July 20, 2003
Last week, we looked at Abram’s decision to accept Sarai’s proposal that
he father a child with her servant Hagar. The chief consequence of that decision
was the birth of Ishmael. One of Ishmael’s descendants was Mohammed, the founder
of Islam. We discussed the development and the major tenets of Islam, as
well as some key issues in the area of evangelism with Muslims. This week
we will look at Abraham and his other son, Isaac, as recorded in Genesis 22.
As most of you know, I’m a runner. One of the courses I like to run has
an uphill stretch followed by a downhill and then a flat finish. When I begin
to crest the uphill, I can see all the way to the finish, but I can’t see
anything in between. Being able to see the end makes it easier to everything
else along the way. Abraham’s life was a bit like that, and this passage really
describes the final hill he had to climb.
Genesis 22:1-19: Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him,
“Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love,
and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering
on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”
Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took
with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood
for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God told him about. On
the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said
to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over
there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”
Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his
son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them
went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”
“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.
“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for
the burnt offering?”
Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt
offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.
When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built
an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid
him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took
the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from
heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
“Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him.
Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your
son, your only son.”
Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its
horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering
instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide.
And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”
The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”
Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they set off together for
Beersheba. And Abraham stayed in Beersheba.
Most of the sermons and lessons I’ve heard on this passage have taken a
similar form from which the take-home lesson is that we as believers are
supposed to lay on the altar our blessings that could inhibit our relationships
with God. If we do not get them back, then God must not have wanted us to
have them. I find this interpretation to be lacking, to say the least, and
heretical, to say the most. One reason I think it is lacking is because this
interpretation requires that the passage be divorced from its context, so
I want to begin by trying to set the scene.
Chapters 2 through 11 of Genesis give us an unfolding, temporal account
of early human history, but they also shed light on certain permanent, timeless
traits of humanity at large. We see Adam and Eve’s losing innocence in the
Garden of Eden, Eve’s prideful boasting over the birth of Cain, Cain’s murdering
his brother, mass evildoing that brought on the flood, Noah’s cursing his
grandson, and the nations’ attempting to build the tower of Babel. We see
troubles between man and God, troubles between spouses, troubles between siblings,
troubles between parents and children. In other words, we might look at these
chapters and come away with the message that people, when left to their own
devices, make a mess of everything. It is against this backdrop that Abraham
appears.
When we first see him, his name was still Abram. He had just left his ancestral
homeland, Ur (in modern-day Iraq), with his father, Terah, his nephew, Lot,
and his wife, Sarai, and settled in Haran. He was homeless, rootless, and
childless (and as far as we can tell, godless). Then God called him and promised
him land, rule, descendants, and fame. God said Abram would become the father
of a nation, and not just any nation, but one that would stand in contrast
to the way people had acted since creation. It was for this purpose that Abram
was to be prepared. I used to wonder what made Abram the most qualified person
whom God could choose for this job. But I’m beginning to think God likes
to pick the least qualified people.
Before Abram could be the father of a nation, he had to know how to be a
father. Before he could be a father, he had to know how to be a husband. That’s
how his preparation began. Abram responded to God’s call and left Haran
with Sarai and Lot. After Abram found Canaan occupied, God told him that
his offspring, not he, would receive the land. From there, the trio eventually
went to Egypt, where Abram put his own self-preservation ahead of his wife’s
honor and deceived Pharaoh into thinking Sarai was not his wife but his sister.
When Pharaoh discovered the deception, he sent the three away, albeit after
greatly increasing their property. In fact, they had so much property that
Lot separated from Abram and Sarai and went to Jordan.
Abram was given a taste of military victory when he had to rescue Lot from
the kings of Babylon, and he received praise from the high priest Melchizedek.
At this point, God renewed His covenant with Abram and added that Abram’s
descendants would not just be legal but also biological.
