Pray First

Read Genesis 22

God called Abraham and he answered, “Here am I.” His immediate response to his God was willingness and readiness to say yes. “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,” (Gen 22:2 ESV). Abraham got up and proceeded to do just as God had told him. I know that God won’t ask me to do such a thing, but am I a “Yes, God” sort of person like Abraham? Is my faith and trust deep enough to be completely obedient? 

I’ve heard this story all my life and have always felt uneasy about it. Why would God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son? How could He ask such a thing? When I come across something in the Bible that seems so unlike the character of God, I have to go back to what I know to be true. God is good, always. God is for us. God keeps His promises. “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose,” (Rom 8:28). 

God knows all things. He is not bound by time and space. He is present everywhere and all the time. The fact that God knows all things in all dimensions of time and space helps us digest this story better. God always has a purpose for what He does, And He knows the outcome before the event. When God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, He already knew the plan. Knowing that God already knew He would stop Abraham before the actual killing of his son, helps us see that God is using this moment to teach and test Abraham but also to point us to what He would eventually do for us through His son Jesus. 

Early in the Bible we learn that a blood sacrifice is required by God to cover sin. God sacrificed an animal to make a garment of skin to cover Adam and Eve’s nakedness and sin after they disobeyed Him by eating from the forbidden tree. We read later that as God led His children out of Egyptian captivity, he commanded them very specifically regarding sacrifices required. A burnt offering of a perfect lamb would be required for sin. The only way to be in the presence of God is to be without sin. That perfect lamb sacrificed on an altar was the only way to be cleansed and have the relationship with God restored. But His children continued to rebel, continued to sin, and one sacrifice was not enough. Regular sacrifices of a perfect lamb were required for regular atonement. But all along God had a future plan for everlasting redemption. 

Abraham, Isaac, and the two young servant men walked along for three days to the place where they could see the mountain where the sacrifice would be made. He told the two young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you,” (Gen 22:5 ESV). When he and Isaac reached the mountaintop, Isaac asked his father, “Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son,” (Gen 22:7-8 ESV). 

Abraham somehow knew that God would make a way. He believed that both he and Isaac would return from the mountain. He didn’t know how but he knew God would keep the promise He had made to make a nation from his son Isaac. Abraham would focus on the One who made the promise, not the promise itself. He had learned not to help God keep his promise, but to simply be obedient to God the promiser. 

Abraham and his son walked to the top of the mountain. He laid the wood on his son, and Isaac carried it up the mountain. He laid Isaac on the altar who lay willingly. Completely trusting God, Abraham took his knife to follow through with God’s command. But God’s angel called to him and stopped him in his tracks. Then God provided the sacrifice just as Abraham had told his son. “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,” (Gen 22:13 ESV). 

God had sent Abraham to the mountain to sacrifice his only son. When God stopped him from killing his son, he still required a sacrifice on that mountain that day. He provided the Ram.  

Today, just as then, the “wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23). Rather than requiring our own death for our sin, God loved us so much he provided the sacrifice. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life,” (John 3:16 ESV). Jesus died for all sin for all time, completing the required sacrifice, an everlasting redemption.  

The God of heaven came to earth in human form as God the Son, Jesus Christ. He came to die so that we could have life. He came to be the lamb of sacrifice to pay our sin debt. Jesus said, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many,” (Mk 10:45 ESV). Like Isaac, he carried the wooden cross up the mountain. Like Isaac, he was willingly bound, willingly nailed to the cross. Three days after God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, He saved him, providing a substitutionary sacrifice: the Ram. God provided a substitution to pay the penalty of death for our sin. We are saved by the Lamb of God who was raised to life three days after his death on the cross. We must only believe. 

“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” (Jn 1:29 ESV).

What am I willing to do, or how far am I willing to go for the Lamb of God that took my sins away? 

Worship Song: Lamb of God by Matt Redman and David Funk

Find Tracy on Facebook at Tracy Fields Todd, Writer, and on Instagram at @tracyftodd.