How Did Abraham Read the Word of God

Why Did God Ask Abraham to Sacrifice Isaac?

What practice we do with violence in the Bible? Part 2

by Andy Patton 2 years ago

The Bible has many difficult passages for modern readers, merely few are more challenging than the moment when God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac in Genesis 22.

This story causes us to ask a lot of troubling questions. What kind of God would ask for this? Is God commanding child sacrifice? Isn't this request in conflict with everything else God seems to value?

We are in the middle of a serial on difficult passages in the Bible. In function 1, we looked at the alluvion. Now we jump ahead a few capacity in Genesis to consider the requested cede of Isaac.

If the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus, then is Jesus connected to such a disturbing request? Is the God of love found anywhere in this passage? The good news is that the reply to both questions is, "Yeah!" Let's accept a look.

Abraham'south Long-Awaited Son

Genesis 1-11 tells the story of how God created all things and made humans in his image to rule on his behalf. However, the humans misuse their rule, and the world spins out of control into violence and death. This all leads upward to the rebellion and scattering of the people from Babylon (Genesis xi).

God calls a human named Abram, subsequently known as Abraham, to launch his plan to rescue and bless the whole earth through Abraham's family (Genesis 12). But there's a problem: Abraham is childless and his wife is barren. Although this problem lurks in the background of Abraham's story, God reaffirms his promise. 1 mean solar day, Abraham volition take a son, and his descendants volition be a swell nation. And later on decades of waiting, Isaac was built-in.

But the long look for Isaac wasn't Abraham's true exam. This comes in the very next chapter (Genesis 22) when God tells Abraham to have his beloved son and cede him. Abraham must have been confused. Why would God hope him a son and so take the son abroad? At best, it feels similar a strange inconsistency. At worst, information technology'due south an evil fox.

What'south Really Going On Here?

When nosotros look at the context of this story, we discover 3 things that atomic number 82 us to greater understanding of this problematic passage in Genesis 22.

1. This Wasn't Abraham'south Start Experience with God

God had already revealed himself to Abraham many times through Abraham's successes and failures, his religion and fear, in promises and forgiveness. Abraham knew the character of God. One time, he even asked God, "Will not the approximate of all the earth exercise correct?" (Genesis 18:25) After this encounter, perhaps Abraham settled this question in his heed in one case and for all.

Abraham obeyed God'due south unexpected command considering he trusted God's promise and knew him to be good and trustworthy.

2. Abraham Didn't Call back Isaac Would Die

When they reached the mountain, Abraham told his retainer, "Stay hither with the donkey; I and the boy will go over at that place and worship and come again to you" (Genesis 22:5). The text is careful to include both Abraham and Isaac in the return journey.

Or consider Isaac'south question about where the lamb for the sacrifice would come from. Abraham responds, "God himself will provide the lamb" (Genesis 22:8). Information technology seems Abraham prepared himself to exercise what God asked, only he expected something else to happen.

The author of the book of Hebrews gives us insight to Abraham'due south thoughts. It says, "He considered that God was able even to raise [Isaac] from the expressionless" (Hebrews 11:xix). Instead of a resurrection, Abraham was spared the sacrifice.

When the Bible depicts violence, things are often not what they seem at showtime glance. A surface reading may hide a character's motivations and intentions. In other cases, referencing other points in the biblical tradition tin shed low-cal on difficult passages. This is certainly the case with our next bespeak—prophetic reenactment.

3. Prophetic Reenactment

The story of Abraham and Isaac takes on a larger significance when y'all place it in the context of prophetic reenactment. Throughout the Bible, God asked prophets to reenact in miniature things that he would do on a larger scale. The acts themselves seem foreign until you see them as an acted out apologue. Then you start request different questions.

When we read Genesis 22, we may think, "How could God have required this?" Merely when we view the story through the lens of prophetic reenactment, we tin ask, "What did God intend for us to learn through this?"

