God asked Abraham to do the unthinkable: “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will point out to you” (Genesis 22:2-3).
Isaac was the son of the promise, the one born to Abraham and Sarah in their old age. For Sarah, becoming pregnant was so unlikely that, with Abraham, they even laughed out loud at the possibility. But this called-for sacrifice was no laughing matter. The Lord was asking Abraham to do the unthinkable–to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, as a burnt offering!
Everything about this seemed contrary to God’s ways. To sacrifice a son was a pagan practice. That was what idolatrous nations did. It was not the practice of those who called on the Name of the only true God. It was against everything God had promised Abraham.
God had promised to Abraham that he would have descendents as plentiful as the sand on the seashore. How could Abraham then sacrifice his son, Isaac, who was born according to God’s promise? Oh, how it must have pierced Abraham’s soul to hear God ask such a sacrifice from him.
So, what do you do when God is opposite of what you expect Him to be? What did Abraham do? He clung to the promise of God. Abraham finally learned, at such an old age, to take and trust God at His Word.
That’s why Abraham is called the father of all believers. For Abraham clung in faith to God’s promise, even when everything else testified against it, even when God tested Abraham’s faith.
Remember that: God tests faith! He refines faith in the furnace of suffering and hardship–as gold in a refiner’s fire, as steel tempered in a blazing furnace. He closes His hand of blessing and leaves us in the wilderness, alone with His naked Word. Then, God dares us to believe that this Word is sure and true.
God tests the faith He creates in us. He shapes and forms it like a potter at the wheel, turning a lump of clay into a beautiful bowl. God hardens and strengthens faith, the way a blacksmith forges a sword for battle. God tests and tempers faith through suffering and the cross.
But in our day of sugar-and-froth Christianity, we have forgotten this. In truth, we’d rather not know about this facet of the faith. We would, instead, have the Christian faith be an easy life without pain, without suffering, without sacrifice, without ambiguity, and without testing. We are so impatient that we’d rather mortgage the future to possess the present.
We don’t delight in ambiguity. We want life clearly spelled out for us, preferably before we sign the contract. We want to know exactly what we’re getting into. We want God to explain Himself when He asks us to suffer and sacrifice, when we lose our house, goods, honor, child, or spouse. This isn’t what we bargained for. Why are these calamities happening to me? What did I do to deserve this? We want God to behave as we would like Him to behave.
We find the God who tests the faith He creates in us, as He did with Abraham, to be a troubling God. He’s unpredictable. He is not a tame God. We can’t put Him in our little box of a nice-and-fluffy God. We can’t make Him do things our way.
What do you do when it looks as if God may be your own worst enemy? When He asks you to put your only son on an altar and make a sacrifice of him? Abraham got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, took two of his servants, chopped enough wood for a burnt offering, got his son Isaac, and set out for the mountain.
It took three days for Abraham and Isaac to get there. Those must have been the longest three days of Abraham’s life. The agony must have been unbearable as Abraham turned over and over in his mind what he was about to do. Was God seriously asking him to do that? How would God keep His promise?
When Abraham finally got to the mountain, he left his servants behind. “We will go up there, worship, and then come back to you” (Genesis 22:5). Did Abraham believe that? Or was he just saying that to the servants, so they wouldn’t try to stop him?
Abraham then gave Isaac the wood box to carry, while he carried the fire and the knife. Father and son set out for the mountain. As they were walking, Isaac started to look around and think. He finally asked what was burning in his mind. “Here’s the fire and the wood, but where’s the lamb for the burnt offering?” (Genesis 22:7)
Abraham’s reply to Isaac is one of the strongest statements of faith. “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son” (Genesis 22:8). Abraham had no idea how, when, or where God would provide the lamb, but he trusted that God would provide. God will be true to His promise. His Word is sure. Abraham was certain of it. He trusted God’s Word, even if he could not see beyond the wood, the fire, the altar, and his only son.
