Genesis 22:1–19

The Spirit of God, through Moses, speaks of God's trying Abraham's faith, which is no evil, but an honour put on the friend of God. Through the Apostle He speaks of evil things. In that sense, of course, "God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no one" — clearly the same sense. The context puts the meaning of each beyond dispute.

When God tempted Abraham in the matter of offering up his son Isaac, God was not tempting him with evil, for God had a right to ask of him what He asked. God is the Giver of life and He can demand back what He gives. Genesis 22:1 is the very first mention in the Bible of the word tempt (Hebrew, nasah, to try, to prove).

The words "After these things" in Genesis 15:1 and 22:1 divide Abram's life into three stages. I think the different aspects are these: first, the call and the response of faith; second, the promise and the response of hope; and third, the trial and the response of love.

Abraham's heart, as another has observed, did grieve at the loss of Ishmael, but in that case his conscience had something to say to him. Offering up Isaac was very different. There Abraham's conscience did not speak, but his heart all the more. God was trying his heart, whether it rested more in the gift than in the Giver. Abraham stood the test.

It was the greatest trial to which God had ever put the heart of a saint. It was not tempting with evils, any more than God is tempted with them. On the contrary, God had His own good in view. He would make His friend the witness of it, while testing his confidence in Himself and His word to the very limit... God could not lie; but He might and does try, and those most whom He loves best.

Notice how responsive Abraham is. God calls, and at once comes the reply, "Here I am." Then consider how the words stress everything that would make the demand still more terrible to nature, instead of softening it: "Your son, your only son, whom you love." In such small details we see the Divine knowledge and the Divine interest. Nor is anything left to Abraham's choice in the matter of place.

Through all this trial of Abraham's we must not miss one thing: the faith of resurrection cheers the father's heart. God had made His promises sure in the son of whom He said, "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named." So if God called for Isaac to be offered up, resurrection must restore him from the very flames of the altar.

After these things, and quite distinct from them, God tried Abraham. What is not here for God as well as man! It is the picture, which only blind unbelief fails to see, of the Only-begotten Son given, of the Lamb which God would provide Himself for a Burnt Offering.

It was the greatest trial to which God had ever put the heart of a saint. It was not a temptation to evil, any more than God Himself is tempted by evil. On the contrary, God had His own good in view. He would make His friend the witness of it, while testing his confidence in Himself and in His word to the very limit. … God could not lie; but He can and does test, and He tests most those He loves best.

Abraham had to do more than accept God's will. He had to act against himself. He had to sacrifice himself, so to speak, for the sacrifice of his son was nothing less than that... "Your son" — this word kindled in Abraham the tenderest of feelings; and he had to sacrifice that son! More than that, this name reminded him of God's promises. Those promises were to be fulfilled in this son, for God had plainly told him, "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named."

Then consider how God stresses, rather than softens, everything that would make the demand still more terrible to natural feeling: "your son, your only son, whom you love." Such small details show God's knowledge and His interest. Nor is anything left to Abraham's choice in the matter of place. The sacrifice was to be on one of the mountains that God would tell him of. So must it always be. In the service of the Lord, He Himself must order everything, in line with His will.

This is a name of special affection for the Lord Jesus in His eternal Sonship, as He existed before He came into the world. He is called the only begotten Son, the only begotten of the Father. John 1:14, 18; John 3:16, 18. It is used here as the equivalent of a Hebrew word (yachid) which means 'only one,' and so 'darling,' Gen. 22:2; Ps. 22:20; 35:17.

The Bible's very first mention of love sets before us the supreme sacrifice that the Father made in giving His Son: "Take your son, your only son … whom you love … and offer him … as a burnt offering." The love of the Father for His Son comes first. As a picture, the love of Christ for His Church is the second mention of love in the Scriptures (Genesis 24:67).

We remember that Abel offered an offering from the firstborn of his flock. Noah, when he came out of the ark, took some of every clean animal and every clean bird and offered burnt offerings to the LORD. But this was the first occasion that pointed so solemnly to a human sacrifice. That offering surely foretold the sacrificial death of our Lord, the only begotten Son of the Father.

Abraham's love for Isaac is only a very faint picture of the infinite love of the Father for the Son. Yet God was willing not to spare His own Son, but to deliver Him up for us all (Rom. 8:32)... In love, God gave His only Son, so that we might be accepted in all the value of that wonderful burnt offering. That offering glorified God and brought us before Him in all the acceptability of what the Son is and what He has done.

Four centuries or so after Moses, the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite stood on Moriah. Years after that Solomon built his temple there, and so it became the place for Jewish sacrifices. That to which all these sacrifices pointed took place "outside the gate," for the Lord Jesus was the rejected One.

"And Abraham rose up early in the morning." There is ready obedience. "I hasten and do not delay to keep your commandments." Faith never stops to look at circumstances or to weigh results. It only looks at God… The moment we consult flesh and blood, it spoils our testimony and our service, for flesh and blood can never obey. We must rise early and carry out the divine command through grace. Acting on God's own word always gives strength and steadiness to what we do. If we act only from impulse, the acting stops when the impulse does.

