So we continue our series on the great stories of the Bible this morning and
really the idea for the series comes from the logic of Deuteronomy chapter 6
where God tells the Israelites to teach your kids the commandments and tell your
kids the great stories of the mighty works of God. And so we do that we have
storybook Bibles that we used to do that. The Israelites did that at nighttime
around the campfires. We do that in the modern world at bedtime. And this series
is really an adults look at the stories that have made it into the storybook
Bibles. But Genesis 22 it's not actually one of them because few have been so bold
as to translate this story to a children's storybook Bible. Sally Lloyd
Jones did do it in Jesus storybook Bible so that's commendable. Because it's
difficult for kids to come to terms with what's happening in this passage and
it's even harder for adults. Because what looks like is on the line here is that
God seems to be commanding something that is contrary to his law. The death of a
child, a child's sacrifice, something that only is done in pagan worship in the
ancient Near East. But this is truly a great story. And some Old Testament
scholars say it's the greatest story of the Old Testament. Gordon Winnum one
commentator he says this, no other story in the Old Testament can match the
sacrifice of Isaac for its haunting beauty and its theological depth. And so
that means that it's hard in 30 minutes for me to unpack the importance of this
text really and how important it's been for the church throughout history, for
theologians throughout history, and even for philosophers both religious and
non-religious. Emmanuel Kant maybe the most famous philosopher in a thousand
years. This was one of the texts that drove him away from traditional
Christianity. He said that Genesis 22 to could not be spoken by God. And on the
flip side, Sorin Kikrgar, who some of you have heard of the Danish philosopher in
the 1900s, he wrote an entire book about this passage responding to Emmanuel
Kant called Fear and Trimbling, a very famous book. And so it's been immensely
important this passage through all of history. And thankfully for us the New
Testament interprets the Old Testament on this passage. We don't have to guess
what's going on here. Hebrews 11, the passage that we read earlier, our New
Testament reading tells us exactly how we are supposed to understand Genesis 22.
And it says really two things. In verse 17 of that passage it says by faith
Abraham was tested and he offered up Isaac by faith. He passed the test by
faith. So the first thing is that this is a test and God is intending that we see
this test of Abraham and we see his faith. We see the power of his faith in
this test. And then secondly in verse 19 it says that Abraham considered that God
is able to raise people even from the dead from which he also received Isaac
back as a type. In other words the second thing that that we're supposed to see is
that Isaac was intended as a type or a symbol for something greater than himself
in Genesis 22. And so those are the two main ideas, the test and the type. And in
order to see it I want to just want to ask three questions this morning for a
few minutes with you. What is the test? What's the... sorry what is a test in
general? What's the nature of this test of Abraham's test? And then how do you
pass it? How do you pass the test? Okay so first what's a test? Genesis 22 verse 1
says God tested Abraham and it's important from the outset to know that
the Bible teaches the fact of the test. The fact that God tests his people. So
what does that mean? Well what's a test? What is a test? What is a test in
general? I mean every one of us knows what a test is. We've all been tested.
Tests when they are at their best, they're meant to do two things.
They're meant to reveal what you are and what you aren't. Right so if you want to
learn a foreign language for instance and become fluent let's say French you
will go take a course in French to become fluent in French but the first thing
that they're gonna do when you come to study French is they're gonna give you
a placement test. And that placement test is meant to do two things. It's meant
to tell you where you are or who you are, what you know. It's meant to show you
what you know and then secondly it's meant to show you what you don't know, what
you aren't, what you don't have in order that you would grow. You see it's a test
when they're at their very best they're meant to grow you. To test you and
what you don't have so that you can know how to grow. But there are also tests
that come at their very worst and we have all had test givers in our lives
that don't give tests like that. They give test in order to destroy you, in
order to kill you, in order to make you bleed, in order to show you that you're
terrible. There are test givers that give tests like that. I remember when
I was living in Jackson, Mississippi before moving here that all the people
who would start medical school at the University Medical Center there in
Mississippi they would say that they would go in to the class first week and
all the professors would say the same thing and they would say the only reason
that this semester exists, this first semester, is for us to get rid of half of
you. Half of you aren't gonna be sitting in these chairs about come December.
Right? And the point was that their test that was gonna be so terrible that they
were gonna kill you, that they were gonna get rid of you, that they were gonna
strain, strain the people that couldn't cut it. And so tests at their best are
meant to grow you. And tests at their worst are meant to kill you, destroy you.
