Genesis 22 is one of the great chapters of the Bible. It deals with the most fundamental issues of human life and the basic principles of our relationship with God. It also takes us to the mountaintop of faith and it contains a prophecy regarding the most important day in the history of our planet. Abraham demonstrates that he loves “the LORD [his] God with all [his] heart and with all [his] soul and with all [his]
strength.” (Deut.6:5) It is a deeply moving account in every respect.
The chapter starts out by saying that God put Abraham to the test. The KJV uses the expression “God did tempt Abraham,” but the modern meaning of the word “tempt” as an attempt to make one fall in sin makes this word unacceptable. Here again we can say that the omniscient God did not need the proof of Abraham’s faith. The test was not for God’s benefit, but for Abraham’s and for us.
There are at least two other Scripture references that mention the testing of Abraham. The first one is Heb 11:17-20 “By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, Even though God had said to him, ‘It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.’ Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.”
The second we find in James 2:21-24 “Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says,
‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,’ and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.”
To start with the latter, James connects Abraham’s testing with his justification when God counted Abraham’s faith as righteousness. James’ approach to the subject has caused a lot of controversy, and some people, like Luther, accused him of perverting the true faith. But what James did was only showing that Abraham’s faith, which caused him to be justified before God, resulted in this sacrifice, which justified him before man. We find the words “Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness” in Ch. 15:6, which describes an event that took place at least thirty years or more before the one we find in Ch. 22.
James’ important contribution to the subject is that Abraham’s act of surrender of that which is the most precious to him is based upon the work of grace that God had started in him years before. Abraham’s faith was a living thing, which demonstrated itself in heroic acts of self-denial. It also brought Abraham in this unique relationship of personal friendship with God, which means that God took him into His confidence. We do not find the term “God’s friend” in the account of the sacrifice. It is borrowed from Isaiah 41:8, where God says: “But you, O Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, you descendants of Abraham my friend.”
The writer to the Hebrews comments on Abraham’s reasoning in bringing this sacrifice. The text emphasizes the paradox of the act. After all, there was God’s promise that Isaac would be the father of many nations. It made no sense that God would demand that Abraham kill his son, and yet that was apparently the case. Abraham’s solution to the problem was that God would have to raise him from the dead. We see that faith is connected to logic. The contradiction was on the surface, not in the core. Abraham’s faith was not an “upper story” experience, to use the phrase that Francis Schaeffer made popular. Abraham’s hope for the resurrection also saw him through the emotional turmoil of his three days’ trip to Mount Moriah. But we are running ahead here.
There is no way of knowing when this event took place and how old Isaac was at this point. The only thing we are told is that it happened “some time later.” The fact that Isaac carried the wood for the sacrifice, as we read in vs.6, indicates that he would be a boy, strong enough to carry a load. He would at least have been a teenager. But that is the only firm conclusion we can draw. To make him 33 years old, just because the story foreshadows the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, is pure conjecture.
The dialogue of the first two verses is a startling one. God calls Abraham’s name, and Abraham responds as a slave would to his master, ready to receive orders. The difference is that the order given is a highly personal one, such as no slave would ever be asked to perform. The first conclusion we must draw is that serving God involves all. We are called to serve God with everything we have and are. Our family and all the relationships of our human life are included in this.
The test does not come to Abraham as an academic question, such as “if you would be requested to do such and such, would you do it?” The devil often uses hypothetical cases to make us afraid. God does not do that. He demands obedience in well defined, specific cases. That is why we should not ask ourselves the question whether we would obey if we were asked to sacrifice one of our children. That would only cause unnecessary inner conflicts. It would also be immoral, because murder is sin.
The fact that Abraham was asked to perform an act that was actually against the will of God, (Exodus 20:13 says: “You shall not murder,”) raises some difficult questions. Oswald Chambers thinks that Abraham thought he heard God’s voice, but he did not hear it clearly. What he pursued was his idea of the will of God. Our text does not leave us that option. A more blasphemous idea I read years ago in a Dutch Sunday School lesson, where it was suggested that the Jehovah Abraham knew was still close to the Canaanite deities, that demanded child sacrifices. The concept of the God of Israel had not evolved yet at that time. Such a Darwinistic approach to the story is unacceptable.
