As the chapter opens, Abraham is alone. It has been a very long time since God has last talked to him. Lately, he has wondered if God will ever speak to him again. On this day, though, God breaks His silence. He calls Abraham by name, and Abraham answers, “Here I am.” He is anxious to hear what God has to tell him. “What promise does God have for me now?” he thinks. “What encouraging words will God give me?”
Then God says, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love so much, and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will point out to you.” These were words Abraham did not expect. Did he hear right? Did God actually want him to do this? Each word was like a knife sinking deeper and deeper into Abraham’s chest—“your son . . . your only son, Isaac . . . whom you love so much.” In short, what God said was, “Abraham, go kill your son.” How he wished God had said, “Go sacrifice your lamb.” Abraham willingly would have parted with them by the thousands to save Isaac! But, no, God had said, “Take your son.”
Abraham’s mind is filled with many agonizing questions.
“Why does God want me to kill Isaac? He forbids murder. How can this be right?”
“God knows how much I love my son. Why has He asked me to do this horrible thing? This just doesn’t sound like the Lord.”
“I waited for my son to be born for so many years. Sarah and I doubted that we would ever have a child together. Now that we finally have one, why does God want to take him away from us?”
“What will happen to all the promises that God has given to me? He has told me that a great nation will descend from Isaac. How will this happen if he is to be killed? He is not even married yet!”
“How will I ever be able to look Sarah in the face again? How will I be able to return home with the stains of Isaac’s blood on my clothes?”
Despite all of these questions, Abraham rises early the next morning and saddles his donkey. He has made up his mind that he will obey the Lord and trust Him. He says goodbye to Sarah only telling her that he and Isaac will be gone for a few days. He says nothing of God’s instructions. If she knew, she would try to stop him. He takes with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. Then he chops wood to build a fire for a burnt offering and sets out for the place where God told him to go.
On the third day of the journey, Abraham sees the place in the distance. “Stay here with the donkey,” Abraham tells the young men. “The boy and I will travel a little farther. We will worship there, and then we will come back to you.” At least Abraham hopes he will come back with his son. “Perhaps the Lord will raise him from the dead,” he thinks to himself.
Abraham places the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac’s shoulders, while he himself carries the fatal knife and fire. As the two of them go on together, Isaac says, “Father?” His son’s words melt Abraham’s heart. He thinks to himself, “Don’t call me your father. Can a father be so cruel as to kill his own son?”
But he holds his tongue and calmly waits for his son’s question. The boy asks, “We have wood and the fire, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?”
“God will provide a lamb, my son,” Abraham answers. And they both go on together.
With weary steps and a heavy heart Abraham arrives with his son at the dreaded place. He builds an altar—the saddest he ever built—and places the wood on it. Then he ties Isaac up and lays him on the altar over the wood. Finally Abraham takes the knife and lifts it up to kill his son.
At that moment the angel of the Lord shouts to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Yes,” he answers. “Here I am.”
“Lay down the knife,” he says. “Do not hurt the boy in any way, for now I know that you truly fear God. You have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” You see, God didn’t really want Abraham to kill Isaac. It was all a test and Abraham had passed with flying colors.
Then Abraham looks up and sees a ram caught by its thorns in a bush. So he takes the ram and sacrifices it as a burnt offering on the altar in the place of his son. Abraham names the place Jevhovah-Jireh which means “The Lord Will Provide.”
* * * * *
In this account we find a word that is mentioned for the first time in Scripture, and this word is in many ways the most important word in the Bible. It is the word “love.” In the second verse of Genesis 22, God says to Abraham, “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest.” We might expect that the first mention of “love” in the Bible would be in connection with the love of a man for his wife, or of a mother’s love for her children, or even a man’s love for God. Instead, it is used of the love of a father for his son.
You may be wondering where the first occurrence of “love” in the New Testament is found. The reference is Matthew 3:17. This verse tells us what God the Father said after Jesus was baptized. Listen to His words: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The first mention of “love” in the Old Testament is the love Abraham had for his son Isaac, and the first mention of “love” in the New Testament is the love God the Father has for God the Son.
But that is not all! The first occurrences of “love” in the Gospels of Mark and Luke—the next two books of the New Testament—are also found in the their accounts of Jesus’ baptism. Both Mark and Luke record the Father calling Jesus His “beloved Son.”
