Genesis: What Did Abraham Believe?
Genesis 22:1-19
We are going to take some time to look at scarlet threads of the Gospel message which are woven throughout the Old Testament. The book of Genesis is the book of beginnings, In the beginning, God created the earth and all that is in the universe, including Adam. Adam failed to keep God’s Word and covenant; by the time of Noah, the world was so exceedingly sinful that God destroyed the whole world except Noah and His family. In Genesis 15:6, God “cut a covenant” with Abraham (around 2000 B.C.), and in that verse we read: “And he (Abraham) believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.” What was it that Abraham believed that God would put righteousness on Abraham’s account (and on ours) instead of sinfulness? We are going to examine that in light of Genesis 22.
Genesis 22:1-2 reads: “Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." 2 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."
God often places his saints in extreme circumstances in order to prove or strengthen the quality of our faith, doesn’t He? And that’s what is happening to Abraham. He is taking a three day journey toward a mountain outside a city called Salem, later to be called Jerusalem)
The first thing to see in respect to what Abraham believed is that he believed in a supernatural birth; the evidence of that belief was in this one son, his only son Isaac. The birth of Isaac had been a miracle because Sarah, his mother was 90 years old, and Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born. Isaac means”laughter”: his birth was so miraculous, so unusual, beyond the natural for a couple nearing their 100th birthdays, that it caused the parents to laugh; it gave them supernatural joy. Their joy was so great, it brought tears to their eyes.
One day more than 2,000 years later, God would supernaturally bring HIS only begotten Son into the world in the flesh. He would be born of a virgin, impregnated not by a man but by God’s Spirit so that he would not inherit man’s sinful nature passed down from Adam and Abraham. His name would be Yeshua, Jesus, Savior, and he would be circumcised just like Abraham and all the descendants in between in order to prove that Jesus was still honoring the same covenant that God made with Abraham. We read in Luke that Jesus’ birth brought “exceeding joy” to this earth.
So Abraham had received his miracle son Isaac, because he believed God could and would give a son supernaturally and now God says to him in the end of vs. 2, take this miracle son and: “Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about."
Now this sounds atrocious and gruesome to us in our present day society but it was not that unusual, though certainly not Godly, in Abraham’s time. Many ancient societies throughout history took part in human sacrifice and still do. These sacrifices were offered in many different ways. Most were slaughtered under the knife; some were burned; some were drowned; some were buried alive, some were pushed down the stairs of a massive pyramid temple. In many ancient cultures parents would sacrifice their own children. For a while, some Israelites were worshiping the false god Molech and sacrificed their children.
Today parents sacrifice their own children throughout the world; they sacrifice them to the god of selfishness, the god of fear, the god of economics, to the so-called god of choice. They still sacrifice their children under the knife, but it’s the doctor’s knife, not the parents’: their sacrifice is called abortion. Abraham prepared himself to sacrifice his only son.
Look at verses 3-10: “So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he split the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. 4 Then on the third day Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place afar off. 5 And Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you."
6 So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife, and the two of them went together. 7 But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, "My father!" And he said, "Here I am, my son." Then he said, "Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" 8 And Abraham said, "My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering." So the two of them went together. 9 Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. 10 And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.”
I can remember reading this passage as a teenager and just being shocked by this awful image of it. What did Abraham actually believe? 2. He believed God enough to offer his only son as a sacrifice. We never once read that Abraham flinched. It would be a much easier thing to offer himself than to offer his son but to die without a son to carry on the family name would be a plight worse than death. But for Abraham there is no reservation; to prove that he would do it, Isaac is bound; there is no escape route for him. The wood is in place, and the human sacrifice has been placed on the wood. No turning back! The knife is raised! The sacrifice will be offered. It would be finished!
Look at verses 11 and 12: 1 But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" So he said, "Here I am." 12 And He said, "Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me."
God had watched Abraham for three days. He totally knew Abraham’s heart. He knew that thirdly. Abraham believed for three days that his own son was as good as dead because Abraham had never doubted God; Abraham had never questioned God’s ability and integrity to KEEP COVENANT, to keep his promise. Abraham had to believe that what God told him to do, would be the right thing to do. For Abraham, the only thing he could possibly do was to follow the will of God.
But he must also have believed that even if he offered his son, God could raise him from the dead. Hebrews 11:17-19 says: “By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 11:18 even though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned." 11:19 Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.” That is unwavering faith, solid belief.
There is something prophetic and wonderful here: Abraham is actually a picture of God fulfilling his own promise, His own covenant here. God did not require Abraham to walk among the sacrificed animals in Genesis 15 which would have been the usual way to make a covenant: Only God walked between the sacrifices. God did not require Abraham to fulfill the covenant, but God, Himself, would fulfill and accomplish it.
