We have been learning life lessons from Abraham’s life and will look at sacrificing Isaac. In the last issue, we witnessed the birth of the promised son Isaac and how it changed Abraham’s and Sarah’s life.

The birth of a child changes the parents’ life, but what if God told you to turn around and sacrifice the child to Him? Could you do it? I don’t know a parent who would be able to do this. That’s exactly what God tells Abraham to do next. We will be taking an in-depth look at this in this issue.

The most interesting part of this account is that Abraham and Isaac give us a foretaste of what will happen with God the Father and Jesus. But first, let’s take a closer look at what happens when God tests Abraham’s faith and commands him to sacrifice his cherished son.

God Tests Abraham in Sacrificing Isaac (Genesis 22:1-3)

Abraham and Sarah have been through a great deal. Finally, they have the promised son Isaac God will do great things through this family and continue to build it. But first, God must test Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.

God begin by testing Abraham’s faith. The word “test” is used 36 times in 38 verses in the Old Testament. It is an interesting word. I want to focus on two main uses of this verb. One is when people test the Lord (10x). The Israelites were constantly testing the Lord (Exodus 17:2, 7; Members 14:22; Deuteronomy 6:16; Isaiah 7:12; Psalm 78:18, 41, 56; 95:9; 106:14).

When the Israelites and other people tested the Lord, it was at of disobedience and rebellion. It met with devastating results, often angering the Lord and causing Him to discipline the people. However, when the Lord tested people, it was for Him to see a specific result (Genesis 22:1; Exodus 15:23; 16:4; 20:20; Deuteronomy 8:2, 16; 13:4; Judges 2:22; 3:1-2, 4).

Testing God is never a good thing ending in disaster while God tested you is a good thing because He wants to see if your faith has increased, trust in Him is greater, and if you have learned whatever He wanted you to learn.

God tests Abraham’s faith because of how Abraham and Sarah have reacted to God’s promise in the past. They decided to try to make it happen on their own. That is when Sarah gave Hagar, her slave, to Abraham. Ishmael was born, but that is not what God said would be His promise.

His promise must come about His way and by His word. Isaac was a miracle birth because of the elderly nature of his parents. Beyond that, Sarah was barren and could produce no children before the Lord stepped in. But they did not wait for that to begin with.

God has every right to test Abraham. Of course, He does not need our permission. Sacrificing Isaac is the perfect way to test if Abraham trusts God and His promises more than what he thinks he can do on his own.

This raises an interesting problem for many of us. God is not a God of human sacrifices. That is what the nations around Israel do. So why would God tested Abraham this way? Because without the promised son, Abraham must trust God to bring about the promise either through resurrection (Hebrews 11:17-19).

In the past, Abraham might have tried to figure out how to make things happen on his own, but his faith has grown. He has seen God do so many things in his walk with Him. God called to Abraham and he was ready to do whatever God wanted him to do.

Except that! Have you ever been there? You believe you are a faithful follower until He asks you the one thing you don’t want to give up? I think we have all been there. God asks Abraham to do the one thing that must’ve broken his heart – to sacrifice Isaac.

Isaac had brought so much laughter and joy to his parents in their old age. He was the promise given by God through barren Sarah. And now God wanted to take him away. God describes Isaac in terms that show He knew how much Isaac meant to Abraham. He calls Isaac “your only son” and “the son you love.

Isaac was not Abraham’s only son. Ishmael is also his son. Abraham love both of his sons. What parent can choose between one or the other child? Abraham is okay to go on a journey with Isaac. But then God tells them not only to go to the land of Moriah, but then comes the other shoe to drop.

God commands Abraham to offer Isaac as a burnt offering on the mountain He will show him. Abraham is used to following God’s direction on where to go. But to offer his own son as a burnt offering, to lay him on the wood and like the flames, then to slaughter him as a sacrifice, how could he?

Moriah is a very special place, the place where the Israelites would later erect the temple in Jerusalem. It was a sacred mountain. It may not have been that in Abraham’s time, but it was about to become a very special place.

There’s something different about Abraham with this big ask from the Lord. He does not complain, resist, or ask God why. Genesis 22:3 shows the signs of his mature faith and trust. He gets up early in the morning, saddled the donkey, and cut the wood. Then he took two servants and his son with him to the place God showed him.

