We Need A Hero: Abraham (Genesis 22:1-19)

The Big Test

This story begins with this line:

Genesis 22:1 “After these things God tested Abraham.”

This is a test. What’s the worst test you ever took? I remember barely passing my driver’s test. I can’t remember all the reasons why I got points docked, but at the end of the test I was one mistake away from having to take the thing all over again. What I do remember about my mistakes is my response: really? you docked me for that? Oh c’mon. I did enough to barely get by. I had this habit of not just being calm on tests like that, but too calm. I remember going into that driver’s test thinking “I’m not going to sweat the details” and when it was over, I probably should have been sweating some of the details.

This test we’re considering today isn’t one of those tests in which you do enough just to get by. This isn’t a test that, while taking it seriously, you don’t sweat the details. No, this is a test where heaven and earth hang in the balance. God sets up a test so big and so bad that, at least at the human level, it looks as though God himself just might be the loser.

This is one of the most dramatic and even shocking stories in all of the Bible. There are other stories that shock, especially when it comes to how depraved and how terrible humanity can be. But this shock isn’t about what humans are doing but about what God is doing. There’s no getting around the difficulties in our story. Here’s the test: God tells Abraham to kill his son Isaac.

The Big Dilemma

There are two difficulties with this:

Human sacrifice is against everything God is about

Isaac is the son of Promise

The first difficulty really isn’t addressed in the text. It’s more of a question for theologians and philosophers to ponder. God tells Abraham to do exactly what he has said is despicable to him: human sacrifice. Child sacrifice. And here, God is commanding Abraham to do it. But that difficulty isn’t really broached here. There’s another difficulty that is bigger and badder than child sacrifice, if that’s possible.

The second difficulty is that God just very well might be a liar. And if he is a liar, he’s a monster. He’s Satan himself. God spent years giving Abraham and Sarah hope for a son who be the heir to God’s promises to Abraham. God promised that Abraham would be the father of many nations and it would be through his son that those promises would be fulfilled. Isaac is born to Abraham and Sarah. Abraham is 100 and Sarah is 90 when Isaac is born. That’s the miracle son. The son who was promised and born as a miracle son. And now God is saying:

Genesis 22:2 ““Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.””

Again, Abraham has to wonder, as he hears this, but what about the Promise? What about all those years of waiting and all those promises you made about being as numerous as the stars and as numerous as the sands of the seashore. What about the Promise. It really sounds like God is a liar. I think about what I would be thinking when I hear those words and it’s not pretty.

We’re going to find as we walk through this story that what Abraham is thinking isn’t what I would be thinking. But make no mistake, that Promise hangs in the balance as Abraham sets out for a mountain to which he has never been. Mount Moriah.

The Son

God says “take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love”. Throughout this story, Isaac is called a son multiple times. A couple of times, this phrase shows up, “your only son”. We know, if we’ve read to this point, this isn’t Abraham’s only son. However, God has been very, very pointed with Abraham that Isaac is the only son of Promise. That all of God’s promises were going to be fulfilled through Isaac. And it’s that Promised Son, who is now walking with his father up to Mount Moriah.

The Sacrifice

This story just bleeds with intimacy. Isaac is the son, the son whom Abraham loves. He is the son of Promise. And the writer, Moses, goes out of his way to tell us that Abraham and Isaac walk together. After they leave behind others who are with them on the trip, with Abraham telling the road crew that both of them will be back, Abraham and Isaac walk and journey, just the two of them. Abraham places the wood on Isaac’s back, which drips with drama. And the dialogue is heartbreaking on the one hand, but full of faith on the other. Isaac wants to know where the sacrifice is. Natural question. You’ve got the wood, you’ve got the means to being the fire, but… we’re missing the sacrifice. And Abraham says “God will provide”.

The Provision

God will provide. This is beyond simply telling the road crew that both of us will be back. This is Abraham leaning into the promise. Unbelievable. The very thing that hangs in the balance. If this is me, I’m thinking God is a liar. God’s not making good on his promise to bless the nations of the world through this son, this son that we waited 75-80 years for. Not Abraham. The very Promise that sounds like God is breaking, Abraham is leaning into the Promise. God will provide. How can Abraham say this? Abraham says this precisely because of the Promise. That’s backwards thinking. The whole thing looks and feels like God is breaking his promise and Abraham, who has been promised the kingdoms of the world through his son, still believes that God is going to make good on his promise. For Abraham, God’s Promise to provide an offspring who will change the world is bigger than the sacrifice of the moment. God will Provide.