When Job lost his children, he submitted beautifully to what God had allowed, for he said, "The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away." Abraham's faith meets a much harder test, and it rises to a far higher level. God does not simply ask him to bow to His will. God calls him to take an active part in something against nature, something that was anguish to a father's heart. Apart from God's direction, it would be an outrage against the laws of God and man. But Abraham, with God-given faith, meets the test. Calmly and deliberately he rises early in the morning and saddles his donkey. He takes two young men and his son Isaac, and he "went to the place of which God had told him."

Yet from Abraham we read of no protest and no hesitation about obeying the word of God… Taking two of his servants with him, as well as Isaac, he began the long journey of three days. We can well imagine the thoughts that filled his heart. Why would God so miraculously give him a son, only to ask him to give him up again? What was God's purpose in asking of him such a sacrifice? But long experience had taught him to trust God completely in everything, whether or not he understood what God was doing. This simplicity of faith is beautiful. Hebrews 11:17-19 shows us what Abraham reckoned at this time. If Isaac died, God would raise him up again, because God had promised that Isaac would be a father.

The spot for the sacrifice was the one where the temple stood centuries later, and where the Jewish people brought their sacrifices to the altar of burnt offering. Abraham cannot have known it, but God arranged the circumstances to complete the picture. What we do see in Abraham is the energy with which he responded, rising up early in the morning, and the preparation he made to act in obedience.

Who can read Genesis 22 without seeing another Father than Abraham, and another Son than Isaac, in the one who offers and the one offered?… The Father is giving; the Son too is giving Himself up. Isaac says not one word against it. Nothing spoils the precious picture of Him who did not spare His own beloved Son — the Son who came for the very purpose of doing the Father's will… It is a comfort beyond words that God knows every ingredient in the cup of trial He mixes for us. Did it not cost Him to give up His own beloved Son?

Abraham sets out for Mount Moriah, the future site of the Temple at Jerusalem. Our Lord died on Calvary's cross within sight of that spot.

If Christ is to be the food of our souls, there must be the "early rising" that Scripture is full of (Gen. 22:3, etc.). It is that purpose of heart which overcomes our natural slowness… "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness" — it is to have first place. Where we give the things of Christ first place, there will always be food and nourishment for the soul.

For three days he travels on his way. That gave him time to take in everything God had asked him to do. For three days this terrible trial was before his soul. During these days he had to face the agony of offering up his son. He did not act in a rush, on a passing impulse. He chose it after facing everything it cost him. His love for his son, what Isaac felt, Isaac's love for his father, God's promise that "through Isaac shall your offspring be named" — he faced it all, and faith won.

What must that three-day journey have been for Abraham! He alone knew the secret, and he could tell no one. And what it would cost him was terrible. But he had support in that trial, and we learn what it was. He knew God as the God who gives life to the dead.

The trial of those three days was deep and painful. Yet Abraham knew that God was working out His own great plan of blessing. If God was about to take his beloved Isaac from him in this life, God would give him back in resurrection. Abraham made the journey with the God of resurrection beside him. He counted on God being able to raise Isaac from the dead. So when he saw the place on the third day, he did not tremble. He had the calm certainty of faith.

Abraham was not left to choose the place. The sacrifice had to be on one of the mountains God would show him. It must always be like this. In the service of the Lord, He must order everything, and it must fit His will. Abraham goes to the place of which God had told him. He was not like the prophet Jonah, who went west when God told him to go east.

About the third day in Scripture: it often points to resurrection, though Scripture does not teach this plainly. Yet to the spiritual mind little doubt can remain that the third day would be the day of Christ's rising from the dead. Abraham saw the place of sacrifice far off on the third day. That makes it likely Isaac was untied from the altar on the third day too. But this is not clear enough to count as proof. The prophet Hosea also marks the third day with God's own stamp of resurrection: "After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live before Him."

On the third day Abraham saw the chosen spot. This mattered. Later he would look back on it not so much as the place of sacrifice, but as the place where, in picture, he received Isaac back from the dead. It was the place of resurrection.

About four centuries after Moses, the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite stood on Moriah. Years later Solomon built his temple there. So Moriah became the place where the Jewish people offered their sacrifices. All these sacrifices pointed forward to one event. It took place "outside the gate," because people rejected the Lord Jesus.

Isaac is raised up as a picture of this. So faith can let the death sentence fall on the dearest things we have. God may come and ask for what is dearer to us than life itself. Faith can count on the God of resurrection. He who takes away gives back every blessing He removes for a time — and gives it back better than we could have kept it. There on Mount Moriah, with his only son on the altar, what had Abraham left? The living God!

One of the earliest examples of worship, and a very instructive one, is found in the well-known chapter (Gen. 22), telling the experience of Abraham. This incident is really an incident of worship to God. God called Abraham to go to the land of Moriah. There, on one of the mountains God told him of, he was to offer Isaac his son, his only son, as a burnt offering to God. It was a supreme test of his faith in God and of his love for God; but he was obedient, prompt and unquestioning in his obedience.

For three days he travels on his way. This gave him time and opportunity to fully enter into what he was called to do. For three days he had to face the agony of offering up his son. This was not a hurried act done on a passing impulse. He did it deliberately, after entering into all that it cost him. He faced it all: his love for his son, Isaac's feelings and Isaac's love for his father, and God's promise, "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named." But faith triumphed.

How sublime! Go and worship and return. How faith triumphed over nature. Would any of us be in a worshipping spirit in circumstances like those? "And return." He spoke to the young men calmly, as if Isaac would return with him. How, he did not know, except that God was able.