And that's exactly the two types of tests that are present in the Bible and in
the Christian life. God does the first, tests that grow you, and Satan does the
second, tests that are meant to destroy you. It's important to know that the very
same word that is most often translated test in the Bible is also the same word
for temptation. And God, you could say in Genesis 22, tempts Abraham. And the
problem with that, that might come to your mind, is that in James 1, chapter,
James chapter 1 verse 14, it says don't ever say that God tempts or tests
anybody. But Genesis 22 here clearly says that God does tempt, that God does test
and that's supported throughout the whole Bible. And the point is made in
Genesis 1, James 1, 14 and 15, exactly the distinction between these two types of
tests. It says never say that God tempts, God tests in order to entice you to
sin. You see, in other words, God doesn't test anybody in order to destroy them,
he tests them in order to grow them. And Satan does the exact opposite. He tempts,
he tests in order to kill, in order to destroy. And the most famous example of
that is Job, the life of Job, Job chapter 1. Job, in the same context, in the same
moment, is being tested in both ways. Satan comes to Job in order to kill him, in
order to destroy him, to test him so that he'll curse God and die. And God comes to
him in the exact same circumstance, in order that he might prove Job blameless,
that he might grow him, that he might show him how to get more virtue, to
become holier. And in the very same context, you can be tested by your
evil desires, by Satan to be destroyed to sin and by God to grow. And so in
Genesis 22, God tests Abraham, he tempts him. And we know that because the Bible
tells us that Abraham knew that because God told him that. But the question is,
how do you know, how do I know when we're being tested, when we're coming under
the test, under the temptation of God? How do you know? And I think the only
answer we can give is that you don't, absolutely. But there is a measure, and
that measure is something like this, when you are under the test, you're not
under the test until it's so much easier in some circumstance to disobey than to
obey. When you know what's right, but you want so much more of what's wrong,
and when that circumstance comes, you're under the test, you're under the knife,
you're under temptation. Let me give you some examples of what I mean. You're
under the test when honesty in the workplace means major financial and job
security consequences. You're under the test when speaking the truth in love
may mean losing a relationship. You're under the test when believing in the
Bible makes you look like a fool in the public square. You're under the
test when obeying makes you deny your innermost desires and suppress your
feelings because you know what's right. That's when you're under the test. In
other words, the test of God means obedience is going to cost you something.
It's some figurative metaphorical temporary death to a perceived blessing.
Some of us avoid all contexts that we think might bring the context in
which we might have to obey to the point of great cost. We avoided it all cost.
This is why God tests. He tests that we will be unshaken on the inside no
matter what the circumstance is on the outside. He tests you so that you might
be strong, that you might grow, that you might become great. That's why in the
Bible the idea of the test, the test of God, Hebrews 12 calls it the trial of
discipline is often metaphorically presented as the process of smelting.
Smelting, it's when you put metal, I don't know that much about it, but it's
when you put metals into fire and burn away the dross and the impurities and
purify the metals, right? You see it all over the Bible. You've heard it a
million times if you go to church from preachers, but the thing is is that for
an ancient person that metaphor was alive. I mean they would see the black
Smith in the marketplace smelting all the time. We never see it unless you are
the 1% that works at a factory or something that does this. But the test,
it's going into the fire, it's burning away the impurity, it's for your growth,
it's for your good. When I think about my children, especially my oldest son
Ethan, and think about what I want him to become, I know that at least I want him
to become a man of godly character, right? And if you have a son, you probably
want him to become a man of godly character. And right now, Ethan suffers
a little bit in life, but on the whole life it's pretty easy for him.
Suffering at our house is when the ice cream runs out. That's a big deal for us,
for him. I mean that's the main trial he's working through right now. But look,
what I know is this, if he's ever going to become a man of godly character,
he's going to have to go through the fire. He's going to have to be tested.
Obedience is going to cost him. Because human beings grow through trials.
Human beings grow through trials and God often grows his people through trials
and tests. And that's the truth of Scripture. Okay, so that's a test in
general. Secondly, what about this test specifically? What about the nature of
this test? This is the test of all tests. And you will never be tested like this.
