Abraham's Ultimate Test
On Sunday morning, Rev KI MacLeod preached on Genesis 22 - Abraham's Ultimate Test.
Without faith, and some Bible knowledge, Mr MacLeod observed, a reader coming to this chapter might well be horrified by it. They would wonder what God was doing in Abraham's life. However, the Lord is using this incident to show Abraham, and the church right up to the present time, what He has accomplished with the death of Christ.
Remove Jesus from our reading of this passage, in fact, and we render it meaningless.
Abraham would have had some knowledge of child sacrifice which was a contemporary cultural practice, abhorred by the Lord. Nonetheless, Abraham's faith in God was sufficient to ensure his obedient compliance.
This particular chapter begins by saying that, after all the other incidents in his life, God tested Abraham. In many ways, though, his whole life up to this point has been a test of faith - not least when the Lord commanded him to leave his home and step out into the unknown. He had done as God asked him and, though there had been moments of backsliding, the general momentum of Abraham's life was towards obedience.
And here, he is being ordered to sacrifice the very son of promise, whose foretold birth had itself been a test of faith for both his parents. It is impossible to imagine what his thoughts were on the three-day journey to Moriah.
Abraham was actually obeying the same directive as in chapter 12 - 'go to'. It meant, in the earlier incident, leaving behind all that was familiar and relinquishing his past. Here, in chapter 22, however, he is being asked to relinquish the future, by sacrificing his covenant son.
His faith as demonstrated in this passage is astounding. We all question God's providence at times, and never more so than when it comes near and hurts ourselves. Yet, the strength of Abraham's faith was such that he was fully prepared to do the Lord's bidding, believing that He would subsequently raise Isaac from the dead.
Not only do we marvel at Abraham's faith in this, but at Isaac's also. He was not a young child, yet there is no suggestion in the text that he had to be forced into submission. In this, and in other facets of the incident - for example, Isaac carrying the wood for his own sacrificial pyre - it is clear that he is a type of Christ.
A type points to, or anticipates the ideal. Isaac was chosen, just like the Passover lamb, three days beforehand, with the sacrifice occurring on the fourth day. Jesus knew what lay ahead of him, but went purposely to Jerusalem. He was put to death at the Passover.
On their journey, Abraham and Isaac are accompanied by two young men. They witnessed everything, up to the point where Abraham took his son aside. This private transaction between Isaac and his father foreshadows what later transpired at Calvary between God and Jesus. Everything in connection with Jesus’ final hours had been so public, but during those hours of darkness, when the whole weight of our sin was laid on Him, only He and the Father were involved.
It also echoes the entrance of the high priest into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement, unaccompanied and unseen, to make a sacrifice to God. The congregation would wait to see if the sacrifice had been accepted - signified by the return of the high priest into their midst.
It is God who determines the acceptability of a sacrifice. No one had sufficient merit to atone for the sins of mankind but God Himself. He could not do that as the first person in the Godhead, of course, because He is God and we are sinful humans. That is why the Son became man, to stand in our stead.
As Abraham raised the knife to kill Isaac, the Lord prevented him. And so, Isaac – like the high priest on the Day of Atonement – emerged from the situation with his life intact.
When Jesus was nailed to the cross to cover our sins, however, no voice came from Heaven to stay the hands of His executioners. Unlike the highpriest, or Isaac, His life was required of Him.
Unlike them, however, He returned, victorious over death itself. He was the once for all sacrifice, defeating sin and death.
Mr MacLeod asked the congregation to consider all this, and to pray that the death of Jesus and all that it has purchased would be made over to themselves.
