Abraham Offers Up Isaac
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
1. The earliest sacrificial offerings. The story of the Cross is as old as the sin of man. Sacrifices looking forward to, and anticipating the substitutionary Calvary work of our Lord began back in the days of Abel. We even believe that when God took the skins of the beasts, that He was then, purposefully suggesting the method by which man's sins were to be washed away, and his iniquity was to be covered.
2. The meaning of these sacrifices. There are some who imagine that Abel and others who followed after him, including Job and Abraham, etc., knew nothing of the far-flung vision which those sacrifices anticipated. With this contention we cannot agree for the following two reasons:
(1) God's acceptance of Abel's sacrifice and of all other sacrifices was dependent upon the faith of the offerers. In Isaiah, chapter one, we read definitely that God has no pleasure in the blood of bullocks and of lambs. God even cried out, "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me?" He called their oblations vain. He told them that their appointed feasts His soul hated. The reason for all this is plain. Israel was carrying out the rites which God had commanded but she had entirely lost the meaning of those sacrifices. In addition to this, she was living in abomination which entirely belied the cleansing power of the Blood which was shed.
(2) God's acceptance of Abel's sacrifice, and that of Noah and of all others, was dependent upon the faith of the offerer.
The sacrifices from God's viewpoint anticipated the death of Christ. That, however, was not enough. God demanded that the individual offering the sacrifices should likewise see the Cross.
It was for this cause that of Abel we read, "By faith Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain."
If we, in the ordinances of the church, fail by our faith to get the backward look which links us to Calvary and to the empty tomb, our ordinances are just as vain before God as the sacrifices of that early period would have been.
3. The culmination of sacrificial offering. Long before Christ came, the Prophets testified that during the Millennium, the Jews would, year by year, keep certain feasts in Jerusalem.
When we consider how the Blood of the Cross takes a poignant part in the earliest history of man, we are prone to look into our Bibles and to discover that the same precious Blood of Christ holds just as vital a place in the last days of man's history. In fact, the Book of Revelation almost closes with, "These are they which * * have washed their robes."
I. AN EARNEST CALL AND A PROMPT REPLY (Genesis 22:1)
1. God did tempt Abraham. This verse by no means suggests that God tried to get Abraham to do something which was wrong. God cannot be tempted of evil, neither tempteth He any man. God's temptations are testings, trials, in which He would prove the heart of His children in order that He might lift them up to higher altitudes of faith and to larger enrichment. Satan's temptations or testings are malicious in intent and. design. Their import is to drag man down, to cause him to break connections with God, and to spoil fellowship.
2. God's call. God said unto His servant, "Abraham!" It was wonderful that God would deign to personally address one of His children, but God frequently did this very thing in the case of this mighty patriarch. Nor is that all. God spoke to many men of yore, and He is speaking to many today. His method of approach is not now with audible voice, nevertheless, His approach is real, and to those who walk with God, it is easily discerned.
3. Abraham's reply. Abraham replied, "Behold, here I am." God grant that we may be always as ready and as willing to answer when God speaks. In Abraham's expression there were the pulsings of a willing and obedient soul. Abraham spoke as one would speak who is ready to be, or to do, or to go, for his God.
The patriarch did not know what might be entailed in his response; yet, he was willing to go without knowing. To us, it seems that when Abraham said, "Behold, here I am," that he was signing his name as an obedient servant at the foot of a blank page, before the orders of his Master and Lord had been filled in.
II. GOD ASKS FOR ABRAHAM'S BEST (Genesis 22:2)
1. The call was for Isaac. God said to Abraham, "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest." Remember, that in Isaac every promise God had ever made to Abraham was vested. It was through Isaac that Christ, the Seed, was to be born. It was through Isaac that the chosen nation was to spring forth.
The lad had been called "Isaac" because of the great joy, the laughter, which had come to his father's house, when his birth was assured.
2. Isaac was a type of his Lord. God said to Abraham, "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest." Jesus Christ was God's Son, He was God's only begotten Son, He was the Son of His love.
How marvelous it is that man can stand forth in Scripture symbolical of the Eternal. This, however, is often the case. No one man could be a type of Christ in everything, but, combining the various symbolic characters of the Word of God, we will have many of the outstanding features, which marked the character and Person of our Lord, set forth.
In addition to the suggestions above, how Isaac was a son, an only son, a son beloved, there is this further statement, Isaac was the son of his father's old age. We speak reverently, for what we mean to suggest is that Jesus Christ was the Son of Eternity. This is suggested in the one hundred and tenth Psalm, where it says, "From the womb of the morning: Thou hast the dew of Thy youth." Jesus Christ was ever young, and yet He came from the morning before the beginnings of all things. In Revelation, He is described with hairs as white as snow, suggestive not only of His purity, but also of His eternity.
