Then He said, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”
Abraham was one hundred years old when
Sarah gave birth to the miracle child of promise at the age of ninety. While
living in Beersheba, it came to pass that God tested Abraham’s faith concerning
Isaac. Had not Abraham’s faith already been proved by leaving Haran for Canaan
(Gen 12:1-4)? Three times in the New Testament Abraham was used as an
illustration that righteousness is imputed by faith (Rom 4:3; Gal 3:6; Jas
2:23).
So this great man of faith who illustrates for all of us the foundational truth that the righteousness of God is imputed by faith (Gen 15:6) is having his faith taken to another level to be tested – the son whom you love is to be offered! The word love is first mentioned here in our English Bible and reveals that this was no easy task. Oftentimes emotions interfere with our obedience to God. Our love for God is to be greater than our love for any other person on earth, no matter how dear, how rare, or how precious the relationship is. God always wants our whole heart which explains the great commandment of Deut 6:5.
Whatever Abraham wrestled with in his
head and heart that night on his pillow, he rose early in the morning and was
off for Moriah. A promise is only good as the promiser. Here is an example of
letting a promise go in order to trust the promiser. Often we are taught to
hang on to the promises of God for dear life, but not so here. Isaac was the
visible evidence of the promise made to Abraham. The offering up of Isaac on
the altar symbolized the letting go of the promise that in Isaac Abraham’s seed
shall be called. It is not Isaac that will fulfill God’s promise to
Abraham, but God through Isaac.
Abraham feared God's presence (cf. Gen
15:12); what man wouldn’t? But the obedience of the heart is the fear God was
looking for in Abraham, not a reactive fear but a proactive fear, when the
strongest emotion is involved, love. God knew all along what Abraham was
going to do; Abraham had to realize it for himself. Until he actually put a
blade on his son would he know if he could really obey God without question.
Leaving Haran was a challenge, but slaying his only beloved son and the promise
of a future was another matter indeed.
Abraham’s only comforting answer to this
enigma was his belief that God would raise Isaac from the dead to carry out the
promise God made to him. If God could take a dead womb and bring forth life;
God could take a dead son and bring him back to life, yes? Abraham's belief in the resurrection is not strange; Job believed in a physical resurrection (Job
19:26). Job is considered to be the oldest book in the Bible.
Nothing would make sense over the past
thirty-plus years if it all ended right here on top of Moriah (the present-day
Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem is allegedly where Abraham offered up Isaac). So
sure was Abraham of God raising Isaac from off the altar were his words to the
young men that accompanied him, “Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will
go yonder and worship, and we (emphasis mine) will come back to
you" (Gen 22:5).
As with love, the word worship makes its
first appearance in the Bible. This doesn’t suggest that this is the first time
Abraham worshiped the LORD, but he was interpreting his obedience to the
command of Yahweh as an act of worship – the lad and I will go yonder and
worship.
Faith pleasing to God always produces
the fruit of obedience – And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife
to slay his son (Gen 22:10). You know the rest of the story how God provided a
ram in Isaac’s place, and Abraham named that place, the LORD will provide. Where
there is true fear there is true worship. And true worship brings forth the
offering of obedience. <><
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