When “God tested Abraham”(Genesis 22:1), Abraham passed the test!
Isaac was born when Abraham was one-hundred. We’re not told the old-guy’s age when he faced this Lord’s test. We simply read the Lord’s strange demand. “Take your son … your only son Isaac, whom you love, go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about”(Genesis 22:2). Then we read of Abraham’s radically faithful response. “Abraham got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took with him two of his young men and his son Isaac. He split wood for a burnt offering and set out to go to the place God had told him about”(Genesis 22:3).
“On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance”(Genesis 22:4). On the third day! Jonah was in the belly of the great fish for three days (Jonah 1:17) and Jesus was entombed for three days (Matthew 12:40; Luke 24:7). For three days, Abraham thought of nothing else. For three days Abraham dreaded thrusting the knife into his son’s innocent heart.
At the foot of the Mountain, Abraham left his servants and his donkeys saying, “The boy and I will go over there to worship; then we’ll come back to you” (Genesis 22:5). We, father and son, would return. He fully intended to put Isaac to death, and by faith, he fully expected God to raise his beloved son back to life (Hebrews 11:17-19).
Trekking up the rocky hillside, the boy asked his dad, “ ‘The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?’ Abraham answered, ‘God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering’ ” (Genesis 22:7-8). Or in the old English, “God will provide himself a lamb”(Genesis 22:8, KJV).
Atop the hill, Abraham quickly prepared a crude altar, put the wood in place, “bound his son Isaac and placed him on the altar”(Genesis 22:9). Next, he obediently unsheathed his knife.
As stated above, we don’t know how old Isaac was on this occasion. If he was seventeen, he could have fended off his elderly father’s attack. If he was only seven, he could likely have outrun his feeble old dad. Either way, in my imagination, I see Isaac faithfully and obediently climbing onto the altar, trusting his father’s judgment.
As Abraham lifted the knife, ready to plunge it into Isaac’s heart, God called from Heaven. “Abraham, Abraham! … Do not lay a hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your only son from me”(Genesis 22:11-12). Very near, Abraham found God’s miraculous gift of grace, “a ram caught in the thicket by its horns”(Genesis 22:13).
God provides … on Mount Moriah, a.k.a. “the Lord’s Mountain”(Genesis 22:14), and a.k.a., Mount Calvary … God’s Son, His only Son, the Son He loved, became a Lamb, slain as the substitutionary sacrifice!
“… think on these things”(Philippians 4:8, KJV). |
Comments