Genesis 22--The Sacrifice of Isaac

READ:  https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+22&version=ESV
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The Sacrifice of Isaac

22 After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 2 He said, “Take 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.” 3 So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. 4 On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. 5 Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.” 6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. 7 And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” 8 Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together.

9 When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. 11 But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 12 He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” 13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

15 And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven 16 and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, 18 and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.” 19 So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beersheba. And Abraham lived at Beersheba.

20 Now after these things it was told to Abraham, “Behold, Milcah also has borne children to your brother Nahor: 21 Uz his firstborn, Buz his brother, Kemuel the father of Aram, 22 Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel.” 23 (Bethuel fathered Rebekah.) These eight Milcah bore to Nahor, Abraham's brother. 24 Moreover, his concubine, whose name was Reumah, bore Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah.

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Alright, I anticipate this one might be one of those full of cross-references as this is a foundational passage in Scripture that I want everyone to have a good handle on.  First I want to encourage you to read the text if you have not done so already.  In context, we have just seen Abraham send Hagar and Ishmael away and Isaac is in a sense his "one and only son" now, and the one that has been promised to him for so long, born of a miracle and by whom there is a promise that all the nations of the world will be blessed.  Sound like anyone else you know who is the Only Begotten of the Father, who was born in a way that was humanly impossible (the virgin birth), and who was promised to bring blessing and light to not just the Jews, but to the Gentiles as well and through whom all nations would be saved and a way would be made back to God?

Isaac was not the Messiah, but in a way he was a prophetic type of the Messiah.  We've talked about this before in terms of Adam and Noah, but this has to be one of the clearest pictures of God's plan of salvation that existed long before there was even the Mosaic Law.  We'll see great faith here, and we are told in the book of Hebrews that Abraham believed that God was going to bring Isaac back from the dead because Abraham had finally learned that God does the impossible to make good on His promises and works in ways so that He alone gets the glory.

17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, 18 of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 19 He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. (Hebrews 11:17-19)

The main difference here is that this is only a picture of what is to come, because Isaac was a sinner who deserved death, but Jesus was perfect and had no sin of His own to pay for.  One day in the future, Jesus would be crucified on a mountain in that same mountain range (Mount Calvary is within the range where Mount Moriah lies), some have even hypothesized that it is the same mountain and the same place as God said "The place that I shall tell you," and certainly God knew the location of that mountain as He had planned and ordained this event from before the foundations of the world.  And look at the name given to that place--"The Lord will Provide."  Doesn't that sound exactly like the name that should be given to the place where one day Jesus would pay it all and provide the payment for our sin and guilt and be the satisfaction for the debt that we owed where the words, "It is finished!" would one day ring out?

Another similarity is that the Father is the one we see that would slay the son, but the son carried the wood that he would be sacrificed upon.  I also don't think Isaac ignorant of what is going on.  I bring this up because Jesus too was fully cognizant of what was going on and that it would be His Father that would put Him to death, but that no one would take His life from Him, but He would lay it down willingly--just like Isaac does here.  One big difference here though is that where God provided a substitute for Isaac, no substitute would be provided for His Son, as He was the substitute for all of us.

We also may for the first time partially learn the identity of the angel of the Lord that we've seen several times already in Genesis.  Notice that in verse 12 the angel says, ".... seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”  But, it was God who commanded Abraham to make the sacrifice to Him, the sacrifice was not being made to an angel, so why is the angel speaking in first person?  Why didn't the angel say, "from Him"?  Certainly no mere angel would call himself God (only Lucifer or a demon would do that, and this is the angel of the Lord).  I, like many others who study the Bible believe that when we see the definite article "the" in front of the phrase "angel of the Lord," especially when it is written as "the angel of the LORD," that this is speaking about a preincarnate appearance of Christ, because part of the function of the second person of the Trinity is to speak the words of God--in fact, He is called The Word of God in the gospel of John.  Jesus even makes this clear during His ministry that His words are not His own and that He spoke nothing unless the Father had given the words to Him.  We even see in the epistle to the Colossians that it is Jesus who spoke in Genesis 1 when the world was created, "16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him." (Colossians 1:16).

The the angel of the Lord returns for a second time and repeats the Abrahamic covenant to Abraham and Isaac. The angel of the Lord reminds us that God has sworn by none other than Himself, for there is no one or nothing else greater that He can swear by but His name (which is also His character).  While God tested Abraham here, God was sure of the outcome, just like God will be sure of the outcome in the book of Job, and God was always planning to provide salvation for his elect.  I know it seems strange to bring up election here, but that is the undertone that makes Abraham so sure that God will do whatever it is necessary to preserve Isaac.  God had chosen Isaac and it was God's responsibility to see that through and is what would be called "perseverance of the saints" in Reformed theology (sometimes incorrectly referred to as Calvinism).  But, as we see here, there is nothing "reformed" about it as we see that "Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness." (Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6, and James 2:23).

The very end of this passage is God setting up the next thing in our narrative.  Where is Isaac going to get a wife?  Is God going to make him marry a pagan Canaanite woman or one of the Philistines that he lives among, or maybe an Egyptian?  God is telling Abraham that there are plenty of women from his family for the choosing and they are far enough away from Isaac that there shouldn't be any issues with her being too close of a relative.  The author of this portion of Genesis even throws in a nice parenthetical to let us know who the father of Rebekah is and that seems to be the next name that we should watch out for.  We'll see this name come up again very soon.

Hopefully you walk away today with a new appreciation of this passage and how God has been showing us since Genesis how He planned to give His one and only Son as the sacrifice, but that He was able to raise Him from the dead and bring all of His promises to pass and that all the promises given in the Abrahamic Covenant are "Yes and Amen" in and through the finished work of Christ.