God's promised son is the only sacrifice that can save.
Genesis 22:7-8 Isaac turned to Abraham and said, “Father?” “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied. “We have the fire and the wood,” the boy said, “but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?” 8 “God will provide a sheep for the burnt offering, my son,” Abraham answered. And they both walked on together.
It is easy to become overwhelmed with the Old Testament and set it aside and stay in the New Testament. If you avoid Genesis through Malachi and jump into the Bible somewhere in Matthew through Revelation then you miss out on a lot of important information.
Genesis explains to us that in the beginning our world was perfect and it tells us that he is the only one that can fix the problems caused by sin. There are a lot of social justice warriors out there today but they are not very effective because they do not address the heart problem that only God can fix. As soon as we messed it up God told us about his plan to make it all perfect again, that's what the rest of the Bible is trying to reveal to us.
God chose Abraham to be the beginning of a special people that would be the lineage of our savior. Abraham wasn't chosen because he was perfect for the job, over the years Abraham slowly progressed through the school of faith, as he learned more about God his faith would grow and he would trust him more.
This story of God telling Abraham to sacrifice Isaac is very disturbing from our perspective and we have to wonder how God could make such an extreme request. It seems like mental torture for everybody involved. But we have to realize that in the Old Testament we see God interacting with man very direct and often times he asks very great things of them that we never see in our day.
In the book of Genesis alone there was Noah, Abram, Isaac and Joseph that all did mighty things for God that he would never ask us to repeat. Since we have never experienced God in such a personal and direct way, it can be very difficult to understand this relationship between God and his people in the Old Testament.
Abraham is asked to go to an undisclosed location, a mountain somewhere in the land of Moriah where he would build yet another altar to sacrifice to God, today we know this place as the area that includes the Temple Mount and the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem. Abraham was to go there to offer God the most precious sacrifice.
Abraham's love and faith in God was put to the ultimate test that reminds me a lot of Job. We will find out whether his blessings were the reason for his obedience or would Abraham be obedient in the most difficult circumstances? God gives us good things but what happens when God wants them back?
Abraham's only verbal response to God was simply "Here I am." The Bible doesn't tell us that he debated with God to try to change his mind and he didn't ask for an explanation. Abraham personally started the task of obeying, he didn't leave it up to a servant to get things ready to go.
After over forty years of following God, he has experienced God and come to know him in a more intimate relationship than anybody that I know of in today's world. That's probably why God made a request that seems so huge to us. Abraham's faith journey brought him into such an intimate, trusting relationship with God that anything short of this extreme request wouldn't really be a true test of his faith.
Earlier when he didn't trust God, Abraham had Ishmael running around the house as a constant reminder of his lack of faith, if he failed this faith test then he would have Isaac hanging around the house as a painful reminder of his failure, sometimes our sins have long term consequences that we have to live with.
Abraham passed this test, but he wasn't the only one being tested, his only son was old enough that he had to be submissive to God's command in order for it to happen. Isaac could have refused to be involved once he found out that he was the one that his dad intended to put on the altar.
Ancient cultures were killing their children to please their gods but Abraham learned that the only sacrifice that the one true God seeks is a living sacrifice. (Romans 12:1-2) God is never pleased with a dead human and it grieves him greatly that we are so willing to rebel by murdering our baby's.
When he laid himself on the altar, trusting his father and his God, he came of age as the true seed of Abraham and entered on the inheritance, making God his God. At that supreme moment he made himself over to God, he put himself at God’s disposal; if his death was to be helpful in fulfilling God’s purpose he was willing to die. It was God’s will that must be done, not his.He had familiarized himself with the thought that he belonged to God; that he was on earth for God’s purposes, not for his own; so that now, when he was suddenly summoned to lay himself formally and finally on God’s altar, he did not hesitate to do so.
This cooperation between father and son are a foreshadow of God the Father and his Son Jesus. The Father was willing to sacrifice his Son but the Son had to be willing to be a part of the plan to save the world.
There are a lot of prophecy's in the Bible that have a dual fulfillment. Abraham's prophecy that God will provide the lamb for the sacrifice was fulfilled that very day but it was also a prediction that would take thousands of years to accomplish.
John 1:29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
John 3:16-17 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
The true lamb of God is the promised son that was represented in the foreshadowing of Isaac, God would never have been pleased with the death of Isaac, only a perfect human sacrifice could pay the penalty for man's sin. Since there are not any perfect humans around, Jesus is the only one that could satisfy God's demand for a sacrificial payment for our sin. (Matthew 10:37-39, 1 Peter 1:18-20)
The Lord has provided, just as he promised way back in the book of Genesis, but we have to believe in the provision. We must see how far short we fall from perfection and realize that God kindness in providing the sacrifice for our sin is our only hope of being with him in eternity. (Romans 3:23)
| Isaac Was A Foreshadow of Jesus |
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The miracle birth was prophesied God issues His command—His will—to sacrifice a beloved son The sons accept God’s will The sons carry the wood God provides a substitute Loved ones grieve for three days Faith in the resurrection |
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