We don’t get any cajoling, baking, or resistance. Abraham simply obeyed. Perhaps he thought with a three days journey that the Lord would change His mind or he would have something different happened. But at the end of the journey, they arrived at the mountain God told Abraham to go to. This is a dramatic story!

Abraham Trusts God in Sacrificing Isaac (Genesis 22:4-8)

As we continue this account of Abraham sacrificing Isaac in obedience to God, there is something very different indeed about Abraham’s faith. Look at what he says to the two servants after arriving at the mountain after three days travel.

He tells them to wait with the donkey. He and Isaac will go up the mountain, worship the Lord, and return to them. He knows God has demanded he sacrifice Isaac. But he says they will return after the sacrifice to the men.

What does Abraham think is going to happen? The writer of Hebrews said that Abraham believed that God would raise his son from the dead. That’s one interpretation. Another interpretation is that God will not actually allow Abraham to kill his own son.

God is not into child sacrifice. Children are a gift to their parents (Psalm 127:3-5; Proverbs 17:6). Abraham knows something is up. But he does not know what and he has learned to obey without questioning the Lord.

What we must understand about Isaac as the promise from God is that God can promise something and decide how He wants that promise to take place. We can get into a place where we think we understand how God will promise something. But we don’t really know that.

God was teaching Abraham that He is the promise Giver and His promises will happen no matter how it looks that they won’t. Even if Abraham sacrificed Isaac on this mountain, God would still bring about His promise. Abraham had to trust in the promise Giver more than the promise.

I think he realized this and believe God that God would sustain and fulfill the promise. Even if it wasn’t Isaac. Abraham had seen too much of God’s goodness to not trust He would fulfill the promise.

It is extraordinary that Abraham had the faith to believe Isaac will return to the two servants with him after the sacrifice. He couldn’t possibly know how God would do this, but he believed. The very thing God was testing were showing to be proven in Abraham.

God had been so insistent that Abraham would receive the promise through Sarah, his barren wife. Perhaps Abraham could not see that God would possibly take Isaac away from him. We need to have faith in the darkest of times that what God has promised will come to pass. God does not leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).

Abraham gathers everything together. He makes Isaac carry the wood he will lay him on for the burnt offering. There is some irony in this. He takes the fire and the knife. They start going up the mountain. If that is not bad enough, Isaac turns to him and says, “My father?” Notice that Abraham responds to Isaac the same way he responded to the Lord, “Here I am.”

Isaac asks, “We have the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?” I can only imagine Abraham’s heart breaking inside his chest. Isaac is not stupid. He has been with Abraham before doing sacrifices to the Lord. He knows what they need.

What father can hold back the tears? What did Abraham say at this point? He cannot tell Isaac that he is the sacrifice. All he can say to the boy is, “The Lord will provide for Himself the lamb for the sacrifice.”

I think this is another place where Abraham shows great faith. He is still believing that somehow Isaac will survive this and God will provide a different sacrifice. He has already said he and Isaac will return from the offering. He now says that God will provide a lamb for the sacrifice.

We must believe God will do great things in the worst of times. Our faith must be strong like Abraham’s. Remember that this whole account is about testing Abraham’s faith. So far, he is showing great faith. That does not mean that every step up that mountain did not grow heavier and heavier

God Stops Abraham from Sacrificing Isaac (Genesis 22:9-12)

The drama continues to build in sacrificing Isaac. Abraham and Isaac arrive at the exact location God gives Abraham. Wouldn’t it be great if we could hear the voice of God so clearly we do exactly what He wanted and where He wanted it to happen? Hearing God’s voice is a lifelong endeavor for every believer.

Abraham gets to work building the altar. Altars were usually made out of stone. This is probably no different. Who knows how long it took Abraham to build that altar. Isaac might have helped him build it. At home, they probably had an altar already built that they used for offerings and sacrifices.

In all that time, I cannot imagine the two worked in silence. What would they have talked about in the last hours of Isaac’s life? If it were me, the talked about the most important things in life to remember. They talked about the faithfulness of God. They talked about how He provides. They talked about walking with Him in obedience. Abraham probably taught his son what he was walking out himself.

Abraham put the wood on the altar and probably lit it up with fire. Then, to Isaac’s surprise, he bound him and put his son on top of the altar. If Isaac was surprised or protested, Scripture does not record it. Notice the same word is used in both places. Just as Abraham laid the wood on Isaac to walk up the mountain, here he lays Isaac on the wood.

