Genesis 22:1-19
The Sacrifice of the Promised Seed

Abraham is finally sitting pretty. Having left his homeland at God’s command, he has become rich, treated like a king in the land of promise. Having left behind whatever earthly inheritance was promised, he has received the promise of a heavenly inheritance. Having longed for a son, the promised seed who will inherit these promises and in whom his family will become great, he has at last in his old age received Isaac.

But there is yet a danger. Will he put his hope in the things God has given him rather than in God the giver? Or will he trust, at last, that God — who has done so many impossible things — can do all things, that his way is always best, that his foolishness is wiser than Abraham’s, or anyone else’s, wisdom, and his weakness stronger than men’s strength.

1. God’s Test of Abraham (1,2)
   1. God Tests Abraham (1)
      1. We are told up front that this is God’s purpose in making what would otherwise be a wicked request.
      2. But Abraham is kept in the dark. He does not know the purpose of God in this regard.
      3. God does not tell him, "Abraham, I am only testing you; nothing bad will happen that I will not fix and make things even better than they are."
      4. This is the point of the test: Does Abraham believe this already?
         1. He ought to know by now that whatever God requests is right
         2. He ought to know that God has purposed only good toward him
         3. He ought to have utter confidence that God will supply all needs, fulfill all promises, and grant Abraham joy and gladness.
      5. God is testing to see whether Abraham believes this or whether he values the things God gives more than the God who gives them.
      6. Does he know that above all else, not the land but the LORD is his inheritance?
      7. Does he know that God who gave Isaac, bringing life out of a man as good as dead, can also give life to Isaac though he be dead?
      8. It is like the test of Job
         1. Satan sneers to God, "Does Job indeed fear God for nothing?" Look at all you’ve given him!
         2. So God grants Satan permission to take it all away.
         3. And still Job cries out, "I know that my Redeemer lives and that he shall stand at the last day upon the earth. And though my very skin is destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God. My eyes shall see him, and not another’s"
      9. Will Abraham respond thus, believing not what reason tells him but what God has promised. Though Isaac is destroyed, yet God shall fulfill all his promises in Isaac. God has sworn it.
      10. The early returns are good
          1. God calls out "Abraham!"
          2. And Abraham replies "Here I am." Here I am, ready to hear what you have to say. No longer fleeing to Egypt or sinning against you so that you must speak to Abimelech and he to me to rebuke me. No longer presenting my own plans to you as when I said "O that Ishmael might live before you." Here I am to hear your bidding and to do your will
      11. May God grant to us as well that we so docilely submit to his word when it comes, that we are ready to hear the most terrifying command and obey it because we know that God — who did not spare his own Son, has requested it. And he will never guide us wrong.
   2. God Requests Isaac as a Burnt Offering (2a)
      1. The word translated "now" in NKJV should be translated "please"
         1. "Please take your son…."
         2. God is not coming to him with harsh words, saying "Do this, lest I slay you." For then we would look cynically on Abraham’s sacrifice of his son as a way of saving his own skin.
         3. But rather, God’s command is phrased almost as a request: If you believe that my promises are true and that everything I ask is right, please take your son and kill him.
      2. God emphasizes the enormity of the request
         1. Like in Gen 12
            1. Leave your country
            2. Leave your homeland
            3. Leave your father’s house
            4. Each command more specific and difficult and grievous than the last.
         2. Take your son
            1. It is one born from your body, a child of your own flesh, that I am asking you to give to me.
            2. Which of you, O congregation, could do this?
         3. your only son
            1. Doesn’t Abraham have another son, Ishmael?
               1. No. He has sent that son away, cast him out.
               2. And he did this in faith, responding to God’s command
               3. If Isaac is to die, Abraham no longer has an emergency backup heir
               4. He has put all his eggs in this basket.
            2. And so already, we who live in the light of Christ begin to see how this passage looks forward to a greater father and a greater son, the one called the "only-begotten" son of God.
            3. When Jesus rebuked his disciples after the resurrection, saying, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! ²⁶"Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?" Is he not referring to this passage among many others?
         4. whom you love
            1. Again, we must not suppose Abraham’s compliance indicates a lack of affection for Isaac. The child is his pride and joy, his beloved son.
            2. And again we hear a pre-echo of Christ, of the one concerning whom the Father spoke from heaven: "This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased."
      3. Give him as a whole burnt offering
         1. This son, this precious son, is to be taken up on a mountain and slaughtered.
         2. And his corpse is then to be consumed utterly with fire so that the smoke rises up to God.
         3. Do not become numb to the horror of it all!
            1. We hear this story so much that it almost loses its force. God forbid! Shall we underestimate Abraham’s faith or God’s goodness in giving his own Son in exactly this manner?