III. THE COMMANDED SACRIFICE (Genesis 22:2)
First of all, Abraham was to take his son. Thus, God was the One who took Christ and made Him an offering for our sins. Jesus Christ was not crucified by the overwhelming powers of a maddened mob, who carried Him to the Cross against His will; Jesus Christ was not crucified by our sins. Both of the above had important parts to play in the death of Christ. The Jews, the Romans and our sins all were set against the Son of God, but none of these could have nailed the Lord to the Tree. Unless Christ had been delivered by the Father, He had never been delivered.
In the second place, Jesus Christ had a designated spot upon which He was to be crucified. He was destined to die outside the camp. He was to be offered upon Mount Calvary, or Golgotha, the Place of Skulls.
In that memorable day, in which our Lord died, there was no outstanding event that had not long before been recorded, both in the typology of the Old Testament and also in its direct statements.
In the third place, Isaac was to be offered as a burnt-offering, so also, the Son of God was made an offering for us, a sacrifice full and complete for our sins.
The sacrifices and burnt-offerings according to the Law brought God no pleasure save as they anticipated the sacrifice of Christ. Those sacrifices could not take away sins, but Jesus Christ offered one sacrifice for sin, forever. Thus it was that Isaac in his offering was pleasing unto God in the fact that Abraham in the offering of Isaac anticipated Christ.
IV. ABRAHAM'S PROMPT OBEDIENCE (Genesis 22:3)
Four things are noted in this verse:
1. Abraham rose up early in the morning. There was no hesitancy on the part of God's servant. There was nothing by way of argument and bickering and delay. The sacrifice was great, the grief was overwhelming, and yet, Abraham brooked no delay. God did not refuse to give His only begotten Son. There was nothing to suggest God's unwillingness to make so great a sacrifice for His creatures.
2. Abraham, "TOOK two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son." If Abraham could have sent Isaac away and not have been present, it might have been easier to know him slain, but when Abraham was compelled to take his son, to go with his son to the place of offering, it was different.
All this is exactly what God did. God sent His Son to be killed, but there was never a moment that God was not with Him. It was not until the darkness shrouded the Cross, as Christ went round the cycle of His suffering, that the Father hid His face. Even then, the Father saw the Son, although the Son saw not the Father. God accompanied His Isaac to the Cross.
3. Abraham "clave the wood for the burnt-offering." Once again, we see the personal part which Abraham played as he raised his axe to cleave the wood, he knew that he was, as it were, already undertaking in behalf of slaying his beloved Isaac.
Every step of the way toward the Cross was a step into deeper darkness. Long before Christ came to earth, He had begun with His Father the strange, but stately stepping toward Calvary. God was, as it were, all the time cleaving the wood for the burnt-offering.
4. Abraham "went unto the place of which God had told him." There was nothing haphazard, nothing by way of guess, or accident, that marked the journey of that day. As Jesus Christ went to the Cross there were no unexpected events taking place. From the Garden of Eden to Calvary, all was according to the plan and purpose marked out by the Father.
V. ABRAHAM'S FAR-AWAY LOOK (Genesis 22:4)
How the words halt our attention: "Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off."
The place he saw was the place of sacrifice. He saw the place from a distance. He saw the place with deep forebodings. He saw the place with faith that God would undertake and restore back to him his son.
1. God saw the Cross of Christ back of the creation of the world. Jesus Christ is spoken of as "A Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world." Peter said that Christ was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.
Down through aeons upon aeons God looked and saw the supreme sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross. As events transpired, during the centuries lying between the Garden of Eden and Golgotha, nothing happened that was unforeseen of the Father. He saw the strategies of Satan long before Satan sought to put them across. He saw the race hastening on in its wickedness and God-rejecting attitude. He saw the Sanhedrin as it met to cast its lot for the death of Christ. He saw it all saw it before the world was.
2. God saw the Cross of Christ with forebodings of the anguish of its cost. Not one thing passed His all foreseeing eye. He saw the bitterness of Christ's cup of death the physical, the mental, the soul anguish.
God saw Christ uplifted, the inflamed wounds, the unnatural position, the maddened mob wailing out their maledictions, the word-thrusts of the thieves, the darkness, the weeping women, He saw it all.
But God saw more. He saw the fruitage of the Cross. He saw that the Lord would see of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied. He saw the multitude of the redeemed around about the throne as they voiced their eternal praises to God and to the Lamb. He saw the golden city and its joys, the new heaven and the new earth, and its peace saw both as the result of the Cross.
