It’s a story I go back to often. Genesis 22: God tests Abraham’s faith by commanding him to take his son Isaac and sacrifice him with his own hand. There was so much in this passage, and yet nothing. What was it saying? What was the point? If anything it gave me deep anxiety – if I was tested by God in this way I know I would fail spectacularly. Does that mean my faith is not strong enough?
Most worrying of all – what does it say about God that he would ask Abraham to do this?
God’s words however invite us in. We should interrogate them, question them, see deeper into what he is communicating and be sure of what we believe and why. So here’s why I believe what this story tells us is not that God is terrifying and capricious, but amazing and merciful, deserving of our faith.
In v2, God tells Abraham “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.” And Abraham goes. God does not give any more information and Abraham asks for none.
What God is asking is, to say the least, unusual. Child sacrifice was known in the Canaanite world but occurred relatively soon after birth. While there is no clear consensus on how old Isaac was at this time, most agree that he was a young man rather than a small child. So to sacrifice one’s child so late would be rare. Additionally, child sacrifice was in response to some issue or event such as fertility rituals (ironically) or asking the pagan gods for protection of a home. Isaac’s sacrifice is not linked to anything other than God’s command and so would be exceptionally rare. So while Abraham would be aware of child sacrifice and the pagan rituals of those around him, this was altogether something different and something shocking (apart from the emotional shock of a father!).
On top of this, the law and regulations had not been communicated to God’s people through Moses yet so there was no (as far as we are aware from Scripture) established sacrificial system. While animals were sacrificed in the pagan world, it was usually to offer up to the gods in return for something. It was never as a substitute for a human life. So this would not be something that Abraham had a clear example of in the world in which he lived.
In addition, this command came from the same God that made a covenant with Abraham which included Abraham’s offspring being as plentiful as the sand on the shore. Isaac was not Abraham’s only son but he was Abrahams only legitimate son and the one through whom the promises would come to pass. So Isaac was the “only son” on whom the covenant promises rested – and he was to be sacrificed?
On the way, Isaac asks why they have firewood but no lamb. This suggests Isaac knows at least something is afoot. Abraham says that God will provide the lamb (v8).
Did he truly believe this? Was he wishful thinking? Are these the desperate words of an anguished father? Scripture does not say. Nor does it say if Isaac was terrified as he allowed his father to bind him to the temporary altar he built – that Isaac himself probably helped him to build. Was Isaac hoping against hope that Abraham wouldn’t go through with it? Was he in freeze mode, robotically going through the motions not knowing, or able, to do anything else? Was he fully faithful knowing that Abraham trusted God, and he, Isaac trusted his father? Scripture also does not say.
Why doesn’t it say?
It doesn’t say because it was not important. Don’t misunderstand me, Abraham and Isaac were hugely important to God. They were his chosen, his image bearers, the ones through whom the plan of salvation would occur. Whatever they were feeling was immensely important to God. It’s not important to us – the reader. We don’t know what they were feeling. And in the absence of anything recorded, we shouldn’t make assumptions about it based on how we would feel. But we know what they did. Whether they were joy-filled and faithful or terrified and gut-wrenched, they were obedient to God’s command.
This was the faith that God was testing (v1). God had tested his people elsewhere, for instance by getting them to obey in unbelievably hard circumstances (eg Deut. 8:2 and Judges 3:4). When God tests, he tests people to their limits. This instance with Abraham is no exception.
So what was the point? God knows everything doesn’t he? Didn’t he know that Abraham was faithful already? Yes. But this faith needed to be enacted for our benefit too. We needed to see this. Abraham is one of the cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 11) that helps us to throw off the sin that so easily entangles, and run the race with our eyes fixed on Jesus (Hebrews 12:1-2).
It is an important establishment story, re-affirming the covenant for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the 12 tribes of Israel. And it helps us to see into God’s character. This story shows us God’s faithfulness to the covenant with his people and his provision.
It shows us what faithful obedience looks like. It’s all in. In verse 18 God re-affirms the covenant and says that everyone on earth will be blessed “because you have obeyed me.” In verse 12 God had said “Now I know you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”
Abraham did not withhold anything. And God provided a substitute.
And here comes the part that makes me truly breathless. God again provided a substitute. Jesus Christ, God’s only son, was a substitute for us. There was no substitute for Jesus, Jesus was the substitute.
God withheld nothing.
I wonder if, without the story of Abraham’s testing, would we be able to understand Jesus’ sacrifice as full as we do? Without Genesis 22, we would not be able to interpret Christ’s sacrifice as God’s sacrifice of his son so clearly. The fact that we had an example of a sacrifice that was substitutionary. The fact that God has withheld nothing from us. That he gave his only son, whom he loved, for us. Our understanding of the cross would be lacking those personal elements that help us to know the depth of what God did. How great and how personal the sacrifice.
So as with all Bible stories, there is a point within its original context and there is a timeless meaning for all of God’s faithful. Abraham and Isaac could have been a hot mess – we don’t know – but they acted in faithful obedience. They believed. They had faith. And that is what was credited to them as righteousness.
And because of that, we know that God loved Isaac and Abraham deeply because God provided a substitute. God loves our children more than we do because he gave his only child for them. He loves us as his people and as our individual hot-mess selves because he gave his son for us. He loves us that much.
And that is why he is worth being all-in for.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)