Abraham left the young men behind while he and Isaac proceeded to the mountain to worship. This was to be a matter strictly between the father and his son.

It strikes me that Abraham's journey to Mount Moriah gives us a remarkable picture of the mysterious scene later shown at Calvary. There God was really providing Himself a lamb. We can lose sight of Herod and Pilate, the chief priests and scribes, the Pharisees and the crowd without any difficulty. Then none remain but the Father and the Son. Together they go up the mount and carry out the gracious work of redemption in the unbroken solitude of that place.

Through all this trial of Abraham's we must not miss the fact that the faith of resurrection cheers the father's heart. The promises of God were assured in him of whom He had said, "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named." So if God called for him to be offered up, resurrection must restore him from the very flames of the altar. And "in a figure," as the apostle says, he was received from the dead. It is very important to keep this figure of resurrection in mind. The events that follow point to Christ in resurrection.

The patriarch's example lays it on us that worship, in order to be acceptable to God, must be of the nature of a sacrifice. Worship must cost us something. In some measure, we are poorer, in one way or another, because we worship God. We give something to Him — not something of ourselves, but something of Him who lives in us, of Him who is always acceptable to God.

Abraham's confidence that he and his son would both come again is the more striking because he carried both a knife and the fire, as the next verse records. The wood was laid on Isaac. We may see in this a foreshadowing of what is recorded in John's Gospel — "He went out, bearing His own cross, to the place called … Golgotha."

The wood suggests the Manhood of our Lord — the Manhood He entered so that He could die. We read that when Abraham took Isaac to offer him up, he laid the wood "upon Isaac his son" (Gen. 22:6). This was a foreshadowing of the Son of God coming into Manhood so that He might die. The fire that then consumed the wood, and with it the offering, points to the testing of the Holy Spirit of God.

In verses 6 and 8 we are told, "they went both of them together." How much more wonderful to think of God the Father and His well-beloved Son going together to the cross of Calvary! For the sacrifice of the Father was just as great as that of the Son. The Son gave Himself: the Father gave His only begotten Son.

The Lord does not say the Father will be with Me, however true, but "the Father is with Me." Long ago, in a scene that was only a shadow of this far greater one, we read of Abraham and Isaac on their way to Mount Moriah: "they went both of them together" (Gen. 22:6). So now the Father and the Son are together, as the great sacrifice is approached.

Though there were two servants and the donkey, Isaac bore the wood for the burnt offering. Though he was about twenty-five years old, he agreed to be bound by Abraham and laid on the altar. The son's ready obedience stands out in the story — and under what extraordinary circumstances!... And the marvel of Isaac's obedience is that he was a son, not a servant. He shared Abraham's nature and character, and that is why he submitted as a son.

Abraham laid the wood on him. An old Hebrew commentary on Genesis paraphrases this: "he laid the wood on him in the form of a cross."... Isaac lets himself be bound on the altar. He had absolute confidence in his father and is willing to be slain by him; there was no struggle to be free... But how great the contrast! God gave Him, the Son of His love, for a sinful, rebellious world. And when the hour came and the Son was nailed on the wood there was no hand to stay it.

Abraham did not merely set out to offer his son; he went on, and reached the spot which God had appointed... It was no mere mockery — no drawing near with the lips while the heart was far off... It is easy to make a show of devotion when there is no demand for it... but the point is to stand the trial. When Peter was put to the test, he entirely broke down. Faith never talks of what it will do, but does what it can in the strength of the Lord.

Here are the tools of judgment, but where is the Victim? Here is the need, but where is the supply? Here is the sinner, but where is the Saviour? Here is the worshipper, but where is the means of approach? Here are the instruments of suffering, but where is the Sufferer? Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the Lamb? For four thousand years every devout man asked this question, more or less silently and imperfectly. And only one answer was possible: "My son, God will provide Himself a lamb."

In the very dawn of the world's history the lamb was clearly marked out by God as the animal of sacrifice. The "firstling" of Abel's flock is witness to this, and so is the question asked by Isaac in Genesis 22.

The offering up of Isaac is a beautiful picture, and it shows the meek submission of the Son to the will of His Father. But this offering expresses the Father giving His Son, rather than the Son giving Himself. Isaac did not know about the offering, for he asked, "Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" But the blessed Son of God knew from eternity what lay before Him. He willingly offered Himself to carry out all that was in the heart and counsels of His God and Father.

As Abraham and Isaac travelled along, Isaac asked his father a question. He was clearly unaware of the fate that lay before him. The question was like a poisoned dagger driven into his father's heart: "My father! … Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" What a staggering question! How it must have caused him intense anguish of spirit!

Abraham calmly answered, "My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering." Without knowing it, he may have been speaking a prophecy that reached far beyond the matter in hand.

Abel tells us there must be a lamb for a burnt offering. Isaac raises the question: "WHERE IS THE LAMB?" And Abraham gives the only possible answer: "GOD WILL PROVIDE HIMSELF A LAMB FOR A BURNT OFFERING." No lamb of man's providing could meet the holiness of God or the sin of man. God must provide the Lamb, and, says Abraham, "God will provide Himself a Lamb."

Every lamb that ever died on any altar was temporary, whether in the days of the patriarchs or under the law of Israel. Each one looked on to what was still to come. The question, "Where is the lamb?", went unanswered until John the Baptist could declare, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"

Isaac, on the way to Mount Moriah, innocently asked, "Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" (Genesis 22:7). Thank God, no such question needs to be asked now. The Lamb is the Son, and His sacrifice is God's gracious provision for a ruined world.

