6-29-25 Human Sacrifice?

Show of hands please… how many middle child’s do we have in the room with us today?

Okay, I’m looking for a few pros and cons of what it was like growing up as a middle child.

Ok. We are going to focus on that middle child mentality today, so keep that in mind, we will circle back.

Last week, for those who weren’t here, we started the final three weeks in the Book of Genesis for my project of finding Jesus in the Old Testament.

We invested some time into the life of Abraham and looked at him as a picture of the Father in heaven. Not a perfect representation, but a picture to point us to the father.

We also had an interaction with Jesus appearing to Abraham in the flesh and hearing Sarah laugh about having a baby.

We also learned that even though Sarah didn’t believe God he still did what he said he was going to do. This is a warning against any teaching that says, if you don’t have enough faith that God can’t work. That teaching puts the power in your hands and out of God’s. Your faith is a blessing, but it by no means powers God’s ability to move.

Sarah laughed in unbelief and God, a year later took her laughter out of her and placed in in her son. Not to say that Isaac, her son, was a funny man, but his name means, laughter.

Today we are going to focus on the man Isaac and his relation to the person of the Son in regards to the Trinity.

Isaac was the only son of Abraham and Sarah. He had an older son Ishmael with Hagar, and several more children after Sarah died with his second wife.

Therefore, Isaac is the one and only son of the couple God made a promise to. Ishmael is not part of the promise, though he had his own. Abraham’s other children have their own people and their own promises. But the big promise, to provide the family with a great land and protection and a great people, that goes through Abraham to Isaac and then to Jacob.

I’ll tell you something very interesting about Isaac though. In thinking of Pictures and Abraham a picture of the father and Jacob, or Israel a picture of the Holy Spirit. You would think that Isaac as a picture of Jesus would contain a lot of information about the guy so it would be easy to make some comparisons. That is not the case.

Isaac has very little in the realm of narrative compared to Abraham and Jacob. Isaac is alive from Genesis to the end of 35. That seems like a lot, but Isaac is largely absent from Chapters 28 to 35. And Chapters 21 to 27 he is much more of a supporting character than the main guy on the scene.

In fact, I’m going to put the ball in your court and ask if anyone here can give a sum up of one of the most important events in Isaac’s life that makes him a picture of God the Son, Jesus.

Be as detailed as you like and when you are done we’ll look at the scripture and ask a few more questions.

STORY TIME!!!

Great job. Let’s read the text

Genesis 22:1–5 ESV

1 After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 2 He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” 3 So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. 4 On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. 5 Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.”

Does anyone have any idea how old Isaac is at this point in his life?

Isaac, when you dig into timelines and geneologies, we get that he is about 37 years old at this time. So imagine Isaac walking these three days with no animal and a lot of wood. But we have two really important pieces of information here.

God identifies Isaac as Abraham’s only son, whom he loves.

This is more than likely a very intentional reference when Jesus is talking to Nicodemus in John chapter 3.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3

16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

I like the word phrasing in the Christian Standard Bible for this verse. Maybe it’s the phrasing or just that it’s a different way of saying the same thing, I don’t know.

But I look at what God says to Isaac and and What Jesus says to Nicodemus as parallel.

In Genesis 22 God is asking Abraham. Do you love me so much that you will give up your son, the son of the promise? And we know Abraham did.

Then Jesus says that the Father loves the world enough to give up his Son. Though we know that Abraham doesn’t have to go through with the sacrifice. And Jesus does offer himself and does die.

This is the one and only place in all of scripture where God seems to be asking for a human sacrifice. There are several verses from Exodus on that speak of human sacrifice being a horrible sin.

So the second thing is was Abraham told to carry out the sacrifice?

NO.

He was told to offer. This wasn’t wasn’t a command to kill, it was a command to be willing.

For example, if you are going to paint your house and you say you need 3 people to help and you get 30 people offering. Well, that could make for a fast job, but not necessarily and good job. So you go over the 30 people and thank 27 of them for the offer and take the 3 you picked and paint your house. And then you know that the 27 other people were willing, but the work wasn’t required of them.

That’s what is going on here. God is saying, I want you to offer and be willing, but then you don’t have to carry it out.

Genesis 22:6–9 ESV

6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. 7 And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” 8 Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together. 9 When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.

I don’t think for a second that Isaac is dumb. Easy to fool sometimes, if you look at his interactions with Jacob and Esau later in his life when he is blind, but here at the age of 37, I bet he is wondering what is going on, hence the question.

