The life of abraham chapter 11

Genesis 22

Abraham Tested *See Appendix A

1 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied.

1. An example of a simple, direct contradiction that does not involve figures or numbers occurs in James 1:13, which says that God tempts no man, while Genesis 22:1 says God tempted Abraham. The standard answer to this apparent contradiction is, “An understanding of the meaning of the word `tempt' will dispel the seeming contradiction. This word is used in a good sense and in a bad sense. When it's used in a good sense it means to test, to try, to prove. God tested Abraham.... When the word `tempt' is used in a bad sense it means to entice a person to do evil. God never tempts man to sin.” The goals of the two words are complete opposites. The goal of temptation is to lead a person away from God and his will. It is designed to persuade a person to defy God’s will. Testing, on the other hand, is designed to bring one into conformity to God’s will. The goal of a test is to see if God’s will is supreme in a person’s life so they will choose obedience to God over any alternative. It would be folly for God to tempt anyone so that they would do what he does not will or want. Meyer put it, “Satan tempts us that he may bring out the evil that is in our hearts; God tries or tests us that He may bring out all the good.”

2. Someone wrote, “You never know when God’s supreme test may come in your life. Perhaps it will be at some momentous crossroads in your youth. Or maybe it will be later, in the days of heavy responsibility, the prime of life. Or it could be in the declining years when you are growing old. It just could be. That’s how it was with Abraham.” Meyer stresses how out of the blue this test came upon Abraham. It was such a radical change from the picture we have at the end of the last chapter. He writes, “As we have seen, life was flowing smoothly with the patriarch, -- courted by Abimelech; secure of his wells; gladdened with the presence of Isaac; the everlasting God his friend. "Ah, happy man," we might well have exclaimed, "thou hast entered upon thy land of Beulah; thy sun shall no more go down, nor thy moon withdraw itself; before thee lie the sunlit years, in an unbroken chain of blessing." But this was not to be. And just at that moment, like a bolt out of a clear sky, there burst upon him the severest trial of his life. It is not often that the express trains of heaven are announced by warning bell, or falling signal; they dash suddenly into the station of the soul. It becomes us to be ever on the alert; for at such an hour and in such a guise as we think not, the Son of Man comes.”

3. Some people like tests, for they reveal a reality that they are proud of. The test shows they are smarter than most, for they get A's. The test reveals that they are faster than all the other runners. It reveals they can run the greatest distance, or they can lift the heaviest weight, or eat the most hot dogs in three minutes. There is no end to tests that reveal someone is superior in some way to the majority of people, and those who win such tests of knowledge, strength and endurance are happy with the test. The majority who lose are not so happy, and in fact, they dread the test that shows how far they are from the best. The test reveals the best, but the rest feel that the text is a pest. So the majority of people do not like to be tested. Unfortunately testing is a part of life that we cannot escape. It is not only a part of education, but it is part of the plan of God to keep his people on their toes so they do not fall for the clever temptations of the devil. God never tempts, for temptation is an appeal to do what is evil and sinful, but God does test, which is an appeal to choose what is good and right over what is evil and sinful. In other words, the testing of God is just the opposite of Satan's tempting. A temptation is to do wrong, but a test is to do right. It can get confusing because they can both be a part of the same event. For example, "If someone says `let us go after other gods,' which you have not known, and `let us serve them,' you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul." (Deuteronomy 13:3). We see that God allows the tempting, but does so not to tempt, but to test their love. The tempting is the goal of the false prophets to lead Israel into idolatry, but the testing is the goal of God to see if they love him as the only true God. Tempting and testing are happening at the same time. This is what we see in the testing of Abraham that follows. He is both tempted to do what is evil in killing his son, and tested to see if he is willing to sacrifice what he loves most in obedience to God.

4. Pastor Herb Koonce has some interesting things to say about tests that relate to this chapter. I have modified it to make it shorter and just give the highlights. It can be developed into an excellent message on this text. He writes, "A FAITH THAT CANNOT BE TESTED - CANNOT BE TRUSTED." He asks, "HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO RIDE A PLANE THAT HAS NEVER BEEN FLOWN/TESTED? A women facing surgery was nervous and said, "DOC, I'M NERVOUS THIS IS MY

1ST SURGERY." -- "I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL. THIS IS MINE TOO."-devil - TEMPTS US TO DO WRONG IN ORDER TO STUMBLE.-GOD - TEMPTS US TO DO RIGHT IN ORDER TO STAND.--ABRAHAM WAS IN DANGER OF LOVING THE SON MORE THAN THE FATHER.---OF LOVING THE GIFT MORE THAN THE GIVER.---OF LOVING THE PROMISE MORE THAN THE PROMISER.

* IF THERE IS ANYTHING YOU LOVE MORE THAN GOD - YOUWILL HEAR HIM SAY, "TAKE THAT MINISTRY TO MT. MORIAH - OFFER IT THERE. --TAKE THAT TREASURE, ETC..'* DO YOU HAVE FAITH ENOUGH TO DO THAT?

FAITH IS TESTED BY THE DEPTH OF ITS DEVOTION, FAITH IS MEASURED BY THE HEIGHT OF ITS OBEDIENCE,FAITH IS TESTED BY THE LENGTH OF ITS SACRIFICE.FAITH IS TESTED BY THE WIDENESS OF ITS CONFIDENCE. HEB.11:17

READ HEB. 11:17:DOESN'T SAY HE DELIGHTED IN IT, BUT WILLINGLY DID IT.

--ABRAHAM WAS SACRIFICING HIS JOY. --ABRAHAM WAS SACRIFICING HIS FUTURE (DESCENDENTS THRU SON; ALL NATIONS BLESSED THRU IS.) --ABRAHAM WS SACRIFICING HIS FAMILY. --WHAT WOULD HE TELL SARAH? --WHAT WOULD HE TELL ISAAC? - `WHERE IS THE LAMB?'

--WHAT WOULD HE TELL OTHERS?

5. Rev. Bruce Goettsche gives us an idea of why God wants to test Abraham.

"The reason for God's times of testing is to keep us focused. Even the best of us forget where we are going. I think that was the danger with Abraham. He was so satisfied with Isaac and the sweetness of knowing God's promise fulfilled, that he forgot that the real goal was not Isaac, but the Lord. How common this is in our lives. We experience the blessing of the Lord and become satisfied in the blessing instead of in the one who is doing the blessing. When times are good we often find that our spiritual life grows stale. Our prayer loses intensity, our Bible study becomes sporadic, our worship become optional, and our giving becomes superficial. The times of testing wake us up from our spiritual coma. God wants us to continue to strive for holiness. He wants us to hunger for a relationship with Him and not just for the blessings He gives. He wants us to seek His "Well Done" rather than the applause of men. He wants us to seek holiness, not just comfort. He wants us to pursue joy and not just a good time. God is not satisfied to have our gratitude . . . He wants our love. So times of testing often come to get us back on track."

6. Chris Robinson has so excellent words to explain the reasons for God's testing:

"Through this chapter, God shows his faithful love in two ways; one more obvious, and one less so. Firstly, the less obvious. It may strike you as very peculiar that God would put his beloved children up against such a test as this. Let me quickly dispense with the peculiarity. Many years hence, when the Israelites are in the wilderness, God frequently “tests” the people. For example, speaking of the manna He will provide, God says “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My instruction.”ex16.4

Moses later reminds the people, “And you shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.”Dt8:2 But what was the purpose of this testing? Listen again to Moses: “In the wilderness He fed you manna which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do good for you in the end. Otherwise, you may say in your heart, ‘My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.’”8:16

You see, God purposes to do His people good by testing them. Such testing brings us to rely more and more upon Christ… realizing more and more that He has provided for our every need. Such testing proves that our presumed non-negotiables are really quite impotent to save us; only Christ will remain when the heavens and earth perish.he2.11 Isaac was Abraham’s last non-negotiable; God’s testing brought Abraham to the point where he was willing to give up his son because he believed God would provide. In fact, the writer to the Hebrews tells us, “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, ‘In Isaac your seed shall be called,’ concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.”11.17

Now you see why James says, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”1:2 Let us never forget that our High Priest, Jesus Christ Himself, was in all points tested as we are, yet without sin.heb4.15 It was through the things which He suffered that He grew in obedience.5.8 That is, the scope of His perfectly fulfilling the law in our behalf grew, through the testing which He suffered. Testing is one of God’s most glorious ways of loving us."

7. "I believe that God did not so much test Abraham, as he taught Abraham. Prior to Abraham it was quite common for the nomadic pre cursers to the Israelites to sacrifice human beings to appease their gods. By asking Abraham for the sacrifice of his son, and then at the last minute staying Abraham’s hand, God was letting the pre-Israelites know that first he was a god of mercy, and secondly, they could honor him through a substitution sacrifice, that they would no longer need to spill innocent human blood to appease him, if indeed they ever needed to in the first place. In the end, I think most of the OT must be viewed as an education period for humanity, just as we teach our children sometimes through dramatic and overstated gestures so did God teach early man object lessons about his desires for how they should conduct themselves. Like a good father, God provided an object lesson to his children that was dramatic enough to be eternally remembered, and universally incorporated."

8. Kierkegaard wrote Fear And Trembling about this text, and he dealt with it as a case of the "teleological suspension of the ethical", that is, the suspension of the moral law for the sake of a higher law. Kierkegaard cites Genesis, where Abraham is commanded by God to kill his son Isaac. Although God must be obeyed, murder

is immoral (it is not technically against the Mosaic law since it had not yet been delivered—but no matter, it is against our conscience). The ethical is thus suspended for a higher goal (telos)."

2 Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about."

1. This is one of, if not the most, disturbing passages in the Bible. It has caused more difficulty in trying to explain it than any other text. Some profess to understand it perfectly, however. One author writes of jus such a person. "Her name was Phyllis and she was a mother of three teen-aged boys, 13,15, and 17. We had just completed a Bible study on this 22nd chapter of Genesis when she said to me. "You know I could never understand how Abraham could have agreed to sacrifice his son Isaac; until you mentioned that Isaac was probably a teenager at the time. Now, I

understand!" In the following paragraphs I will quote what I think is the best thinking in dealing with this difficult passage. There is much here because it takes a lot of thinking to make sense of this command.