Just as God called the prophet Hosea to act the part of God in marrying a prostitute (Hosea 1) and told Ezekiel to lie on his side for over a year to symbolize the siege of Jerusalem (Ezekiel iv), then God asked Abraham to play the part of God in the cede of his own son.

This begs the question: What son are nosotros talking most here?

Genesis 22 Points to Jesus

The unabridged Bible points to Jesus, and this is especially true of Genesis 22. This passage is similar a lock. Jesus is the key that unlocks it for u.s.a.. Think about the parallels between this story and the story of Jesus.

• Both Isaac and Jesus are "love sons" who have been long-awaited and are born in miraculous circumstances (Genesis 22:1, Matthew 3:17).

• Both sons behave the woods that is to be the instrument of their deaths on their backs (Genesis 22:half dozen, John 19:17).

• In both cases, the begetter leads the son, and the son follows obediently toward his own death (Genesis 22:three, Matthew 26:39).

• God provides the sacrifice, which Abraham says will be a lamb (Genesis 22:8, John ane:29).

• Jesus was also an innocent son who went willingly up the mountain to be crucified.

Jesus is the Truthful Isaac

What do all these parallels mean? Abraham and Isaac point beyond themselves to the Messiah. This story is a parable of the greater redemption God would someday accomplish through one of their descendants, Jesus.

An exchange happens in Genesis 22, the ram in place of Isaac. This points to the greater exchange that happens at the cantankerous, the Son of God in place of usa. In Jesus, God brings his ain promised Son into decease and through it. Just like Isaac, God spares humanity because he takes the cross on himself.

The Comfort of the Cross

About people aren't disturbed by the effect of Genesis 22. Instead, it's the fact that God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son in the first place. How could Abraham agree? This seems more like parental fail than faithful obedience.

Just remember what we've covered and so far. If Isaac represents Jesus in the story, then Abraham stands in for God.

From that angle, Abraham'south willingness is comforting. This is the bespeak that Paul makes when he draws language from Genesis 22 to ask, "He who did not spare his ain son, only gave him upward for us all, will he non too with him graciously give usa all things?" (Romans 8:31).

On the grounds of this cede, Paul pronounces one of the strongest messages of hope and consolation in all of Scripture,

"For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things nowadays nor things to come, nor powers, nor pinnacle nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, volition be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39).

Romans viii:38-39

But Why Death At All?

Possibly seeing this story in the larger context of Jesus' sacrifice doesn't relieve your troubling questions but only makes them worse. Later all, God is still requiring the death of a son, only this time it's his own!

Why does death have to exist involved at all? Why such violence? Couldn't God just moving ridge his hand and set things? Why did in that location have to exist a sacrifice?

To answer these questions, we demand to ponder the entire biblical story. In the beginning, God made a skilful world and created beings in his image to rule it with him (Genesis 1:26-28). He offered humanity richness of life because it was a life with him, the source of all life. Only there was a condition: that if humanity turned away from him, they would dice because zero tin live away from God. Notwithstanding that is exactly what they chose.

God didn't introduce death into the equation; humanity did. God'southward trouble (and ours) is figuring out how to deal with information technology.

God tin can't pretend decease isn't at that place. He is life, and we take chosen to live by our own standards. The Hebrew Scriptures wrestle with the question of how death will be resolved. And the answer information technology gives is sacrifice.

Sacrifice is the death of i thing so something else tin have a new life. What makes the gospel such good news is that God solves the problem of death, not by enervating the death of everything touched by the stain of evil only by offering himself instead. The result of Jesus's sacrifice means new life for us all.

Then where practice we country?

On the surface, Genesis 22 is a problematic passage. But when we come across how this story fits in with the broader context of Scripture, we encounter that this is one of the clearest stories pointing us toward God'due south solution to the problem of death in our globe. In choosing Abraham, God launches a plan to rescue the world. Abraham's words to Isaac ultimately bespeak to Jesus, "God himself volition provide the sacrifice."

How Did Abraham Read the Word of God

Source: https://bibleproject.com/blog/why-did-god-ask-abraham-to-sacrifice-isaac/

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