The problem is that God is very specific in His demand. It is impossible to misunderstand who God wanted and what God wanted to be done to him. Verse 2 says: “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.” The only less defined part of the order was the place of sacrifice.
The only satisfactory explanation can be given if we see the whole story in a prophetic perspective.
God did not want Abraham to murder his son, but He wanted to share with Abraham the feeling of a Father Whose Son would be murdered. Abraham was God’s friend, as James correctly states. And friendship consists in the sharing of joy and sorrow. God had the death of Jesus on the cross of Calvary in mind when He asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.
We may object that Abraham could not have understood the lesson. But the fact that Abraham calls the place Jehovah-jireh indicates that he understood more than we would presume. In verse 14 we read:
“And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen.” (KJV)
Another amazing detail in God’s command is that the sacrifice is specified as a “burnt offering.”
In Leviticus, we read the stipulations for the burnt offering.231 The sacrifice could be made of various kinds of animals, such as bulls, rams or doves. Unlike any of the other sacrifices it was to be burnt up completely. The priest was allowed to keep the hide of the animal, but no part of it could be eaten by anybody. Also it had no connection with any sin committed. It was the most important of all the five categories of sacrifices that are mentioned in Leviticus, because it was the first of the list. It was “an aroma pleasing to the LORD.”
Like all sacrifices it portrayed the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. But the emphasis of this sacrifice was different from the other ones. In three of the five sacrifices there is the feature of forgiveness of sin. The “guilt offering,” the “sin offering” and the “fellowship offering” were all connected with the havoc sin had caused in the relationship between God and man. In the “grain offering”
the person who brought the sacrifice recognized God as his Creator and himself as the creature. It was the expression of an act of surrender of the human life that God had made. It said to God “You have the right to my life because You made me!” But the “burnt offering” has none of these features. It has nothing to do with any human sin or forgiveness of sin or with any human relationship. It is an expression of an act of surrender that is not of this earth. It is the seal of, what the epistle to the Hebrews calls, “the eternal covenant.” In Heb.13:20 we read: “May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep.” Before the world began, the Second Person of the Trinity surrendered to the First Person of the Trinity on the basis of eternal love. That is why Jesus is called “the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.” (Rev.13:8) In asking Abraham to sacrifice his son, his only son, Isaac, whom he loved, God drew Abraham into the mystery of the expression of “agape love” such as cannot be seen on earth. We grant that Abraham cannot have understood all of this, but there must have been something in the command that lifted his heart above all the reasoning of his head and carried him on a divine cloud those three days on the trail to the place where he saw the Lamb that God had prepared for him. If we leave this divine element out of the story, we are left with an immoral and inhuman trial of natural affections that would have led Abraham beyond the breaking point. God’s demand would have been more cruel than the rituals performed for Moloch, and Abraham’s obedience would have been an act of insanity.
God called Abraham by his new name “Abraham,” which means “father of many nations.” This adds another paradox to the call. Abraham is asked to put his new name on the altar. If Isaac were dead, this name would have become meaningless. This fact must also have been an indication to Abraham that God had more in mind than the killing of his son. That is where the writer to the Hebrews must have gotten the idea that Abraham reckoned on a resurrection. Heb.11:19 says: “Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.”
Abraham’s obedience was immediate. He did not take a few days to think over God’s command or to let it sink in; he leaves the next morning. It sounds as if Abraham personally performs all the preparations for the trip. He saddles the donkey and cuts the firewood. This could mean, though, that he gave the orders. Two servants accompany them the first two days. We do not read whether Sarah was informed about the purpose of the trip; probably not. It would have added to the agony if Abraham would have drawn Sarah into this, and her opposition would have made Abraham’s obedience so much more difficult.
Initially, God had only indicated the general region in which the place of sacrifice lay. By the third day Abraham must have received more precise instructions. One of the general principles in obeying the Word of God is that more light is given as obedience progresses. These three days on the trail remind us of
231 See Lev.1:3-17; 6:9-13
another period of three days of death which ended in a resurrection. The whole picture if full of details that run parallel to the actual event that is portrayed here, that is the death and resurrection of Jesus.
