Faith is utterly central to our Christian life; God’s people `live by faith`, we’re told. So God is very motivated to help us grow in faith. We’ve been watching how He did that with Abram; and now Genesis 22 is the climax.
It’s an astounding passage: Abraham grows in faith by facing his biggest challenge, being challenged to sacrifice the very son on whom all his dreams were centred. Whatever practically can we grasp from this?
Last time we watched them journey for three days; and in v9 they reach the sacrifice site, and Abraham can do nothing but bind his son on the altar. Faith means one thing when you can see how God might produce a way out; but another to trust when God finally shuts the door. `God, because of what I’ve grasped of you, I will trust and obey you no matter what’; what does it mean to be a woman or man of real, mature faith? This is it.
AND THEN– having reached that point, there’s the sudden intervention; everything turns around; God provides a sheep to be sacrificed instead of Isaac; Isaac is saved! `Now I know that you live in awe of God`, says the angel: your actions have proved it, you live in awe of Him, you’re serious about trusting Him and obeying Him (v12). Abraham, God’s created in you now what he put you on this planet for; and now, Abraham, your training’s climaxed & you’re ready for your fantastic destiny in eternity. And the whole tough experience explodes with joy! He’d trusted God would provide the lamb (v8); and God had. And enormous blessing is promised, and starts to flow. For Israel and (v18) indeed for all nations. But, it was costly….
And of course there is one other cost and one other final, huge thing going on here, isn’t there. Do we want to reach our Muslim friends? Their biggest festival is Eid Al-Adha, the `Sacrifice Feast`, and it’s about Abraham sacrificing his son. What our friends need desperately to hear from us, is how this begins a whole chain of sacrifices instead of us: the Passover Lamb, the succession of Temple sacrifices, finally the Cross when Jesus was sacrificed instead of us, like the ram sacrificed for Isaac. Eid is a huge opportunity to share about the Cross when our friends are thinking about sacrifice. This succession of sacrifices revealed just how God was going to rescue us and remove the sin-barrier that separates us from Him and from all His goodness. So, not surprisingly, the climax of Abraham’s growth in faith points to Calvary: to another Father who, centuries later, went further, indeed went through to the very end, with the sacrifice of His Son instead of us.
Oh yes: there was one more person in this story for whom it was huge. In v15 the angel says `I swear by myself, declares the Lord.` In the old testament the `angel of the Lord` is often God visible, so Jesus himself, and it seems the angel of the Lord here probably was the `Lamb of God`. Oh yes, the Lord provided the lamb. Very early in its history the church noticed the parallel: there was another son, and another father, who went the journey to full death, in almost this same place.
And this story helps us grasp just what that means. `On the mountain of the Lord it will be seen to` (v14). Another father, God, who loved His son, His only son, infinitely. And that father also prepared things, step by step, for centuries before, like Abraham cutting the wood. And that son went forward too, step by step, knowing that this time no other lamb will be provided. This is how much the Father and Son loved you, me. God loved his Son infinitely beyond our imagination; but (John 3:16) He also loved the world, us, so much that He gave Him up. We were in a huge mess beyond our ability to escape. And so this time no angel intervened. That Son died, and went through the unimaginable darkness and pain of hell, for us.
And because of that love, because He died to pay for our sins, because of that we can be forgiven, be saved. 3500 years ago God provided a lamb for Abraham and Isaac; but not for Himself.
What does that make you want to say to God, Father and Son, as we climax this story of Abraham’s training in faith?
