Cross Talks #1 Genesis 22:1-19

“THE LORD WILL PROVIDE”

A young woman brought her fiancé home to meet her parents for thanksgiving dinner. After dinner, her mother told her father to find out about the young man. The father invited the fiancé to his study for a talk.

            "So what are your plans?" the father asked the young man. "I am a biblical scholar," he replied.

            "A Biblical scholar. Hmmm," the father said. "Admirable, but what will you do to provide a nice house for my daughter to live in?"

            "I will study," the young man replied, "and God will provide for us." The father asked about a ring, about children, and many other pertinent questions. And each time the father asked a question like this, the young man would reply that as he continued his studies, God would provide.

            Later, the mother asked, "How did it go, Honey?" The father answered, "He has no job and no plans, and he thinks I’m God!"

            When we face the difficulties of life we want to believe that the Lord will provide. But what does that mean, “The Lord will provide”? You have had troubles in your life that seemed to have no answer, no relief, no deliverance. You have gone through trials that didn’t make sense. Yes, at times our troubles are a result of our sin and we experience the consequences of those actions. But the trials without cause and, worse, without explanation, are the ones that vex us.

            We can only imagine the distress that Abraham felt when God told him to sacrifice his son. No reason is given to Abraham except that God commanded him. The narrator of Genesis 22 calls it a “test” but Abraham only hears this odd command. We know nothing of his emotions. We only see that Abraham acts in obedience and we wonder what we would do in that situation. Our hearts would rip at the thought of giving up a child. But Abraham went as he was told believing all along that somehow “the Lord will provide.”

In our lesson today, we will look at this event from three perspectives: Abraham’s, Isaac’s and the Lord’s. At the conclusion I will offer a “punch-line.”

A Father’s Costly Sacrifice

We are told in Genesis 22:1 that God initiated the test of Abraham. Did God not know the heart of Abraham? Is there anything that God does not know? It seems that at various times in the OT God tests his people. It is not that God does not know their hearts, but in this case it could be said that Abraham did not know his own heart.

            So God tested Abraham. God tells him to take his son, Isaac, and offer him as a burnt offering in the land of Moriah. Now you know that Isaac was a special son. Abraham and Sarah had waited for this child of promise until they were long in years. All their hopes and dreams rested on this child. Through Isaac, the promises of legacy and posterity would be fulfilled according to God’s own word. Now God says, “Worship me while his body burns on the altar.”

            What does Abraham do? He displays unhesitating obedience. He gets up early in the morning and prepares for the three day journey to Moriah. He did not procrastinate or look for a way out. He did not resist or question God. Remember when God wanted to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham comically argued with God about saving the cities if there were found some righteous people living in them. Here he does not argue with God.

            When they get to the mountain that God indicated, Abraham leaves the two servants and the donkey at the base. Then he says something profound. “We will go over there and worship and come again to you.” He says “we will worship;” he doesn’t say “I’m going to kill my son.” Abraham expresses unquestioning faith. He and his son were going to enter more fully than ever into the presence of God. They were going to worship God, be found in his presence, not groveling and pleading for a pardon, but loving the Lord as God in worship.

            Was Abraham fooling himself? Was he trying to deceive the servants and Isaac? No, he meant what he said. By faith in God, Abraham believed what he said, “we will return.” On what was this hope based? After three days of traveling and wrestling in his heart, Abraham must have concluded that God’s command and God’s promise would not and could not violate each other and that if necessary God would raise Isaac from the dead. That’s what the writer of Hebrews tells us (11:19). Although no one had ever been raised from the dead in Abraham’s time, he seemed to have faith that God would raise his son from the dead.

            This is the only explanation for Abraham’s complete and total obedience. He fully intended to go up to the mountain top and slaughter his son like a lamb believing that God would do something utterly incredible. I cannot imagine having a faith like that. This father must have loved God more than anything to give up his son like this.

A Son’s Willing Submission

Now look at this drama from Isaac’s perspective. Notice how God describes Isaac when he commands Abraham to sacrifice his son. “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love…” God says, and twice more calls him “your son, your only son.” In this first instance, God uses four descriptors for Isaac to emphasize the importance of this young man.

            Isaac is not Abraham’s only son. Ishmael was born to Abraham through Hagar as his first born. But Ishmael was born of the flesh while Isaac was born of the promise. So God is not a senile grandpa who forgets his grandchildren’s names, he is deliberately singling out Isaac with this title “your only son.”

            That title resounds with you, doesn’t it? You know it. I believe when John wrote his gospel he had Genesis 22 in mind all the way. This is how John describes Jesus, echoing the title “only son” (John 1:14; 3:16). We are supposed to get that.

            Coming to the mountain, leaving the servants and the donkey, Abraham loads up the wood for the altar fire on Isaac’s back. Isaac bears the burden of the wood that will be used for his own funeral pyre. The Genesis Rabbah, the Jewish Midrash (like a commentary) comments that Isaac with the wood on his back is like a condemned man, carrying his own cross. That’s remarkable since this is not a Christian perspective. But the Jewish commentators confirm what we see in Abraham’s “son, his only son” heading to his execution carrying his own “cross.”