Then we come to the incident we looked at last week. Sarai proposed that
Abram have a son with Hagar. Abram agreed to the proposal. Even before Ishmael
was born, problems arose within Abram’s household. Whether either of them
realized it or not, Sarai was essentially repaying Abram for what he had done
to her in Egypt.
Fourteen years after Ishmael’s birth, God again renewed His covenant with
Abram. He renamed Abram Abraham and Sarai Sarah. He added circumcision as
the outward sign of the covenant. And He revealed that the covenant would
go through a son born to both Abraham and Sarah together, Isaac. So we see
that Abraham was learning that his wife was more than just a child-bearer,
and the two of them were learning that children are not a product of human
effort. It had taken 24 years to get Abraham to this level of understanding.
Now that Abraham had learned something about being a husband and father,
he needed to learn something about ruling a nation. The wickedness in Sodom
and Gomorrah had grown to intolerable levels. Abraham was still concerned
for his nephew Lot, so he implored God to spare Sodom for the sake of the
righteous people living there. He started by considering 50 righteous people,
then 45, then 40, then 30, then 20, and finally 10. However,
Abraham did not proceed to the logical conclusion of asking God to spare
Sodom for the sake of one righteous person. We might speculate that Abraham
had come to understand that corporate justice and individual justice are
not necessarily the same thing. He might have realized that circumstances
could arise that would require him to put the interests of the political unit
ahead of the interests of his own family. For whatever reason, Abraham stopped
pleading with God, and God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Interestingly, God
spared Lot’s life, anyway, but did not immediately inform Abraham of that.
It was almost as if Abraham had to be willing to sacrifice his nephew—who
was, in effect, an adopted son—for the greater good.
It comes as somewhat of a shock that we now encounter another episode of
Abraham’s passing Sarah off as his sister, this time in Gerar. Perhaps he
feared for his life as he had in Egypt, or perhaps he was looking to reap
material rewards again. At any rate, God intervened with Abimelech before
adultery could occur. When Abimelech questioned Abraham, Abraham revealed
that Sarah was his half-sister before she became his wife. Abimelech did
in fact reward Abraham with gifts of livestock, slaves, and land, but he
also showed concern for Sarah’s honor. Verse 17 of Genesis 20 indicates that
Abraham prayed at this point. (This is the first and only time we see Abraham
pray.) Presumably, he understood that he had sinned and that God insists
on the honor and dignity of a wife.
Now it was time for Isaac to be born. Abraham was 100, and Sarah was 90.
There could be no doubt that Isaac was a gift from God. There could also be
no doubt about God’s faithfulness because Isaac was Abraham’s rightful heir,
and his rightfulness as heir consisted entirely in the fact he was born to
Abraham’s wife. The boy grew and was eventually weaned. At a feast to celebrate
the weaning, Ishmael started causing some sort of trouble. After Sarah’s
urging and God’s assurance, Abraham banished Hagar and Ishmael from his household.
The household was now rightly ordered, although Abraham had to permanently
part with a son to make it right.
Before we get to our main story, we see one more episode in which Abraham
and Abimelech negotiated a treaty at Beersheba. Abraham was now exerting influence
as a political leader. He was coming into his own as the leader of more than
just his family.
To summarize, well over 25 years had passed since God called Abraham out
of Haran. He had prospered in terms of material wealth, but more importantly
he had learned a great deal about being in right relation to God, to his wife,
to his son, and to the people he led. He was prepared for his final test.
Verse 1 of chapter 22 says that God tested Abraham. Abraham’s faith
is not specifically mentioned. We can infer from verse 12 that God was testing
the depth of Abraham’s fear of the Lord. Fear in this phrase has the sense of reverential
awe that includes commitment to God’s revealed will. It is roughly equivalent
to the term “true religion.” It is the primary religious passion and is
experienced in recognition of a form of being beyond our comprehension,
of a power beyond our control, of a force before which we feel small and
toward which we look up. It is evoked by the voice of authority, in which
we hear something compelling and powerful that commands our attention but
remains partly hidden and mysterious because we cannot take it all in.
