From 1935 to 1962, former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt had a daily newspaper column in which she would write her opinion on various world events. Mrs. Roosevelt was a very talented writer and speaker, and many famous quotes attributed to her name came from these columns and speeches. Some examples include “Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product,” “Understanding is a two-way street,” and “Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you’ll be criticized anyway.” These quotes, and others, have firmly cemented Eleanor Roosevelt as one of the greats in literature and public speaking. But tonight, though, I want to discuss a completely different quote with you. This quote was in an article she wrote in 1946, “It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.”
I’ll say it again: “It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.”
This is pretty straightforward, right? This is one of the hallmarks of a good leader. But this quote means so much more than just how to show good leadership -- this is a reference to a specific scene in the book of Genesis. Turn with me to Genesis chapter 18.
As you’re turning, let’s review a bit from what we discussed last week. Abraham was the recipient of a specific promise by God -- Abraham’s son will be the source of a great and mighty nation, who will be considered God’s own people. Abraham already had a son, though, through his impatience: Ishmael. God promised Abraham that Ishmael would also become a great nation, but God emphasized that the promise He had for Abraham was only to be considered through Abraham’s future son with Sarah. And, just like last week, we’re going to be going fairly quickly through several chapters in the book of Genesis! Let’s start with chapter 18:1-2:
“1The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. 2Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.”
Skip ahead to verse 9:
“9“Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him. “There, in the tent,” he said. 10Then one of them said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.” Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. 11Abraham and Sarah were already very old, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. 12So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?””
Sarah literally heard angels prophesy that she would give birth to a son, and her first reaction was to wonder how it would be possible! But, like all prophecy, it did come true in Genesis 21, after waiting for 25 years, Abraham and Sarah finally deliver a baby: Isaac. Verse 1:
“1Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. 2Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. 3Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him. 4When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him. 5Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
6Sarah said, ‘God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.’ 7And she added, ‘Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.’”
Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born. We know from previous chapters that Sarah was 10 years younger than Abraham, making her 90 when Isaac was born. You don’t have to be an expert in biology to understand how impossible it is for a 100-year-old man to have a child with a 90-year-old woman!
Isaac’s life began as a miracle; his life was a biological impossibility. But what made his life special didn’t end with the circumstances of his birth! Look at Genesis chapter 22:
“1Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. 2Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” 3Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. 4On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”
6Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?” “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied. “The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” 8Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together. 9When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. 12“Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” 13Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.”
This is a very famous story -- and, it’s really one of the few stories that everyone knows about Abraham and Isaac. But it’s more than just a story about God testing Abraham, though. This is where we can see that Isaac is really the Beginning of the Cross.
Think back to what Eleanor Roosevelt said: “It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.” God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son in order to prove how much Abraham loved God. Even though Abraham had another son -- Ishmael -- he was born from sin, and therefore was ineligible to be a part the sacrifice.
This should start sounding familiar -- Isaac is the first real reference to Christ in the Bible. Let’s start from the beginning: the birth. It’s only been a few weeks since Christmas, but you should all still remember how it went, right? Turn to Luke 1:26-34:
26In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” 29Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” 34“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
Can you see the similarities to Isaac here? With Isaac, and angel visited Sarah and told her that she will give birth to a son. Sarah laughs and asks, “How is this possible? I’m too old!” Likewise, an angel visits Mary and tells her that she will give birth to a son. Mary’s first response is to ask, “How is this possible? I’m a virgin!”
Again, you don’t need to be an expert in biology to understand that Mary shouldn’t have gotten pregnant if she was a virgin. Jesus’ birth was impossible -- it was a true miracle! In the same way, Sarah shouldn’t have gotten pregnant if she was too old to have children -- that too was a true miracle. But the similarities don’t end there!
Isaac was intended to be a sacrifice. When God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, God had full intentions of doing the same thing. See, God is a good leader, and will never ask us to do something that He wouldn’t be willing to do Himself. God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son to prove how much Abraham loved God. In return, God sacrificed His Son to prove how much God loves all of us! But in addition to that, the circumstances surrounding that sacrifice are relevant as well…
Isaac was willing, and didn’t put up a fight. Jesus was willing, and didn’t put up a fight.
God provided a ram so Abraham wouldn’t have to sacrifice his own son. Jesus was the ram provided so we wouldn’t have to suffer the same fate.
Abraham had another child, born of sin -- Ishmael. God has other children as well -- all of us. However, we were all born into sin, so we are ineligible to be a sacrifice. In order to prevent us from dying from sin, God sent His Son -- “whom He loves”.
But what happened afterwards, though? Isaac was never actually sacrificed, right? And, if Isaac was never actually sacrificed, then he couldn’t have been risen from the dead. If that’s the case, then Isaac really can’t be a reference to Christ.
Thankfully, that’s not the case.
No, Isaac didn’t actually die. But the author of the book of Hebrews clearly thought and prayed hard about this same question, and came up with an explanation in Hebrews 11:17-19:
“17By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 19Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.”
Abraham was fully prepared to kill Isaac, so in a way Isaac was already dead to Abraham. By stopping Abraham and providing a ram instead, God metaphorically brought Isaac back from death. And now it all makes perfect sense -- if Isaac is a metaphor for Christ, then it stands to reason that Isaac’s death and resurrection is also a metaphor.
God will never ask us to do something that He is unwilling to do Himself -- and that includes sacrifice. Sometimes it seems like God wants us to do these amazingly difficult things -- resist temptation, witness, submit to His authority, even (or especially) when we have our own ideas on what we want to do. But God has already done all of these things! Jesus resisted temptation while he was here on earth. Matthew 4:1-11:
“1Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” 4Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ” 5Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6“If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ ” 7Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” 8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9“All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” 10Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’ ” 11Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.”
God told His Son to resist temptation, and he did so successfully; why can’t He ask us to do the same thing?
Witnessing is easy to find examples in the Bible -- literally, the entire Bible is an example of sharing the love of God with those who need to hear it, right? And, in Matthew 28, Jesus calls us to do the same thing.
Submission to authority, even when we don’t want to? There are a lot of examples of this, but I think there is no better example than when Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane. Matthew 26:38-42:
“38Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” 39Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” 40Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. 41“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 42He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”
Jesus knew what was coming, and he clearly didn’t want to do it. And who could blame Him, really? I wouldn’t want to suffer an agonizing and embarrassing public execution in order to save the very people who put me there in the first place. Would you? But He did it anyway. He submitted to the will of God, knowing that it would lead to something great.
Isaac is the Beginning of the Cross, and a shining example of how God will always do the same thing He expects of us. Isaac was the result of a promise, and through his birth he allowed God’s presence to reach a new nation of people -- Israel. Jesus was also the result of a promise, and through his death he allowed God’s presence to reach the entire world.
Isaac’s son, Jacob, is the Beginning of a Nation; we will discuss him next week.
