By faith Abraham, [when] tried, offered up Isaac, and he who had received to himself the promises offered up his only begotten [son],
In Genesis 22 God asked Abraham to hand back Isaac — the one son who carried every promise God had made him. Hebrews calls this a test of faith, and the scene tells us much about God, about the son older translations call "only begotten," and about the Father who did not spare His own Son.
Commentators note that God did not test Abraham with something cheap. He reached for the one point where obedience would cost most.
It is worth seeing that God gives us a great honour when He tests our hearts this way. We never read that "the Lord tested Lot." No — Sodom tempted Lot... God knew well that Abraham loved Him far better than Sodom. But He would make it clear that Abraham loved Him better than anyone or anything. So He laid His hand on the nearest and dearest object: "Take your son, your only son Isaac." Yes, Isaac — the child of promise. Isaac, the hope Abraham had waited so long for, the object of a parent's love, and the one in whom all the families of the earth were to be blessed.
The trial was not only emotional. Obeying appeared to destroy the very future God had guaranteed.
This was putting the father of the faithful to the severest test imaginable. He had to give up his only son and heir to the altar, and sacrifice him with his own hand. To all appearances it also put the promises at risk — the promises about his descendants, and through them blessing for all the families of the earth. God's word about Isaac had raised both natural love and religious hope very high and very wide. Now, to human reason, such a command seemed to sweep both away — at a whim, painfully, and for good... Yet he hesitated in unbelief no more at the surrender, painful as its form was to him, than he had at the promise years earlier, unlikely as that had seemed.
Abraham had other children, so the phrase in the verse is not a count of sons.
The passage in Hebrews refers to Abraham. The expression "only-begotten" is not used here to state how many sons he fathered. It does not stress the begetting at all, for he fathered other children. It shows instead that Isaac, as the child of promise, held a UNIQUE place. He ALONE was the one God recognised, and Abraham's faith recognised, as the heir of the promises. Do we not feel, as we read it, the strain on Abraham's affection? This trial of his faith touched the very one, and the only one, on whom all his God-given hopes rested.
The verse calls Abraham the man who had received the promises at the very moment he gives up the heir.
About that remarkable phrase, "he who had received the promises": God asked Abraham to offer up Isaac, the one in whom all the promises rested. Yet faith had given Abraham such inward strength that he laid hold of the One who made those wonderful promises. He had taken those promises as his own. And he held on, even though right then it looked as if they were being taken back on a whim.
Abraham's confidence rested on what God can do on the far side of death.
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 that God would use that power for Isaac... The proof was complete. Faith could go no further. Abraham counted on God to make good in resurrection the seed he had given up to die at God's word — and the promises bound up in that seed. What fresh gain for Abraham! And what gain for all who do God's will, give up what is dearest to nature, and receive everything back better in resurrection!
The scene is a picture of a greater gift, and one difference at the altar decides everything.
God Himself saw in that solemn scene a picture of His own gift of the only-begotten Son of God, whom He did not spare but delivered up for us all. For Him there was no substitute, and there could be none, if our sins were to be judged and borne and blotted out... In His case the death was as real as the resurrection.
- Tested — God laid His hand on the nearest and dearest thing, not on something cheap. He honours us when He tests our hearts this way.
- Unique — "Only begotten" marks Isaac's place, not Abraham's family size. God, and Abraham's faith, knew him alone as heir of the promises.
- Surrendered — Abraham let go of the gift and held on to the Giver, even when the promises seemed to be taken back.
- Raised — Man sees death as the end of hope. Faith counts on resurrection, and receives back what it gave up, better than before.
- Fulfilled — Isaac had a substitute. The Son of God had none, because our sins had to be borne. His death was as real as His resurrection.
as to whom it had been said, In Isaac shall thy seed be called
God had already tied every promise to one child, and verse 18 recalls that word at the very moment God asked Abraham to give the child back. The promise had named Isaac; now the command asked for him — and the writers quoted below follow an older wording of that line, "In Isaac shall your seed be called."
If the promise ran by natural birth, Abraham's other son Ishmael would have a claim on it too.
If the promise must fall to Abraham's descendants simply because they are his descendants, then Ishmael's line must be let in as well. No Jew would allow that, so he must give up his principle. This is a matter of promise. It does not rest on physical descent, but on His own sovereignty: He had limited the call to Isaac. "In Isaac shall your seed be called."
Abraham had other sons, yet Hebrews calls Isaac his only begotten. The word marks a place, not a count.
Isaac is called Abraham's "only" son, and Hebrews puts this as "his only begotten son" (Heb. 11:17). This makes it very clear that Isaac was a type of our Lord, and it also throws light on what the words "Only begotten" mean when they are used of Him. Ishmael did come from Abraham, but he was born in the natural way, so he did not count in God's reckoning; Isaac was altogether unique. So our Lord Jesus Christ was Son of God in a completely unique sense.
Commentators differ on how far to press the comparison. One writer warns that Isaac's case must not water down the term when it describes Christ:
Let us not lessen the force of the word "Only Begotten" by saying that it could just as well be translated "Only", or that it means no more than unique or uniquely precious. It means far more than that. It means that He is the only Son according to His divine nature.
The promise hung on this son, so obeying looked like destroying the promise. One writer traces the reasoning that could have talked Abraham out of it.
There would be a conflict between Abraham's natural feelings and the word of God. There would also be an apparent contradiction between the command and the earlier promise. So nature had room to ask whether his obedience could be right in such a case. Had he heard the command correctly, and understood it? God had promised that his offspring through Isaac would be countless and would hold the leading place on earth. Did that promise not mean that sacrificing Isaac would defeat God's purpose for him and for the world, and would be like throwing away His promise?