The NIV from which I read quotes God in verse 2 as saying, “Take your son.”
I don’t read Hebrew, but I understand that the particle na accompanies the verb “take” and should be translated
“please” (although most Bible translations omit it). In other words, God was
not commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. “Take, please, your son.” It was
more of a request that Abraham could have, conceivably, refused. That sort
of begs the question of what God would have done had Abraham refused. Would
He have revoked the covenant? Would He have transferred the covenant to someone
else? Would He have allowed the snub to go without response? None of the
potential reactions is terribly satisfying as a behavior befitting the God
Who called Abram out of Haran. The language almost says more about God’s
faith in Abraham to obey the request than Abraham’s faith in God.
The verse also quotes God as identifying Isaac as Abraham’s “only son”
and the one whom Abraham loved (or Abraham’s beloved). It’s not clear if
the identification of Isaac as Abraham’s only son refers to the fact that
Isaac was the only son in Abraham’s household at the time or that Isaac was
the only son of the covenant God made with Abraham. Perhaps it was a reaffirmation
of the importance of Sarah to the covenant because Isaac was the only child
Abraham had with her. The identification of Isaac as Abraham’s beloved is
important because it is the first occurrence in the Bible of that word. According
to the law of first mention, the first use of a word provides significant
insight into its definition. The first mention of this kind of love is in
the context of a father’s offering his son as a sacrifice.
The other feature of verse 2 I want to call to your attention is the destination.
God told Abraham to go to “the region of Moriah.” Tradition holds that Abraham
went to Mount Moriah itself. Solomon built his temple on Mount Moriah to commemorate
Abraham’s going there. The Islamic Dome of the Rock sits on the Temple Mount
today. A specific stone on the mount is believed to be where Isaac lay. However,
Mount Moriah is one peak of a small mountain range that runs through Jerusalem.
Another peak within a mile or so of Moriah would also fit the language of
the verse. One such peak is Calvary or Golgotha. It’s entirely possible that
God deliberately obscured the true location so that future generations would
not build shrines—or temples—that would block the site of Christ’s crucifixion.
In verses 3-8, we read about the three-day journey from Beersheba to the
mountain. It’s tempting to imagine that Isaac was a little boy following his
father in wide-eyed innocence, especially when we read in verse 5 that Abraham
called him a boy. However, I want you to consider several things. The Hebrew
word used in verse 5 could mean anything from an infant to a young man of
military age. Also, Isaac was old enough to carry the wood, and he was old
enough to understand that the burnt offering required a lamb. Furthermore,
if you back up to the final verse of chapter 21, you will read that Abraham
stayed in Beersheba a long time after his treaty with Abimelech was established.
The treaty was established after Isaac was weaned, which was probably around
the age of 2. All of these factors lead me to believe that Isaac was a teenager
when he accompanied his father to the region of Moriah. I have encountered
different estimates of exactly how old Isaac was. I personally think he was
about 16. The reason I think that is because Ishmael was about 16 when Abraham
had to banish him from his household. I wouldn’t be the least surprised if
God waited until Isaac was the same age to test Abraham.
Most of the people who comment on this passage, or, at least, most of those
I’ve heard, operate on the assumption that Abraham was uncertain what Isaac’s
fate would be. They contend that there would not be any faith involved without
doubt or uncertainty. They cite Hebrews 11:1, which reads, “Now faith is
being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Abraham
had to leap into the dark because he hoped he would not lose Isaac but he
couldn’t see how that might happen.
Before we accept this assumption, I think several things are worth considering.
First, consider Abraham’s history. He spent roughly 40 years in answer to
God’s call, during which time God made and renewed a covenant with him on
at least four occasions. He saw the covenant fulfilled with Isaac’s birth
when he and Sarah were very old. Every time he saw or heard Isaac, Abraham
would have been reminded of God’s faithfulness and the promise that the covenant
would be kept through Isaac. Second, consider Abraham’s own words. At the
end of verse 5, Abraham told his servants that he and Isaac would come back.