Here are the tools of judgment, but where is the Victim? Here is the need, but where is the supply? Here is the sinner, but where is the Saviour? Here is the worshipper, but where is the means of approach?... For four thousand years this was the question of every devout man, expressed more or less quietly and imperfectly. Only one answer could be given: "My son, God will provide Himself a lamb." Faith gave that answer with calm assurance — not doubting, not questioning, and not understanding. And faith received it in silent submission.

Abel tells us there must be a lamb for a burnt offering. Isaac raises the question, "Where is the lamb?" And Abraham gives the only possible answer: "God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering." No lamb that man provides could meet the holiness of God or the sin of man. God must provide the Lamb, and, says Abraham, "God will provide Himself a Lamb."

Notice the form of the answer, "God will provide Himself a lamb," not "God will Himself provide a lamb." In one sense God needed the Lamb as much as the offerer did. The emphasis does not fall on God providing the lamb, but on His needing the lamb for Himself — just as, on the other side, the sinner needed it.

Did he mean that Isaac would not be killed? He knew that even if Isaac was killed, God could raise him up. He counted on the God of resurrection, and he received him back in that way, as a figure, from the dead.

Abraham may not have known it, but his answer was a prophecy of something far beyond his own days: "God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering." No lamb that ever died on any altar, in the days of the patriarchs or later in Israel, was anything more than a stand-in, pointing forward to what was still to come. The question, "Where is the lamb?" stayed unanswered. Then John the Baptist could declare, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"

Verse 6 and verse 8 both say, "they went both of them together." How much more wonderful to think of God the Father and His well beloved Son going together to the cross of Calvary. For the sacrifice of the Father was just as great as that of the Son. The Son gave Himself; the Father gave His only begotten Son.

Deep down, guilty man thinks everything depends on some atonement he must make. He may confess our Lord Jesus as Saviour in a completely orthodox way. But he confesses that for all the world. For himself, to get the benefit, he really trusts a kind of settlement for his sins. He hopes to give up his sins, above all, and that God will be merciful... What a contrast with "God will provide himself a lamb!" What grace on God's part! What a call for faith on man's! "Therefore it is of faith, that it might be of grace."

Verses 9 and 10 show how complete Abraham's obedience was. Nothing was missing right up to the point where the death stroke would have fallen. At the last possible moment the Angel of the Lord stepped in. God had tested his obedience to the full, and it stood the test. He had not withheld his only son.

Abraham did not only set out to offer his son; he kept going, and reached the place God had appointed... This was real work, "a work of faith and labor of love," in the highest sense. It was no empty show — no drawing near with the lips while the heart was far away... It is easy to make a display of devotion when nothing is being asked of you.

His grief must have been great. Greater still were the energy and purpose of his faith, as he took hold of his beloved son, bound him, and laid him on that altar. Think what agony filled the moment when he took the knife in his trembling hand to kill his son. As far as nature could see, he was about to put out the light of his eyes and the hope of the promise.

He showed that he could trust God for countless descendants not only while Isaac stood in front of him in health and strength, but just as fully if Isaac lay a smoking sacrifice on the altar. This was a high order of confidence in God... He counted that God was able. He never counted that Isaac was able. Isaac, without God, was nothing; God, without Isaac, was everything... Abraham could do this because his eye rested on the God of resurrection. He counted that God was able to raise him up even from the dead.

English cannot easily bring out the perfect tense used the first time of the offering. But its force is clear: it points to the settled, fixed result of that act. Morally it was done, and the effect remains. The second use of the word is in the imperfect tense, and that guards against any misuse of the first. It says that Abraham was actually in the act of offering his only son when Jehovah's angel stopped him, as Genesis tells us. The spiritual test was complete, though the act was not completed.

It is hard to say which holds our solemn gaze more: the noble, self-controlled action of Abraham, or the lamb-like submission of Isaac. It may be said that Isaac did not know at first that the sacrifice was to be himself. But even when he did know — lying on the wood of the altar, with the knife in his father's outstretched hand to kill him — we do not find that he resisted in the least.

We know how, at that dreadful moment, God appeared and stopped that obedient hand. We know too how God crowned the father's faith, and Isaac was untied and left alive. So the One who did not spare His own Son told Abraham to spare his. No ram was found in the thicket in place of the blessed Lord. No Barabbas could take the place of the true Son of the Father.

We have a higher thought in "the Angel of the Lord," spoken of often (Gen. 16:7-13; Gen. 22:11, 15; Ex. 3:2; Ex. 23:20; Judges 2:1, and others). In many cases He seems to be the Lord Himself appearing in this form; at other times He is the Lord's representative.

Verses 9 and 10 relate how full the measure of Abraham's obedience was. Nothing was lacking up to the point where the death stroke would have taken place. At the last possible moment the Angel of the Lord intervened. His obedience had been tested to the full and had stood the test. He had not withheld his only son.

All was made ready for the sacrifice, but as yet there was no sign that God would step in and provide a substitute. The lamb Abraham had spoken of to Isaac — where was it? Isaac was now bound on the altar. The father raised his hand and was about to kill his son, when the angel of the Lord called to him out of heaven. Someone unseen had watched everything Abraham was doing. That same One could read his heart and knew all that he was suffering in his soul. … Now the trial was over, and the angel of the Lord, Jehovah Himself, stepped in.

