1 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!"
"Here I am," he replied.
2 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."
(If you are reading through the Bible with me, today is Genesis 28. We are doing one chapter a day until we finish Revelation. Do jump in with us! We are reading about Jacob, who was quite the schemer in his younger years. )
This is the first time I"ve read the story of Abraham being called to sacrifice Isaac since I became a mom.
I used to look at it as a nice story of how Abraham trusted God, but now it tears my heart out.
I pictured Dallas's sweet, trusting face as I read about Abraham cutting the wood for the offering, and setting out with Isaac and his servants.
It took three days to get to the place God told him about. I would have been hysterical the moment God suggested I sacrifice my child, but Abraham (it seems) calmly went about all of this with the utmost trust in God.
I pictured Dallas's little pouty lips as I read about how Abraham carried the knife and the fire himself. Isaac kept asking where the sacrifice was (do you think he may have been getting a little suspicious?), and Abraham assured him that God would provide the lamb for the offering.
As I read about how Abraham arranged the wood for the altar, tied up Isaac, and then raised the knife to kill him, I couldn't stop trembling. All I could picture was Dallas's chubby wrists, and the hands that cling to my neck, being tied up. I"m crying right now while I type this.
But.....
I love seeing the word "But" in Scripture! It seems to always mean that God is about to do something big.
But the angel of the Lord called out to Abraham to tell him to stop. Yay!
God knew at this point that Abraham would not withold anything from Him, even the son that was the promise of Abraham becoming a great nation. No Isaac, no nation. In the words of verse 12: Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son."
Notice something familiar in that last verse? Check out John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
God DID sacrifice His Son, His Only Son. Even though Christ begged for Him to stop, that there might be another way, the cup did not pass.
I heard a pastor saying once (I can't remember who...I can remember random actors from 80s movies, but rarely the important stuff. Not that 80s movies are not important.) that we are not asked to sacrifice our precious babies because Christ Himself was the Sacrifice once for all, as we see in Hebrews 10: 11Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. 13Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, 14because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
What a beautiful thing God's plan is! When we read stories like this, with foreshadowing of Christ, you can't help but think that whoever wrote it (Moses, in this case, under the influence of the Holy Spirit) must have known the end from the beginning. And that also means that we can trust Him with our lives, since He has a unique plan for us, and has loved us since before time began. Pretty awesome, isn't it? :-)
