Brothers and sisters, today I am not going to speak to
you about the common sacrifice Israel practiced for thousands of years. We, who live in this modern world in this
part of the world, don’t seem to connect that much with the animal sacrifice
that the Jews have been doing since the time of Moses. I understand that many of you have at least
some knowledge of the animal sacrifice in the Torah. So, today I want to invite you all to reflect
on a particular sacrifice that crosses any culture, geography, and even
time. This particular sacrifice will cut
our soul personally if we truly and deeply reflect upon it in all
seriousness. This is the sacrifice that
Abraham was told to make, the sacrifice of Isaac, the son Abraham loved.
22 After
these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here
I am.” 2 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.” 3 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. 4 On the third day
Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. 5 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.” 6 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. 7 And Isaac said to his
father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said,
“Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” 8 Abraham
said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So
they went both of them together.
9 When they came to the place of 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. 10 Then
Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. 11 But
the angel of the Lord called to
him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 12 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, from
me.” 13 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. 14 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.”
15 And the angel of the Lord
called to Abraham a second time from heaven 16 and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and
have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I
will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars
of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall
possess the gate of his enemies, 18 and
in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you
have obeyed my voice.” 19 So
Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beersheba.
And Abraham lived at Beersheba.
Genesis 22:1-19
Many theologians agree that this particular story of
Abraham is the greatest story ever written in the Old Testament. Not even the story of David vs. Goliath can
surpass the story of Abraham journeying to Mount Moriah in order to sacrifice
his son that he loved, Isaac, as commanded by God. In this story we find that God tested
Abraham. No, this is not like the school
tests we all are familiar with. This is
much mightier than all those tests we may ever get in school. It is even mightier than the test Job
experienced. And even, all other tests
Abraham went through became miniscule compared with this one test. Kenneth Mathews of the New American
Commentary on Genesis pointed out:
The
impact is the elevation of this single event so as to make all of the past
promises hang on Moriah’s test. The call at Haran requires the patriarch to
leave his former circles of security; the orientation of the promises is toward
the future, emphasizing the birth of an heir. Now the Lord requires Abraham to
relinquish the future by offering Isaac as a sacrifice.[1]
In this test, Abraham’s struggle was extremely difficult. The test crushes down any human instinct in
the fallen world. Yet, Abraham was
different. He was unique. Mathews said that Abraham
resisted
the human impulse to withhold his son for his own advantage, expressing a
submissive spirit.[2]
The struggle that he underwent was enough to confuse the wisest
philosopher in the world. “Why must he
sacrifice the son that God Himself said would indeed be the one to carry the
torch of the promise of God of salvation to all? Was God contradicting Himself? How could the One Holy God contradict
Himself? Yet He gave the command. Yes, He also kept His promise that Isaac was
born through Abraham and Sarah.” James
Montgomery Boice reflected on Abraham’s struggle and said:
I
think Abraham was puzzling over the problem. “How can God be true to his
promise if I sacrifice Isaac?” he was asking. “What is God going to do to
remain a God of honor?”[3]
The salvation of the entire world is at stake here. Yet God asked Abraham to let that go. What was Abraham’s option? To deny God His command? To rebuke God for His confusing command? To obey God without question? Nahum Sarna of the JPS Torah Commentary on
Genesis commented about Abraham’s response to God’s command:
The
patriarch makes no verbal response, not even hinneni, “Here I am!” He who was so daringly eloquent on behalf of
the people of Sodom surrenders in total silence to his own bitter personal
destiny. He does not question divine constancy.[4]
No, Abraham did not question God.
He chose to obey. He chose to do
God’s command. He did not even ask: “Why
must I sacrifice Isaac?” It seemed that
Abraham knew something in his heart about sacrifice. He knew that a sacrifice must be done. He did not know what kind of sacrifice would
satisfy God. He had made many sacrifices
before. He sacrificed lambs, bulls, and
all other kind of sacrifices. He never
sacrificed a human being, how much more his own son that he loved so much.
Yes this is most painful
to Abraham. God suddenly called Abraham
and gave him the command in verse 2, a command that would break any father’s
heart to a million pieces:
“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.”
The emphasis that God made couldn’t be clearer in this verse. God wanted Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, whom
God knew he loved with his life. This is
the only time when God would ever ask a human being to sacrifice his own
beloved son. I cannot imagine if this
was a command addressed to me. Can you
imagine if God calls you in the middle of the night and says you have to
sacrifice the only child you love? I
know it would break my heart. You
probably would say the same, that such command would break your heart to a
million pieces. We would not stop
asking: “Why? Why Lord? Why?”
Abraham did not know
that this single event was a shadow of what to come. The writer of the book of Hebrews captures
Abraham’s mind and writes:
17 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, 18 of
whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 19 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)
Abraham’s belief was extraordinary.