But we also know Abraham’s belief here. Genesis 15:6 reminds us that Abraham’s belief was considered righteousness.

Hebrews 11:17-19

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 11

17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. He received the promises and yet he was offering his one and only son, 18 the one to whom it had been said, Your offspring will be traced through Isaac., 19 He considered God to be able even to raise someone from the dead; therefore, he received him back, figuratively speaking.

So we see here that Isaac is the Imperfect picture of Jesus. Isaac, was offered, but not taken. Jesus was offered, but was taken.

but think about the offering of Isaac and Jesus.

Abraham and Isaac are walking up the mountain, no lambs. Abraham’s not talking much and neither is Isaac. They get to the top, no lamb. So Abraham starts to bind Isaac. Isaac doesn’t fight him.

Abraham is pushing 140 years old at this point. People aged differently at this point so I imagine 140 looks a lot different, obviously since no one lives that long any more. But Abraham lives 38 years longer than this event and was able to make the journey, but he’d be no match for Isaac who is 37. If Isaac didn’t want to be bound, then Isaac wouldn’t be bound.

Even though the command was given to Abraham, Isaac seems, at least from the fact we don’t have him resisting in the text, that he is offering himself up.

That’s exactly what Jesus did. The father sent him, yes. Jesus was very clear on that. But no one forced Jesus up on the cross.

In fact, if we remember what happened when the soldiers said we are looking for Jesus and Jesus replied, I AM. What did the soldiers do?

Yes they fell down. Jesus didn’t do a a thing unless it was his will to do it.

He told Peter in in John 21

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 21

18 “Truly I tell you, when you were younger, you would tie your belt and walk wherever you wanted. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will tie you and carry you where you don’t want to go.”

This implies that Peter did not go to his death as willingly at Jesus did or Isaac for that matter.

But Isaac walked up that mountain, allowed himself to be tied and I think he fully knew what his father meant to do and he was willing. Perhaps he had the same faith his father had and believed that God would raise him from the dead.

And what Abraham and Isaac believed. Jesus KNEW. This doesn’t belittle Abraham and Isaac’s faith. Their belief was solid. They all but knew. Their faith told them that God was honest.

I’ll give an example. The Prantner’s are in the market for a new car. We found one we liked online and sent out an ask for the car. We got the reply, we sold the one you want, but do you want a more expensive model?

Nope, I don’t have faith in car dealers for my best interest. I do have faith that they want to make money. SO, on a separate email account I sent a message to the dealership asking the same question. I got word from another dealer that yes, the car had been sold. I was sad, but I trusted the results. But I had to verify.

Have faith in God not in car dealers.

I don’t need that from God. If he says Go, I go. If he says stay, I stay. I have faith in his direction even if somethings don’t make sense.

Just this year. I’ve lost a building, a step dad and a car. I will freely admit that my faith is being tried. But it is no where near being broken. In fact, I would say this testing is strengthening my faith.

I would dare to say that my walk with God has gotten stronger.

Here is where the picture between Isaac and Jesus change a bit.

Genesis 22:10–14 ESV

10 Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. 11 But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 12 He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” 13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

Jesus went to the cross and gave his life. This was the only approved human sacrifice in the history of the world. Only a perfect human could give their life to save another, therefore it had to be God in the flesh.

Isaac was not perfect, God would not have been pleased with his death, so he stopped Abraham. The Angel of the Lord stopped Abraham. And the Angel of the Lord is the Son who enters into creation.

So God stops Abraham and provides a different sacrifice.

And the interesting thing about God’s words to Abraham is that now he knows Abraham’s faith. That word know is tricky in both the Old and New Testament.

That word know in hebrew is pronounce ha da.

Which can mean recognize. Like I recognize I have one son and four daughters. This isn’t new information, but there are times I know it and make it known, even though I already did.

God knows Abraham and Isaac, knew before he sent them up there. But sometimes we are sent somewhere, not for the benefit of the sender, but of the sendee.

I had asked the question at the beginning who was a middle child. And some middle children feel invisible or left out, and sometimes they are right.

I compare Isaac to a middle child, because he doesn’t get a lot of attention in scripture and he is a picture of the middle relationship of the trinity, the SON.

Now, Jesus gets all the glory as he is on every page of scripture. But Isaac sometimes gets forgotten of assigned the role of supporting character.

So, tonight we have our Overflow service and we are going to spend a little extra time on Isaac tonight.

We’ll learn his stories and check out some insights, I hope you can join us as he is an important part of history and we should study him.