God's greatness and majesty produced a striking response when He spoke in grace to saints of old. When He called, "Abraham, Abraham," at once the answer came, "Here I am." When He said, "Jacob, Jacob," the reply came at once, "Here I am." He spoke to Moses, "Moses, Moses!" and Moses answered at once, "Here I am." … Later the same One speaks in the same way, but now He has come down in lowly grace: "Martha, Martha!" and "Simon, Simon!" Once again, after His ascension, "Saul, Saul!"

God did not allow him to strike the blow. He had gone to the very furthest limit; he had come up to the line beyond which God could not let him go. The Blessed One spared the father's heart the pang which He did not spare His own heart, even that of smiting His Son. He, blessed be His name, went beyond the furthest limit, for "he did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all."

To man death is the end of hope. To God it is only the occasion to use the power of resurrection. Abraham trusted without a waver, certain of God's power on Isaac's behalf. … Faith then could go no further. Abraham counted on God completely to make good in resurrection the seed given up to die at His word — and with that seed, the promises. What fresh gain for Abraham! And what gain for all who do His will, give up what is dearest to them, and receive it all back better than ever in resurrection!

He had done what was right in surrendering Isaac, for God had commanded him to do it. Could he then claim anything from God because of this display of obedience? Clearly not. He had only done what it was his duty to do when God commanded it. … We can claim no merit on the ground of obedience to God. Yet how often a thought lurks in a corner of the heart, even when it is never said out loud: the thought of pressing a claim on God to be rewarded for the obedience we have given Him. If God rewards obedience He is free to do so, though we could never demand it.

Abraham's devotedness was fully proved, and fully accepted. Notice, it is "now I know." It had never been proved before. It was there, no doubt, and if it was there, God knew it. But the valuable point here is this: God bases His knowledge of it on the plain evidence given at the altar on Mount Moriah. Faith is always proved by action, and the fear of God by the fruits that flow from it. "Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?" (James 2:21). Who could think of calling his faith in question? Take away faith, and Abraham appears on Moriah as a murderer and a madman. Take faith into account, and he appears as a devoted worshipper — a God-fearing, justified man.

Then the angel of the Lord intervenes. Abraham's hand was held back from plunging the knife into his son. Abraham's faith has answered the test. God says, "Now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me." Acting in the fear of God, he overcame the fear of man by doing what man would have utterly condemned.

What was it that so raised the value of Abraham's surrender to God? The patriarch gave up his only-begotten son (Heb. 11:17). Isaac was the son before they went up Mount Moriah together, and before he was laid on the altar. In the eyes of Jehovah, the moral value of Abraham's act of faith was measured by the one he gave at His bidding. It was not Ishmael, but his son, his "only son," Isaac, whom he loved. In Isaac all Jehovah's promises to him were centred.

Verses 9 and 10 tell how complete Abraham's obedience was. Nothing was lacking up to the point where the death stroke would have fallen. At the last possible moment the Angel of the Lord stepped in. His obedience had been tested to the full and had stood the test. He had not withheld his only son.

So you see the angel of the Lord here is the same as God Himself. God sometimes veils Himself under the title of angel; so the angel of the Lord is often Jehovah Himself.

Nowhere in the Old Testament do we find such complete trust in God. Here the father was willing to sacrifice his only son. All God's promises and his own hopes were bound up in that son. To man, death is the end of hope; to God it is only the occasion to exercise the power of resurrection... The proof was complete. Faith could go no farther. God was fully counted on to make good in resurrection the seed — and the promises in the seed — given up at His word to die. What fresh gain for Abraham! The same gain belongs to all who do His will and give up what is dearest to them naturally. They receive everything back better than before, in resurrection.

I need not enlarge on what is so precious to us — how this is a type of God giving up His only begotten Son. God would not ask Abraham to do what He Himself later had to do. The wood was laid on Isaac, just as Jesus carried the cross. Isaac was bound to the altar, just as our Lord was nailed to the cross. But when divine justice lifted up its hand, there was no voice to stay it. The Son was given up to death. That is where God's love goes beyond every other love — where He is infinitely beyond the type.

The voice from heaven stopped the death stroke that was to have fallen on Isaac. Now God directed Abraham's eyes to His immediate provision — not a lamb merely, but a ram. If we wanted the strongest and most vigorous animal from among the sheep, we would have to choose a ram. This one, too, was caught in the thicket by its horns, a symbol of its strength. Abraham offered it as a burnt offering "in the stead of his son." The words substitute and substitution do not occur in our English Bible. But here we have exactly what those words mean. A substitute is one who stands in the stead of another.

In fact, Isaac is spared; and here we meet one of those double figures by which the Spirit of God would remedy the necessary defect of all figures when they set forth Christ and His work. Isaac is spared; but there is substituted for him "a ram caught in a thicket by his horns." A picture of devoted self-surrender, as we have seen the ram to be elsewhere; he is "caught by his horns" — the sign (as others have noticed) of his power. Grace recognises our helplessness as a claim upon His might: as He says, "I looked, and there was none to help, and I wondered that there was none to uphold; therefore My own arm brought salvation to Me."