            Then Isaac asks an important question. “Where’s the lamb, dad?” Isaac is possibly in his late teens and he’s not stupid. He seems to know what’s up. They’ve got the wood, the fire…and hey, what are you doing with that knife you crazy old coot? Doesn’t it remind you of one of those cult movies where religion goes out of control and turns into a horror show? Abraham replies with our key line: “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”

            But you know what’s remarkably odd? Isaac shows a voluntary submission to being sacrificed. A strong young teenager who could easily overpower a hundred year old man allows his father to tie him up and place him on the wood. Even as he holds the knife aloft ready to plunge it down into his son’s throat, Isaac submits.

            So rather than seeing this as a gross form of child abuse, we ought to see Abraham and Isaac in harmony. They are doing this together. The narrator hints at this in v. 6 where we see that “they went both of them together.” And that is how we ought to see the cross of Christ. Our heavenly Father is not cruel in sending his Son to die on the cross for us against his will. Jesus went willingly in perfect submission to the cross. He said, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord…” (John 10:17-18a.).

            Isaac does not play the victim in this drama, but a willing participant and partner in this act of faith. He perfectly foreshadows the willingness of Jesus to go to the cross as the ultimate sacrifice for sin.

The Lord’s Gracious Provision

Now the purpose of the test is revealed. As Abraham prepares to make the fatal thrust, the Lord calls to him and stays his hand, “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” (12).

            We said that God’s testing of Abraham was really for Abraham’s benefit. The first result comes in the Lord’s affirmation of Abraham, “I know that you fear God.” What an amazing testimony to hear from God himself that we are the kind of people who fear and respect God. Secondly, in v. 18 we see that because of Abraham’s faith all the nations will be blessed. So two things we can learn and model from Abraham are 1) our faithfulness in the midst of trial pleases God, and 2) others will be blessed because of our faithfulness.

            The secret of Abraham’s faith was his confidence that the Lord would provide for him in his time of trial. The word “provide” has been key throughout the drama. “Moriah” (2) means “land of vision” or “to see” which anticipates Abraham’s expectation that the Lord will provide. Thus he can say to Isaac when Isaac asks about the missing lamb, “The Lord will provide” (8). Then when Abraham looks up and sees a ram caught in a thicket he calls the name of that place “The LORD will provide” (14). Did you catch that? He does not say the Lord provided (past tense) but the Lord WILL provide (future tense). And everyone in the narrator’s day still called that place “On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided.” There was an expectant hope.

            As I said before, John rested his gospel heavily on this event using its terminology. When John the Baptist saw Jesus coming for baptism, he declared, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (1:29). John the Baptist recognized that Jesus was that lamb that Abraham hoped for and believed that God would provide. Jesus testified himself that Abraham saw the day of Jesus and rejoiced (8:56).

            The father sacrifices; the son surrenders; and the Lord provides; and the nations benefit. Can you see how the cross was anticipated from the very beginning of history?

So what does it mean that “The Lord will provide”?

            If Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son to show God that his relationship to God meant more than anything in the world, at the same time believing that all was not lost when losing all for God, then we know what true faith looks like.

            We also know how much the Father in heaven loves us in that he was willing to sacrifice his Son – the perfect and willing substitute – to save us from our sins.

            If we know this and believe this in our hearts, then we can agree with Paul when he says, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not give us all things?” (Rom. 8:31-32).

            If God so loved the world that he gave up his only Son, surely he will give us all that we long for in life. Isn’t that what Paul is saying? The Lord will provide.

            Let me be very direct: Some would take these words and declare that because of Christ’s sacrifice the doors are open to vibrant health and abundant wealth. God loves us and wants us to be healthy and prosperous.

            My understanding of Scripture does not allow for that kind of interpretation. If this were the case, then being fallible human creatures given easily to carnal and material pursuits, we would make gods (idols) of perfect health and sufficient wealth. We would pursue these goals as the means to a meaningful and sufficiently victorious life. Without them, we might wonder what’s wrong with our faith. We would wonder where God is in our pain.

            But because of the Father’s sacrifice, because of the cross of Christ, we don’t actually need perfect health and fabulous wealth to have a meaningful and victorious life. In fact, your life may just count for more if you go through the valley and are faithful regardless of failing health or persistent poverty.

            What did Paul mean then? How will he not give us all things? Paul was talking to discouraged followers of Jesus who struggled with sin and suffered for following Jesus. What he wanted them to know was that “The Lord will provide.” God, in Christ Jesus, will provide what we need to face any circumstance of life with the power of the cross and through the Lamb that was slain. We can face weakness and death because Christ died and rose again. We can wrestle with sin and win or lose but know that “there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” You will have the strength and courage of God in your weakness and fear because his grace is sufficient for you and his power is made perfect in weakness. The Lord will provide…

            In view of our lesson today, let me ask you to consider these questions this week: (verse by verse)

v. 1 – Does God test us? Is God testing you right now?

v. 2 – Is God asking you to do something painful?

v. 3 – Do we immediately obey?

v. 4 – Do we stay the course and remain faithful?

v. 5 – Can we worship God in the midst of painful trials?

vv. 6-8 Do we trust the Lord to provide us with what we need?

vv. 9-10 Can I submit to God’s plan even when I can’t make sense of it?

vv. 11-12 Can you believe that God will rejoice in your faithfulness?

            I believe it is in the great tests of life that our faith grows and that we learn to trust the Lord Jesus in a way that we never would otherwise. So be faithful…The Lord will provide!

           

                                                AMEN