2. Rev. Susan M. Craig writes, "And it was in just that setting, while at lunch one day, that I mentioned to a longtime friend that I would soon be preaching on the story of Abraham and Isaac, the story in which God commands Abraham to go and offer Isaac as a sacrifice. Given the proclivity and reliability of my friend to voice her opinions, I was curious as to her take on this story. In fact I thought that by asking I was going to be giving my sermon preparation a head start. Well, predictably she had an opinion - but not an opinion anywhere close to that which I had been expecting. Without hesitation, she turned to me and said, “You know, that is perhaps my least favorite story in the Bible. I say that because I have real trouble liking, much less loving, a God who would ask a parent to do such a thing.” To say the least, her comment was a real conversation stopper - but it has also served since then as a real thought provoker."

She goes on to write, "I don’t think I can imagine what it must have been like to be inside Abraham’s skin. What did he say to Sarah as he was leaving? - anything? And mustn’t he have died a thousand deaths on the way with Isaac, his beloved son, as they spoke and traveled together to Moriah. Yet we should also remember, Abraham knew that God had always been faithful to the promises made at his call. For some crazy reason, this command to sacrifice Isaac and God’s promise of Abraham fathering nations in the future didn’t add up. Not unlike Sarah’s situation, things seemed impossible - and unthinkable. So Abraham went forward."

3. Pastor Craig's thoughts stimulated my thinking along the line of paradox, for the ability to live with paradox was the key to Abraham's faith and motivation to move forward in doing something he hated, yet felt compelled to do in obedience to God. He was able to believe that God would keep his promise to make a great nation through his son, and he was able to believe that God was asking him to kill this son, and this is a paradoxical situation, for these two things are a contradiction to each other. Yet both can be true, for God has spoken both. He could have let Isaac die and then raise him from the dead just as Jesus let Lazarus die and then raise him from the dead. But God could also stop him before he killed his son, which he did. Abraham did not know which way God would both fulfill his promise of a multitude, and take the life of his son by which he would have to fulfill that promise. It was a paradox, but he believed the unbelievable, and that God could do the impossible and bring the paradox to a meaningful conclusion one way or another, and that is faith in the highest degree. It is when things don't make sense and you still obey God that you reach the high point in the land of faith. The Bible and theology are full of paradoxes that are often hard to figure out, but people who believe the Word of God believe both sides of these mysteries because God has clearly spoken both of them. For in-depth study of paradoxes in the Bible go to http://glennpease.250free.com/html/free_books.html and look for Bible Paradoxes and Paradoxes of Paul

4. F. B. Meyer also stresses Abraham's struggle with paradox: “Nothing else in the circumference of his life could have been such a test as anything connected with the heir of promise, the child of his old age, the laughter of his life. Isaac was the child of promise. "In Isaac shall thy seed be called." With reiterated emphasis this lad had been indicated as the one essential link between the aged pair and the vast posterity, which was promised them. And now the father was asked to sacrifice his life. It was a tremendous test to his faith. How could God keep His word, and let Isaac die? It was utterly inexplicable to human thought. If Isaac had been old enough to have a son who could perpetuate the seed to future generations, the difficulty would have been removed. But how could the childless Isaac die; and still the promise stand of a posterity through him, innumerable as stars and sand? One thought, however, as the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us, filled the old man's mind, "GOD IS ABLE." He "accounted that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead" (Hebrews 11:19). He felt sure that somehow God would keep His word. It was not for him to reason how, but simply to obey. He had already seen Divine power giving life where all was as good as dead; why should it not do it again? In any case he must go straight on, doing as he was told, and calculating on the unexhausted stores in the secret hand of God. Oh for faith like this! -- Simply to believe what God says; assured that God will do just what He has promised; looking without alarm, from circumstances that threaten to make the fulfillment impossible, to the bare word of God's unswerving truthfulness.”

5. "Moriah" is identified in 2 Chronicles 3:1 as the place where God had halted the plague upon Jerusalem and where subsequently Solomon had built the temple, the first indication that what follows is, indeed, a picture of the sacrifice that Abraham's seed -- not Isaac, but Jesus Christ -- would offer for the salvation of God's people.

Stedman gives us these facts: "Mount Moriah is the very place where in later years King David bought the threshing floor of Ornan as a place for the site of the temple, (1 Chr 21:18). On that very place where Abraham offered Isaac, the temple of Solomon was built, (2 Chr 3:1). Today there stands in that very place the Dome of the Rock, a Moslem mosque, built over the great rock that formed the altar upon which Abraham offered Isaac. It is from this rock that the Mohammedans believe Mohammed and his horse ascended to heaven. So it is a very historic spot."

6. Paul Tucker wrote, "Abraham didn’t understand that God was keeping him on

the cutting edge of his faith. God wasn’t interested in him killing his son. God simply wanted Abraham to stay out of the box of his faith, even when he didn’t understand. That simple act of faith by Abraham is what marked him as righteous -- as one who could continue to be used by God to bring hope and life to the world." Pink adds to this thought, "The spiritual history of Abraham was marked by four great crises, each of which involved the surrender of something which was naturally

dear to him. First, he was called on to separate himself from his native land and kindred (Gen. 12:1); Second, he was called on to give up Lot (Gen. 13:1-18); Third, he had to abandon his cherished plan about Ishmael (Gen. 17:17, 18); Fourth, God bade him offer up Isaac as a burnt offering. The life of the believer is a series of tests, for only by discipline can Christian character be developed. Frequently there is one supreme test, in view of which all others are preparatory. So it was with Abraham. He had been tested again and again, but never as here. God’s demand is, "Son, give Me thine heart (Prov. 23:26). It is not our intellect, our talents, our money, but our heart, God asks for first."

7. Everyone has to struggle to make sense of this command of God, and one of the best who deal with it is Ken Gehrels who writes, "It's the sort of thing that makes every sane parent shudder. A report comes over the radio of someone who has mistreated, neglected, or murdered his or her own child. We are revolted by such incidents and cannot even begin to comprehend how someone can do that to their own flesh and blood. Then we come to Genesis 22. God calls out of the blue for Abraham to engage in precisely that kind of an act. Shocking, heart stopping, a revolting outrage. What on earth is happening in this bizarre passage of scripture? Try to imagine what it must have been like for Abraham. Close your eyes and put yourself in his shoes for a moment. Twice his wife had been ripped away from his grasp; his nephew had separated from him; he had engaged in warfare to rescue Lotwhen he was taken hostage, risking his own life in the process; famine had driven him out of Canaan, the land God had promised to him; After many years of being childless he gets a son, Ishmael, but because of family tensions he is forced to send that precious boy away into the desert. All he had left was Isaac. But at least he had Isaac and God's promise that through Isaac, Abraham's family would become a source of blessing for the entire world.

Now, as he was in the twilight of life, growing old, it seemed as if he were finally getting a few years of peace and contentment. Finally he would be able to relax a little and enjoy life. But it wasn't to be. He no sooner is resting than he is, so to

speak, hammered again. It is not enough that God merely announces the death of his precious and only remaining son, the son in whom his whole future is contained. God also demands that Abraham be the executioner. God, as it were, had to take Abraham, turn him upside down, and shake every last nickel of self-reliance and self- determination and self-ambition out of his pockets. He is now out of tricks. There are no resources left. The bank is broke. He has to literally tear Isaac out of Abraham's grasp before he can give the little boy back again. And when he does, things are never the same.

This is not, first of all, a story about Isaac's close call. It is not the story of a God cruelly toying with one of his subjects. It is, in every way, the story of the death of Abraham's reliance on his own wisdom and cunning and strength to make his way forward in life. It is the story of the tempering of the faith of the Father of all believers. Abraham passes the test. We know Abraham got the message by the name he gave to that place: "The Lord will provide."

8. "Perhaps Abraham had lately witnessed these rites; and as he did so, he had thought of Isaac, and wondered if he could do the same with him; and marveled why such a sacrifice had never been demanded at his hands. And it did not, therefore, startle him when God said, "Take now thy son, and offer him up." He was to learn that whilst God demanded as much love as ever the heathen gave their cruel and imaginary deities, yet Heaven would not permit of human sacrifices or of offered sons. A Greater Sacrifice was to be made to put away sin. Abraham's obedience was, therefore, allowed to go up to a certain point, and then peremptorily stayed -- that in all future time men might know that God would not demand, or permit, or accept human blood at their hands, much less the blood of a bright and noble lad; and that in such things He could have no delight.

You can imagine how that boy was the apple of his eye, the darling of his affections. All his heart strings were tangled up in the life of that precious Isaac.” Offer him! Sacrifice him! Kill Isaac! Strangely, the narrative tells us nothing about what went on in Abraham’s heart and mind in that moment. That’s a part of Scripture’s wondrous restraint. It makes the scene all the more poignant for us. No one can really imagine what this father went through. To obey that word was not only to give up the boy upon whom his hopes were centered - that would have been crushing enough. But to do it with his own hand, to offer him as a sacrifice, a burnt offering of love and gratitude to God—that was far more painful. Has anyone else ever been tested like that?”

9. I like the way this author describes what God is doing. "Abraham believed because, like he was used to doing earlier in the story, he could now control the promise. Except now God came to him and said, "I want it all back. I want you to take this child that I gave you and I want you to give him back." God called Abraham to go to a mountain he would show him, and offer up the child as a sacrifice. Abraham had once before been called to go to a place where God would show him. But that time it was for the purpose of embracing the promise. This time, the unknown journey to which God had called him was for the purpose of letting go

of the promise. Abraham had been willing to do that so many times in the past on his own terms because he could not see God’s possibilities. And now that he could hold the possibilities in his hands, God called him to let it go. God simply would not let Abraham live the promise on his own terms!"

10. Bob Deffinbaugh deals with this issue in a way that is hard to match, and so I quote him at length. He writes, "We are forced to the conclusion that the sacrifice of Isaac could not have been wrong, whether only attempted or accomplished, because God is incapable of evil (James 1:13ff; I John 1:5). Much more than this, it could notbe wrong to sacrifice an only son because God actually did sacrifice His only begotten Son:

All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us have turned to his own way; But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand (Isaiah 53:6,10).

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16; cf. Matthew 26:39,42; Luke 22:22; John 3:17; Acts 2:23; II Corinthians 5:21; Revelation 13:8).

In this sense, God did not require Abraham to do anything that He Himself would not do. Indeed, the command to Abraham was intended to foreshadow what He would do centuries later on the cross of Calvary.