Only one thing could hold the promise and the command together, and Abraham had no precedent for it.
In truth there was only one way to bring the promise and the command together, and he took it, wonderful and unheard of as it was. It was the way of resurrection. Abraham counted on it that God was able to raise Isaac from the dead. He had never heard of such a thing before, that anyone should rise from the dead. He may have heard how Enoch was taken away without dying; God could prevent death. But to bring someone through death was unknown, and now it had to happen, because the command could not be taken back.
The letter sets Abraham before readers who faced a change of their own.
Meanwhile faith is tested. Abraham had to sacrifice the very one on whom the promises rested, so that he would hold them from God alone. This example had great power for the Hebrew readers, because they too had to follow Abraham: they had to leave a Jewish Christ in order to receive a risen and heavenly Christ.
The son named in the promise was spared. God's own Son was not.
I need not say much about 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, as Jesus carried the cross. Isaac was bound to the altar, as our Lord was nailed to the cross. But when divine Justice lifted up its hand, no voice called out to stop it. The Son was given up to death.
The same writer turns the scene on the reader and asks what is left when God takes what we love most.
There on Mount Moriah, with his only son on the altar, what did Abraham have left? The living God! You may have lost your home, your money, your health, people dear to you, the friendship of those you loved. But tell me, do you have the living God? Then He will make good to you in resurrection everything you have lost for His glory.
- Promise named — God's own choice, not natural descent, tied the blessing to Isaac.
- Promise loved — "only begotten" marks Isaac's unique place. It is not a count of Abraham's sons.
- Promise threatened — the command to sacrifice Isaac seemed to cancel the word that named him.
- Promise held — Abraham held both together in the only way open to him. He counted on a God who raises the dead.
- Promise fulfilled — Isaac was spared, but God's own Son was not. Faith now rests on a risen Christ.
counting that God [was] able to raise [him] even from among [the] dead, whence also he received him in a figure.
Abraham stood with the knife in his hand and his son bound on the altar. This verse tells us what was going on inside him. It was not blind obedience but a calculation — a piece of reasoning about what God is able to do.
The word "considered" points to something Abraham worked out. One writer sets his trust against the way people usually see death:
Nowhere in the Old Testament do we find such complete trust in God. Here the father proved willing to sacrifice his only son — the son who carried all God's promises and all his own hopes. To man, death is the end of hope. To God it is only the occasion to use the power of resurrection. Abraham was sure of that power for Isaac, and he trusted without wavering.
Abraham had evidence for this in his own household. Isaac's own birth came from parents past the age of having children.
Isaac was a child of resurrection even in his natural birth. After this event he became one twice over. Yet the faith was Abraham's own. He reasoned that the God who could bring a living child into the world from parents who were physically dead could and would raise him from the dead.
The difficulty was not only a father's love. God's instruction appeared to cancel God's own word, which had tied every promise to this one boy.
There was not only a conflict between Abraham's natural feelings and the word of God. There was also a seeming contradiction between the command and the earlier promise. So nature had room to ask whether obeying could be right in such a case. Did he hear and understand the command rightly? God had promised that his offspring through Isaac would be a countless multitude and would rule the earth. Did that promise not imply that sacrificing Isaac would defeat God's purpose for him and for the world, and would be like giving up His promise?
Notice the exact wording. Abraham reckoned on what God was able to do. The verse does not say he had a promise that Isaac would rise.
Abraham did not know that God would raise Isaac up. But he knew that God was able to do it. And he surely judged that this was the only way God could fulfil His promise about Isaac.
Many readers of Genesis 22 stop at the ram and the picture of a substitute dying. The closing clause of this verse goes one step further:
Most, we know, are apt to be content with less. They see the love of God set forth in the sacrifice provided; they see the substitution of the ram answering to Him who died for our sins. And there they stop; but the New Testament does not. In Hebrews 11 the apostle Paul clearly gives us another step... That is, Genesis 22 gives us a shadow not only of the death of Christ, but also of His resurrection.
The word "figuratively" keeps the two apart, and one writer draws out why that distinction matters for the promises:
Abraham receives Isaac back from the dead only "in a figure" (Heb. 11:19). Christ was raised in reality, and 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.
This example spoke to readers who had to let go of something precious themselves.
Meanwhile God tests faith. Abraham had to sacrifice the one on whom God had placed the promises, so that he held them from God alone. This example set before the Hebrews has much power, for they too were to follow Abraham. They were to leave the Jewish Christ and receive a risen and heavenly Christ.
The same writer points out that God did not only take from Abraham. God also gave him something he had not known before:
God tests the heart, so that all confidence in the flesh is destroyed. But He also knows that the heart needs holding up under the trial. So He holds it up by a new revelation, and that revelation lets it triumph. This is what we see in Hebrews 11:19. When God asked Abraham for this sacrifice, Abraham received a revelation about resurrection — something hardly known at that time. This is how God, in His infinite mercy, causes us to gain in Himself what we lose in the flesh.
- Reckoned — Abraham's faith was a calculation, not a feeling. The God who gave him a living son through parents past childbearing could give that son back through death.
- Able — he knew God was able, not that God would. Faith can rest on God's power even without a promise about the outcome.
- Tested — the command seemed to contradict the promise. Abraham trusted God at exactly that point.
- Figure — Abraham received Isaac back only as a picture. God raised Christ in reality, and blessing for all nations flows from Him.
- Gained — God answers what the trial takes with a fresh revelation of Himself. We gain in Him what we lose in the flesh.