Next week, we’ll look at Jacob or Israel as a picture of the Holy Spirit and I really hope you can make it, because it will be a neat study.

Let’s Pray

EVENING SERVICE

I want to give a big thank you to all who came to join us tonight and I really hope you enjoyed the music.

For those who weren’t here this morning, we learned a little bit about Isaac and how he is a picture of Jesus. We looked at the offering of Isaac and the offering of Jesus and made some comparisons.

We also made the observation that between Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Jacob seems to get the short end of the stick when it comes to coverage.

He seems much more like a small stepping stone between Abraham and Jacob, but I wanted to take tonight and cover the parts of his life that we didn’t talk about this morning.

And I think we will see some interesting things from the life of Isaac, even though it’s not a lot of information.

First let’s check out his birth and see a few neat things

Genesis 21:1–7 ESV

1 The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. 2 And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him. 3 Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. 4 And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. 5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. 6 And Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me.” 7 And she said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

We ended last week talking about Sarah’s laugh of disbelief, now she names her son laughter, either to acknowledge it is God who gives laughter, not her, or as a cover up for her unbelief. I want to believe the first, so I will, but I’m also a little cynical, so I decided to throw that out there.

The other thing of note is his circumcision on the 8th day. This command was given back in Genesis 17 and Abraham had to circumcise every male in their family. Unfortunately, circumcision hurts, a lot. I won’t go into graphic detail, but it hurts. Ask any adult unfortunate enough to have had to go through with it.

But God said on the 8th day, so now they have an 8 day old in camp and he has to be circumcised. And if you’ve ever wondered why God said 8th day, perhaps it has something to do with the Sabbath, or purification.

Well, that was a question for thousands of years. Until recently. As it turns out, the way God designed the male body is that all the way up to the 8th day the babies pain centers are significantly less, but so are his blood clotting factors, which means you can do the circumcision relatively pain free, but it will take a while to heal. How ever, on the eighth day after birth, the blood clotting kicks up a notch, but the pain centers are still less for 24 more hours. So, you got this window God gave us in order to set the people apart from the rest of the world. Once day nine kicks in though, the pain goes up and the older you get the pain gets worse and the healing time is longer. It is wonderful when science discovers something that God has had in place for millenia.

But let’s do a quick why on the circumcision. I think some believers give the answer that it sets us a part, so that the Followers of the one true God, and that is exactly right, but there is a little more.

It is true that God wants his people set apart. He wants the world to know who follows him. Circumcision is a pretty big commitment, but not much a visual one though. You wouldn’t go showing that off, so you had to tell people.

Say, are you circumcised?

Nope, you?

Yep.

Why?

Well, so glad you asked, you see the Creator of the universe loves my family so much that he set us a part from everyone else.

Romans 2:25,29

Romans 2:25 ESV

25 For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision.

Romans 2:29 ESV

29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

Paul confirms that circumcision has never been about how you look, but the shape of your heart towards God.

Since I went through the sacrifice of Isaac this morning, I’m going to skip it tonight, and if you weren’t here this morning, spoiler, Isaac lives.

But after the offering Isaac is left alone for chapters. His mom dies, he’s not there. Abraham sends someone to get Isaac a wife. Isaac is barely in the narrative. And then we get to chapter 26 and we see something familiar.

Genesis 26:6–11 ESV

6 So Isaac settled in Gerar. 7 When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he feared to say, “My wife,” thinking, “lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah,” because she was attractive in appearance. 8 When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah his wife. 9 So Abimelech called Isaac and said, “Behold, she is your wife. How then could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac said to him, “Because I thought, ‘Lest I die because of her.’ ” 10 Abimelech said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” 11 So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, “Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.”

If you watched TV in the nineties you probably saw the commercial of the dad who found his sons drugs, or beer or whatever it was. The dad flips out and starts asking where he learned such behavior.

The kids reply was both mean and honest.

I learned it by watching you dad.

That’s what Isaac did, he watched his dad and did it himself.

See how Isaac is a picture of Jesus, but no where near perfect

Finally in Chapter 27 Isaac blesses his son Jacob over Esau, the older. It was all because Isaac was blind and could tell the difference.

Isaac is hardly mentioned again. He dies in Gen 35:28-29 at the ago of 180.

To be honest if not for Abraham and Jacob I’m certain Isaac would have been forgotten as a byline in the Bible. We learn from him, sure. In fact, he’s a big part of the gospel

Matthew 22:31–33 ESV

31 And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” 33 And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.