Only by understanding the typological significance of the “sacrifice of Isaac” can we grasp the fact that God’s command was holy and just and pure. Abraham’s willingness to give up his only son humanly illustrated the love of God for man, which caused Him to give His only begotten Son. The agony of heart experienced by Abraham reflected the heart of the Father at the suffering of His Son. The obedience of Isaac typified the submission of the Son to the will of the Father (cf. Matthew 26:39,42).

God halted the sacrifice of Isaac for two reasons. First, such a sacrifice would have no benefit for others. The lamb must be “without blemish,” without sin, innocent (cf. Isaiah 53:9). This is the truth, which Micah implied (6:7). Second, Abraham’s faith was amply evidenced by the fact that he was fully intending to carry out the will of God. We have no question in our mind that had God not intervened, Isaac would have been sacrificed. In attitude Isaac had already been sacrificed, so the act was unnecessary.

A second difficulty pertains to the silence of Abraham. One of my friends put it well: “How come Abraham interceded with God for Sodom, but not for his son Isaac?” We must remember that the Scriptures are selective in what they report; choosing to omit what is not essential to the development of the argument of the passage (cf. John 20:30-31; 21:25). In this chapter of Genesis, for example, we know that God was to indicate the particular place to “sacrifice” Isaac (verse 2) and that

Abraham went to this spot (verse 9), but we are not told when God revealed this to him.

I believe that Moses, under the superintending guidance of the Holy Spirit, omitted Abraham’s initial reaction to God’s command in order to highlight his ultimate response—obedience. Personally (although there is no Scripture to support my conjecture), I believe that Abraham argued and pled with God for the life of his son, but God chose not to record this point in Abraham’s life because it would have had little to inspire us. I know that many of us would not want God to report our first reactions to unpleasant situations either; it is our final response that matters (cf. Matthew 21:28-31).

This helps me as I read the evaluation of Old Testament saints in the New Testament. Except for the words of Peter I would never have considered Lot to be a righteous man (II Peter 2:7-8). In Hebrews 11 and Romans 4 Abraham is portrayed as a man without failure or fault, yet the book of Genesis clearly reports these weaknesses. The reason, I believe, is that the New Testament writers are viewing these saints as God does. Because of Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross of Calvary, the sins of the saints are not only forgiven but also forgotten. The wood, hay, and stubble of sin are consumed, leaving only the gold, silver, and precious stones (I Corinthians 3:10-15). The sins of the saints are not glossed over; they are covered by the blood of Christ. When these sins are recorded, it is only for our admonition and instruction (I Corinthians 10:1ff, especially verse 11).

11. Don Fortner writes, "This is one of the great chapters of the Bible. Here, for the first time, God shows us, in a vivid picture, the necessity of a human sacrifice for the ransom of our souls. Because it was a man who brought sin into the world, sin must be removed by a man. Because man had sinned, a man must suffer the wrath of God and die. The blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin. But the Man, Christ Jesus, "after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right

hand of God...For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified" (Heb. 10:4, 12, 14)." The paradox is that human sacrifice was forbidden, and yet it was required for our salvation. The difference is that Jesus laid down his life voluntarily, and he was the only human ever to have lived that was a sinless sacrifice and thus able to atone for the sins of the world. He was the one exception that justified his human sacrifice, for it was the only way for God to have a plan of salvation.

12.Pink wrote, "Here it was that God first revealed the necessity for a human victim to expiate sin, for as it was man that had sinned, it must be by man, and not by sacrifice of beasts, that Divine justice would be satisfied." But just to show how

contrary this command is to all that the Bible says about human sacrifice Glenn Miller has compiled this list of texts that condemn such a thing and reveal how God hates it. The value of seeing all of this is, it makes you realize that God never had any intention of letting it happen, but he had to know if Abraham was willing to go this far in obedience to him. There was nothing greater that he could demand to test him to the limit.

The Gen 22.12 passage on Abraham actually does NOT make any such demand to avoid human sacrifice. We tend to see that as some of the INTENT of the passage, but we have no textual clues to base that on.

Lev 18.21: "Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must

not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD. NOTE: the victim in this case is 'children'.

Lev 20.2-5: The LORD said to Moses, 2 "Say to the Israelites: `Any Israelite or any alien living in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech must be put to death. The people of the community are to stone him. 3 I will set my face against that man and I will cut him off from his people; for by giving his children to Molech, he has defiled my sanctuary and profaned my holy name. 4 If the people of the community close their eyes when that man gives one of his children to Molech and they fail to put him to death, 5 I will set my face against that man and his family and will cut off from their

people both him and all who follow him in prostituting themselves to Molech. NOTE: the victim in this case is 'children'.

2 Kings 23.10: He desecrated Topheth, which was in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so no

one could use it to sacrifice his son or daughter in the fire to Molech. NOTE: the victim in this case is a son or daughter.

Jer 32.35: They built high places for Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to sacrifice their sons and daughters to Molech, though I never commanded, nor did it enter my

mind, that they should do such a detestable thing and so make Judah sin. NOTE: the victim in this case is son or daughter.

2 Kings 16.3: Unlike David his father, he did not do what was right in the eyes of the LORD his God. 3 He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and even sacrificed his son in the fire, following the detestable ways of the nations the LORD had driven out

before the Israelites. NOTE: the victim in this case is his son.

2 Kings 17.31: The men from Babylon made Succoth Benoth, the men from Cuthah made Nergal, and the men from Hamath made Ashima; 31 the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire as sacrifices to

Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. NOTE: the victims in this case are children.

2 Kings 21.6: In both courts of the temple of the LORD, he built altars to all the starry hosts. 6 He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced sorcery and divination, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the LORD, provoking

him to anger. NOTE: in this case the victim is the king's son.

Jer 7.31: They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire -- something I did not command, nor did it

enter my mind. NOTE: the victims in this case are sons and daughters.

Jer 19.4: For they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods; they have burned sacrifices in it to gods that neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah ever knew, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. 5 They have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as offerings to Baal --

something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind. NOTE: the burning of the sons in the fire is referred to as 'filling the place with the blood of the innocent'--again, the phrase for murder.

Deut 12.31: You must not worship the LORD your God in their way, because in worshipping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the LORD hates. They

even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods. NOTE: the victims are sons and daughters.

Deut 18.10: "`Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must

not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD. NOTE: the victims are children.

2 Kings 23.10: He desecrated Topheth, which was in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so no

one could use it to sacrifice his son or daughter in the fire to Molech. NOTE: the victims were sons or daughters.

Ezek 20.31: When you offer your gifts -- the sacrifice of your sons in the fire -- you continue to defile yourselves with all your idols to this day. Am I to let you inquire of me, O house of Israel? As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I will not let

you inquire of me. NOTE: the reference is to sons.

Ezek 23.37: for they have committed adultery and blood is on their hands. They committed adultery with their idols; they even sacrificed their children, whom they

bore to me, as food for them. NOTE: the sacrifice of the children is linked to the 'blood on their hands' again.

Psalm 106.34: They did not destroy the peoples as the LORD had commanded them, 35 but they mingled with the nations and adopted their customs. 36 They worshipped their idols, which became a snare to them. 37 They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons. 38 They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom

they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was desecrated by their blood. NOTE: The sacrifice is specifically related to the phrase 'innocent blood'--the description used throughout the OT for murder.

3 Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about.

1. The text does not deal with the emotions of Abraham at all. It just reveals his prompt obedience to what would make most men delay as long as possible. He did not drag his feet on this terrible duty, but rose up early to be on his way. With two servants, his son, and plenty of wood to cremate his son, he set out for the place of execution. One author sees confusion in the order of his preparation that he thinks reveals his emotional turmoil. He writes, "Those who look very carefully and think long and hard about the text of Holy Scripture have noticed that the order of Abraham's actions is unusual. He saddled...took...and he cut wood... the sequence of words in the Hebrew suggesting a chronological order even more than in English translation. Certainly he would have been expected to cut the word first and then saddle his donkey and collect his servants and son. It is suggested that this is a clue into Abraham's state of mind: either he is so distraught he can't think straight, or he is trying to keep everyone in the dark about the purpose of the journey until the last possible moment, or he is postponing the most painful part of his preparations until it can be put off no longer."

2. Another writes, "For Abraham there was no argument, no stalling, or talking to Sarah. He took the wood, the servants, and Isaac. He didn't even take a lamb in case God would "change His mind".

3. F. B. Meyer wrote, “It was in the visions of the night that the word of the Lord must have come to him: and early the next morning the patriarch was on his way. The night before, as he lay down, he had not the least idea of the mission on which he would be started when the early beams of dawn had broken up the short Eastern night. But he acted immediately. We might have excused him if he had dallied with his duty; postponing it, procrastinating, lingering as long as possible. That, however,was not the habit of this heroic soul, which had well acquired the habit of instantaneity, one of the most priceless acquisitions for any soul ambitious of saintliness. "And Abraham rose up early in the morning" (v.3). No other hand was permitted to saddle the ass, or cleave the wood, or interfere with the promptness of his action. He "saddled his ass, and clave the wood for the burnt-offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him." This promptness was his safeguard. While the herdsmen were beginning to stir, and the long lines of cattle were being driven forth to their several grazing grounds, the old man was on his way. I do not think he confided his secret to a single soul, not even to Sarah. Why should he? The lad and he would enter that camp again, when the short but awful journey was over. "I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you."

4. George Whitefield wrote, "The humility as well as the piety of the patriarch is observable: he saddled his own ass (great men should be humble) and to show the sincerity, though he took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, yet he keeps his design as a secret from them all: nay, he does not so much as tell Sarah his wife; for he knew not but she might be a snare unto him in this affair; and, as Rebekah afterwards, on another occasion, advised Jacob to flee, so Sarah also might

persuade Isaac to hide himself; or the young men, had they known of it, might have forced him away, as in after-ages the soldiers rescued Jonathan out of the hands of Saul. But Abraham fought no such evasion, and therefore, like an Israelite indeed, in whom there was no guile, he himself resolutely "clave the wood for the burnt-offering, rose up and went unto the place of which God had told him." In the second verse God commanded him to offer up his son upon one of the mountains, which he would tell him of. He commanded him to offer his son up, but would not then directly tell him the place where: this was to keep him dependent and watching unto prayer: for there is nothing like being kept waiting upon God; and, if we do, assuredly God will reveal himself unto us yet further in his own time. Let us practicewhat we know, follow providence so far as we can see already; and what we know not, what we see not as yet, let us only be found in the way of duty, and the Lord will reveal even that unto us. Abraham knew not directly where he was to offer up his son; but he rises up and sets forward, and behold now God shows him: "And he went to the place of which God had told him." Let us go and do likewise."