The strength of a ram lies in its horns. By its horns the ram was held, and by its horns it was brought to its substitutionary death as an offering to God... we now look at Isaac as he was, a sinful lad, and see him spared from death by the offering of a substitute. Psalm 118:27 speaks of cords that bind the sacrifice to the altar. For our Lord those cords were the strong cords of His unconquerable LOVE. That strength brought Him to the place of sacrifice. There, as the Substitute, He died, "the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3:18).

The surrender was proved complete, the hand stretched out, the knife ready to kill the son. Then the father's hand is stopped, and a ram, caught by his horns in the thicket, takes the son's place. So God provided for Himself a lamb for a burnt offering. No type can reach up to the height or go down into the depth of the truth: God's Son is God's Lamb.

But the Lord also has a substitute for Isaac ready at that very spot. He caused Abraham to look behind him, where a ram was caught in a thicket by his horns (v. 13). How a domesticated animal came to be there we do not know, except that God led it there. At least Abraham recognised it as an acceptable offering and offered it to God as a burnt offering instead of his son. Isaac would surely be thankful for such a substitute. Believers today thank God in the same way for the Lord Jesus and His great substitutionary work at Calvary for our sakes.

And so Isaac is spared. The ram caught in a thicket by his horns is his substitute — surely a beautiful type of Him who offered Himself in all the energy of divine love. His obedience was devoted and unswerving, carrying out the Father's will, even to death... The voice of God stopped Abraham's hand and preserved Isaac's life. But no voice from heaven stopped the rod of divine judgment. It fell in all its crushing power on the blessed head of our sinless Substitute.

So Abraham was fully tested, and God was magnified and honoured by his simple-hearted trust in Him. Yet not a drop of Isaac's blood was shed. God remains God. He spared not His own Son, but gave Him up freely for us all. In all things Christ has the pre-eminence.

The Lord provided for Abraham's needs and turned his eyes to a substitute for his son (Gen. 22:13). To keep the memory of it, he called that place "The LORD will provide" (v. 14a), which is just one word in Hebrew, "Jehovah-jireh". Abraham used a compound name of the Lord, and it shows that acting this way is one of His glorious attributes: He provides the lamb for a burnt offering Himself. This wonderful name of God is the first of a series of compound names that God reveals in the Old Testament.

God took the name Jehovah to show the relationship He would keep up by faith. It means I AM, and faith can add to that "I am — " whatever is needed. It is like a signed cheque left for the holder to fill in the amount he needs… Here the position is one of extreme need — Where is…? — and so we find JEHOVAH-JIREH, I am your provider.

We are also told that it is "the mount of the LORD." Later, Mount Sinai and Mount Horeb are called "the mount of God" and "the mount of the LORD," because the phrase speaks of the height from which God deals with mankind. But this mountain speaks of the grace of God in the gift of His Son, and it is named first, because it is nearest to God's heart. The law must take a lower place.

Out of that came a saying that people still used when Moses wrote these things about four centuries later: "On the mount of the LORD it shall be seen," or "shall be provided." That was the language of faith. About four centuries after Moses, the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite stood on Moriah. Years later Solomon built his temple there, and so it became the place for Jewish sacrifices. What all those sacrifices pointed to happened "outside the gate," for people rejected the Lord Jesus.

Isaac was Abraham's "only son"; "God so loved the world that He gave His only Son." There was the answer to JEHOVAH-JIREH. But the picture could not show everything. We have One who was the eternal Son, God shown in the flesh, the eternal Word who "became flesh" — God and Man, one blessed Person, bearing all the wrath of God against sin. Nothing like the ram caught in the thicket by its horns was there to save Him from the judgment of death. So God's righteousness was upheld, and His love could flow out to guilty people.

God's purposes could be carried out only at Moriah (2 Chron. 3:1). Without the Father's beloved Son (Mark 12:6), there could be no sacrifice for sin. So this place is named: "On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided" (Gen. 22:14)… At Moriah grace met righteousness, and there God found the way (He alone could do it) to make these two attributes of His Being, which seem impossible to reconcile, kiss each other. So triumphant grace reigns through righteousness; so God's purposes are fulfilled!

The victim lay bound on the altar. Nearby was the substitute, the ram caught in the thicket, given to take the place of the human life… In God's sight Abraham had completed the act of worship in the presence of His name. There at the altar he learned the name of Jehovah — on the mount of the LORD it was seen. Jehovah was the great Provider, the One Who was everything to Abraham, and Abraham showed this in his act of surrender, his act of worship.

The first call out of heaven acknowledged that Abraham's obedience was complete. The second call announced great blessing, confirmed by an oath. Hebrews 6 points back to this moment, when God, "because He could swear by no greater," "swore by Himself." The size of the blessing might well have staggered Abraham. No wonder, then, that God backed His plain word with an oath, so that there might be "two unchangeable things" to rest on.

Several passages give Him divine attributes. In Exodus God says of Him, "My name is in Him." In Exodus 14, after speaking of Him as an angel, Scripture identifies Him with Jehovah. The same is true in Genesis 22, at the sacrifice of Isaac (vv. 15, 16). So it is clear that He is divine. The conclusion is fair, and godly students of the Word have drawn it in every age: this angel is none other than the Second Person of the Trinity, God the Son, Jehovah. In His many appearings we may see foreshadowings of His incarnation.