On the morning of the third day Abraham leaves the two servants behind and sets out with Isaac alone. Evidently, the servants had not been told the purpose of the journey. And even now they are left in the dark as to what is really going to happen. Thus far only God and Abraham know the secret. Had the servants known, they would probably have prevented Abraham from carrying out what he intended to do. After all you do not just let an old man go when you know he is going to kill his son. We read in verse 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.’“ These words can be perceived either as a statement of faith or as an outright lie.
Abraham was justified later in the day by the facts, but at this point he had no proof that Isaac would return with him. Yet, because of his faith in God, he was sure. He knew that God is the God of the living, not of the dead; and that God would not kill His own promise.
I think of Jesus’ words to His disciples on the eve of His death on the cross. In John 14:18,19 He says: “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.” Yet Jesus had, humanly speaking, no more guarantee for His own resurrection than Abraham had for Isaac’s. Both must have relied solely on the promise and character of God. Abraham’s attitude is almost as victorious and Jesus.’ We tend to think of Abraham as a poor old man, who is tested beyond endurance and for whom the three-day trip to Mount Moriah was sheer torture. Instead, we see a man who is radiant and confident, who proclaims victory over death.
The last stretch of the journey, which Abraham makes alone with Isaac, should have been the hardest; but here too we find the same joy and confidence as earlier on the trail. Isaac carries the firewood, Abraham the fire and the knife. Vs.7 and 8 give us one of the most heart piercing dialogues in the Bible. We read: “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?’ Abraham answered, ‘God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.’ And the two of them went on together.” Isaac asks “Where is the lamb?” Abraham does not answer at this point “You are the lamb!” But he points to God as the provider. We do not hear any further questions. The phrase “And the two of them went on together” sounds laden with tension, but it can also represent a picture of joyful expectation of a miracle. Here again we have to pause and say to ourselves that if we leave God and the provision He is going to make for Abraham, Isaac and mankind, out of the picture, we get bogged down in a situation that is too horrible and too immoral to imagine. The point of this story is not that Isaac has to die, but that God substitutes for him.
The climax is reached in vs.9 and 10, when they reach the summit. God told Abraham where to build the altar. The Islam tradition has it that the rock, which presently is inside the mosque, which is called the Dome of the Rock, is the place. The Koran says, however, that it was Ishmael who was to be sacrificed. The problem connected with this adjustment: that this “mistake” was discovered almost four centuries after the facts, is simply ignored by the faithful. The rock in question was the place where the brass altar stood outside the temple. A visit to this place is till an impressive experience. Other traditions have it that the place of Abraham’s sacrifice was the exact spot where later the cross was planted; that is, the hill of Golgotha. That would be only a few hundred yards away from the Dome. Nobody knows, and every theory about the location is pure speculation.
At this point Abraham must have revealed to Isaac what was going to happen. We do not read that Isaac put up any resistance. It would be hard to believe that Abraham, who was then one hundred fifteen or twenty years old, would have been able to overpower a strong young lad who wanted to fight for his life.
We may presume that Isaac offered himself willingly. The picture of Isaiah 53:7 come before our eyes: “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.” We do not know what kind of person Isaac was. We do not read about any rebellion in his life or even that he performed any amazing deeds. The most eventful happening is an argument about some wells in Ch. 26. Isaac seems to have had nothing of the features of a wild donkey like his step brother Ishmael. He probably did not have the spunk of his mother, and in chapter 26 he demonstrates the same fear for his life as his father had. This kind of meekness may have played a role in his lack of resistance. But I rather think that it was more the glow of his father’s faith
We may presume that Isaac offered himself willingly. The picture of Isaiah 53:7 come before our eyes: “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.” We do not know what kind of person Isaac was. We do not read about any rebellion in his life or even that he performed any amazing deeds. The most eventful happening is an argument about some wells in Ch. 26. Isaac seems to have had nothing of the features of a wild donkey like his step brother Ishmael. He probably did not have the spunk of his mother, and in chapter 26 he demonstrates the same fear for his life as his father had. This kind of meekness may have played a role in his lack of resistance. But I rather think that it was more the glow of his father’s faith