The Lord is awe-inspiring, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in Genesis 22:1-2,
“Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’ ‘Here I am,’ he replied. Then God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.’”
What a test of faith! Abraham has already lost Ishmael when the Lord told Abraham to let Hagar and Ishmael go. Now the Lord tells Abraham to take Isaac’s life by sacrificing him. As the Lord tells Abraham: take your son, your only son, the one whom you love and sacrifice him as a burnt offering.
This is son of the promise! This is the son through whom nations and kingdoms would spring from Abraham! This is the son through whom Abraham would receive [posthumously] the land the Lord promised him! This is the son that removed Sarah’s disgrace of being barren! This is the son of whom both Abraham and Sarah waited for all those years. And now the Lord is asking Abraham to take his life!
As the account unfolds, we see that Abraham dutifully complies. He does what the Lord asks. I have to think that one of the thoughts Abraham had was how unseemly this request was based on all that he knew of the Lord up till then. I’m sure a second thought he must have had was, “What am I going to tell Sarah!”
Abraham obeys and the Lord stops Abraham at just the crucial moment when it becomes evident that Abraham was going to follow through and kill his son. The Lord was testing Abraham and putting his faith on display for all of us to see. In verse 12 the Lord says, “Now I know that you fear God”. But our God knows our hearts. My thought is that the Lord wanted all of us to know the nature of Abraham’s faith. What a love and fear Abraham must have had for the Lord!
James’ observation on this incident is found in James 2:21-24, “Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,’ and he was called God's friend. You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.”
James point is that true faith leads to action. Real faith is evidenced by what we do. The things we do will never earn us anything in God’s sight. But the things we do reveal the faith we have in him.
What an astonishing and dramatic account!
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your theme of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We’d love to hear from you!
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