Following this the angel of the Lord (that is, the Lord Jesus Himself) called to Abraham the second time from heaven... One might ask, if Abraham had not obeyed, would the promise be ineffective? The answer is that God's promise can never fail. He knew beforehand that Abraham would obey Him. In fact His own sovereign work in Abraham's heart produced this act of willing obedience.

A second time Abraham heard the angel's voice — the angel of the Lord. This time God did not only speak. He bound Himself by an oath to do what He was about to say. Never before had Scripture said that God swore. Now He did. He made His promise to Abraham, and "because He could swear by no greater He swore by Himself, saying, Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you. And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise."

The promises were not only made to Abraham (Gen. 12) and to his seed, but confirmed to the seed through resurrection (Gen. 22)... Christ takes the promises, not as on earth incarnate, but as risen from the dead. Without His death and resurrection we could have had no part in them, for God cannot bless people in sin... If the Lord Jesus had not died and become the source of a new life to the sinner, we could have had no portion with Him in these promises.

The blessing is twofold. In verse 17 it is Jewish. It consists of countless offspring, who possess the gate of their enemies. Verse 18 attaches no number to "your seed." ... So the Seed, with no number or multiplicity attached to it, is Christ. Isaac pictures Him, raised again from the dead in figure. He blesses all the Gentiles, as He does now in the gospel. The many Jewish seed are different: they are to subject the nations and rule over them in the age to come.

True, just two human beings, we may believe, heard the words of the angel. They were, however, words of worldwide importance. Of Abraham's seed — the Lord Jesus — that message from heaven spoke... God spoke that oath to encourage Abraham. Scripture recorded that history, we are taught, for our profit.

In view of that obedience of faith, God declares with an oath. He steps in as mediator and gives His oath. He could swear by none greater. Men always call on a greater one as witness. So God swears by His own great self. He will bless this man of faith, who owns nothing at present, and He will fulfil every word He has promised. It is as though God had said that His promise stands as long as He is God. He would have to cease to exist before faith that counted on Him could be disappointed.

Notice the gracious way in which God gives Abraham credit for having done the act he had shown himself so fully ready to do... This fits beautifully with what the Spirit says of Abraham's action in Hebrews 11 and also in James 2. In both places Scripture views him as having offered his son Isaac on the altar. The great principle in the whole matter is this: Abraham proved he was ready to have the scene cleared of all but God... Faith can do without everyone and everything but God. It has the full sense of His sufficiency, and can therefore let go of everything else.

The word to Abraham is "take your son," telling us that God "did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all" (Romans 8:32). Then God tells Abraham to take his "only son." The chapter emphasizes three times that Isaac is his "only" son (vv. 2, 12, 16). Again this speaks of the love of God by which "He gave His only Son" (John 3:16). Abraham is also reminded that the son he must offer is one "whom you love," pointing to Christ, of whom it is said, "The Father loves the Son" (John 3:35). It is significant that this, the first mention of love in the Bible, comes in a scene that speaks of the love of God, the Father, for the Son.

The One who did not spare His own Son told Abraham to spare his son. No ram in the thicket took the place of the blessed Lord. No Barabbas might take the place of the true Son of the Father.

Notice that this is a promise — a covenant — between God and Abraham. Notice that it is, as Paul says, "freely given in grace." There are no conditions attached to it, by which Abraham might lose the blessings God promised to him. There was no "IF" in the covenant, to raise a doubt. It was certain... Notice, too, that it came at once on the basis of the death and resurrection (in type) of Abraham's only son whom he loved.

The blessing is twofold. In verse 17 it is Jewish, and consists in a countless progeny, which possess the gate of their enemies. In verse 18 no number is attached to "your seed"... "He does not say, 'And to seeds,' meaning many, but meaning one, 'And to your seed,' who is Christ." So the Seed, with no number or plural attached to it, is shown to be Christ, pictured by Isaac, risen again from the dead in figure, who blesses all the Gentiles.

God wishes us to have absolute certainty, sure and steadfast. He therefore gave us two things, in which it was impossible for Him to lie — His promise and His oath... Yes, as with Abraham, God confirmed the promise of Genesis 12 when Abraham received Isaac back from the dead in figure, in chapter 22. So the promise is fulfilled to us in the actual death and resurrection of Jesus from the dead. What certainty! What "strong consolation"!

The first call from heaven had acknowledged that Abraham's obedience was complete. The second call announced great blessing, confirmed by an oath... The extent of the blessing might well have staggered Abraham. His offspring was to be multiplied (1) "as the stars of heaven," (2) "as the sand that is on the seashore." That offspring was (3) to "possess the gate of his enemies," and in it (4) "shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." No wonder God backed up His plain word with His oath, so that there might be "two unchangeable things" to rest on.

When conscience is in earnest, we feel our own weakness, and the way of Christ seems difficult, dangerous, and repulsive. So the gracious wisdom of God gave His oath as well as His promise, as we may read in Gen. 22:17-18. It was a precious encouragement to the man who at that very time received his son back as from the dead, in a picture.

Abraham has given up the promises as they belong to life here, and taken them in resurrection. He was "accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from where also he received him in a figure," Heb. 11. All was taken up in resurrection, founded on sacrifice to God.

The promise has a double aspect (Gen. 15:5; Gen. 22:17). His children were to be as the stars — that is, the heavenly family, those who inherit his faith, as Rom. 4:16 shows, which includes every believer. They were also to be as the sand on the seashore — that is, the earthly descendants. The sea (the Gentile world) may beat on them, "cast up mire and dirt" on them, and cover them for a time, but it can never dissolve them or absorb them.

