Where He Leads I Will Follow: A Beloved Son

 

“Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”  Genesis 22:12

 I learned so many new things about this familiar story this week as I studied this chapter. Old assumptions were corrected. New insights were gained. I can’t wait to share it all with you! Today we consider the story of Abraham being instructed by God to sacrifice his son, Isaac. As a child, this story was frightening. As a parent, horrifying. But looking at it closer, I now see it as reassuring, hopeful, and an exhortation and incitement to trust God and live my life for Him.

 At the beginning of Genesis 22, we read that Got set about to test Abraham. God tells him that he is to take his son, his only son, whom he loves and sacrifice him on Mount Moriah. Yes, Abraham had another son, Ishmael, but at this point in the narrative, Ishmael has been banished, removed from the family, and Isaac is reckoned as Abraham’s only son, the son of promise, the miracle child given to an aged couple by God Himself. And this only son is beloved by Abraham, in fact, this is the first mention of love in the Bible. Yep, I was surprised by that and looked it up myself. In the King James Version, the word used here is “lovest”, so if you search for love it won’t pop up, but in the NIV and other modern translations it says love. The Hebrew root word for all of them, though, is אָהַב ʼâhab, and this is in fact the first time it is used in the Bible. There are other mentions of “made love” prior to this in the genealogies, but that is a different word referring to the sexual act, not an emotion. How interesting and, I can’t but believe, intentional is it that we first read about love in relation to Abraham and his beloved son. This aspect, as well as many others in this story, foreshadows for me that most perfect and beautiful sacrifice nearly 2,000 years later our Heavenly Father made on our behalf of His one and only beloved Son, Jesus.

 The story goes on to relate that Abraham obeyed right away, getting up early the next morning (I bet he didn’t sleep a wink!), gathering what he needed, and heading out on the trail. It took three days to get from where they were to the region of Moriah that God had sent them to, another parallel that I’ll explore in a moment, but for now I want to consider the journey. When I have to do something difficult, I want to do it quickly. The first things that pops to mind is killing a spider. While I wouldn’t say I’m deathly afraid of spiders, they don’t sit well with me AT ALL. If I see one, and I know it must be dealt with, and there’s no one else around that can do it for me. I have to hold my breath, grab something, and whack it! There’s this screwing up of courage in my heart that takes place, and the more I think about it, the harder it is to execute on the task at hand. But Abraham didn’t get to just get up and do the hard thing, he had to walk, with Isaac, for three days. How many times did he second guess himself or question what he had heard? Did he ever beg God in his heart to free him from this directive? Or had this all been decided in the moment he heard from God and now he was just going through the motions of obedience?

 When they reached the place God had shown Abraham, things went differently than I had previously pictured. In the past, I had thought that Abraham had to trick Isaac into this, had to tie him up because Isaac was fighting against him. But on this read through I had it pointed out to me that Abraham was over 100 years old and Isaac was likely in his twenties at this point. Isaac could have easily overpowered Abraham or evaded him if he had wanted to. So, opposite to my previous impressions, Isaac was a willing participant in this story. He saw that God had told his father what was to happen, and he accepted it as his role. In Hebrews 11:17-19, we read that Abraham had fully intended to follow through with the sacrifice believing that God was able to raise Isaac from the dead, even though that had never happened before at that point in history. As I read in a commentary, Abraham considered his son dead the moment he decided to follow and obey God, and received him back as Isaac was “made alive” to him three days later on the mountain. Sound familiar?

 There are a TON of parallels between this Old Testament story and the story of Jesus. They were both loved by their father. They both sacrificed themselves willingly. They both carried wood up the hill to the place of their sacrifice, Isaac the wood for the burnt offering that his father placed on his back (Genesis 22:6) and Jesus His own cross (John 19:17). And, as I mentioned before, they were both delivered from death on the third day. I love how David Guzik put it in his commentary, “When God asked Abraham for the ultimate demonstration of love and commitment, He asked for Abraham’s son. When God the Father wanted to show us the ultimate demonstration of His love and commitment to us, He gave us His Son. We can say to the LORD, ‘Now I know that You love me, seeing You have not withheld Your Son, Your only Son from me.’”

Here’s the Thing: This story that used to terrify me, now makes me feel so loved. God never intended for Abraham to kill his son, He intended for Abraham to obey Him, to be willing to give up ANYTHING for Him. Oh, that I would love my LORD in that way! That I would be willing and able to lay down anything and everything on His altar, trusting Him to deal rightly with it all.