This is unique. This is a once in a life, once in history moment. And in Abraham's
test, the first thing that Hebrews 11 wants us to see is that his faith was
astounding. That it's an example. And as Protestants, we often don't think enough
maybe about the characters of the Bible and their faith. But Hebrews 11,
that's exactly what it's trying to get us to see. This is what John Calvin,
the Protestant reformer, says about Abraham. We ought to esteem Abraham as a
man equal to a hundred thousand if we consider his faith, which is set before
us in the Bible as the best model of believing. Why is Abraham's faith so
significant in this passage? And in order to understand why it says
significant, you have to look at the little phrase in verse 1 before it says
God tested Abraham. It says, after these things, after these things, God tested
Abraham. And that's a marker to tell you that what has happened in Abraham's life
already is incredibly important for understanding what's happening in Genesis
22. This is the man who was called out of Babylon to be the people of God, to be
a blessing to the nations, to be the father of God's people. And every single
thing that God said to him in Genesis chapter 12 was all about the blessing.
You're going to be blessed in so many different ways. And that was going to
come through a son. Now, Calvin, when he's looking at this passage, he chronicles
Abraham's life and asks this question, is this the man of blessing? Is this the
man of blessing that God had promised? And just listen to this. Genesis 12, he's
called by God, taken away from his father, from his home, from his family and
friends, from his land, from his security. And Calvin says, it's as if God
deliberately intended to strip him of all the delights of life. Then when he gets
to the land that was promised, it's in famine and his family is starving. And so
he leaves the land and he goes south to a place where he feels that he is forced
to prostitute his wife for the sake of his safety. And Calvin says, this is an act
probably more bitter than the many deaths. Then when he gets back to the land,
he's driven out of the land again because of a famine, because once again
there's no water, there's no food. And again, he goes to a bimilex land and he
feels like he's forced to prostitute his wife for their safety. And in all of this,
he has no children and his wife is barren. And the whole point of the promise was
that he would have a child who would be the beginning of the nations. And there's
no kids. And when he does finally get a kid, a child, a son, through Hagar,
his wife's servant, his name is Ishmael, the boy, Sarah hates Ishmael so much that
she commands Abraham to dismiss his son and send him into the desert with
bread and water forever. This is his son. And it might not be his wife's son, but
it was his son. And in the grand understatement of the Old Testament in
Genesis 21, it says, this much displeased Abraham. It crushed him. And in the very
next paragraph, we get Genesis 22. And now he has another son, Isaac. And this is
the son of hope. This is the son of the blessing. This is the son of the promise.
This will be the father of the nations. And as soon as he gets him as a boy, God
says, now you go take him to the hill and you slaughter him. And for all of us who
have children, and for all of you who are members here and have vowed to have
covenant children in this congregation, just listen to what Calvin says about
this. What more frightful thing can the human mind imagine than for a father to
become the executioner of his own son? If Isaac had died of sickness, who among us
would not say Abraham, the most miserable man of the world? As if God had given him
a son for a short time as a joke. And if he, if Isaac had been killed by some
stranger or some criminal, who among us would not say this tragedy is even worse
than if Isaac had died by sickness. But for a son to be slaughtered by his own
father, by his own father's hand, this surpasses every sort of tragedy imaginable
to the human mind. And so he sums up Abraham's life like this. Abraham was so
tossed in trouble that if anyone wished to paint a picture of a tragic life that
was supposed to be a blessing, he could find no model more appropriate than
Abraham. And the shock of the command here to take Isaac to the mount is even
more apparent in the Hebrew text that sits behind this English. Because in
Hebrew there is a verb that's used in this passage only one other time in the
whole Bible. A very peculiar verb appears nowhere else. It's as if it was just
made up and it's translated here go. Go to Mount Mariah and take your son
and offer him his sacrifice. But it's more literally translated it's more
Shakespearean. It's like go and go thyself up from here would be something the
way you could translate it. And it only appears in one other place in the whole
Bible and that's in Genesis 12 verse 1 when the first word that Abraham ever
hears from God is go thyself up from here to the land of blessing. I will give
you a son. And the next time that verb is used in Genesis 22 go thyself up from
here and take the son of blessing that I promised in Genesis 12 and kill him. And
one commentator puts it this way in Genesis 12 in the most unique verb in
the book of Genesis Abraham is asked to relinquish the past in the hope of a
blessing. In Genesis 22 Abraham by the very same word is asked to relinquish
all hope in any happiness. Why is this the ultimate test in the Old Testament?
Because the command of God in this passage seems to contradict the promise
of God. How could God ask this? And the point behind it the point of every test
the point of this test the point of Abraham's test and your test and my test
is this God is asking Abraham am I your ultimate treasure? Am I your ultimate
hope? What's being asked of Abraham is can you lose your precious only the apple
of your eye the flower of your heart in the days of his youth and still hope in
God? And the answer for Abraham was yes and that's why his faith is commendable.