            2. Which of you could do this to a stranger? God commands you to lay hold of someone on the street and carry him off to the mountains to slaughter and burn him.
            3. Who could do this to someone else in this room, even someone not a member of the family? For God to point out another in this congregation to you and say, I will be pleased if you cut that one’s throat open without asking any questions.
            4. If you have no children, could you do it to someone else’s child? To the one most dear to you.
            5. If you have children, could you do it to one of them? What if you only had one?
            6. Think of it with your own son if God has given you one. To bind him hand and foot and put him on an altar and slit his throat with a knife and watch the blood pour out for as long as the dying heart still pumps. And when the eyes cloud over and death is already present you do not honor the corpse but set it on fire so that nothing is left for you to embrace or mourn over but dust and ashes.
         4. The whole burnt offering is a sin offering
            1. Abraham must offer up his son as Israel would later offer up rams. The priest would slaughter the ram, laying his hand upon its head, symbolically transferring his sin and the sin of the people to the ram.
            2. So if Abraham is to be God’s friend and receive God’s blessing, he must transfer his sin to another, to no mere ram, but to another human that as man has sinned so man must pay for the sin
            3. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.
      4. Abraham is being called to do in reality what Isaac’s circumcision symbolized
         1. For in cutting off a portion of Isaac’s flesh, he confessed Isaac’s impurity before God, that Isaac ought to have been slaughtered by God for his sins.
         2. In circumcision, he consecrated Isaac symbolically to God, saying may he be cut off from the people if he fails to measure up to God’s standards.
      5. The demand laid on Isaac’s life again proclaims man a sinner, deserving the judgment of God
      6. Again, then, man’s need for deliverance is cried out. Who will deliver Isaac, and Abraham, and us all from this fate?!?
      7. But this command seems to cut off the possibility of divine deliverance
         1. For the death of Isaac, the promised Seed, would empty the promise of its meaning.
         2. How can Abraham’s descendants be named in Isaac if Isaac is dead?
         3. How can Abraham’s offspring be as numerous as the stars and the dust and inherit the earth?
         4. The hope of the world is about to die! How will God fulfill his promises now?
      8. Abraham is being asked to believe that God can give Isaac back, even from the dead and fulfill his promises yet.
      9. Abraham is being taught the way of the cross
         1. The Christ, the true sacrifice, must suffer and die and be raised again.
         2. When the disciples saw on the cross the apparent death of all that had been promised in Christ, they should have called to mind this story.
         3. He is being taught to imitate his Savior even before the Savior comes.
         4. How much more must we follow the way of the cross, giving up all that we hold dear and clinging only to God and his promises? We have seen the salvation that came in Christ! If Abraham did not doubt after what he saw. Shall we doubt now?
   3. God Incorporates a Delay (2)
      1. He does not allow Abraham to obey impetuously for fear of having a change of heart.
      2. Abraham must go on a journey to a distant place.
      3. He must contemplate what he plans to do as he goes.
      4. The devil must have opportunity to tempt him in the wilderness and he must overcome that temptation by faith in the promises of God.
      5. He must go to the land of Moriah
         1. the land that would later be called Jerusalem.
         2. That particular portion of Jerusalem in which Solomon would build his temple.
         3. And not far from that site, still in Moriah, on a hill called Calvary, the Son of God would be crucified for the sins of his people.
         4. Abraham is taking Isaac to the very place in the Promised Land where Christ was slain.
2. Abraham’s Obedience (3-10)
   1. Abraham Complies at Once (3-6)
      1. He rose early in the morning.
         1. Just as he rose early to cast out Hagar and Ishmael.
         2. It is the command of God; he will not delay fulfilling it.
         3. For even a delay prior to fulfilling would betray an unbelieving heart, hanging on to that which God has requested from him, as though he is wiser than God.
      2. Abraham takes two servants with him
      3. And he takes the very wood he will use to burn Isaac’s lifeless corpse.
      4. What agony to this father to bring with him the implements of his son’s destruction!
      5. What love from God the Father to create the tree on which his son, his only son, whom he loved, would be hanged and would die, perhaps less than a stone’s throw from Isaac’s altar.
      6. On the third day, Abraham sees the place
         1. He lifts up his eyes to that hill. Where will his help come from?
         2. Here he is at the foot of the place and still God does not intervene.
         3. From here, it is steep. They must proceed on foot.
      7. With a sick feeling in his stomach he unloads the donkey and leaves it with the servants and tells them to wait.
         1. He does not reveal his plans, but merely says that he and Isaac go to "worship."
         2. How can they imagine what terrible heart-rending worship Abraham intends?
      8. Yet with faith that God can bring Isaac back even from the dead and fulfill his promises through the seed of Abraham, Abraham says, "We will return to you."