4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.

1. Meyer wrote, “What those three days of quiet traveling must have been to Abraham, we can never know. It is always so much easier to act immediately and precipitately, than to wait through long days, and even years; but it is in this process of waiting upon God that souls are drawn out to a strength of purpose and nobility of daring, which become their sacred inheritance for all after-time. And yet, despite the patriarch's preoccupation with his own special sorrow, the necessity was laid upon him to hide it under an appearance of resignation, and even gladsomeness; so that neither his son nor his servants might guess the agony, which was gnawing at his heart.

At last, on the third day, he saw from afar the goal of his journey, God had informed him that He would tell him which of the mountains was the appointed spot of the sacrifice: and now probably some sudden conviction seized upon his soul, that an especial summit, which reared itself in the blue distance, was to be the scene of that supreme act in which he should prove that to his soul God was chiefest and best. Tradition, which seems well authenticated, has always associated that "mountain in the land of Moriah" with the place on which, in after days, stood the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, and the site of Solomon's Temple; and there is a wonderful appropriateness in the fact that this great act of obedience took place on the very spot where hecatombs of victims and rivers of blood were to point to that supreme Sacrifice which this prefigured.”

2. George Whitefield wrote, "So that the place, of which God had told him, was no less than three days journey distant from the place where God first appeared to him,

and commanded him to take his son. Was not this to try his faith, and to let him see that what he did was not merely from a sudden pang of devotion, but a matter of choice of deliberation? But who can tell what the aged patriarch felt during these three days? Strong as he was in faith, I am persuaded his bowels often yearned over his dear son Isaac. Methinks I see the good old man walking with his dear child in his hand, and now and then looking upon him, loving him, and then turning aside to weep. And perhaps, sometimes he stays a little behind to pour out his heart before God, for he had no mortal to tell his case to. Then, methinks, I see him join his son and servants again, and talking to them of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, as they walked by the way."

5 He said to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you."

1. Notice how Abraham uses the plural we will come back to you. He does not know how this is going to work out, but he is confident that somehow both he and his son will return. God will do a miracle and raise him from the dead is one of the ways this will happen is his conviction, as it is stated in Heb. 11:19 That is why he has the faith to believe nobody will be left behind. Faith in the resurrection power of God over death is a basic New Testament belief, but we see it here also in the Old Testament.

2. Meyer wrote, “It is of the utmost importance that we should emphasize the words of ASSURED CONFIDENCE, which Abraham addressed to his young men before he left them. "I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you." This was something more than unconscious prophecy: it was the assurance of an unwavering faith, that somehow or other God would interpose to spare his son; or at least, if necessary, to raise him from the dead. In any case Abraham was sure that Isaac and he would before long come again. It is this, which so largely removes the difficulties that might otherwise obscure this act; and it remains to all time a most striking proof of the tenacity with which faith can cling to the promises of God. When once you have received a promise, cling to it as a sailor to a spar in the midst of the boiling waters. God is bound to be as good as His word. And even though He ask you to do the one thing that might seem to make deliverance impossible; yet if you dare to do it, you will find not only that you shall obtain the promise, but that you shall also receive some crowning and unexpected mark of His love."

6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself

carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together,

1. We cannot avoid thinking of the fact that Jesus was made to carry his own cross. It is fascinating that the Genesis Rabbah, the Jewish commentary on Genesis, comprised of materials finally collected some centuries after Christ, speaks of Isaac with the wood on his back as like a condemned man carrying his cross. Further, Abraham walked alongside his son carrying the knife and fire. Father and son together. A point is made of them walking together, as the refrain is repeated in v. 8. "It was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer..." Isaiah 53:10 Father and son walking up to Calvary's hill.

2. Meyer wrote, “He caught his father's spirit. We do not know how old he was; he was at least old enough to sustain the toil of a long march on foot, and strong enough to carry up hill the faggots, laid upon his shoulders by his father. But he gladly bent his youthful strength under the weight of the wood, just as through the Via Dolorosa a greater than he carried His cross. Probably this was not the first time that Abraham and Isaac had gone on such an errand; but it is beautiful to see the evident interest the lad took in the proceedings as they went, "both of them together."

7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, "Father?" "Yes, my son?" Abraham replied. "The fire and wood are here," Isaac said, "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?"

1. Here is the question of the day-where is the lamb? This had to tear the heart out of Abraham as he struggles to hold back the tears and try to explain what has to be done.

"In one of the old Mysteries we have a scene that must have produced a powerful effect, for it is impossible even now to read it coldly. Isaac becomes uneasy at the nonappearance of the animal for sacrifice, and asks his father some embarrassing questions. At first Abraham puts him off, but finally is forced to blurt out the truth.

A. Ah! Isaac, Isaac! I must kill thee!

I. Kill me, father? Alas! what have I done?

If I have trespassed against you aught,

With a rod you may make me full mild.

And with your sharp sword kill me not,

For surely, father, I am but a child.

A. I am full sorry, son, thy blood for to spill,

But truly, my child, I may not choose.

I. Now I would to God my mother were here on this hill!

She would kneel for me on both her knees to save my life.

And since my mother is not here,

I pray you, father, change your cheer,

And kill me not with your knife.

Then Abraham explains that it is God's will and Isaac, while he cannot understand why God wishes him slain, submits.

I. Therefore do our Lord's bidding,

And when I am dead, then pray for me:

But, good father, tell ye my mother nothing,

Say that I am in another country dwelling."

2. W. B. Johnson wrote, "Isaac broke the dreadful silence with this touching inquiry, which Bishop Hall has observed "must have gone to Abraham's heart as deeply as the knife could possibly have gone to Isaac's." If any word or deed could have broken down the father, it would have been this touching and pleading question. Isaac probably had no misgivings to this point, but it seemed so strange that his father had provided no offering. Could he have forgotten? What did it all mean?"

3. One author wrote, "The unquestioning obedience that Isaac displayed when prepared for sacrifice by his father was symptomatic of his character; as a man, he seems to have lacked force and initiative. (What would have happened if Adam had tried to sacrifice Cain?) Isaac was a dreamy, romantic person, who accepted the wife his father provided for him, and then went under her thumb. He became a pathetic, childish, spoiled old man, over-fond of food, like many old people; and was easily bamboozled by his scoundrelly son Jacob. He was always in love with his wife, as we know by an amusing passage in the twenty-sixth chapter of Genesis. He lied to Abimelech, like his father before him, and said that Rebekah was his sister. Some time after, the good Abimelech looked out of a window and saw Isaac kissing

Rebekah in a manner unusual between brothers and sisters. So here again a lie nearly brought disaster, where the truth would have been safer." The author's point is that Isaac was a passive individual who let others determine his actions. He was not submissive to all who had any authority over him, and so it was easier for him to submit at this point, and not try to run or fight to avoid it.

8 Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them went on together.

1. Abraham dodged the bullet here and avoided the truth that he was to sacrifice him, but in trusting God to provide the lamb he was expressing the hope of the world that God would provide a sacrifice that would make it unnecessary for men to have to perish for their sins. God provides the Lamb in the person of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and because of that no person ever has to pay for their own sins if they accept Jesus as their substitute sacrifice. Someone wrote, "We have before us in this text, only a portion of which we have so far read, one of the greatest stories in the Bible. I use the word "story" advisedly, for I do not mean to suggest that we do not also have here the purest history, an account of what actually happened. Surely we do. But as a narrative, as a story, it is one of the most dramatic, memorable, powerful, and moving in the entire Bible. And why not? It is, as every reader of the Bible fully understands, an enacted depiction of the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ for us and for our salvation."

2, W. B. Johnson wrote, "The thought in Abraham's mind was that God had provided the lamb in his son carrying the sacrificial wood, but his words received a fulfillment that he did not anticipate. Many regard these words as having a still deeper meaning, and pointing forward to the "Lamb of God, slain for the sins of the world." It is not probable that Abraham was conscious that he was speaking and acting prophecy; for he did not know what the Spirit did signify through him; but at the same time it is easy for us to see that these events typified the great tragedy that was to be enacted at that very place about two thousand years later. 1. Isaac was the promised seed, through whom the families of the earth were in time to be blessed by receiving the Messiah. Christ was the promised seed that blessed the world. 2. Isaac was the only son; Christ "the only begotten Son of God." 3. From the time of the command Isaac was dead in prospect to his father until the third day; Christ died, was buried, and arose again on the third day. 4. Isaac carried the wood for his own sacrifice; Christ carried his own cross. 5. Abraham declared, "God will provide a lamb;" one was provided instead of Isaac, the only one so provided in Jewish history; two thousand years later God provided The Lamb of God. 6. The place where Isaac was bound on the altar was the very place where Christ was condemned to suffer, and died for the sins of the world."

3. I regret loosing track of the author of the following lengthy quote, for if anyone deserves credit for some wonderful words of wisdom, this author does. He covers the whole test and gives us some excellent examples of submission and relinquishment on the part of suffering saints. He wrote, "Now, the nature of the test is obvious, even if the reason for it is shrouded in mystery. God was asking Abraham to kill his son for sacrifice -- a thing not done by the people of God, never to be done by them, a thing that was known as a terrible evil, for it was a thing done by the wicked peoples of the world of that day -- a thing, in other words, itself and by its very nature repugnant to a righteous man. A thing the Holy God forbad and would never ask of men! But, there is more. The son he is ordered to offer to God as a burnt offering, is none other than Isaac, the promised heir, the child God had promised him so many years before and finally, miraculously had given to him and his wife Sarah. This is the son upon whom God himself had taught Abraham to pin all of his hopes for the realization of the promise that God would make of Abraham a great nation and that all the world would be blessed through him. So much so, that in the previous chapter God required Abraham to send his other son, Ishmael, away, a heartbreaking duty in its own right so far as Abraham was concerned. And now this! Everything being taken from him! And, still more, this is the son of Abraham's old age, whom God himself acknowledges Abraham loves more than life itself. This is the son God tells him to kill! As Theodore Beza, Calvin's colleague and successor -- who was a poet before he was a Christian theologian --, puts the thought into Abraham's mind, in his dramatic poem devoted to this episode:

Because, O God, this is thy pleasure, it is sureThat it is right, and so I shall obey.But in obeying shall I not make GodA liar, for he promised this to me,That from my son Isaac there would come forthA mighty nation who would fill this land?With Isaac dead the covenant dies too!