Abraham is following through with obedience to the Lord. Next, he takes the knife and stretches out his hand, probably raised above his son, to sacrifice his son. The word here is “slaughter.” Abraham is about to kill the son of the promise.

Imagine his relief when the angel of the Lord called out to him, “Abraham! Abraham!” I wonder if there was hurry in the angel’s voice. Abraham is probably thinking, I knew He would not make me go through with it.

For the third time in this narrative, we hear Abraham say, “Here I him.” I’m beginning to believe this was his phrase of faith. God called on him, followed by Isaac, followed by the angel. At every turn, Abraham simply said, “Here I am.” He was ready to be used by God. He was ready to go through the test. He was ready to answer his son. And he was ready to obey the angel.

“Here I am” was Abraham’s faithful response to all three people. He was ready. The first two times were gut wrenching, heartbreaking requests. God asked him to sacrifice the son he loved, the son of the promise. Isaac asked him where the lamb for the sacrifice was. Each request probably brought Abraham to his knees inside.

Yet, he responded each time, “Here I am.” God will ask us to do hard things. People around us will ask us hard questions that will wrench our emotions. Could you or I constantly say, “Here I am”? We must learn from Abraham that phrase of obedience and availability. No matter what we may be asked, we must be there, present in the moment.

As Abraham was sacrificing Isaac, his son and God’s promise, the angel stopped him from going through with it. He would have done it. He would be obedient to God no matter what. No matter how hard it was. No matter what it cost him. No matter how people would react.

This was a big change from how Abraham dealt with God’s promise to this point. He and Sarah tried to make it happen with their own abilities and resources. But this time, after God had given the promise through Sarah, Abraham learned obedience and faithfulness to God.

How relieved Abraham must have felt when the angel followed his name with, “Don’t you dare lay a hand on the boy.” He had no trouble obeying this command. What a moment where his faith was confirmed by the angel. Isaac would live!

He had not lied when he told the two servants they will return. He had spoken faith and faith had delivered. Do you ever feel like you are lying when you speak in faith? We should never feel that way. Let your faith speak for you. Let God confirm it.

I want to take a moment to help you with the concept of the angel of the Lord. If you are not a careful reader, you will miss something we see throughout the Old Testament. The Angel of the Lord, as far as I am convinced from my studies, is the pre-incarnate Christ.

Let me explain. Time and time again, every time the Angel of the Lord appears, he does non-angel-like things. The Angel of the Lord speaks for Yahweh. He accepts worship from people. He chooses whether to forgive sins (Exodus 23:20-21). God’s name (presence) is in Him. And here, the Angel says, “Now I know that you fear God, seeing that you have not withheld your only son from Me.”

Let that sink in for a moment. The Angel refers to Himself as God. Abraham did not withhold his son from the Angel and from Yahweh. The Angel does not say, “withheld your son from Yahweh.” He says, “from Me.” Abraham’s faith is confirmed to the Angel. The Angel says, “Now I know.”

God is the one who tests Abraham. So why is the Angel giving His approval of Abraham’s faith? Why is the Angel responding as if He is Yahweh? I believe the Angel of the Lord is Yahweh incarnate.

We do not have time to study this in-depth rate at this moment, but scholars have been making the case that the Angel of the Lord, Yahweh, and Jesus are one and the same. You can read more about this in my book True Christian Authority.

You can also do your own studies of the Angel of the Lord and see for yourself how He acts differently than any other angel.

The Lord Will Provide (Genesis 22:13-14)

Abraham would not be sacrificing Isaac this day. What joy Hadfield his heart! Besides, he knew he would not be sleeping outside the tent that night when he got home. He would be returning with Sarah’s beloved son.

But there is something even more extraordinary than that. As soon as the Angel told him he had stood the test income of approved in his faith, he looked up to see a ram caught in the thicket. He looked up, but he also had to look behind himself. That is where he saw the ram. God provided the land after all!

It is my contention that if Abraham refused the Lord’s command at any point, that ram would not have been there. If he tried to get away with not sacrificing Isaac or tried in any way to get out of it, the ram would not be there. Perhaps even if he did not speak in faith the entire trip, the ram would not have been there.

Because Abraham with faithful to the Lord and obedient, the ram was there. God confirmed his words to the servants that he would return with Isaac to them. God confirmed his words to his son that the Lord would provide the lamb.