Look at verse 13-14: “Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 And Abraham called the name of the place, The-Lord-Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, "In the Mount of The Lord it shall be provided."
There is only one way that Abraham could have followed through God’s instructions as he did and that is that fourthly: He believed God would provide a sacrifice substitute. Does God ever forsake His own? No. Does He ever go back on his Word or promises? No, and that’s exactly what Abraham believed; God would not forsake his own. God said that Abraham would be the father of many nations, many descendants, and He would remain faithful to his promise.
In this same context, remember what Isaac asked Abraham in verse 7: "Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" Abraham answered, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering." That was not only his reply, it was what he believed.
“Belief" means the acceptance and conviction that something is true or valid. The mindset in our world seeks to destroy “belief” and “faith”; For Abraham, “belief” meant trust, obedience and reliance upon God and His Promise, not defiance against God. He would sacrifice his son but not his belief in his God. But God did not require that, because God would provide; and so the name of the mountain became “The LORD will provide”, or the LORD will see to it. And THAT is what Abraham believed. He believed on that very mountain, God would provide a substitute sacrifice.
Look at verses 15-19: “Then the Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, 16 and said: "By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son-- 17 blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. 18 In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice." 19 So Abraham returned to his young men, and they rose and went together to Beersheba; and Abraham dwelt at Beersheba.”
The end of that 19th verse sums up how Abraham lived his life: Beersheba means the “the well of the oath or the well of the seven-fold promise.” Beersheba speaks of God's faithfulness to His promises, His oaths. God kept His word. It is symbolic of the faithfulness connected with the relationship of God to Abraham and to all who will believe in God’s covenant promise; and so Abraham STAYED in Beersheba, the well of GOD’S promise. He did not have to be a wanderer or nomad anymore; because he found life at the well of God’s promise. The promise of God was life to Abraham, believing without seeing it fulfilled.
How was the Promise fulfilled?
How was the Promise to Abraham fulfilled? Jesus said in John 8:56: “Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad." Isaac was Abraham’s promised human son but Jesus was the promised Son, the Lamb of God promised before all time and eternity. The apostle Paul writes that the Gospel was preached to Abraham in Galatians 3:5-8 when he said: 5 Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?-- 6 just as Abraham "believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness." 7 Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, "In you all the nations shall be blessed."
In Romans 9:8 Paul said: “In other words, it is not the natural children who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise (children of the covenant) who are regarded as Abraham's offspring. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you."
Two thousand years later, another young man named Jesus would climb the mountain which is called, THE LORD WILL PROVIDE. He would be three days away from fulfilling God’s oath. He would climb that mountain, not with a pile of fire wood on his back, but a large piece of timber called a cross. The cross would cause the entire world to be set ignited with the good news that the son of promise, Yeshua, the Savior, the Lamb had indeed been sacrificed.
The world believed for three days that the Son of Glory was dead, that Jesus had been silenced…but He wasn’t… and He still isn’t. Jesus asks us to believe the exact thing that God asked Abraham to believe. He asks us to believe that Jesus, the Son of God, has entered into an everlasting covenant with God the Father on our behalf. Sin has separated us from God, it makes us God’s enemies, and there’s nothing we can do to reconcile us (to make things right) with God. All we can do is confess our own helplessness before God and accept the one who walked in our place, all the way to Calvary. Calvary or Golgotha, the place of skulls, was the end of life for many, but Jesus’ death there guarantees life to everyone who will continually believe and trust Him as Savior and Lord.
God promised a miracle birth and delivered Jesus. He offered him as the sacrifice needed. He was as good as dead for three days, but he did not remain there. That is what Abraham believed as part of God’s covenant. Are you a covenant believer, too?
I. What did Abraham Believe?
1. He believed in a supernatural birth.
2. He believed God enough to offer his only son as a sacrifice: He would sacrifice his son but not his belief in his God.
3. He believed for three days that his own son was as good as dead.
4. He believed God would provide a sacrifice substitute.
II. How was the promise fulfilled? (John 8:56, Galatians 3:5-8, Romans 9:8)
1. Jesus would climb the mountain which is called, THE LORD WILL PROVIDE.
2. Jesus climbed the mountain with a cross, not firewood.
3. The world believed for three days that Jesus was dead…but He wasn’t.
4. Calvary/Golgotha, the place of skulls, was the end of life for many, but Jesus’ death there guarantees life to everyone who will believe.