Now, we think -- we cannot help but think -- that this is not so terrible a thing because, of course, we know how the story ends. But Abraham did not. He had dealt with God for many years and this was not the first time God had seemed peremptory, even cruel, to Abraham. God had promised Abraham a son and then for years there had been nothing but silence from heaven. And now God is ordering Abraham to kill that same son. No, we have here in Abraham, a man who does not yet know the end of the story, and to whom this news -- the narrative makes clear -- came as a body-blow.

What we have here, is what we have in many other places in Holy Scripture, viz. the hiddenness of God, what Luther called "Deus Absconditus," the hidden God. What is meant by this is that God acts in ways that are not only mysterious to us but defy our wisdom and our understanding -- ways that seem virtually to contradict what we have been taught about God and his character and his ways. I do not say that they do contradict the truth that has been revealed to us about God, only that we

cannot see how to bring that truth into harmony with what God is doing in our lives or in the world.

The Bible is very candid about this reality. Ecclesiastes is a book of the Bible devoted entirely to an exposition of it, but there are many passages in the Bible in which we see believers wrestling with God's hiddenness, or in which it is confessed, or even in which we find the saints complaining to God because of it and crying out to him to show himself and reconcile his actions with what he has taught us to believe of his character. In Holy Scripture there is nothing of that chatty certainty about God's purposes that we find in modern preachers. No, his thoughts are far above ours, a great deep we cannot sound, and his ways are, very often, simply past finding out, no matter how much faith a man or woman has! God often asks of his people very difficult things that are hard to understand given what we are taught of his love and mercy and much happens in the world that is frankly very difficult to square with the sovereignty of God. This is what it means to live by faith and why faith is required. Because we must believe to be true what we cannot often demonstrate even to ourselves with the evidence of our eyes.

Will Abraham accuse God of a fault, will he conclude that such a command does not deserve to be obeyed, or will he, in humility and faith, conclude rather that in God's hiddenness there must be unexplored and as yet unrecognized wisdom? That is Abraham's test. It is a test of his faith in God.

This is all that he knew, but it was enough. He didn't know why he was being asked to do the cruel thing God had commanded, but he knew the one who had asked it of him. As we said, we do not know all that Abraham thought through these three days, but v. 8 tells us what was, at least finally, at the bottom of his thoughts: "God himself will provide the lamb..." It is not clear even here that Abraham knows what will happen, how all of this will unfold, but it is clear that this good man is entrusting the matter to God in the confidence that, as he says on another occasion, "the Judge of all the earth will do right."

You know, other ages have had it much worse than we have it today. Far more often they stood weeping beside the graves of those it seemed God should not have permitted to die, the graves in which they had buried so much of their hopes and happiness. A few years ago I stood in Elmwood Cemetery in Columbia, S.C. beside the grave of Nannie Witherspoon Thornwell, the daughter of John Henry Thornwell, the prince of the Southern Presbyterian Church. Nannie had died at 20 years of age, just a few days short of the day on which she was to marry. She was buried in her wedding dress, or, as her gravestone has it, "She descended to the grave adorned as a bride to meet the bridegroom." But her parents had faith enough to know that if they could see her in heaven with Christ, they would neither call her down to earth nor charge God with any fault in taking her so soon.

But I have a better illustration still. I gave it to a few of you who were then in the church when I first used it in a sermon in April of 1983. But it occurred to me that most of you were not here then and have not heard this story and I want you to know it, because, in my judgment, it so beautifully expresses Abraham's state of

mind, his confidence in God in the midst of a terribly dark and impenetrable mystery, grief, and disappointment -- just such a situation as the Bible tells us all to expect in this life.

It concerns a hero of mine, Thomas Boston, the eighteenth century Scottish pastor, author, and theologian, still more, a man of God. Read Boston's memoirs if you would learn what it means to live a godly life. My private opinion is that Boston's Memoirs is not only one of the greatest books I have ever read but also one of the very finest and most valuable of all the Christian autobiographies. Rabbi Duncan used to say that, if he could, he would sit at the feet of Jonathan Edwards to learn what godliness was, and then at the feet of Thomas Boston to learn how to obtain it.

Boston's wife was not a woman of robust health -- indeed her later years were spent under the spell of what an older writer kindly referred to as "a racking disorder of the intellect" -- and every childbirth was for her not only an ordeal, but also a threat to her life. In April of 1707, Boston records having prayed earnestly for his wife's safety, as she was near to delivering a child. He says that while in prayer he was given an impression that the child would be a boy and, at that moment, he promised the Lord that if it were a boy and if God delivered it alive, he would name the child Ebenezer, after the memorial to God's goodness that Samuel had set up in Israel. He tells us later that on the 23rd of that month his wife safely delivered and his heart leaped for joy, hearing it was a boy and, so, Ebenezer.

But, in the entry for September of that same year we read: "It pleased the Lord, for my further trial, to remove by death, on the 8th September, my son Ebenezer." He goes on: "I never had more confidence with God in any such case, than in that child's being the Lord's. I had indeed more than ordinary, in giving him away to the Lord, to be saved by the blood of Christ. But his death was exceeding afflicting to me, and matter of sharp exercise. To bury his name, was indeed harder than to bury his body...but I saw a necessity of allowing a latitude to [God's] sovereignty."

A year later, in August, Mrs. Boston delivered another son, which, Boston said, "After no small struggle with myself, I named Ebenezer." But in October of that same year this son too fell ill with the measles. Boston records how he went out to the barn and there prayed for his son. He writes: "I renewed my covenant with God, and did solemnly and explicitly covenant for Ebenezer, and in his name accept of the covenant, and of Christ offered in the gospel; and gave him away to the Lord, before angels, and the stones of that house as witnesses. I cried also for his life, that Ebenezer might live before him, if it were his will. But when, after that exercise, I came into the house, I found, that instead of being better, he was worse [and in a few hours he was dead].

After the funeral of this his second Ebenezer, Boston wrote: "I see most plainly that...I must stoop, and be content to follow the Lord in an untrodden path..."

No wonder, then, that C.S. Lewis should have the old devil Screwtape say to Wormwood, his demon nephew: "Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending to

do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys." For what else is this but faith in its purest, most Christian form -- this faith of Abraham and the Thornwells and Thomas Boston. This taking God at his word even when it seems that that word is null and void -- what is that but the highest compliment that a human being ever pays to the living God, the highest demonstration of our love for him and our gratitude for the covenant he has made with us, the most persuasive evidence possible that he has proved himself a faithful God to his people.

Or, as Beza has Abraham concluding:

If then to borrow Isaac is thy will,Wherefore should I complain at thy command?For he is thine: he was received from thee;And then when thou has taken him againRather wilt thou arouse him from the deadThan that thy promise should not come to pass.Yet, Lord, thou knowest that I am but man,Incompetent to do or think what's good;But thanks to thine unconquerable powerHe who believes knows all is possible.Away with flesh! Away with sentiment!All human passions now withdraw yourselves:Nothing is right for me, and nothing good,

But what is pleasing to the Lord himself....O heaven...and thou the land of promise...Bear witness now that faithful AbrahamHas by God's grace such persevering faithThat notwithstanding every human thoughtGod never speaks a single word in vain."

9 When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.

1. At this point the submission of Isaac is impressive, for he could have grabbed his father and pushed him to the ground and avoided this binding. He was a thirty year old facing a 130 year old man, and in a wrestling match he was bound to win. So

what we see here is not just the faith of Abraham, but the faith of Isaac on display as well. He let himself be offered as a sacrifice, and in this way became a symbol of the coming Messiah who would do the same in obedience to his Father, the Lord God of Abraham.

2. F. B. Meyer wrote, ""They came to the place which God had told him of, and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order." Can you not see the old man slowly gathering the stones; bringing them from the furthest distance possible; placing them with a reverent and judicious precision; and binding the wood with as much deliberation as possible? But at last everything is complete; and he turns to break the fatal secret to the young lad who had stood wonderingly by. Inspiration draws a veil over that last tender scene -- the father's announcement of his mission; the broken sobs; the kisses, wet with tears; the instant submission of the son, who was old enough and strong enough to rebel if he had had the mind. Then the binding of that tender frame; which, indeed, needed no compulsion, because the young heart had learned the secret of obedience and resignation. Finally, the lifting him to lie upon the altar, on the wood. Here was a spectacle, which must have arrested the attention of heaven. Here was a proof of how much mortal man will do for the love of God. Here was an evidence of Childlike faith, which must have thrilled the heart of the Eternal God, and moved Him in the very depths of His being. Do you and I love God like this? Is He more to us than our nearest and dearest? Suppose they stood on this side, and He on that side: would we go with Him, though it cost us the loss of all? You think you would. Aye, it is a great thing to say. The air upon this height is too rare to breathe with comfort. The one explanation of it is to be found in the words of our Lord; "He that loveth father or mother, son or daughter, more than Me, is not worthy of Me" (Matthew 10:37).

3. Bruce Feiler in his book Abraham deals at length with the controversy revolving around this verse due to the Islamic interpreters who in modern times have said that the son being offered here is Ishmael and not Isaac. He shows that the Islamic interpreters are divided on the issue themselves. He writes, "The binding of Abraham's favored son is the most celebrated episode in the patriarch's life. All three religions hail it as the ultimate expression of Abraham's relationship with God. But what the incident actually says, where it took place, even which son is involved are matters of centuries-old dispute. All of this makes the binding the most debated, the most misunderstood, and the most combustible event in the entire Abraham's story."

"The bulk of early interpreters examined the text and concluded that the son must be Isaac. They cited the fact that the sacrifice occurs relatively early in the life of Abraham, before he traveled to Mecca with Ishmael. Also, every time God promises Abraham a son in the Koran, the son is named as Isaac. Therefore, when Abraham prayed for a son at the start of the story, he would have been praying for Isaac.