As we enter the New Testament, three times we learn of the love of God for His Son. But now, as we look into the Gospel of God’s love and God’s Son, the record of the “beloved disciple” John, we are silenced in awe when we come to read the first verse in John containing “love.” What is the verse? Why, what else could it be?
For 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).
Three times God shouts His love for His Son from heaven. But then, He tells us that He loved us (yes, us!) so much that He was willing to sacrifice His only Son, in order that we might be saved.
• First mention of love in the Old Testament—Abraham’s love for his son Isaac.
• First mention of love in Matthew, Mark, and Luke—“This is my beloved Son.”
• First mention of love in John—3:16.
• We start with Abraham being asked by God to give up his son Isaac and then in John 3:16 we find God giving His only Son to die for the sins of the world.
In the story of Abraham and Isaac we find a beautiful picture of God the Father and God the Son.
• As Abraham had only one son, so God has only one Son.
• As Abraham loved Isaac deeply, so God loved Jesus immensely.
• As Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac, so God was willing to sacrifice Jesus.
• As Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac on a mountain in Moriah (the future site of Jerusalem), so God would later sacrifice Jesus on a mountain just outside Jerusalem—a mountain called Calvary.
• As Abraham rose up early to go to Moriah, so God predetermined the cross of Calvary even before the creation of the world.
• As Abraham placed the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac’s shoulders, so God placed the cross upon the shoulders of Jesus.
However, there is one obvious difference between the two stories. The difference is seen in the endings. Isaac was saved from death, but Jesus wasn’t.
Michael Card has written a song based on the story of Genesis 22 called “God Will Provide a Lamb.” There is a line in that song that I think sums up the real significance of the story. The song says,
What Abraham was asked to do He has done:
He’s offered his only Son.
As Abraham and Isaac were walking up the mountain, Isaac asked, “Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham answered, “God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.” Abraham was right. God did provide a ram that died in Isaac’s place. We are told in Genesis 22:14 that Abraham named the location Jehovah-Jireh, which means “the Lord will provide.” Then Moses, the author of Genesis, calls attention to the fact that it was said even to his day that “In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.” In the New International Version it says, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.” A lamb had been provided there that died on Abraham’s altar instead of Isaac. But there would come centuries later another Lamb. A Lamb that would not only die in the place of one, but would die in the place of the entire human race. The second Lamb was Jesus Christ. When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
God has provided a Lamb.
Listen to Isaiah’s prophecy of Christ:
He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
yet He opened not His mouth;
He was led as a lamb to the slaughter,
And as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
So He opened not His mouth (Isa. 53:7, NKJV).
Consider how much God must love us to give His only beloved Son for us! Every lash that cut the back of Christ cut the heart of God. Every thorn that pierced the brow of Christ pierced the heart of God. Every nail driven in the hands and feet of Christ was driven in the heart of God. Every groan that Christ uttered broke the heart of God.
The greatest expression of God’s love is in the death of His Son. Romans 5:8 says, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (NIV). “While we were still sinners”—these are amazing words. Whenever you are uncertain about God’s love for you, remember that He sent His Son Jesus to die for you, not because you were good enough, but because He loved you.
“In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10).
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
1. The source of love—God.
2. The extent of love—the world.
3. The sacrifice of love—He gave his only begotten Son.
4. The results of love—whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
A man had the duty to raise a drawbridge to allow the steamers to pass on the river below and to lower it again for trains to cross over on land. One day, this man’s son visited him, desiring to watch his father at work. Quite curious, as most boys are, he peeked into a trapdoor that was always left open so his father could keep an eye on the great machinery that raised and lowered the bridge. Suddenly, the boy lost his footing and tumbled into the gears. As the father tried to reach down and pull him out, he heard the whistle of an approaching train. He knew the train would be full of people and that it would be impossible to stop the fast-moving locomotive, therefore, the bridge must be lowered! A terrible dilemma confronted him: if he saved the people, his son would be crushed in the cogs. Frantically, he tried to free the boy, but to no avail. Finally, the father put his hand to the lever that would start the machinery. He paused and then, with tears he pulled it. The giant gears began to work and the bridge clamped down just in time to save the train. The passengers, not knowing what the father had done, were laughing and making merry; yet the bridge keeper had chosen to save their lives at the cost of his son’s.
In all of this there is a parable: the heavenly Father, too, saw that blessed Savior being nailed to a cross while people laughed and mocked and pit upon Him and yet, “He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all.”
