Today we'll be concluding this portion of Scripture. When we closed on Sunday, Isaac was asking his father where the lamb was for the burnt sacrifice. Abraham replied, "God will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son."
This is where we pick up today. "And the two of them went on together. When they had 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." (Genesis 22:8b-9)
As a child, whenever I'd see this story in an illustrated Bible book, I'd look at it from Isaac's perspective. I'd wonder whether he was terrified of his father in this moment and whether he resisted being bound. I'd wonder whether this experience traumatized him for life. Some scholars suggest that Isaac understood what was coming and that he was willing to do what the Lord said, because in the original text the verse that's rendered as "the two of them went on together" is literally "the two of them were in agreement". If it's true that Isaac must have at least a teenager by now, I believe he could have resisted successfully if he'd wanted to. His father is well over one hundred years old, whereas he is young and strong and fast. He very well could have overpowered his father or simply run away if he didn't want to take part in what's happening here, but the Bible indicates he did none of these things. He apparently allowed himself to be bound and placed on the altar. If you want to do a Google search about whether Isaac was a willing sacrifice, you'll find a lot of articles to back up this theory. We can't say for certain what was going through his mind or whether he was as submissive to God as his father was, but it would seem that he's being obedient to both his earthly father and to his heavenly Father on Mount Moriah.
Abraham is going to go through with what the Lord asked him to do. "Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son." (Genesis 22:10) I can't even imagine how he finds the strength to do this, even though he fully expects the Lord to raise his son from the dead. If I were Isaac's parent, I wouldn't want to cause him a single second of discomfort or distress, no matter what the Lord said. I simply don't think I'd have this kind of faith, and I'm not even a parent. Those of you who are parents no doubt find this scene difficult or impossible to imagine, but as we studied earlier in Genesis 22, what Abraham is doing is not a foreign thing in the region where he lives. Child sacrifice, sadly, was practiced by some of the tribes of the land he inhabits. In those cases, the children are being sacrificed to gods who don't exist. In those cases, the children remain dead. I think what keeps Abraham going, besides the strength the Holy Spirit provides to him, is that he knows he serves the one and only living God and that this God who created all things is going to immediately breathe life back into Isaac and raise him up.
But the Lord has no intention of allowing Abraham to do anything to Isaac. The test was for Abraham to see whether he trusted the Lord with anything and everything. Now, for the rest of Abraham's life, he will know there is nothing he will refuse the Lord. Isaac will be a man of faith because of his father's example and because of the way the Lord rescues him today. We go through things in life that we'd avoid if at all possible, but when we look back on them, can't we see that the Lord increased our faith through them? There have been things I would have avoided at all costs. There are things I wish weren't a part of my history. But the Lord used them to teach me things about Himself and about myself that I could never have learned any other way. "But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, 'Abraham! Abraham!' 'Here I am,' he replied. '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.'" (Genesis 22:11-12) Remember when we talked about "the angel of the Lord" being a title for the pre-incarnate Christ? This is the voice of Christ===the Word of God===calling to Abraham from heaven. The One who is going to be the Lamb provided by God stops Abraham from making an offering of atonement out of his son, for this One is going to make Himself the atonement offering for all mankind.
Until the Lamb of God comes to take away the sins of the world, God provides a temporary sacrifice of atonement for Abraham to offer. "Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 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.'" (Genesis 22:13-14) This is another instance in the Bible of someone giving a new name to God. Here we find Abraham calling Him, in Hebrew, Jehovah Jireh. By the time Moses writes the book of Genesis, this spot on Mount Moriah is still known as the place where the Lord provided a sacrifice. It was known prophetically as the place where the Lord will provide a sacrifice. And so it came to pass in Old Testament times when Jerusalem's temple was built in this very spot and sacrifices to the Lord were made there for the atonement of sins. And so it came to pass in the New Testament when God made His own Son a sacrifice at Jerusalem for the sins of the human race. The Lord has indeed provided the Lamb for the sacrifice, just as He promised.
"The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, 'I swear by Myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 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, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed Me.'" (Genesis 22:15-18) The word rendered here as "offspring" is "seed", meaning one particular descendant. The Apostle Paul points out in Galatians 3:16 that God wasn't speaking of "seeds" as in many, but was speaking of only one person. And it's not Isaac. It's Christ. It's Christ through whom all nations on earth are blessed. It's Christ who gave Himself for all and it's Christ who invites all to come to Him. Isaac did not redeem his people or the nations of the world; One from among his descendants many centuries later did, and that One was Christ.
Abraham previously told his servants that both he and Isaac would return to them after worshiping the Lord, and this is exactly what happens. "Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they set off together for Beersheba. And Abraham stayed in Beersheba." (Genesis 22:19)
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