A Snap Shot Of Calvary Series

Intro:

1. In World magazine, interviewer Larry King said:

"Faith is a wonderful thing. I envy people who have it. I just can't make the leap.I remember as a kid, my father died when I was young, and that was unexplainable to me. The God of the Old Testament, I didn't like things he did. "Abraham, sacrifice your son." That always bothered me as a kid. I remember thinking, Why would he do that to Abraham? As a test? So I said to myself, I don't know. I just don't know. That's still true to this day."

2. That's a good question that deserves a good answer. First, God did not make Abraham sacrifice his son; Second, it designed to illustrate God the Father's offering of His Son on the cross.

3. A Snap shot of Calvary.

Trans:Gen. 22

I. FIRST, WE SEE THE TRINITY LANGUAGE. 2a, 6c, 8c

Take now your son...Abraham took the wood...laid it on Isaac his son...Abraham said, "My son - Just as Abraham had a son, so God the Father has a Son. God the Father offered His Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

"how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" Hebrews 9:14

Trans:The Trinity is involved in our salvation - the Father Planned it; the Son Provided it; and the Spirit APPlied it.

II. FURTHERMORE, WE SEE HE WAS THE FATHER'S LONE SON.

your only son - of course Abraham had other sons, but only one like Isaac. He was his unique son.

"17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, 18 of whom it was said, "In Isaac your seed shall be called," Hebrews 11:17-18

God has many sons - both angels and believers are referred to as "sons of God." but Jesus Christ is His only begotten Son.

III. NEXT, WE SEE THE FATHERS LOVE FOR HIS SON.

whom you love - the love Abraham had for Isaac was only a faint love, compared to the love that God had for His Son.

This is the first mention of love in the Bible - and it is a picture of God's love for His Son; the first mention of love in the Gospel of Matthew is "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (3:17), the first mention of love in Marks Gospel is again, "You are My beloved Son" (1:11), and in Luke, "You are My beloved Son" (Lu.3:22), and finally the first mention of love in John's Gospel, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son..." (3:16).

Philips, "Can we not feel what Abraham felt? Can we not enter into the anguish that rent his soul? Can we not understand how much he shrank from the deed ahead? Then can we not feel what God the Father felt in dark Gethsemane? "My Father!" Here am I, My Son." "Behold the cup. If it is possible let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not my will but thing be done." The only answer the Father could give was to point to the cross. So they both went forth together. Out from the stillness of the garden they went into the arms of the mob; onward to the mock trials; to the spitting and scorging; together staggering beneath the weight of the wood; up the hill to calvary. Then, God the Father Himself, took the great knife of His fierce wrath against sin, and lifted it up and brought in down on His Son, to take the hell our sins deserved."

Spurgeon, "Jesus was God's Son, his only-begotten Son, whom he loved more than any of you can ever love your sons or daughters, for the love of God towards him is ineffable, immeasurable. It is not possible for me to tell you how much God loved his Son; but that Son, who had always given him delight, in whom he was well pleased, that Son must endure shame, and agony, and death, if sinners were ever to be saved. How could the Father give up his Son for such a purpose? I have felt sometimes as if I could almost rush in, and say, "No; it must not be, the price is too great to be paid for the rescue of such worthless worms as we are." Yet, to ransom any one of us, the Son of God must be sacrificed, and sacrificed, as it were, by his Father, for thus is it written, "It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief." Thus, there is one point of resemblance between the offering of Isaac and the propitiatory sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, it was the father who had to offer up his son whom he loved so dearly;"