He believed in the resurrection of the dead, even before any miracle of
that sort was ever performed. Yet he did
not know that what he did that day was a shadow of the greatest story ever
told. Let me tell you a story of Ravi
Zacharias and his encounter with a Sheikh of Hamas, Sheikh Talal:
Well-known
Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias, and some other prominent religious leaders,
had been invited to the Middle East to talk to some of that
region’s religious leaders. One of them was a sheikh who was one of
the four founders of Hamas. The sheikh, a large, powerful-looking man,
had been in prison for 18 years. He’d also lost some of his children to
suicide bombings. The room where this meeting took place was full of
smoke and people. The discussions had been intense up to this point:
When it was Ravi’s
turn to ask the sheikh a question, the following dialog took place:
Ravi: “Can I just say one thing to you sir? 5000
years ago on a mountain not far from here, a man called Abraham took his son up
the mountain to offer him as an expression of his faith. You remember
that story?”
Sheikh: “Yes.”
Ravi: “Let’s not argue about which son right now.”
Ravi: “But he (Abraham) took his son up that mountain and
as the knife is about to come down, God stops that arm, and He says, “Stop!””
Sheikh: “That’s right.”
Ravi: “What did God say?”
The sheikh just
stared at Ravi.
Ravi: “God said, “Stop, I, Myself, will provide.””
Sheikh: “That’s right.”
Ravi: “Sheikh, here in Ramallah, very close to us is a
hill. 2000 years ago, God kept that promise. This time, He took His
own son up that hill, and this time the hammers did not stop. Sheikh, until you and I receive this son God
has provided, we’ll be offering our own sons and daughters on the battlefields
of this world for position, and land, and power, and prestige.”
The sheikh looked
at Ravi, and there was such a stunned silence in the room. Ravi never
thought of that talk beforehand. What he’d said just came out on the spur
of the moment. Ravi thought he’d really blown it.
On
the way back to their jeeps, the sheikh, hurriedly, put the other guests in
their vehicles and then ran over to Ravi’s jeep. He patted Ravi on both
cheeks and then kissed him on both cheeks. He told Ravi he was a good man
and that he hoped they’d meet again some day as his eyes welled up with tears.
In a similar way Boice quoted F. B. Meyer and said:
“So
long as men live in the world, they will turn to this story with unwaning
interest. There is only one scene in history by which it is surpassed: that
where the Great Father gave his Isaac to a death from which there was no
deliverance.”[5]
Brothers and sisters, Abraham sacrificing Isaac was but a shadow of God
the Father sacrificing His own beloved Son on that wretched cross in order to
save us. But now, we would ask: “Why
must the Son of God be sacrificed?” Let
me explain to you in the following.
The Law demands justice
be upheld. Because God is the God of
justice. Exodus 21:23-24 records this
law about the demand of justice:
23 But if there is harm, then you shall pay
life for life, 24 eye
for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for
stripe.
The Fall renders all human beings, even those who are to be born in the
future, guilty of sin. Through Adam we
all have sinned and thus punishable in hell.
God gives us all life. When we
sin we lose that life. So we owe God our
life. Life must be paid by life. That is why we must pay with our life. Meaning we must die to pay what we owe to
God. However, if God wants to save us
from death, then our life must be paid for.
This payment of life must be done accordingly. A human life can’t be paid with a lamb life,
or even a million bulls. There is a
value difference. A human life can’t
even be paid with an angel’s life. So a
human life must be paid by a human life.
But nobody in this world can pay for everybody owes their lives to God
and must pay. There is only one that
could pay, for He is sinless, thus He does not have to pay for His life, and He
is Jesus Christ.
Therefore, if we, human
beings, are to be saved, God can’t just flick His fingers and make everything
good again. His justice won’t allow
it. A sacrifice must be made. The right sacrifice must be made in order to
satisfy His justice. A sloppy sacrifice
won’t do. A billion bulls and lambs
won’t cut it. Life for life, eye for
eye, tooth for tooth. A human life for a
human life. The Son of God must be
sacrificed if we are to escape hell.
This is the answer to why a sacrifice must be made. I haven’t explained here why Jesus is the
only one that must be sacrificed for the salvation of His people. We have not the time and space to do so. It would be for another time.
The event about Abraham
sacrificing Isaac was done by God to test Abraham’s faith, to cast a shadow of
God the Father truly sacrificing His only begotten Son, and to teach us the
real pain of sacrifice. No, sacrifice is
not a mechanical system or merely a religious ritual. Sacrifice demands the whole being. Its pain pierces deep into a person’s very
core, even God. Do not take this
lightly. God knows it, so He stopped
Abraham from sacrificing Isaac. But a
sacrifice must be made. The real one
that truly saves the world. So God the
Father did not stop Himself from sacrificing His Son. Do you know what this means? It means He loves you and me very very
much. Brothers and sisters, we,
therefore, should not take His love and thus His sacrifice lightly. It is only fitting for us to love Him back
with all our being. Abraham did. And so we also must. Amen!
[1] K. A. Mathews, Genesis 11:27–50:26, vol. 1B, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman
& Holman Publishers, 2005), 283.
[2] K. A. Mathews, Genesis 11:27–50:26, vol. 1B, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman
& Holman Publishers, 2005), 284.
[3] James Montgomery Boice, Genesis: An Expositional Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books,
1998), 686.
[5] James Montgomery Boice, Genesis: An Expositional Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books,
1998), 683.
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