In verse 8, in the only recorded conversation between the two, Abraham told
Isaac that God “will provide the lamb.” Perhaps Abraham deliberately lied
to protect his servants and Isaac from what he thought to be a horrible truth
that lay ahead. Perhaps Abraham was engaged in unfounded wishful thinking.
Or perhaps Abraham confidently spoke what he believed to be the truth. The
plain language of the passage seems to me to favor that last explanation,
whereas the other explanations require that we read something into the passage.
Third, consider the commentary in Hebrews 11:17-19:
By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He
who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son,
even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring
will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively
speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.
Other versions use in place of “reasoned” such words as “considered,” “accounting,”
“reckoning,” and “was confident.” All of these terms suggest a thoughtful
calculation on Abraham’s part. God wants us to love Him with all of our minds,
and these verses indicate that Abraham modeled such whole-minded devotion.
Fourth, consider the definition of faith. If faith requires doubt or uncertainty,
then presumably the faith will be greater if the uncertainty is greater. That
puts the emphasis on the person exercising the faith. However, the value of
faith is in proportion to the worthiness of the object of faith. A little
faith in a very worthy object is more effective than a tremendous faith in
an unworthy object. Abraham’s faith was effective when it was in the one true
God. The philosopher Kierkegaard probably was more instrumental than anyone
else at defining faith as a leap against reason. Someone following his philosophy
would look at this passage and see an irrational contradiction between God’s
earlier covenant and His current demand for Isaac’s destruction. In fact,
they would insist that God was actually calling for the sacrifice of reason
itself. However, the verses we read from Hebrews show that Abraham was able
to rationally resolve the apparent contradiction, even though the way he
resolved it in his mind was different than how the resolution actually happened.
I would also point out that Kierkegaard couldn’t rationally explain faith
as an irrational act without contradicting himself. More importantly, though,
we have countless examples of Biblical characters whose faith was commended
not because of how irrational it was or how large it was. Rather, they took
God at His word, which is what we are called to do.
Let’s now look at verses 9-10 of the passage.
When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar
there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on
the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife
to slay his son.
If my guess at Isaac’s age is correct or close to being correct, Abraham
was about 116. No matter how robust Abraham was, a healthy teenager would
have been able to win a physical struggle with him. Yet, we don’t see any
evidence that Isaac complained or struggled. All indications for us are that
he was complicit in the whole affair. Talk about faith! Unless he was completely
dumbfounded by what was happening to him, Isaac must have understood something
about the covenant God made with his father and his own role in it. He must
have also had faith in his father.
Verse 13 tells us about the ram that was caught in the thicket. It’s interesting
that the animal is identified as a ram rather than a lamb. In the Bible, the
ram often serves as the symbol of the ruler, and the horns are the ruler’s
pride or lofty aspiration. Here, the symbolic ruler is trapped by his pride.
To be liberated, the ruler needed to be dedicated to God. Abraham, as the
prospective father of a nation, needed to be dedicated to God, too.
In verses 15-18, Abraham receives yet another renewal of the covenant. Verse
17 says that Abraham’s descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the
sky and as the sand on the seashore. Some commentators interpret this two-part
simile as describing Abraham’s spiritual descendants and biological descendants,
respectively.
Our passage closes with verse 19: “Then Abraham returned to his servants,
and they set off for Beersheba. And Abraham stayed in Beersheba.” Where’s
Isaac? Perhaps he returned with his father and is simply not mentioned in
the verse. However, given his role in the episode, the lack of mention of
his name certainly seems conspicuous. Some would speculate that Isaac couldn’t
bear to be with Abraham after what had happened on the mountain. Another possible
explanation is that Isaac stayed there to worship God and to contemplate the
implications of the covenant. The angel of the Lord might have even told Isaac
to stay (or Abraham to leave). We simply can’t know for sure. If Abraham did
leave Isaac on his own, that would lend credence to the idea that Isaac was
old enough to fend for himself.