When we are faithful and obedient to the Lord, the Lord rewards our faith. I am convinced the ram was not always there. They did not see the ram caught in the thicket as they prepared the altar. It only appeared after the Angel confirmed Abraham’s faith.

Abraham retrieved the ram and sacrificed it to the Lord out of gratitude. It took the place of his son on that altar. An extraordinary occurrence happens next. Abraham gives God one of His names. God either tells people his names were (people named God according to their experience with Him.

This time, Abraham names God. He names God a familiar name to us. He calls God’s name Yahweh Yireh (Jehovah Jireh), “The Lord will provide.” People turned this into a saying, “On the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

Abraham was faithful to obey God and God was faithful to provide the sacrifice. But God does not just stop there. He provides for us every moment of every day. He provides the breath in our lungs. He provides in our most dire need. The Lord provides for us always.

God Blesses Abraham after Sacrificing Isaac (Genesis 22:15-18)

God provided the sacrifice instead of sacrificing Isaac. But He is not finished. He blesses Abraham again. We have seen a lot of blessing in the book of Genesis. Some have nicknamed the book, “The Book of Blessing,” and rightly so. It is full of God’s blessing humanity repeatedly.

The Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time.. For the first time, Moses explains that the Angel is in heaven. The way the Angel speaks, He once again sounds like He is speaking for Yahweh. He says that because Abraham has not withheld his only son from Him, He will bless Abraham and multiply his offspring as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore.

God has promised this blessing to Abraham before. He promised to increase Abraham’s offspring as the amount of stars and sky (Genesis 15:5; 26:4). He also promised to multiply them as much as the dust of the earth (Genesis 13:6). These were promises spoken by God or Yahweh. The Angel speaks as if He is God.

He further says that in Abraham’s offspring all the nations of the earth will be blessed, another promise from God in Genesis 12:2. He once again gives the reason as Abraham’s obedience to whatever He has told Abraham to do.

Parallels between Isaac and Jesus

As we have been examining this account of sacrificing Isaac, you may have noticed some similarities between Abraham and Isaac and God the Father and Jesus. One such instance is in how God describes Isaac (Genesis 22:2).

God describes Isaac as “your only son” even though Abraham has two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Then, God describes Isaac as the son, “whom you love.” Abraham loved both of his sons as any parent loves all their children.

These are also descriptions of Jesus in the New Testament. Jesus is called God’s Son (Luke 14:8;:35; John 10:1636; 20:31; Romans 1:4; Hebrews 6:6; 1 John 3:8; 4:15; 5:5, 10, 12, 20). He is the son that God loves (Matthew 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22; Matthew 17:5: Mark 9:7; Luke 9:35; 2 Peter 1:17) he is also God’s only son (John 3:16).

This is a reference to Jesus as much as it is to Isaac. Perhaps more so because God the Father only had Jesus as His Son. Jesus is the one and only Son of God. Isaac is one of two sons of Abraham.

Isaac asks where the lamb is for the sacrifice (Genesis 22:7). Jesus is the Lamb who is slain for the sins of the world. A ram died in Isaac’s place, but no one died in Jesus’s place. He died for our sins and is the fulfillment of the  typological lamb of the Old Testament. His blood on the wood of the cross is the fulfillment of the lamb’s blood on the door posts of the Israelite houses in Goshen during the Passover.

Abraham was about to kill the son of the promise. God actually allowed the death of the Promise. Whereas God stayed Abraham’s hand from sacrificing Isaac, God the Father did not stop the sacrifice of His only Son. We are thankful He did not because if He did, they will still be no forgiveness of sins or sacrifice in our place.

The Lord provided for Abraham and He has provided for each of us. Through Jesus’s death on the Cross, God has provided a way to become part of His family and His Kingdom. Isaac is a type of Christ in the Old Testament. His almost sacrifice looks forward to the day God offers the William of God who takes away the sins of the world.

Life Lessons from Sacrificing Isaac

One life lesson we can learn from sacrificing Isaac is that when people test God, it leads to His anger and judgment against them. We should never test God. Instead, we must trust in His goodness, grace, and love. Putting God to the test only brings judgment.

But when God tests us, it is always for our good. He wants to prove our faith, obedience, and commitment. He wants to see if we will be faithful. Have we learned what we should have learned? It is no fun to go through trials and tests, but it is the ultimate way that God shows our faith and trust in Him in the worst of circumstances.