Early Islamic interpreters added details to make Isaac even more appealing. The writer al-Suddi says Isaac asked his father to tighten his bonds so he will not squirm, to move the knife quickly, and to pull back his clothes so no blood will soil them and grieve Sarah. Abraham kisses Isaac, and then throws him on his forehead

(and interesting Muslim addition, given that worshippers touch their foreheads to the ground). Finally God intervenes.

The Isaac camp dominated in the early centuries of Islam, but in time it was matched by advocates of Ishmael. For their hook, these interpreters relied on the fact that God would not have asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac since God had already promised Abraham and Sarah in the Koran that Isaac would have a son. God, by definition, does not break promises. Also, one source of tension in the story arises from the idea that Abraham is being asked to sacrifice his son when he would seem to be too old to have another. This drama would apply only to the first son, who is Ishmael. As Sheikh Abdul Rauf put it, "There is no dispute among Jews, Christians, and Muslins but the commandment was to his only son. And there's no dispute that Ishmael was the oldest son."

10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.

1. At this point one wonders if Abraham is doubting that the voice that told him to do this was really that of God. I had to seem so far out of line with his concept of God. F. B. Meyer wrote, “First of all, he was too familiar with God's voice to mistake it. Too often had he listened to it to make a mistake in this solemn crisis. And he was sure that God had some way of deliverance; which, though he might not be able to forecast it, would secure the sparing of Isaac's life. Besides, he lived at a time when such sacrifices as that to which he was called were very common; and he had never been taught decisively that they were abhorrent to the mind of his Almighty Friend. We must, in reading Scripture, remember that at first all God's servants were more or less affected by the religious notions that were current in their age; and we must not imagine that in all respects they were divested of the misconceptions that resulted from the twilight revelation in which they lived, but have since become dissipated before the meridian light of the Gospel, One of the first principles of that old Canaanitish religion demanded that men should give their firstborn for their transgression, the fruit of their body for the sin of their soul. On the altars of Moab, and Phoenicia, and Carthage; nay, even in the history of Israel itself -- this almost irrepressible expression of human horror at sin, and desire to propitiate God, found terrible expression. Not that fathers were less tender than now, but because they had a keener sense of the terror of unforgiven sin; they cowered before gods whom they knew not, and to whom they imputed a thirst for blood and suffering; they counted no cost too great to appease the awful demands which ignorance, and superstition, and a consciousness of sin, made upon them.

2. Meyer also wrote, “Abraham's act enables us better to understand the sacrifice which God made to save us. The gentle submission of Isaac, laid upon the altar with throat bare to the knife, gives us a better insight into Christ's obedience to death.

Isaac's restoration to life, as from the dead, and after having been three days dead in his father's purpose, suggests the resurrection from Joseph's tomb. Yet the reality surpasses the shadow. Isaac suffers with a clear apprehension of his father's presence. Christ, bereft of the consciousness of His Father's love, complains of His forsakenness. All was done that love could do to alleviate Isaac's anguish; but Christ suffered the rudeness of coarse soldiery, and the upbraidings of Pharisee and Scribe. Isaac was spared death; but Christ drank the bitter cup to its dregs.

3. "Sacrifice is an important part of every Muslim's life. Every year during Eid, millions of Muslims slaughter animals in commemoration of Ibrahim's offer of his son's life at the command of God, who was substituted by a ram. It is told that Mohammad was asked about the sacrifice. He answered: "This is commemorative sunnah of your father Ibrahim". The sacrifice of an animal on the occasion of Eid ul adha is obligatory, and it is seen as a sin if it is not done. Abu Huraira reported that Mohammed said: "He who can afford but does not offer it, should not come near our place of worship" According to a booklet by Mohammad Iqbal Siddiqi, the sacrifice signifies the sacrifice of the sacrificer himself, and becomes an outward symbol of his readiness to lay down His life, if required, and to sacrifice all his interests and desires in the cause of the truth. Islam denies, however, the fact that it can serve as atonement for sin."

4. The Pastor of Faith Presbyterian Church explains a type and then shows how this event is a type. He writes, "A type in this sense is a person, thing, or event that represents or symbolizes another, especially another person, thing, or event that is still to come. For example, Israel's deliverance from Egypt, her wandering in the wilderness for forty years, and her eventual entrance into the promised land is, in the Bible and was for the ancient people of God a type, a symbolic representation of the life of faith. A man or a woman is delivered by the grace and power of God from bondage to his or her sin and death -- that is the Passover and the exodus --, makes a pilgrimage through the desert of this world, and then, finally, enters heaven, the promised land.

We have such a type before us in the account of Abraham sacrificing Isaac. The symbolism is so obvious that no one who believes the Scripture to be the Word of God has ever doubted that we have in this account of Abraham sacrificing Isaac an enacted prophesy of the death of Jesus Christ, the true seed of Abraham. Think of the precise parallels, almost all of which the Bible either explicitly or implicitly calls our attention to at some point. The offering was to be Abraham's son, his own seed, Isaac, the child of the promise; but, as it happened, it was Abraham's promised son, his Son of all sons, Jesus Christ, the Seed of Abraham, as Paul calls him. But, that Son, was not only Abraham's descendant, he was God's Son, God the Son. If God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac for him, it was only because he was in due time to sacrifice his own Son for Abraham. And, then, notice the place of the sacrifice, Moriah, the Mount of God, the place where the Temple would eventually be built and the sacrifices of the temple worship offered to God day and night, the place, not far from which, the great sacrifice, of which all these other sacrifices were but pictures and anticipations and prophecies would finally be offered.

11 But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied.

1. Meyer wrote, “The blade was raised high, flashing in the rays of the morning sun; but it was not permitted to fall. With the temptation God also made a way of escape. "And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, 'Abraham!'" With what avidity would that much-tried soul seize at anything that offered the chance of respite or of pause! And he said, his uplifted hand returning gladly to his side, "Here am I!" Would that we could more constantly live in the spirit of that response, so that God might constantly live in the spirit of that response, so that God might always know where to find us; and so that we might be always ready to fulfill His will.

2. George Whitefield wrote, "And now, the fatal blow is going to be given. "And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son." But do you not think he intended to turn away his head, when he gave the blow? Nay, why may we not suppose he sometimes drew his hand in, after it was stretched out, willing to take another last farewell of his beloved Isaac, and desirous to defer it a little, though resolved at last to strike home? Be that is it will, his arm is now stretched out, the knife is in his hand, and he is about to put it to his dear son's throat. But sing, O heavens! And rejoice, O earth! Man's extremity is God's opportunity: for behold, just as the knife, in all probability, was near his throat, ver. 11, "the angel of the Lord, (or rather the Lord of angels, Jesus Christ, the angel of the everlasting covenant) called unto him, (probably in a very audible manner) from heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham. (The word is doubled, to engage his attention; and perhaps the suddenness of the call made him draw back his hand, just as he was going to strike his son.) And Abraham said, here am I." "And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now know I that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me." Here then it was that Abraham received his son Isaac from the dead in a figure. He was in effect offered upon the altar, and God looked upon him as offered and given unto him. Now it was that Abraham's faith, being tried, was found more precious than gold purified seven times in the fire."

3. W. B. Johnson wrote, "There is a significance in the change of terms to represent the Deity. Thus far in the account of the trial of Abraham the word is God (Elohim), but now it is Lord (Jehovah), the covenant name of the God of Israel. The Angel of the Lord is the "Angel of the Covenant," so often named, by many supposed to be the Son of God. It is the Covenant Angel who stays the hand. The words, "Abraham! Abraham!" repeated, imply rapid, imperious utterance, to stay in an

instant the hand that was about to descend. "God, as [77] the true God, had a sovereign right to demand all that Abraham had, yet Jehovah, as the Covenant God, would not suffer his covenant to fail. These are the different aspects in which God revealed himself to the patriarch in the history of redemption. God does not contradict himself, but exhibits different aspects of the divine plan."

4. His hand was now laid upon the sacrificial knife, and raised to strike the fatal blow. So far as his heart and his intent are concerned, he has shown the deed to be virtually done. Paul shows that it was so regarded by God--"By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac." "In the divine judgment the deed was done as truly as if the knife had been plunged into the heart of Isaac. There is, therefore, no such contradiction here as some critics pretend to find. God required the sacrifice, the giving up, of Isaac, and the sacrifice was not withheld. Instead of raising him from the dead, he arrested the hand in the act of slaying him."--Jacobus.

12 "Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son."

1. Meyer wrote, “So long as men live in the world, they will turn to this story with unwaning interest. There is only one scene in history, by which it is surpassed; that where the Great Father gave His Isaac to a death from which there was no deliverance. God and Abraham were friends in a common sorrow up to a certain point; though the infinite love of God stepped in to stay the hand of Abraham at the critical moment, sparing His friend what He would not spare Himself.”

“God had never wanted him or anyone else to offer a human sacrifice. But remember, that had been a widespread custom in Abraham’s day. Many of his contemporaries felt that the sacrifice of one’s first-born was the highest act of religious worship. Abraham knew that. And so the thing that he was asked to do, though it broke his heart, didn’t necessarily war against his conscience. But here God showed to him and to all the world that He never required child sacrifice from anyone. But He did want something from Abraham. He wanted him in spirit to take the treasure of his life, renounce every claim upon it, and offer it up to God. And that is what Abraham did on that night he wrestled with God under the stars, on each grim step of the journey, and in all his preparations. Finally, in that mountain clearing, the sacrifice of the heart was complete.” “There was the test. God had been looking for something in Abraham and He found it. God had been searching for a heart of faith: a faith that believes His promise when everything seems to make it impossible, a faith that obeys Him when obedience is the hardest thing in the world, a faith that knows deep down that nothing we surrender to the Lord is ever

really lost to us.”

The saints should never be dismay’d,

Nor sink in hopeless fear;

For when they least expect His aid,

The Savior will appear.

This Abraham found: he raised the knife;

God saw, and said, “Forbear!

Yon ram shall yield his meaner life;

Behold the victim there.”

Once David seem’d Saul’s certain prey;

But hark! the foe’s at hand;

Saul turns his arms another way,

To save the invaded land.

When Jonah sunk beneath the wave,

He thought to rise no more;

But God prepared a fish to save,

And bear him to the shore.

Blest proofs of power and grace divine,

That meet us in His Word!

May every deep-felt care of mine

Be trusted with the Lord.