What is key for us is that the next time we see Isaac, it is at his marriage
to Rebekah in chapter 24. Rebekah was chosen to be Isaac’s wife by Abraham’s
chief servant, Eliezer. The name Eliezer comes from the root word for “God of help”
and means “comforter.” So, in chapters 22 through 24, a father has his beloved
son carry the wood to his own execution site on Calvary, where a substitutionary
sacrifice is offered and the son is returned to the father on the third
day of the event. The son is not seen again until he is united with his
bride, who was sought and brought to the son’s homeland by “the comforter,”
whom the father sent to testify on behalf of his son. What we have here
is a revelation of the mystery of the gospel AND the entire church age.
I should mention that some people cite Genesis 22 as one of the main reasons
they reject the God of the Bible. They argue that if God wanted Abraham to
kill Isaac, He was cruel (and He was weak because the killing never happened).
If God didn’t want Abraham to kill Isaac, He was sadistic. Either way, He
was not a God worth following. Secular humanists in particular, hold that
things are good because of their inherent morality, not because God calls
them good. They would say that child sacrifice and murder of the innocent
are wrong by their very nature. From this standpoint, God was either telling
Abraham to commit a morally grotesque act or arbitrarily calling the grotesque
act “good” in this situation.
I can’t think of too many ways to respond to this criticism except to point
out how this test fit into Abraham’s entire preparation and the grotesque
act was prevented in time. I might emphasize that this occasion was not the
first time Abraham had to face the prospect of permanently separating himself
from a loved one.
If the objector were using this passage as an excuse not to believe in God
at all, I would also point out that in order to determine that child sacrifice
is always wrong, one must judge that action against some scale of goodness.
Such a scale would imply that absolute goodness exists. Because absolute goodness
is an attribute of God, God would then necessarily exist. I might possibly
add that because goodness is part of God’s very essence, He cannot command
or request that which is evil. Therefore, the problem becomes discovering
what it is about this situation that makes it not evil, which I think would
hinge on changing the way we think about death.
But I think the most important feature of the story to stress might just
be that God didn’t ask Abraham to do anything that He wasn’t willing to do
Himself. In fact, He was willing to do more than He asked of Abraham because
His one and only Son actually died. If what happened to Isaac was grotesque,
wasn’t what happened to Christ even more grotesque? If people are troubled
by what happened to Isaac, shouldn’t they be even more troubled by what happened
to Christ, or, more specifically, by why what happened to Christ happened?
I should also mention that there is a school of thought that holds that
Abraham failed the test. They contend God wanted Abraham to plead for Isaac’s
life and to take a stand for the protection of innocent life by refusing
to raise the knife against his son. They say that God was so ashamed that
He had to send an angel to tell Abraham to stop. As far as we know from the
written record, God never spoke to Abraham again. However, the written record
we have is never said to be exhaustive, and the phrase “angel of the Lord”
might refer to the pre-incarnate Christ. More importantly and more obviously,
we have it on the authority of the angel of the Lord that Abraham indeed
passed the test.
So what is the take-home message for us?
First, I think we need to recognize how the test described in this passage
relates to the rest of Abraham’s preparation to be the father of a nation.
His call was unique, the covenant God made with him was unique, his child
was unique, and his mission was unique. In this respect, we have no right
to expect that God will test us in the same way He tested Abraham.
Second, I think we need to recognize the actual outcome of the test. In
the end, Abraham did not have to kill Isaac. God was more concerned with
dedication than sacrifice. Abraham’s fear of God and his love for his son
were not incompatible with each other. In the end, harmony is possible between
reverence for God and love of family and nation when they are correctly understood.