Isaac believes his dad. I’m guessing the next few moments are so surreal that Abraham and Isaac will talk about this often in years to come, in ways only the two of them would ever know. Isaac trusts his dad’s word who is trusting God’s word. Here’s what Isaac does:

Genesis 22:9 “When they arrived at the place that God had told him about, Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood. He bound his son Isaac and placed him on the altar on top of the wood.”

Abraham binds his son. The wood had been on Isaac. Now Isaac is on the wood. Bound. This is the posture of a sacrifice. The burnt offering. And Isaac allows it. Isaac doesn’t say a word. Abraham is at least 115 years old, if not older. He binds. He places. Isaac is the willing sacrifice, ready to lay down his life because his dad said “God will provide”.

And God does provide.

Genesis 22:10-12 “Then Abraham reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” He replied, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Do not lay a hand on the boy or do anything to him.”

God stops the sacrifice. In the moment, in the act. The language here is Abraham is seconds away from killing his only son and killing the promise that God gave to Adam, and to Noah, and to himself. That promise. God calls out “from heaven”. He doesn’t even descend… his voice is instantaneous. The voice, His Word, comes to Isaac’s rescue and Abraham’s rescue. Abraham and Isaac are saved by the voice. God stops Abraham. Abraham has passed the test.

And then there’s this:

Genesis 22:13 “Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught in the thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son.”

We see the substitute sacrifice here, and typically that’s all we see. Have you ever wondered what possessed Abraham to feel the need to even sacrifice a ram as burnt offering in place of his son? I mean, the episode is over. Isaac isn’t going to be sacrificed. But there’s something else going on. God had asked that Isaac be a burnt offering. The burnt offering in the Hebrew Bible is made to make an atonement for sin. This isn’t just any old offering. The whole story takes on atonement meaning the moment God uses the words “burnt offering”. So the moment Abraham sees the ram, he is immediately confronted with the fact that he still has no atonement for sin, and atonement must be made. The ram dies in place of the son as atonement for sin.

The Promise

And if anyone had any question about whether God would make good on his promise, the story finishes where the entire story of Abraham began:

Genesis 22:17 “I will indeed bless you and make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your offspring will possess the city gates of their enemies.”

The Promise continues. The Promise will move forward through Isaac, the chosen Son, the Promised Son. God provides the sacrifice. God provides the death and the resurrection necessary for the Promise. Abraham and Isaac return to the road crew, the Promise that God made to Adam, and Noah, and Abraham is still intact, embodied in the person of Isaac.

The Hero

Who is the hero here?

What about Abraham? What faith. Hebrews talks about Abraham’s faith. And Abraham’s faith is put up there with the best of them. And there’s no doubt that we are encouraged to be like Abraham when it comes to our faith. Here’s what Hebrews says:

Hebrews 11:17-19 “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. He received the promises and yet he was offering his one and only son, the one to whom it had been said, Your offspring will be traced through Isaac. He considered God to be able even to raise someone from the dead; therefore, he received him back, figuratively speaking.”

There you go. Abraham’s the hero. Let’s just make him the hero here because look at his faith. He is being commended here and it’s obvious the writer of Hebrews wants us to have the same faith Abraham does. And on that point, yes, the writer of Hebrews commends Abraham’s faith because he was willing to offer up his one and only son… straight out of Genesis 22. After all, Abraham was convinced that somehow some way God would raise Isaac from the dead. Abraham believed God for the impossible. And God did raise Isaac from the dead, figuratively speaking. Isaac is decidedly a resurrection figure of the Old Testament. In fact, ancient theologians have referred to Genesis 22 as not simply the Sacrifice of Isaac, but the Resurrection of Isaac. There is no doubt that Abraham’s faith is off the charts. He’s ready to entrust himself to God for anything.

But here’s the thing about faith. Faith always has an object. The object is greater than the one placing the faith. the hero of this story is not Abraham. It’s not Isaac. As much as both of them are to be commended for their faith, and as much as we must lay hold of God’s promises in the same kind of faith, they are not the heroes of this story.

