#57 "Your son, your only son" Genesis 22

After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here am I." He said, "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 on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you." So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you." And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. And Isaac said to his father Abraham, "My father!" And he said, "Here am I, my son." He said, "behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" Abraham said, "God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering my son." So they went both of them together. When they came to the place which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here am I." He said, "do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, form me." 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. So Abraham called the name of that place, "The Lord will provide", as it is said to this day, "On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided." Genesis 22: 1-14 ESV

God tested Abraham. I remember reading this as a small boy, and accepting that God was testing Abraham's faith. As a young man, who thought himself to have outgrown God and fables, I thought ,"what kind of warped and twisted God is this?" What could have possibly been going through poor Abraham's mind at this time? It was not long after this that I read again, and the Bible does not leave me  here to my own imagination, no, rather God's word tells me what Abraham thought:

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, "through Isaac shall your offspring be named." He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. Hebrews 11: 17 - 19 ESV

God tells him to take Isaac to the land of Moriah. Moriah is associated with what would later become Jerusalem, and he is to take his son, his only son, and offer him there as a sacrifice. Abraham obeys without delay, but it will not be till the third day that they arrive. I don't know, but something about this story sounds familiar.

It is too long of a journey not to think. This is the God who made a covenant with me. This is the boy through which He said my seed would be called. I thought my wife could not have this child because her womb was dead. God breathed life where there had been none. I recognized God as the Creator, and knew better what that means. What He says He will do. Has he ever broken His word? When I heard the voice of God, but looked and saw only circumstances, He was still greater. After all of this I have learned to trust not in my own understanding, nor in what I see now, but on the Word that God has spoken to me. He asked so I must do. He promised so I believe.

Abraham is questioned by his son, and he answers that God will provide for Himself the lamb. It reminds me of a song we use to sing when I was little, "Tell me the story of Jesus." God has foretold Messiah's coming all the way back to the fall. He has demonstrated that sin brings death and that the wages of sin is death. The people sacrifice those animals that are approved or called clean. It is here, now, with Abraham's knife wielding hand, raised above his "only son", that we now see the substitutionary atonement introduced. It is the plan of God all along, but here we have the picture. More important then the land, bigger than a nation, beyond the child now laying on the wood, Abraham is stopped by the voice of God, and the substitution is made.