Isaiah’s characterizations of persons and peoples who appear in his prophecy reveal seven distinct spiritual levels or categories of people. Forming a ladder to heaven from the lowest to the highest, they account for all of humanity. Examples of people’s spiritual rebirth or re-creation each time they ascend a level illustrate how ascent on the ladder to heaven occurs.
Forming a theological framework within which God’s children may ascend or descend the spiritual ladder are God’s covenants. Higher and lower covenants—each with its own laws or terms—determine a person’s ascent or descent. Rebirth or re-creation to a higher spiritual category occurs when a person keeps God’s law and word that pertain to a higher covenant.
A time of testing—a temporary descent into trials—precedes each ascent on the ladder to heaven. Ascent is accompanied by God’s endowing a person with greater spiritual power, a new name, and a divine commission to minister to others. Spiritual de-creation, on the other hand, or descent on the ladder, occurs when people do evil in God’s eyes and fail to repent.
(The Isaiah Institute Translation of the Book of Isaiah used below contains footnotes of textual anomalies not included here)