Introduction
[#1] Genesis 22:1-2
This is a story of a Father, Son, and sacrifice.
Usually we understand this chapter in terms of testing, faith, obedience, commitment, surrender, substitutionary sacrifice, The Lord Will Provide. It’s all in there.
[#2] It also foreshadows another Father, another Son, another sacrifice on that same mountain.
Approach
[#1] But the story includes certain seemingly unnecessary details and repetitions, which hints there is a deeper dimension we may have missed. Let us take a journey this morning with Father and Son.
Genesis 22:2 Verse two could have read simply, “Offer Isaac as a burnt offering.”
Abraham had two sons at this point, Ishmael and Isaac. How was Isaac his only son?
Hebrews 11:17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called.”
The Greek word translated ‘Only-begotten” is Monogenace, means one-of-a-kind. Unique. Irreplaceable.
Isaac was irreplaceable because he was the promised son.
[#2] John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son…
[#1] Two other facts in passing about Isaac
Isaac was named by God before birth
Genesis 17:19 Then God said, “No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Issac; I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant…
[#2] Matthew 1:21 And she (Mary) will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for he will save His people from their sins.
[#1] Isaac was miraculously conceived
Genesis 18:11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age; and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing.
[#2] Luke 1:34 The Mary said to the angel, “how can this be, since I do not know a man?
[#1] Genesis 22:2 "whom you love…"
First time the word ‘love’ is used in the Bible
Especially in the book of Genesis, pay attention to the first use of a word or concept, because it usually contains the definition.
The word ‘love’ could have been used for Adam and Eve, even Abraham and Sarah. Here, in its first use, it describes the relationship between father and son.
[#2] Luke 3:22 And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him (Jesus), and a voice came from heaven which said, “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.”
John 5:20 For the Father loves the Son
[#1] Genesis 22:2 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. Where is Moriah?
II Chronicles 3:1 Now Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah…
Not just the future site of Jerusalem, but the future site of the temple at Jerusalem.
Offer him there as a burnt offering
“ascending offering”, completely burned up. For many of the offerings, there were portions reserved for the priests or the worshipper. But for the burnt offering, there was nothing left.
Genesis 22:1 God tested Abraham
It would be hard to image a test more severe than this.
Eleanor Roosevelt noted,” It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself”
Was this fair of God?
Genesis 22:3 split the wood
I’ve pondered a lot on this detail
If you’ve ever split wood with an axe, you know that it is good therapy, a physical way to process some issue in your life.
Abraham had to think ahead to what would be needed, and prepare.
No excuse or delay to gather wood when they got to the place of sacrifice
He’d offered burnt offerings before, a yearling lamb, which typically weighs about 120 to 135 pounds.
He knew how much wood was needed for a lamb. But how much would be he need for his son? (Pause)
Genesis 22:4-5
Three days to think about it. One can only imagine his dread of that event, and yet his courage to meet the divine necessity.
And note that this is the first occurrence in the Bible of the word “worship”
[#2] Luke 9:51 Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.
[#1] Genesis 22:6… laid it on Isaac his son.
Are we clear yet on the relationship between Abraham and Isaac? They are father and son. Why this repetition?
Did Isaac pick up the wood by himself? No, Abraham laid it on him.
This is a father/son thing. They were in this together.
What did Abraham carry?
Just the fire and a knife.
Which was harder to carry, the wood, or the knife? (Pause)
[#2] Desire of Ages p.693 But God suffered with His Son (in Gethsemane). Angels beheld the Savior’s agony. They saw their Lord encircled by legions of satanic forces, His nature weighed down with a shuddering, mysterious dread. There was silence in heaven. No harp was touched. Could mortals have viewed the amazement of the angelic host as in silent grief they watched the Father separating His beams of light, love and glory from His beloved Son, they would better understand how offensive in His sight is sin.
[#1] Genesis 22:6 “And the two of them went together. “
Not “I’ll see you at the top”
Step for step, together.
Each with their burden.
[#2] John 19:17 And He, bearing his cross, went out to a place called The Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha.
Desire of Ages p.753 In the thick darkness, God’s presence was hidden. He makes darkness His pavilion, and conceals His glory from human eyes. God and His holy angels were beside the cross. The Father was with His Son. Yet His presence was not revealed… He (Jesus) trod the winepress alone…
[#1] Stripped of everything but the essentials for their mission
Genesis 22:7-8 provide himself the Lamb
[#2] John 1:29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
[#1] Genesis 22:9 …Bound Isaac
[#2] John 18:12 Then the detachment of troops and the captain and the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound Him.
[#1] Abraham was old, Isaac a strong young man who had just carried a large bundle of wood up a mountain. He could easily have resisted.
[#2] Hebrews 10:5 Therefore when He came into the world, He said: Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, But a body You have prepared for Me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you had no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come – in the volume of the book it is written of me – to do Your will, O God.”
[#1] Genesis 22:9,10 laid him on the altar, stretched out hand and took the knife to slay his son.
[#2] Patriarchs and Prophets p.63 None but Christ could redeem fallen man from the curse of the law…. Before the Father He (Christ) pleaded in the sinner’s behalf, while the host of heaven awaited the result with an intensity of interest that words cannot express. Long continued was that mysterious communing – “the counsel of peace” (Zechariah 6:13) for the fallen sons of men. The plan of salvation had been laid before the creation of the earth; for the Christ is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8); yet it was a struggle, even with the King of the universe, to yield up His Son to die for the guilty race. But “God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) O the mystery of redemption! The love of God for a world that did not love Him! Who can know the depths of that love which “passeth knowledge”? Through endless ages immortal minds, seeking to comprehend the mystery of that incomprehensible love, will wonder and adore.
[#1] Genesis 22:11-14
Abraham a friend of God
James 2:23 (Abraham) was called the friend of God.
Is 41:8 But you, Israel, are My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the descendants of Abraham My friend.
Friends share: thoughts, plans and feelings
[#2] John 15:15, NIV. "I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from My Father I have made known to you."
[#1] Genesis 18:16-17 (Before Sodom destroyed) Then the men rose from there and looked toward Sodom, and Abraham went with them to send them on their way. And the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing…?”
Patriarchs and Prophets p.139 Abraham had honored God, and the Lord honored him, taking him into his counsels and revealing to him His purposes.
Abraham’s experience, though painful, gave him insight into God the Father’s pain, through the fellowship of suffering.
Philippians 3:8-10 fellowship of suffering “Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His suffering.
But there was also much to rejoice about
[#2] John 8:56 (Jesus) Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, he saw it, and was glad.
[#1] In his son Isaac he saw foreshadowed the obedience, submission, and self-sacrifice of Jesus.
He saw that the Lord will provide for Himself the lamb. God would provide a substitute!
He saw the Resurrection
Hebrews 11:17-19 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called”, concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.
Was God fair in in testing Abraham? Has God the Father ever been tested with the divine necessity to sacrifice his Son?
[#2] Patriarchs and Prophets p.70 His (Jesus’) death had answered the question whether the Father and the Son had sufficient love for man to exercise self-denial and a spirit of sacrifice.
[#1] Abraham experienced something of the depth of the love of the God the Father and the Son for man.
Conclusion
Romans 8:31,32, 38,39
* If God is for us, who can be against us
* Did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.
* Nothing can separate us from the love of God