Do not Gen. 22:17; Deut. 1:10; Deut. 10:22 show that the comparison of "the stars of heaven" applies equally with "the sand of the sea" to the earthly people?

The blessing of many descendants comes first. Here, where number is attached to the seed, the blessing is clearly Jewish in character, down to possessing the gate of their enemies. In time God will certainly make this good... And when His people are brought down to the lowest, then will be God's opportunity. He will lift them up, and set them at the head of all earth's blessing and glory.

Israel did not possess the gates of her enemies, except for a short time late in David's reign and early in Solomon's. Nor were other nations blessed or cursed according to how they blessed or cursed her. On the contrary, her history is one of failure, servitude and defeat, ending in complete overthrow and captivity.

At first sight this seems very strange, if the apostle pointed to such a Scripture to prove the importance of one seed. If anything lies on the surface of the passage, it is the great number of the seed — a seed said in so many words to be beyond all counting. So this is not what the apostle Paul has in view; he sets one seed in contrast with it... When God speaks of the seed as many as the sand or the stars, He gives them a Jewish character of blessing. "Your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies." God promises the final power and glory of Israel in the earth, putting down their foes.

Paul, in Galatians 3:17, speaks of the confirmation of the promise, made to Christ, and what he says agrees perfectly with what we have just been saying. Moreover, the apostle is quoting Genesis 22:18. In these words we find the promise God made to Abraham in chapter 12, the promise about the blessing of the nations. God now confirms it to the offspring of the patriarch, after that offspring had been given back to him as a picture of resurrection; Heb. 11:19.

The point here is this. Wherever God promises Gentile blessing (as in Gen. 12:3 and 22:18), He always ties it to the offspring in an individual sense. He does not tie it to the offspring meaning the Jews, who were to be as many as the sand or the stars. The Jewish blessing is in Gen. 22:17, which speaks of many offspring. But verse 18 carefully leaves that out. There Christ is meant — the true offspring pictured by Isaac raised up in a figure. On that one sole offspring the Gentile blessing depends.

Christ is the true offspring of Abraham, and this not only of promise but as dead and risen. This is how the promises are secured. This is also how they open out to all the nations, or Gentiles, as it is written: in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. The offspring dead and risen is as free to bless the Gentile as the Jew. Both were lost in rejecting Him. But He is risen from the dead, and God is pleased to bless in Him not only the Jew but all the Gentiles... And the blessing is unconditional grace, independent of the law which came in long after the promise and for a wholly different end.

One might ask, if Abraham had not obeyed, would the promise be ineffective? The answer is simple. God's promise can never fail. He also knew beforehand that Abraham would obey Him. In fact it was His own sovereign work in Abraham's heart that produced this act of willing obedience. In other words, God's promise was vitally bound up with the faith He had given to Abraham.

If he gave up earthly prospects in Ur, he became an inheritor of blessing that should finally spread out to "all families of the earth"... If in the end he gave up not only Ishmael but Isaac, he got that great promise about THE SEED, in whom all the nations of the earth are to be blessed.

It was not for Abraham's sake only that God gave this twofold guarantee, His Word and His oath... In His gracious kindness God wanted the heirs of the promise to be sure that His Word never changes. So He confirmed His promise with an oath, just as people do in their dealings with one another. As He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself. So there are two unchangeable things here: His Word and His oath. In neither of them was it possible for God to lie. By them He gives strong encouragement to all those who have fled to Christ for refuge from judgment. They can lay hold of the hope set before them, instead of turning back because of the difficulties on the way.

With all this accomplished, Abraham returned to Beersheba, and there he lived. That was the place of the oath between Abraham and Abimelech. Would he now link it in his mind with the far greater oath he had heard at Moriah?

Then Abraham, Isaac and the young men returned to Beersheba, where he was living. This is "the well of the oath," and so speaks of living in the calm confidence of the faithfulness of God's sworn promise.

There is a lesson here in Abraham's steadfast endurance, and in God's gracious way with him on Mount Moriah. Isaac was released from the altar, and God provided a ram to be offered in his place. Once that day the angel of the Lord called out of heaven to Abraham, telling him to spare his son. A second time the angel's voice came. This time God not only spoke; He bound Himself by an oath to do what He said. Never before had God been said to swear.

Through all this trial of Abraham's we must not miss one thing: faith in resurrection cheered the father's heart. God's promises were secured in the son of whom He had said, "In Isaac shall your offspring be named." So if God called for him to be offered up, resurrection had to restore him from the very flames of the altar. And "in a figure," as the apostle says, Abraham received him back from the dead. Keep this figure of resurrection in mind. It matters, because the events that follow are pictures of Christ in resurrection.

Isaac is received back from the dead only "in a figure" (Heb. 11:19); Christ in reality. So the promises belong to Him. It is Christ raised from the dead who is the source of blessing to all the families of the earth.

All was taken up in resurrection, founded upon sacrifice to God.

If we turn to this inspired account, we notice that Isaac had no bride until after that remarkable event in his history — he was offered up on the altar, and received back, in figure, from the dead. Until Isaac was in figure raised from the dead, we do not hear of the bride of Isaac. In our picture this is the foundation of all that follows.