On the Same Page: Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 22:1-19)
Weather and time, permitting I walk to the beach to eat my lunch.
One thing I like there is the pebbles. It's a rocky beach, scattered with probably millions of pebbles of different colours, shapes and sizes. Every pebble on the beach is unique: some with stripes, some containing spots of crystal, all having come from different places to form this big jumbled pile of colour and shape.
Another thing I like about the beach is the waves. Again, each one is unique with its own shape, colour and size. They reflect the light of the sky: blue or green or grey. They're textured by the wind, sometimes smooth and sometimes rough. Every wave comes from the same place, arising out of that great lake. Every wave exists for a moment, rising out of a larger whole, and then after having its dance on the shore, blending back down into the lake again.
The stories we're looking at in this series are not pebbles. They're not a random collection of stories gathered from all over the place and dumped into this one book. The Bible’s stories are waves. The events of Creation, Noah, Abraham and Isaac are waves, arising out of something greater than themselves. They exist for a moment on the sand with their own shape and colour. We can see them and measure them. But the smaller stories also give us a glimpse into the big picture. The Bible is one big story all the way through, called the ‘metanarrative,’ happening in chapters and events and seasons—the great story that God is telling to and about us.
The story of Abraham and Isaac is part of the beginning of the chapter in which God defines and sets apart His People, who are central to His plan to bring all of creation back to shalom, back to healing. Abraham and Isaac were founders of the nation that would give us Jesus.
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This is a challenging story. For some, the difficulty arises from picturing Isaac as a little kid, and Abraham’s actions as some terrible, bizarre act of child abuse. But Isaac was, in the Hebrew word, a “youth:” someone up to their late teens. The youngest credible estimates put him at about 13 years of age up to his late teens: a young adult. Old enough to understand the idea of sacrifice, to carry a load of wood up a mountain, to challenge his father and ask him intelligent questions. Isaac was not a child. He was a young man.
For other people, the story's awkwardness centres on two main questions.
- How could a loving God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son?
- How could a loving father go along with this?
First, how could a loving God ask Abraham—or anyone—to sacrifice his (or any) child?
That question is answered in the text. “Sometime later, God tested Abraham.” (Genesis 22:1)
We've talked about testing before. Abraham and Isaac are being refined. They are being strengthened, and they are (both of them, not just Abraham) consolidating everything learned so far, and putting it into practice so they are ready for greater challenges coming down the road. God knew that Abraham was going to pass this test but... I would suggest that Abraham needed to know. Abraham needed to review what he had learned, and to know how far he could trust and obey this God who had called him from his home to who-knows-where. I would also suggest that Isaac needed to know what was in his father's heart, the implications, who this God was, and that He could be trusted.
So why did God put them through this? It was a test. And yes, it was tough. But that's kind of the whole point of a test.
Second, how could a loving father go along with this?
In Genesis chapter 22 between verses two and three—between God's command and Abraham's response—there is silence. Abraham doesn't speak. Abraham doesn't question. Doesn’t ask, “Why? Are you serious? Isn't there some other way?”
Abraham has argued with God on behalf of his other son, Ishmael. “Oh, that Ishmael might live under Your blessing!” But God replied to Abraham, “...I will establish my covenant with Isaac who Sarah will bear.” But God concedes this: “As for Ishmael, I have heard you, and I will surely bless him. I will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. I will make him into a great nation” (Genesis 17:18-21).
Abraham argues with God for a bunch of strangers with a really bad reputation. The Lord says to Abraham, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great because their sin is so grievous. I'm going to go and see if their actions fully justify the outcry that has reached to me.” Abraham, who would know the reputation of Sodom and Gomorrah, who could be one of the people complaining to God about them, says, “OK, hang on a minute. Are you really going to kill the innocent with the guilty? What if there are 50 innocent people in the city?” Abraham argues and bargains with God, until He says, “OK. If there are 10 righteous people in the city I will do nothing” (18:17-32).
But when God commands Abraham, “Sacrifice your son,” he doesn't argue? Really?
Maybe yes, maybe no.
Maybe Abraham didn't argue with God because he trusted God for the outcome. Abraham knows that God has done the impossible before.
By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac on the altar. He who had received the promises was ready to offer his one and only son, because Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead. And in a sense, he did receive Isaac back from death (Hebrews 11:17-19)
We also have Abraham's answer to Isaac's question, “What are we going to be sacrificing? We don't have a lamb.” “God will provide.” I can picture Abraham walking up that hill, muttering with every step, “God will provide. God will provide, God will provide, God will provide...” Talking himself through.
Or maybe he did argue, and maybe it's just not in the text. “Early the next morning...” Off they went. Maybe it wasn't so much that Abraham was eager to get started. Maybe it was more that he had been up all night anyway, arguing with God, and now it was time to surrender and obey. A.W. Tozer writes,
The sacred writer spares us a close up of the agony that night on the slopes near Beersheba, when the aged man had it out with his God. But respectful imagination may view in awe the bent form and convulsive wrestling alone under the stars. Possibly not again until one greater than Abraham wrestled in the garden of Gethsemane did such mortal pain visit a human soul.
That mention of Gethsemane brings us back to the big story. The wave slides back into the lake and we look again toward the horizon.
Very often in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit inspired writers to include two things. One is foreshadowing—hints of things to come. The other is typology (what we might today call tropes or archetypes)—easily recognizable examples or prototypes of who is to come. The Holy Spirit also inspired New Testament writers to help us recognize and identify where God is in this story, and to see the connections between Isaac—the first seed of the nation of Israel—and Jesus—the final word and fulfillment of its purpose.
- Our “respectful imaginations” go to Isaac, who in Genesis 22 walked up a mountain shouldering a load of wood instrumental in his anticipated death, asked his father tough questions, allowed himself to be bound by someone weaker than himself. Isaac surrendered in trust.
- Generations later, Jesus walked up a mountain shouldering a load of wood that instrumental in His anticipated death, spent the night before awake wrestling and asking His father tough questions, and allowed Himself to be bound by those weaker than himself. Jesus surrendered in trust.
- How could a loving God ask Abraham to sacrifice his own son? Because God demanded the same of Himself.
- How could Abraham, a loving father, go along with it? God Himself—in Jesus—went along with it in total surrender and total sacrifice.
- Abraham's son was spared because God provided the lamb.
- God's son was not spared because God provided the lamb.
- Isaac was, “...in a sense received back from death” (Hebrews 11:19).
- Jesus was in truth received back from the dead, bringing us all along with Him.
So this story--this wave--laps onto the shore, takes shape, pauses for a moment in history, and then blends back into the ocean, drawing our eyes towards the great story of God.
God, who so loved the world that He gave His son, His only son, His son who He loved—Jesus—that whoever believed in Him should not be lost, but have eternal life (John 3:16).
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