The Lord God spoke to Abraham and said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go sacrifice him as a burnt offering in the land of Moriah.” The Lord emphasized how dear Isaac was to Abraham, and this is the first use of the word love in the Bible. Abraham’s heart must have sunk. He had waited until he was 100 years old before he could have a son with his 90-year-old wife, Sarah. Isaac was the child of the promise God had given him to make a great nation through his offspring. In fact, God had told him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned” (Genesis 21:22). What could possibly come of killing his own child, now a boy or young man?

But Abraham did not hesitate. He cut up the wood for the sacrifice and left Beersheba, his current home in the south of Canaan, early in the morning. He had loaded his supplies, mustered servants and taken Isaac with him. They traveled for three days to Moriah, the mountain of the Lord close to Jeruslaem. Mount Moriah would later become the temple mount in the days of King Solomon, and eventually, it is believed, the site of Islam’s Dome of the Rock. On the third day, as the mountain came into sight, he went ahead alone with Isaac, saying to his servants, “Wait here while I go with the boy to the mountain to worship, and we will return to you.” He used the impersonal term, the boy, as he spoke of his beloved Isaac, perhaps to distance himself from the gruesome task ahead of him. How could God, whose promises he believed, now renege on the promise, and make him sacrifice his only son of the promise? This was a precedent never ventured before: a commanded human sacrifice from God Almighty. It was unthinkable. Yet the order rang in his ears to sacrifice his son like an animal for atonement and devotion to the Creator. He did not have the written law code of Moses, dictated by God Himself, saying do not murder and do not offer human sacrifice to a god. No, the law code would not come until over four hundred years later. It is possible he knew of the law code of King Ur-Nammu, who might have been contemporary to Abraham. Otherwise, he was not schooled in law, at least not in the way of the still nonexistant Hebrew tradition. But Abraham knew something about God from conversations with Him, and he thought he knew God’s nature: holy, faithful, dependable, righteous, everlasting.

God had said to Abraham, “Leave your land and your people and go to a land that I will show you, and I will make you into a great nation.” Later God told him, “Go out and look up at the stars and count them, if indeed they can be counted. So will your offspring be.” And then the book of Genesis says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6). Then at age 99, Abraham saw the Lord in human form – the Theophany – and heard him say, “This time next year you and Sarah will have a son.” In spite of Abraham and Sarah’s laughter, it happened, and the Lord told him to name the boy Isaac, meaning He Laughs. Now he must kill the boy and burn the boy’s body like a carcass in worship of the Living God. Had God changed His mind? No, God must be up to something he did not understand. Would he raise Isaac from the dead? God is faithful and does not do evil. God must provide him a way, and he must not try to take a shortcut or circumvent the plan of the Lord, even in this. Somewhere on that journey a resolve came over Abraham that kept him in pursuit of the Lord’s orders. It had to be faith that only God knows and that God would work out to satisfaction.

After the three days of travel, and his thinking about God’s command, the thought would be like burying his son for those three days, or counting Isaac as good as dead. Isaac was oblivious to the plan now, as they drew close to Moriah. Abraham had placed the wood load on Isaac’s back as they traveled on foot this last distance alone, unaccompanied by servants or beasts. Abraham carried the knife and the fire, probably a lit torch.

“My father?”

“Here I am, my son,” said Abraham. He had kept things impersonal in referring to his son as “the boy,” but now the words could not be withheld. He was saying what we might say: At your service, my son.

“We have the wood, the knife, and the fire, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?” The whole burnt offering became codified in the book of Leviticus, far into the future, but the practice was known in Abraham’s time and before. The whole animal was consumed by the fire as a symbol of the worshipper’s total devotion, and as atonement for sin. The lamb could also be another creature such as a ram, the mature male sheep. Abraham knew this. With the thought of what he had been instructed to do, but knowing no other recourse, Abraham relied on his only hope – that God would show him what to do. “God Himself will provide the lamb,” he said to his son.

They built the altar now and arranged the wood for the fire. Then the unthinkable happened. Somehow Abraham succeeded in getting Isaac on the wood and binding him there. At some time during this last procedure, Isaac must have realized that he was the sacrifice. Did they discuss this? It is possible that Isaac as a youth was stronger than his father, but did they have a wrestling match? If Isaac consented willingly or was talked into stretching out on the altar, then he was foreshadowing the Christ, who willingly would go to His execution on the cross some two thousand years in the future. In fact, to Christians the whole incident presents a type, also known as a foreshadowing or prefiguring, for the passion of the Christ. These uncanny similarities to the Crucifixion of Jesus presented themselves:

• Abraham, the father, prepared to sacrifice his only legally recognized son as atonement and devotion, just as God the Father allowed His only begotten Son to be sacrificed for the sins of the world. Jesus is called the Lamb of God (Isaiah 53:7; John 1:29,36; Acts 8:32; 1 Peter 1:19; Revelation 5:6,8,12,13). The details for the lamb motif begin in the book of Leviticus, which outlines sacrifice for sin and devotion to the Lord. The burnt offering and the guilt offering would include, depending on circumstances, a young bull, a female sheep, a ram, or a goat. The poor could sacrifice doves or fine flour. However, the lamb became an enduring symbol of such sacrifice throughout the Israelites’ sacrificial period, from the Exodus through the First Century A.D.
• As mentioned, Abraham spent three days traveling to Moriah, where the sacrifice would occur, and in the process his resolve to obey God placed him in the position of thinking his son was as good as dead. Christ lay dead in the tomb for three days before His resurrection.
• Isaac carried the wood for his own sacrifice; Jesus was compelled to carry His own cross.
• As mentioned, if Isaac willingly cooperated with his father, he foreshadowed the very purpose for the Christ’s coming to earth (Mark 10:45).
• In a sense there occurred a resurrection for both Isaac and Jesus. Hebrews 11:17-18 says that Abraham believed God could raise his son from the dead; he had faith that God could do anything necessary to fulfill His promise of blessing Abraham’s descendants through Isaac, even if it meant raising him from the dead.

Let us inspect some Bible passages that support the above prefiguring list.

He was oppressed and afflicted,

    yet he did not open his mouth;

he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,

    and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,

    so he did not open his mouth.

-Isaiah 53:7

The above verse is from Isaiah 53, known as the chapter of the Suffering Servant. Orthodox Jews do not recognize the Suffering Servant as the Messiah, but rather picture the Messiah as a conquering Lord of righteousness. Christians reconcile the two concepts – the humble Lamb of God and the Lion of the Tribe of Judah (also seen as the Son of Man) – as one and the same Person. Our point in the context of the sacrificial Lamb of God arises from God’s love, even to the point of sacrificing His only Son for the sins of the world. Isaiah 53:12 further clarifies the idea of the Messiah who is given all glory and power and honor because of His sacrifice.

Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,

    and he will divide the spoils with the strong,

because he poured out his life unto death,

    and was numbered with the transgressors.

For he bore the sin of many,

    and made intercession for the transgressors. -Isaiah 53:12

Consider the book of John, which refers to John the Baptizer as he recognized Jesus.

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” -John 1:29

This provides a direct reference to Jesus the Lamb of God, the sacrifice once for all humanity, as cited in Hebrews 7:27, as well as several other references in the book of Hebrews:

He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. -Hebrews 7:27b

We may refer to the words of Jesus Himself in the Gospel of Mark, where he referred to Himself as the Son of Man, a title equated with God Himself from Daniel 7:13-14:

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” -Mark 10:45

In the above sentence, regarded as the focal statement of the Gospel of Mark, we have the reconcilation of suffering with the power of God that rests on Jesus the Messiah, the Son of Man. Hence we understand the passage giving all power and glory and honor to the Son of Man in the prophetic passage from Daniel. He earned it!

13 “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.” -Daniel 7:13-14

A good summary of the earned glory of Jesus, Messiah and Son of Man, which reconciles His glory and His suffering, comes from the author of Hebrews:

…let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

–-Hebrews 12:1c,2

As Abraham reached for the knife, the voice of the angel came from heaven with urgency: “Abraham, Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he said, now realizing with hope of all hopes that God was intervening.

“Do not lay a hand on the boy…. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from Me your son, your only son.” Only then did Abraham see the ram that had caught its horns in a thicket, the sacrifice provided by God. Isaac was spared!

Debaters may say, does God not know everything? Psalm 147:5 says His understanding is infinite. Jeremiah 23:24 says no one can hide from Him. How then would God not know that Abraham would do anything for Him? He did not know with the knowledge of experience! The Rev. Tony Evans wrote that God wanted to feel Abraham’s devotion. Just as God enjoys our worship and feels our devotion, so it was with Abraham. However, another reason penetrates the mystery of the sacrifice; this enactment was a testing of Abraham, God’s prophet.

Now God does not tempt people, as asserted by James 1:13. However, from 1 Peter 1:7 we understand that we are given trials which should strengthen us in our faith. By such a principle Abraham was tested, at times failing, and at times more frequently, to his credit, passing the “test.” He passed one test in a great way by first believing God, and this was credited to him as righteousness. He failed a trial of patience, short-cutting God’s promise of an heir by taking the slave, Hagar, as a second wife in order to have a son. However, even our failures can teach us. In Abraham’s case, he learned that God is faithful to His promises, even when he, in his finite human understanding, did not see how God could carry out the promise!

Therefore, we have the Lord’s assurance of our growing strength as we face our trials in faith, “looking unto Christ, the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). May praise and glory be given to the God of infinite understanding, whose love for His created humanity endures forever. We ask our Eternal Father in the name of Jesus, Messiah, Son of Man, to strengthen us in His righteousness so that we endure to the end.