We must trust that God is working in the background for our good. That is the story of the book of Ruth. God is working things out in the background. It is the same story in Esther. He is working in the worst of your situations to make all things work together for your good and His holy purposes (Romans 8:28-30).

Another life lesson we learn from sacrificing Isaac is that faith and obedience go hand in hand. When we trust God to do the impossible or provide a way where there seems to be no way, God does not disappoint. He does these things and our faith in Him through it all glorifies God and inspires others.

I have been a quadriplegic for almost 12 years. Through this whole time, so many people have reached out to me and told me that I was an inspiration to them. I always respond, “To the glory of God.” I am going through an ordeal but God can use my faith in Him and faithfulness to Him to show others that faith goes a long way.

Job is another example. He trusted God no matter what happened in his life. He was attacked twice by Satan but still trusted in God. God saw him through his suffering and restored him after the ordeal.

We must always be obedient to God. Our obedience in the dark times of our life proves our faith in God. We would not be obedient if we did not trust Him to do what needs to be done. Even when God does not make sense in what He commands us to do, when we obey Him, we will never go wrong.

We can also learn a life lesson from Abraham when he responded, “Here I him” every time he was addressed by others. The first two times, Abraham was asked hard questions by God and Isaac. He showed he was present in the moment and willing to do whatever was asked of him or respond despite the difficulty he was facing inside.

People will ask hard things of us. They will challenge us, hurt us, and project their own situations and fears upon us. How we respond matters. We must be people of faith who respond in faith without wavering.

We must show that we are people who live in the moment. We are not absent or looking for a way out of our situation. Our ultimate trust in God helps us to answer all the best way we can. It will not be easy and it may hurt you even more, but you need to be like Abraham and do the hard things.

Another lesson we can learn from sacrificing Isaac is that God always comes through for us. He does not involve us in something where He will not be faithful. He always guides us through whatever is before us. We can look to him and know He is working things out.

Do you trust that God is on your side and working things out for your good when you are faced with tough situations, unbearable trials, and dark times in your life? Your trust or lack of trust in God will dictate how you navigate the waters of those times.

If you believe God always comes through for you, you can take on the hardest things and trust in Jesus to be your anchor in the storm. If you do not trust that God works all things out, you will struggle to keep your head above the water.

We can also learn a life lesson from Abraham sacrificing Isaac that God rewards faithfulness and obedience to Him. If not here on earth, Jesus promised there are rewards for the faithful in heaven (Matthew 5:12; 6:20-21; 19:21; Mark 10:21; Luke 8:23; 12:33-34; John 14:1-3).

We do not follow Jesus simply for the rewards and inheritance He has promised us, but that is part of being faithful to Jesus in this life. Our greatest reward is knowing Jesus and being known by Him.

A lot of times, Jesus rewards our faithfulness and obedience with favorable outcomes. But this is also not the case sometimes. Sometimes heavenly wisdom applied to an earthly situation does not give us an immediate reward. We must trust that obedience to Christ and faithfulness to Him will give us rewards that this world may not understand (Ephesians 1:3-14).

Another life lesson we learn from sacrificing Isaac is that God provides for our needs. He may do it in unusual ways or ways we don’t expect, the God comes through for us. He knows our needs and when we ask Him to provide for those needs, He will take care of us.

I have found that sometimes what I think are my needs may be my wants. God takes care of my needs. He has come through for me time and time again. I have heard from many Christians the same testimony to God’s faithfulness.

When you are down and out and at the end of your rope, trust that God will provide whatever you need. He is looking out for His children. He cares what is happening to you and going on in your life.

He knows what bothers you. He knows us better than we know ourselves. And He provides when we needed. He also provides when we don’t expect it. We might be surprised to learn how God provides for us in ways we don’t even realize.

A final life lesson we can learn from sacrificing Isaac is that God bless his us beyond our imagination. He can do exceedingly more than we can even think of (Ephesians 3:20). Make no mistake: God will surprise you with what He does in your life, when He does it, and how He does it.

One of the greatest adventures of following Jesus is the way God does things in your life. You will think He will do it one way but He does it in an entirely different way. It is a joy to follow Jesus and see how We does what He does in your life.

Have a great imagination to imagine how Jesus will come through for you. That might be the best attitude for every trial. Imagine all the ways you think God will come through for you. Then watch as He totally surprises you.

The Saga Continues…

We continue to talk about the life lessons we can learn from Abraham’s life in our next issue will we look at Abraham’s major life adjustments for the end of his life.