The hero of this story is The God who Provides.

Jesus is the Hero of this story. This story has Jesus all over it. Few stories in the Old Testament scream “Jesus”. Jesus is here in 3 ways:

Jesus is the ram

This is the easy part. It’s not all that hard to see Jesus and his sacrifice here. Jesus is the ram who dies as a substitute so that we could become sons of God. Jesus is the ram, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus, the ram, dies so that the son may live.

Jesus is the Son

But there’s also this: Jesus is the Son. Jesus is the Promised One, the One who fulfilled all of those Promises to Abraham. It is through Jesus all of the nations on the earth have been and are being blessed. Jesus is the Son who must die and pay atonement for sin.

Jesus is the Provider

Jesus is the Ram. Jesus is the Son. But Jesus also shows up in one more place in the story, one that is as important as the rest.

One of the fascinating parts of the conversation between Abraham and Isaac that day is this. Abraham didn’t simply say “God will provide”. Abraham told Isaac that

Genesis 22:8 “Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering.”

While we’re all focused on the lamb part (and for good reason), we miss what’s right there in front of us. God himself will provide. God himself.

Genesis 22:11 “But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven".

We gloss right over. God is going to provide. And God does provide. But Abraham is saying more. the story is saying more… God himself will intervene. In fact, this angel is calling from heaven. Heaven itself intervenes. Heaven where the Son of God is present and resides in all of his glory is now intervening in the affairs of the world. Himself.

The one who stops Abraham from killing Isaac is called the Angel of the Lord. This Angel of the Lord that shows up throughout the Old Testament is no ordinary angel. In fact, it’s not really an angel. This is the Second person of the Godhead. This is the pre-incarnate Christ. This is God’s presence himself making himself known through his voice. God himself will provide.

This is the very God who made the promise to Abraham and Sarah in that tent that day. This is the very One who Promised. God himself is providing. It’s not just that God sends along a ram. God himself is on that mountain intervening on behalf of Abraham and his son. In fact those are Abraham’s words. God Himself.

This is who Jesus is for you. The Ram. The Son. God Himself.

The story is told of Martin Luther reading this story in Genesis 22 to his family. Luther gets to the end of the story and it’s not the kids who are upset, it’s his wife, Katie. Katie felt outrage. She told Luther, I don’t believe it. There’s no way God would ever do what Moses says he did in the story. There’s no way that God would ever order someone to kill their own son. Katie was convinced the whole thing was a cruel joke, and she finally said to Luther, “God wouldn’t have treated his own son like that”. And that’s where Luther said, “Except that He did, Katie”.

A couple of thousand years after Abraham and Isaac walk down off that mountain as free men, another Son was laid on the altar of atonement, not far from this mountain. You see… this mountain became the location of the temple. Where year after year after year, sins were atoned for in God’s dwelling place on earth. On that day, when this Son is laid on the altar of atonement, there is no one to save the day. On that altar of atonement there is no rescue for Jesus. There is no saving Jesus in that moment. There is no voice from Heaven saying “stop. don’t do this.” Jesus is the Son. Jesus is the Ram. Jesus is the Provider Himself making Provision on an altar of His own making. And he dies. the Son dies.

That Son dies because of our sin. He doesn’t deserve to be there. He has no sin. He has no need for atonement. But we do. And like Abraham and like Isaac we watch as the ram dies in our place. but this ram is the Son, the Divine Voice, the Divine Presence himself dying so that we can walk free. Abraham and Isaac both needed a hero that day. They got their hero. He’s the same Hero who went to the cross in our place. It’s that Hero in whom we place our confidence and trust and hope, even when it looks like God is a liar. When it looks like God is a liar, we double down on Jesus. Jesus is the Promise. Jesus is the One who Provides for us. Not what we think we need. But what we really need. Himself.

Let’s Pray.

This Table is Christ’s provision for us. This is Jesus intervening in our lives. This is Jesus replacing the son with himself. It’s all here. The provision we need to live. Every time we hear this story about Abraham and Isaac and the sacrifice, we come running to this Table because this is where that story is going. Jesus, the Son, who provides life and forgiveness for his people at This Table.