Wait for His seasonable aid,

And though it tarry, wait;

The promise may be long delay’d,

But cannot come too late.

Olney Hymns, William Cowper

2. "He quickly arose and traveled 3 days with Isaac until they reached the place of sacrifice. I wonder what thoughts crowded his mind during that long journey. Did

he doubt God’s wisdom? Surely this question must have raced through his mind: If Isaac, who was born as the result of a miracle, is the son of promise, why is God asking me to slay him? The patriarch, Abraham, however, did not retreat, disobey, or turn aside to avoid making this ultimate sacrifice. Instead, he gave his son back to God. His yielded ness was regarded with these words of divine approval: “...now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from Me”

3. This text deals with the major issue of relinquishment, which is a surrender to God and letting him have all that is precious to you. It is dying to self and not clinging to anything or anyone. You just yield your all to God, and give up all struggles to hold on to what you want. When we reach this point we so please God that he often gives us back that which we most treasure, and that is the case with Abraham and Isaac. It is also the case with the greatest of all prayers of relinquishment, "Not my will, but thine be done." And God gave Jesus back the life he sacrificed and relinquished in obedience to Him. He raised him from the dead and gave him the power to save for eternity all who put their faith in him and his sacrifice.

Pastor William Sangster went into a hospital room to visit a little girl who was losing her sight. Fear seemed to grip the youngster as with nearly blind eyes she turned her face toward the preacher. “Oh, Dr. Sangster, God is taking away my sight.” God’s servant leaned over the trembling child and said tenderly, “Don’t let Him take it; give it to Him.”

Dear friend, are you struggling with God’s will? Is some cherished plan or possession or person being removed from your life? Don’t let Him take it; give it to Him. - P.R.V.

Is your all on the altar of sacrifice laid?

Your heart does the Spirit control?

You can only be blest and have peace and sweet rest

As you yield Him your body and soul.

Hoffman

4. W. B. Johnson wrote, "Sacrifice and offering, and burnt offering and sacrifice for sin thou wouldest not, neither had pleasure in them: Lo, I come to do thy will, O God." The Father of the Faithful, the great type of all the heroes of the Faith, had demonstrated his supreme submission to the will of God. The divine purpose was accomplished. It was no part of that purpose that a human sacrifice should be offered, but was intended to show forth that there must be an unconditional, unreserved submission to the divine will. I know that thou fearest God. Theodoret very correctly says: "God tried Abraham, not that he might learn what he knew already, but that he might show to others with how great justice he loved the patriarch." He wished also to show to all mankind just what kind of a character he

loved; one who has taken his own will and laid it as a sacrifice on the altar of God. Origen notes that God commends Abraham that "he did not withhold his son, his only son" from him, and that God did not withhold his Son, his only Son, from us, "but freely gave him up for us all."

5. S. David Ram gives us the unique Jewish perspective. I am not a Hebrew scholar

and so I do not know how accurate this next account is, but it is from a high Jewish source, and it is one of their interpretations that eliminates the problem of God saying something and not meaning it.

"Rashi, the fundamental Torah commentator, quotes a Midrash which expresses Abraham's state of mind during the episode. "Abraham said to Hashem, 'I will lay my thoughts before You. Yesterday You told me that through Isaac will offspring be considered yours; then You said take your son (as a sacrifice); yet now You tell me, do not stretch out your hand against the lad (meaning, Abraham could not understand all of Hashem's requests. It seems that Hashem is either changing His mind, or speaking idle words; and we know that neither can be true). Hashem then answered him, 'I will not profane My covenant, nor alter that which has gone out of My lips (Psalms 89:35). When I told you to take your son, I did not alter what had gone out of My lips; (namely, that you would have descendents through Isaac). I did not tell you to slay him, but to bring him up on the mountain. You have brought him up, now bring him down'." (Rashi commenting on Genesis 22:12). Seemingly, Hashem used a play on words to Abraham when He requested Abraham to bring up Isaac. The Torah uses the word "veha'alehu," which literally means "bring him up," but can also mean "sacrifice him."

"Rabbi Soloveitchik explains that when Hashem told Abraham to bring up (veha'alehu) his son Isaac, at first glance, the word means to sacrifice his son. However, when Hashem told Abraham not to sacrifice Isaac, it was not a contradiction of His original statement, rather Hashem was defining what He meant by veha'alehu. He did not mean to slaughter him as a sacrifice, rather to bring him up as a sacrifice."

This scholar also helps us understand why we do not read of Abraham pleading with God to change his mind. There is not prayer at all. He just goes to do what he understands God's will to be with no resisting or bargaining. This author writes, "This great test was to fulfill the wishes of Hashem without a thought and without a question. If Abraham were to have questioned Hashem's unusual request or prayed for a retraction of this request, Abraham would have consequently failed the test." In other words, Abraham had to go in perfect surrender with no questions asked in order to pass his greatest test. He did just that, and that is why he is the great hero of faith.

13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram [a] caught by its horns. He went over

and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.

1. Here was the substitute that God provided in his providence. It would appear that it is the ram that represents Christ taking the place of Isaac, who then would be representing you and me, and all mankind, who should be the ones being sacrificed for their sins. He was the substitute for all men, and he died that others need not die and suffer eternal damnation for being sinners.

2.Meyer wrote, “Near by the altar there was a thicket; and, as Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked around, he beheld a ram caught there by its horns. Nothing could be more opportune. He had wanted to show his gratitude, and the fullness of his heart's devotion; and he gladly went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering instead of his son. Here, surely, is the great doctrine of substitution; and we are taught how life can only be preserved at the cost of life given. According to one of the early Church writers, there is a yet deeper mystery latent here; viz., that whilst Isaac represents the Deity of Christ, the ram represents His human nature, which became a sacrifice for the sins of the world. I am not sure that I would altogether accept this interpretation; because it is the Deity of Christ working through His humanity, which gives value to His sacrifice; but all through this marvelous story there is an evident setting forth of the mysteries of Calvary.

3. "In this account we not only see a test of Abraham, but we also see a picture of our salvation and God's love. In the first half of the account we see in Abraham and Isaac a picture of God the Father and God the Son. We see "Him who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all" (Romans 8:32). But, the comparison between Isaac and Jesus comes to an end when we come to our text. Now Isaac pictures you and me. He can't save himself. His sacrificial death as a sinner would be meaningless for anyone else, for "no man can redeem the life of another" (Psalm 49:7). In our text, the ram really serves as a picture of Christ. In one Hebrew word which means "instead of, in place of," we learn about our salvation. Jesus, in his life and death, takes our place. His atonement is vicarious, or substitutionary. Our God sees our need for a substitute, someone to take our place in life and in death, someone whose life and death would count for everyone. Our God sees to it that a substitute is provided in Jesus Christ. "

14 So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided."

1. This was such a momentous event that it was given a special name and it became

a saying in the history of Israel. The truth is momentous for the rest of history for all people, for it is the Gospel in essence. God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. He provided a substitute that would take away the sin of the world and make it possible for all people to be forgiven and accepted into the family of God and thereby gain eternal life. Only God could make such a provision, and God did just that in Jesus Christ. Notice the future perspective in the words "The Lord will provide," and, "On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided." These words are pointing to some future event where the Lord will provide a Lamb once and for all that will represent the hope of the world.

2. Some author put together a series of Scriptures that show the parallel between the events here and those in the life of Jesus Christ. Some of the parallels may be stretching the point, but there is interest in seeing the many points of contact between the two events.

Jesus said to His disciples:

Luke 24:44-47 ..."These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled." Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead the third day; and that repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

Where did the Scriptures prophesy that the "Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead the third day"? I believe right here in Genesis 22. Where is it written that this gospel message would be proclaimed "beginning from Jerusalem"? I believe right here in Genesis 22. Jerusalem? That's gotta be miles away from this place, right? No, read 2Chronicles 3:1... Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah

Let's look at the facts of the story again:

Only sonThe first thing that should've clued us in that there's something more going on here is the fact that God says, "Your only son". We all know that Abraham had a son before Isaac. So God's giving us a hint - a hint that there's something deeper going on here than just the story on the surface. What do we think of when we think of an only son? Jesus.

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son

And we're going to see that every single word in this story points to Jesus Christ.

Thirty-threeIt's sad that many of us in the church are victims of the pictures we've been shown and stories we've been told in Sunday School. Most of us picture Isaac as this poor

little 7 or 8-year-old child. And that's due in part to the use of the word, "lad" in verse 5. But the word "lad" is "nah-ar", which is translated in the Bible as not only lad, but also attendant, servant, and young man. Which translation should we use? Don't forget... he's marrying age at this point. Many scholars agree that Isaac was somewhere in his early thirties - about 33. And Luke's gospel tells us...

Luke 3:23 And when He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about thirty years ofage.

And we know that from the time His ministry began until He was crucified was about 3 years. Interesting.

Three daysWhen God told Abraham to go sacrifice Isaac at a place where He would show him, it took three days to get there. As far as Abraham was concerned, Isaac was dead from the minute God commanded him to kill him. The book of Hebrews tells us this very fact:

Hebr. 11:19 He considered that God is able to raise men even from the dead; from which he also received him back as a type.

So Isaac was dead to Abraham for three days, and Abraham received him back from the dead after 3 days

The DonkeyIt is interesting that a donkey was the transportation to the land of the sacrifice. Jesus, too, rode a donkey to this very land of Jerusalem:

Matt. 21:6-7 And the disciples went and did just as Jesus had directed them, and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid on them their garments, on which He sat.

Two menNotice that there are two men going along with Isaac on the same journey of death. The same thing happened when Jesus was crucified. The Bible tells us in John 19...

John 19:18 There they crucified Him, and with Him two other men, one on either side, and Jesus in between.

Saw from a distanceThe father in this story raised his eyes and saw the place where his son would be sacrificed from a distance. God, too, foresaw this day - a day known before the foundation of the world. A day prophesied in the genealogy of Adam - that the blessed God Himself would come down teaching His death would bring the despairing rest.It is also interesting that Jesus said in John 8

John 8:56 "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was

glad."

When Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place where his son would be sacrificed, he saw the day of Christ.

Laid the wood on his backNext, it says in v.6 that the wood of the offering was laid on Isaac, and they walked up the hill. John's gospel tells us

John 19:17 They took Jesus therefore, and He went out, bearing His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha.