VI. ABRAHAM'S FLIGHT OF FAITH (Genesis 22:5)
Abraham said three things: 1, "Abide ye here." 2. "I and the lad will go yonder." 3. "I and the lad will * * come again to you." There are three things we can learn from this.
1. Where man cannot go. When Christ died upon the Cross, there were certain ones who stood about the Cross. There was Mary, the mother of Jesus, and John, and Peter, and many, others. They were there, and yet they could not go into the cycle of His suffering. How helpless they must have felt as they stood there, all alone; so near, and yet so far from the Lord.
Today we are just as helpless. We can never fathom the depths of the anguish nor the full reach of the sorrow that befell our Savior. We may go with Him outside the camp, we may suffer His reproach, but we cannot feel the weight of the world's woe of sin. We cannot suffer the just for the unjust. We have no capacity for such a grief.
2. Where God and Christ together did go. Here is a glimpse of the eternal sacrifice of Christ that we are in danger of overlooking. God and Christ went together. They returned together. In death and in resurrection both were there. We do not mean that Christ saw the Father during the three hours of darkness. He did not. We do mean that the Father hid His face but for the while they Two went together.
3. The certainty of the resurrection. Abraham offered up Isaac by faith, accounting that God was able to raise him up from the dead. Abraham spoke truly, when he said, "We will come again." He did not know that God would call unto him, "Stay thy hand"; he did know that God would keep His promise to him, that, through Isaac and his seed, the Seed of the woman, the Son of God would come. Abraham seeing Isaac slain, saw Isaac risen because God had promised. David saw Christ crucified, but he also saw Christ risen because God had promised that Christ would sit on His throne.
Thus also, did God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost revel in the joy of Christ's resurrection.
VII. THE MARCH TOWARD THE PLACE OF SACRIFICE (Genesis 22:6)
Isaac bore the wood of the burnt-offering. Abraham bore the fire and the knife. Both of them went together. Thus may we sum up the three typical statements of our verse. Let us examine them one at a time.
1. Isaac bore the wood. Our Scripture says, "And Abraham took the wood of the burnt-offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son."
Here was something so unusual, that it appears most striking. Why should Isaac bear the wood, save that, in all of this, God was foreshadowing the picture of Christ? We read, "And He bearing His Cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha" (John 19:17).
2. Abraham carried the fire and the knife. Thus, it was again set forth in unmistakable symbolism, that the Father God, delivered the Son to the Cross. To be sure, this delivery was not against the will of the Son, for Christ, Himself, was sent as a Lamb to the slaughter. He freely gave Himself for us.
It still remains true, nevertheless, that the Father offered up the Son as a willing sacrifice for our sins. "He hath made Him to be sin for us." He made "His soul an offering for sin."
3. Abraham and Isaac went together. Once more the words, "They two went together" sound forth with a marvelous pictorial message. Thrice already in this lesson we have seen this same suggestion.
In Genesis 22:2, "Take now thy son." Here Abraham and Isaac went together. The father taking the son. In Genesis 22:3, Abraham took his son and they went to the place of which God had spoken. In Genesis 22:5 Abraham said, "I and the lad will go yonder." Finally, in our Genesis 22:6, "They went both of them together."
The Lord certainly puts emphasis upon the fact that God went along the pathway with the Son as He. pressed through the centuries toward the Cross. We often speak of Christ being alone; yet, He was not alone until during the three hours of His dying for us, when the Father hid His face. This was suggested by the cry of Christ: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" It was as though Christ would acknowledge the fact that they had always been together, save in those three hours, and then, because Christ took in full the sinner's place, the Father of necessity hid His face.
AN ILLUSTRATION
THE PRICELESS PRICE
"' The satisfaction must carry proportion with the merit of the offense. A debt of a thousand pounds is not discharged by two or three brass farthings. Creatures are finite, their acts of obedience are already due to God, and their sufferings for one another, if they had been allowed, would have been of limited influence.' Jesus alone, as the Son of God, could present a substitution sufficient to meet the case of men condemned for their iniquities. The majesty of His nature, His freedom from personal obligation to the Law, and the intensity of His griefs, all give to His atonement a virtue which elsewhere can never be discovered. None of the sons of men 'can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him.' Jesus only could stand in our soul's stead, and pay the dreadful price.
What sinners we are! What a sacrifice has been presented for us! No brass farthings were our price; nay, gold and silver are called 'corruptible things' when compared with the precious Blood which has paid our ransom.