         1. He does not know how this may be possible.
         2. But he has seen God do wondrous things
         3. So he believes.
      9. Children of God, must we not believe as well?
         1. Whatever God does, however strange it seems…
         2. Will he not make it right in the end?
         3. Will he not fulfill all his promises to give us eternal life and an inheritance in heaven and everlasting fellowship with him in Christ?
      10. So Abraham loads the wood on Isaac and they go
          1. Just as he had laid water and bread on Hagar and sent her and his son away.
          2. Yet those were implements of life. Here the implements are of death.
          3. Isaac trudges up the hill, bearing his own cross. The wood he carries is the wood on which he will be slain and burned.
      11. And he takes with him fire and a knife, the instruments with which he will destroy his son.
          1. Abraham prepares to lay his iniquity on his son’s head, giving him as a sin offering.
          2. Just as God himself will destroy his own son on the cross, laying on his head the iniquity of us all.
      12. And they walk together, side by side, father and son. Companions who love one another.
   2. God Tests Him further through Isaac (7,8)
      1. Finally, Isaac breaks the silence with a plaintive question.
      2. And really, it is God speaking through Isaac, testing Abraham further.
         1. "My father," Isaac says.
         2. And just as Abraham had replied "Here I am" to God, so now he replies "Here I am, my son."
         3. "My son." How that twists the knife in the wound. Even now, Abraham is not emotionally distancing himself from his beloved son, preparing for the inevitable.
         4. Will Abraham survive this plea from his son? Will he do the will of God though it cost him all?
      3. "Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb?"
         1. What a poignant, sad, distressing question.
         2. Does Isaac not yet know that HE is the lamb that will be slain?
            1. He is innocent and unsuspecting as a sacrificial lamb ought to be.
            2. He is being led as a sheep to the slaughter.
            3. And as the sheep submits, not knowing the terror ahead, so Isaac.
         3. Yet still, he wonders. Where will we find a lamb?
            1. If we are here to make a sin offering, where is the lamb upon whose head we will place your sins and mine?
            2. Who will die for our sins?
      4. "God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son."
         1. Hear that word order. The NKJV changes it, but this the way it is in Hebrew: "God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son."
         2. He ends with "my son," which is ambiguous
            1. Is he saying "Oh my son, God will provide the lamb"
            2. Or is he saying "God will provide the lamb [which is] my son"?
            3. The statement deliberately goes both ways, revealing Abraham’s distressed realization that his son is the lamb to be slain for his sins, and his hope that God will provide another.
      5. Isaac accepts this answer and they walk on in silence.
   3. Abraham Prepares to Sacrifice Isaac (9,10)
      1. The story slows down even more. Our suspense and terror grows. Abraham’s every action is recorded.
         1. He comes to the place God told him of.
         2. He builds an altar there as Isaac watches, perhaps even helps.
         3. He arranges the wood on the altar so that he will be able to burn the offering, his son.
         4. He binds Isaac his son
            1. Not because he is afraid Isaac will escape.
            2. For clearly a boy who can carry all that wood could easily escape from a 110 or so year old man who is feeble and weak.
            3. No, Isaac submits willingly when he realizes that he is to be the sacrifice.
            4. No doubt, he would desire that this cup pass from him.
            5. Nevertheless, not what he wills but what his father wills.
            6. He is bound and made helpless by his own compliance, even as our Savior on the cross.
         5. He puts him on the altar he had made.
         6. On the wood he had brought
      2. And he raises the knife to slay him
         1. Here it is Abraham! Here is what your sins deserve, transferred to Isaac.
         2. Here it is Isaac! For your sins have deserved this as well and God is indeed just.
         3. Here it is sinner! For you too must be slain like Isaac for your sins.
      3. But How can this happen!
         1. The hope of the world is about to come to an end!
         2. This promised seed who should be the seed of the woman crushing the head of the serpent … he is about to be crushed!
         3. The Lord had appeared to Abraham between Bethel and Ai and said "To your seed I will give this land." But how can a dead man inherit?
         4. Had he not told Abraham Know for certain your descendants will possess this land?
            1. And he had passed through the pieces of cut up animals to show his willingness to fulfill his word
            2. But now it is Isaac who is about to become a cut up animal, symbolic of the wrath of God upon all covenant breakers.
         5. He had told Abraham he would establish his covenant with Isaac as an everlasting covenant. Now Isaac is about to die.
         6. We longed for Isaac. We waited for him with hope. We rejoiced to see him born by the power of God apart from Abraham’s ability. Shall he now be taken away, descending to the grave childless, having accomplished nothing that he was sent to do. How can we bear to see it happen? We were hoping that it was he who would save his people. For from him the Christ would be born.