The fire and the knifeThe wood was on the back of the son - his obedience was necessary. But in the hand of the father were the fire and the knife. The fire of the burnt offering: the fire that judges sin - that consuming fire of God; and the knife - the instrument that would be used to spill the blood of the sacrifice - was in the hand of the Father.

God will provide Himself the LambIsaac said, "Um, Dad? I see the fire, and I see the wood. And I see that you've got this big sharp knife... So where exactly is the lamb we're going to kill?"And Abraham answered one of the most insightful and prophetic statements in all the Old Testament. The King James translates this most clearly, I believe: "God will provide Himself a Lamb". God will provide who? Himself. And truly, God did. He sent His Son Jesus to be the Lamb of God. The Lamb that would be sacrificed to take away the sin of the world.Look also at the ram that was caught in the thicket. It was a substitutionary sacrifice, a perfect male, whose head was surrounded and encircled by thorns!

The place

Gen. 22:9 Then they came to the place of which God had told him

God gave Abraham an exact location that this was to be acted out. An exact place on Mt. Moriah. Like so many landmarks in history, a few thousand years later, Mt. Moriah had a different name. It was known as Golgotha. And that same mountain where Abraham said, "God will provide Himself the Lamb" was the same mountain where Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, was sacrificed for you and for me.I suggest to you that the exact location the altar was built is the exact location to the foot that the cross was lifted up.

3. "If, in fact, this is our entire faith in a magnificent picture, if this is the gospel of

the Lord Jesus Christ, if this is the difference between life and death and heaven and hell for sinners such as we are and such as all men are, if this sacrifice is all that stands between us and the wrath of God which we so much deserve, if this is the open window through which we are given to see both the holiness and the tender mercy of the living God, and if this -- Christ for us, Christ in our place, as the Lamb

of God -- is the fountain of all that is pure and good and beautiful in a Christian life, then surely it is our duty -- as the Bible and all wise Christians through the ages tell us it is -- to make his sacrifice for us the animating principle of our daily lives. It is not enough to give it the center place in our Christian theology -- if it belongs there, then it belongs as well -- for our theology is truth designed to be lived -- in the center place of our hearts and minds every day.

McCheyne said in one of his sermons: "Often the doctrine of Christ for me appears common, well-known, having nothing new in it; and I am tempted to pass it by and go to some scripture more [interesting]. This is the devil again -- a red-hot lie. Christ for us is ever new, ever glorious." [In Bonar, p. 176; 'Personal Reformation I] When I first read that, 20 years ago, I immediately wrote it down because it seemed to me so perfectly to express and unmask my own tendency. I am always thinking that I already know all about Christ and his sacrifice and that other subjects are now more interesting to me. How wrong; how foolish! I need nothing so much as the knowledge of Christ for me and I have hardly begun to explore the depths of that truth.

Or, hear Richard Hooker, in his immortal sermon on justification by faith alone. "Let it be counted folly, or phrenzy, or fury, or whatsoever, it is our wisdom and our comfort. We care for no other knowledge in the world but this: that man hath sinned and God hath suffered: that God hath made himself the sin of men, and that men are made the righteousness of God."

Though troubles assail and dangers affright, Though friends should all fall, and foes all unite; Yet one thing secures us, whatever betide, The Scripture assures us, the Lord will provide. His call we obey, like Abrah'm of old, Not knowing our way, but faith makes us bold; For though we are strangers, we have a good guide, And trust in all dangers, the Lord will provide.

15 The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time

1. Clearly God has been watching the whole scene step by step from the moment Abraham left that early morning three days ago. God knew all that he suffered, and all of the questions he struggled with all along the journey. God is just as happy about how this has all turned out as Abraham is, for he delights to call down again

to declare just how delighted he is with the obedience of Abraham.

16 and said, "I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son,

1. Before God promised Abraham to be a great nation, but now he promises himself that he will do it, for he has just been satisfied that Abraham is fully committed to be the man he wants him to be. He is truly in full surrender to the will of God, and this makes God so pleased that he goes on to renew the promise he made before. God is so sure of his choice now. He may have had some question about the full loyalty of Abraham before, for there were times when he was ready to take control of things and do it his way rather than God's way. Now God is satisfied that he is fully willing to conform to his plan and do whatever he asks of him. What more proof could he demand than the willingness to sacrifice his most beloved possession-his only son?

17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies,

1. This is a promise of ultimate success in life. A vast people who will honor him for the rest of time, and this promise has been fulfilled. The numbers are literally astronomical, and it can be debated if this part of the promise has been fulfilled, for nobody has ever counted the stars in the sky, or the sand on the seashore, and compared it to all who have come from the seed of Abraham. If you are going to be a literalist it is likely that this cannot be demonstrated to be true, even if you include all of the spiritual seed of Abraham, which means all the believers of all time. The best way to look at this is to see God is saying that his descendants will be vast, and they will be powerful in taking over the Promised Land from their enemies.

2. "There is a final understated irony at the conclusion of the Abraham story. Abraham owned no land at all when Sarah died. He had to go to the Hittites and

pay an extravagant amount of money for a single cave in which to bury Sarah. When Abraham died shortly after he had no great number of descendants, let alone having descendants like the stars of the heaven or the sand of the seashore. When he died he had one son at home, and owned one burial cave. So where were the great promises? What had become of all the great things that God had promised Abraham? Part of the dynamic of this whole story is that the faith journey of Abraham doesn’t end in chapter 22 or even in chapter 25 with Abraham’s death. Abraham’s faith was not for himself because the promise was not for Abraham. The promise was for the children of Abraham. Part of Abraham’s faith journey was that he came to a willingness to trust God for the future, not just his own future but for God’s future. It would be a long time after Abraham, nearly 800 years, before his descendants would ever own the land that he was promised. And it would be some time after that before they would be a great nation."

18 and through your offspring [b] all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me."

1. This radical act of obedience leads to the radical promise repeated again that through his offspring the whole world of people will be blessed. One act of obedience by one man leads to all men having the potential of becoming a part of God's eternal family. Abraham's family will make it possible for all to become children of God, for his family will one day bring the Savior of the world into time, and he will make this promise become a reality. Seen in this light, the test of Abraham and his passing it was the most important event in the Old Testament, for God’s entire plan for man hinged on his obedience to this radical command. We have every reason to be proud to be children of Abraham, for he was the savior of that seed that became the Savior of all people. This makes it clear also that there is no higher virtue than obedience to God. Abraham had his weaknesses and faults, but he was above all else a man of obedience, and that is why he is the hero of all three of the great religions of the world.

2. George Whitefield wrote, "With what comfort may we suppose the good old man and his son went down from the mount, and returned unto the young men! With what joy may we imagine he went home, and related all that had passed to Sarah! And above all, with what triumph is he now exulting in the paradise of God, and adoring rich, free, distinguishing, electing, everlasting love, which alone made him to differ from the rest of mankind, and rendered him worthy of that title which he will have so long as the sun and the moon endure, "The Father of the faithful!"

19 Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they set off together for Beersheba. And Abraham stayed in Beersheba.

Nahor's Sons

20 Some time later Abraham was told, "Milcah is also a mother; she has borne sons to your brother Nahor:

21 Uz the firstborn, Buz his brother, Kemuel (the father of Aram),

1. Abraham and Sarah laughed at the birth of Isaac, but here are a couple of babies that had to make everyone who heard of it laugh. They are called Uz and Buz. Now I know that maybe this was not funny sounding to the parents, but it sounds funny in the English language. People would think the parents were being cruel today who would send them off to school reporting they were Uz and Buz. The torment these boys would suffer from the other children would be criminal, and the parents could be changed with child abuse for such cruel naming.

22 Kesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph and Bethuel."

23 Bethuel became the father of Rebekah. Milcah bore these eight sons to Abraham's brother Nahor.

1. This brother of Abraham by the name of Nahor provided a sort of home base for

Abraham. That is why he sent his servant back to their home in order to find a wife for Isaac, and he found Rebekah there among his relatives. This kept the whole family in the bloodline to the Messiah.

24 His concubine, whose name was Reumah, also had sons: Tebah, Gaham, Tahash and Maacah.

APPENDIX

A. Twelve Tests of AbrahamAbraham’s faith was tested at least twelve specific times. Some of them were not what we might call big tests, but together they establish a picture of Abraham as a person whose faith was genuine. After the last of these, God said, “Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son” (Genesis 22:12).Each of Abraham’s tests can have applications for us:Genesis 12:1-7Test: Abraham left Ur and Haran for an unknown destination at God’s direction.Application: Do I trust God with my future? Is his will part of my decision making?Genesis 13:8-13Test: Abraham directed a peaceful separation from Lot and settled at the oaks of Mamre.Application: Do I trust God with my interests even when I seem to be receiving an unfair settlement?Genesis 14:13-18Test: Abraham rescued Lot from the five kings.Application: Does my faithfulness to others bear witness to my trust in God’s faithfulness?Genesis 14:17-24Test: Abraham gave a tithe of loot to the godly king of Salem, Melchizedek, and refused the gift of the king of Sodom.Application: Am I watchful in my dealings with people that I give proper honor to God and refuse to receive honor that belongs to him?Genesis 15:1-6Test: Abraham trusted God’s promise that he would have a son.Application: How often do I consciously reaffirm my trust in God’s promises?Genesis 15:7-11Test: Abraham received the Promised Land by faith, though the fulfillment would not come for many generations.Application: How have I demonstrated my continued trust in God during those times when I have been required to wait?

Genesis 17:9-27Test: At God’s command, Abraham circumcised every male in his family.Application: In what occasions in my life have I acted simply in obedience to God, and not because I understood the significance of what I was doing?Genesis 18:1-8Test: Abraham welcomed strangers, who turned out to be angels.Application: When was the last time I practiced hospitality?Genesis 18:22-33Test: Abraham prayed for Sodom.Application: Am I eager to see people punished, or do I care for people in spite of their sinfulness?Genesis 20:1-17Test: Abraham admitted to wrongdoing and took the actions needed to set things right.Application: When I sin, is my tendency to cover up, or confess? Do I practice the truth that an apology must sometimes be accompanied by restitution?Genesis 21:22-34Test: Abraham negotiated a treaty with Abimelech concerning a well.Application: Can people depend on my words and promises?Genesis 22:1-12Test: Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac.Application: In what ways has my life demonstrated that I will not allow anything to come before God?Source unknown