Abraham was certain that God would provide the lamb of sacrifice even to the point of tying up his son, placing him on the altar, and raising the knife above his head. Oh, what an anguishing moment, when faith and unbelief are clenched in struggle, when heaven and hell look indistinguishable from each other. The knife was poised, ready to plunge. The muscles in Abraham’s body tensed, ready to obey God’s command, no matter how unthinkable, no matter how unbearable.
And then came the voice of the angel of the Lord, calling out his name. “Abraham! Abraham!” It was the voice of Christ, who appears in the Old Testament as the angel of Yahweh. Abraham’s faith was tested. He was willing to give his only son to God, if that was what God demanded. Yet, Isaac was spared. In a thicket was a ram, caught by its horns in the wood. The Lord provided the substitute, the sacrifice for Isaac, Abraham’s only beloved son.
The story of Abraham and Isaac gives us a picture of our own salvation and what God has done, so we can belong to Him. In Abraham, we see the love that God the Father has for us. In his own soul, Abraham experienced the sorrow and agony of a father who is asked to give up his only son. If ever there was anyone who felt in some small way what went on in the heart of God, when He sent His Son into the world to be crucified, it was Abraham.
God gave His Son for us. As our Epistle reading puts it, by His own blood, Jesus secured our eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12). God placed Jesus on the wood of the cross. God made Jesus, a perfect Jew who had no sin, to be a sin offering for us. That’s why only Jesus could be the whole-burnt offering, consumed in God’s cleansing fire for our sin and His burning desire to save us from what our sins deserve.
You and I are Isaac. We face death every day, whether we want to admit it or not. We are as sheep being led to the slaughter, as St. Paul says. This isn’t a pleasant picture of this life, is it? The Law has us bound to the firewood. The commandments shackle us to the altar. The death sentence against our sin hangs over us as Abraham’s knife was hanging over his son.
“The wages of sin are death,” the Apostle Paul lets us know (Romans 6:23). We feel it in our bones. We see no earthly way of escape. We have broken God’s Law. We deserve to die. Our consciences tell us that this is true. God is justified in plunging the knife and consuming us in eternal fire.
But Christ steps in and intervenes. He stops the plunge of the knife. He holds back the Law. He flawlessly keeps the commandments for us. He takes the Law’s punishments in our place. Jesus is the ram caught by the horns in the thicket. He is God’s Lamb, caught on the wood of the cross, pinned there by our sin.
God provided the Lamb for sacrifice–His own Son. Follow the finger of John the baptizer who points to Jesus and cries out, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Here is the Substitute Sacrifice for sinners. “On the Lord’s mountain, He will provide” (Genesis 22:14).
It was provided on the mountain of Calvary–the Lamb of God for sinners slain. Today, on the Lord’s mountain, the Church, it is provided: His Baptism, His forgiveness, His body and blood. The Lord will provide. He gives more than we expect, more than we realize, more than we could ever dare to ask.
God will test us. Yet, if life now finds you comfortable, rejoice! Give thanks to God for the respite, but it is only a respite, a break. You will be tested. You can count on that.
In what form the testing will come, we don’t know. It may be a financial hardship or emotional distress. It may come in the form of persecution, poverty, or serious illness. It may be in a setting where you must choose between your will and God’s will. It could be the betrayal of a friend or the death of a family member.
Maybe, this isn’t what you want to hear. Testing is never fun. It isn’t supposed to be. Abraham was not having fun on Mt. Moriah. At times, God may seem distant, perhaps even hostile. You will feel isolated and alone in your time of testing. Even those closest to you may avoid you.
But know this: you have this promise from God. He “is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. Instead, when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out, so you can endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
God is working toward your salvation. God is working toward raising you to eternal life on the Last Day. He is killing the sinner and raising the saint, awakening faith in Christ, testing, and tempering it.
That’s why, in the end, God tests you. He tests to take your eyes of this world, so you know where your true home is. It’s in eternity with God. God will provide. Abraham believed it. God will provide the lamb for sacrifice. He did. He provided His Son, Jesus. And in Him, baptized into Him, believing in Him, God will provide you with all that you need to live forever in His eternal presence. God provides the Lamb of sacrifice. Believe it. You have His Word on it. Amen.