      4. Abraham! Abraham! God calls to you from heaven. Stop lest the hope of all the nations be extinguished and the world consigned to misery forever.
3. God’s Response (11-19)
   1. Now God Knows that Abraham Fears Him (11,12)
      1. God calls him and Abraham again responds "Here I am."
         1. Here I am Lord, about to do your bidding.
         2. Here I am, ready to hear whatever you say.
      2. And wonder of wonders, joy of joys, Abraham is told to lay his knife aside without harming a hair on his son’s head.
      3. Now I know, God says, that you fear me.
         1. Before, you feared Pharaoh and Abimelech and so you were a liar and a man who sacrificed his wife to save his own skin.
         2. Now you fear ME. Now you know that I and I alone am worth hearing and heeding.
      4. Abraham has finally understood the gospel that was preached to him
         1. How God overcame Pharaoh in the land of Egypt
         2. How God overcame Chedorlaomer’s forces when they abducted Abraham’s nephew Lot
         3. How God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, but Abraham was left unscathed
         4. How God opened the wombs of Abimelech’s household.
         5. How God opened the womb of an 89 year old woman that she should bear a son at age 90 to a 100 year old man.
      5. Finally, he has understood that God can do anything and that he will fulfill all his promises.
      6. He gives no mere lip service to these premises. His faith is hearty and robust and full. His actions reflect that.
      7. How much more should we believe, oh children of little faith.
         1. Sell your possessions and give to the poor! Lay up for yourself treasure in heaven!
         2. Give up to God all that you hold most precious, for the most precious one shall never be taken from you.
         3. Do not be afraid though all that seems good in this life is taken from you — houses and lands and husbands and wives and fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and children. Have God’s promises failed. Will you not receive it all back at the resurrection?
         4. For Isaac is back from the dead as a picture of the resurrection, and Abraham receives his prized possession back, for he had judged God faithful who had promised and was unafraid to give the boy away.
         5. Christ has been given to us, back from the dead, never to die again, that all God’s promises to us may be fulfilled in him.
         6. We too shall rise at the last day? Do you believe that? Then let your actions be like those of Abraham, unafraid to obey God whatever the cost. For he will never take away the one costly priceless thing you need. And with that One he has given you an abundance to be revealed in the last day.
   2. God Provides a Substitute (13,14)
      1. The story can’t stop there. God can’t simply say, "I’ve decided not to require a sacrifice for sin after all.
      2. Abraham lifts up his eyes and sees … another ram. A substitute for Isaac.
      3. It is not Isaac who must die for the sins of the people. This one is not to be the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
      4. For Isaac himself is not truly without blemish. Isaac himself needs a sacrifice. Blood must be shed for him.
      5. Abraham’s faith has been vindicated: God himself has provided the lamb.
      6. God is fulfilling that promise he made when he walked through the cut up pieces.
         1. It is not Abraham who will pay and be judged and condemned and slaughtered if he fails to fulfill the covenant
         2. God has called down that curse upon himself.
      7. Now Abraham must begin to understand: God was not simply showing what would happen to himself if he failed to keep the covenant.
         1. He was showing what he was willing to do in order to keep the covenant.
         2. So God himself would provide the substitute, his own Son, the seed of Abraham and Isaac, the true hope of the world.
         3. The true eternal Father would one day walk his Son up that very same hill, the wood of the cross on which he would be sacrificed on his back.
         4. And then God would not withhold his hand.
         5. No one would cry out to God from a higher heaven, "Jehovah! Jehovah!" and tell him not to lay a hand on the boy.
         6. His hand would come down in wrath. His son would be slaughtered.
         7. But just as Abraham received his Son back from the dead, so will God the Father.
         8. And all the promises that were given in him will be fulfilled. And all the hopes that were pinned on him will be vindicated. Hallelujah! Christ is risen!
      8. Come. Do not fear the way of the cross
         1. Christ has already suffered the worst
         2. Let us go to him then on that hill and suffer with him if need be, that we may also be raised with him.
         3. Let Abraham be your example and have no fear.
      9. Indeed, the name of that place where Christ was sacrificed is Jehovah Jireh, The Lord Will Provide. Believe it! He HAS provided on that very hill all that you need.
   3. God Renews the Promise of Blessing (15-19)
      1. Time fails us to pursue this second theme.
      2. Let it be the subject of next week’s sermon that the Lord should call to us a second time as he did to Abraham.
      3. Then we shall hear more concerning the glorious promises that come to those who have faith in Christ.

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