WORSHIP
Those sweet, endearing terms are followed by unmitigated horror: “Offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you” (v. 2b). Three simple unqualified imperatives—“Take,” “go,” “offer him”—are the bare structure of the command. To an ancient Middle Easterner, “burnt offering” suggested a process: first cutting the offering’s throat, then dismemberment, and then a sacrifice by fire in which the body parts were completely consumed on the altar.
God was asking him to act against common sense, his natural affections, and his lifelong hope
We know this because the writer of Hebrews comments, “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back” (Hebrews 11:17–19). Abraham so utterly believed God’s promise that Isaac’s children would carry on the bloodline that he reasoned that God would have to raise Isaac from the dead. Abraham envisioned the doctrine of the resurrection when as yet there had been nothing in history to suggest it. In this way he perhaps began to see Christ’s day (cf. John 8:56). Here was a bold, original, informing faith!
Isaac’s trust also foreshadowed the greater partnership of the cross expressed in the familiar words of Isaiah 53: “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth” (v. 7). “Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand” (v. 10). Here in our story, the descriptive “they went both of them together” (repeated in verses 6 and 8) twice emphasize the victim and the offerer willingly ascending the hill together—again a shadow of Calvary.
The Satan insinuates that Job’s prosperity is the only cause of his piety. “Sure, he is pious,” the Satan says in essence. “I cannot deny that. I see him in church every Sunday and at the church prayer meeting and active in the service of God. His piety is incontrovertible. But why is he pious?” Answer: Job has discovered the prosperity gospel, and it works. He has discovered that if he honors God, God will make him richer and richer. He and his wife will have great sex. His wife will have children. His children will be healthy and successful. And his bank balance will grow and grow. They will enjoy fabulous holidays and a lifestyle to make a pagan billionaire envious. Who wouldn’t be pious, if that’s what you get out of it? That is his motive. That is why he is pious. He is pious not because he actually loves God, honors God, or believes God is worthy of his worship; he is pious because piety results in prosperity, and for no other reason. That’s the Satan’s argument.
Exactly the same logic is present when Peter writes to Christians enduring trials and sufferings. Even though in the present “you have been grieved by various trials” there is a reason. And here is the reason: “… so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:6, 7). When Jesus returns, the fact that a Christian has gone on trusting and believing even though all the blessings have been removed and he has suffered severe trials will prove to the universe that another human being considers God to be worthy of worship simply because he is God. God will be praised, his glory adored, and his honor seen by the universe because Christian men and women have gone on worshipping him when all the blessings have been taken away.