary believers share what God is doing, what He’s teaching them from Scripture, how He’s confronting them — in their own words?

How about being the one who lifts up instead of stands between?

Because the moment you believe the congregation needs you as their access point, you have stepped into the adversary’s logic, just with better lighting and nice sound equipment.

So here it is, without polish:

Use your influence to give it away.

Use your authority to decentralize it.

Use your position to make yourself unnecessary.

Be a shepherd who walks among the sheep,

not a middleman who blocks the gate.

That’s leadership in the Kingdom.

Everything else is just another man-made kingdom standing on a borrowed mountain.

Don’t Take My Word for Any of This

If you’ve read this far, don’t walk away repeating my phrases.

Go argue with the text.

Open Matthew 4.

Sit in Matthew 23.

Read Hebrews 4–10 slowly.

Chew on 1 Timothy 2:5 until it either offends you or changes you.

Don’t let my voice become another layer between you and the Scriptures.

Let the Word itself confront you.

Let the God-Man, not a writer on a screen, tell you who really gets to stand in the middle.

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May the shalom of our Abba guard you —

shalom v’shalvah.

Your brother in the Way,

Sergio