In verse 10 he builds the altar and he takes his son up the mountain and he
prepares to do the deed. The question is can you lose what is most precious in
your life? Your ring to put it in Tolkien's terms and still hope in God.
Let me be make a more direct relationship a more direct application. How
could some of us survive the death of a child and still hope in God? How could we
see them leave before us and have hope? How? And so that brings us to the final
point how do you survive the test? How do you hope in God at the expense of the
most precious thing in life? And there are two answers to that in the passage
briefly. The first answer is to think and just very briefly in Hebrews chapter 11
it says that Abraham reasoned that he reasoned. In verse 19 he reasoned in the
face of losing his son that God could raise his son Isaac from the dead. It was
no blind faith. He didn't just take a leap. Hebrews 11 said he thought he
processed through logic and probably what he did was he thought about this.
Abraham knew God already to be the giver of life. Not a God who takes life away
but gives life. The Creator, the one who opens old women's wombs who shouldn't
have children to give children. The one who called him out of a land that
practiced child sacrifice and said get away from there. And he reasoned that
that this God could raise his son from the dead and that's what gave him hope.
And it says in Hebrews 11 that he didn't say that God would raise Isaac from the
dead but Abraham thought he could. He didn't know. He stepped forward in the
faith and the logic of the doctrine of God that this God is the life-giving God.
He could raise Isaac from the dead. And so the first thing is he he it was a not a
blind faith but secondly and more importantly and finally how did Abraham
survive? And the answer in this passage is that he looked for the Lamb. He looked
for the Lamb. Now in verse 8 Isaac is no dummy. He's old enough to understand
what's happening and he's old enough to carry the wood on his back up the mountain
at least. And the King James is even better than this because it's he says
this Father. Behold Father the altar. Behold the wood. But Father behold where
is the Lamb? And Abraham says God will provide for himself the Lamb. He hoped
and at the point of death as Abraham binds his own son to the altar
bearing the knife putting it to his throat hoping beyond hope that there
might be a Lamb that there might be a Lamb called in the thicket. God comes
down in the form of the angel of the Lord and says do not lay a hand on the boy.
The Hebrew text is in fact it is literally don't touch the boy for the Lord
sees. And the substitute was in the thicket waiting there. Now to understand
very briefly what's happening here you have to see just just quickly three
details in the text to make sense of it. And the first is this what is happening
here? What has specifically been commanded? And what has specifically been
commanded is that Abraham give Isaac as a burnt offering not simply murder him
not simply kill him but this is a burnt offering and that's very specific. What
that means is a burnt offering is a ceremonial sacrifice that has a
specific intention and we know what that intention is from Leviticus chapter 1.
Leviticus chapter 1 tells us exactly what a burnt offering is for. A burnt
offering in the Old Testament is for the purification of the pollution that sin
has caused. And Leviticus 1 even calls it an atonement for sin. In other words
what's been commanded here is that Isaac's death is meant to be an atonement
for the sin of the people. He's being offered up here to God as an atonement
for the pollution of sin. And so that that's the first thing for forgiveness.
The second thing you have to know is where? Where did this take place? And he
told God tells Abraham take your son to Mount Moriah to sacrifice him. Now
Mount Moriah, it doesn't say Mount Moriah. Moriah is a hill country in
Palestine and Israel and it's a series of small hills and the only other place
that appears in the Old Testament is in 1 Chronicles 3. I know all of you read
1 Chronicles 3 this morning and are up on this but Moriah is the place where
the temple of Solomon will be built. It's a series of hills. It's the place
where Jerusalem will one day land. Even more on one of the hills of
Moriah there will be a spot. One day the people will call it Golgotha. One day on
one of the hills of Moriah we call it Calvary. You see? 1500 years from now.
Isaac is meant to be a burn-off, an atonement for sin given up on the
future site of Golgotha to God. And then thirdly and finally who? And the text
says that Isaac is Abraham's only son, the one whom he loves. And Hebrews makes
even more of this. Hebrews says that he's his only begotten son and the reason
that Hebrews says that is because in the Greek translation of the Old
Testament of Genesis the translator uses the word for begotten or beloved for
Isaac. And this is the Bible that most of the New Testament authors were working
from, a Greek translation of the Old Testament. In other words in the Greek
translation of the Old Testament it says Abraham was to give up his only begotten
son. The point is that in John 3.16 John is working with Genesis 22 and he's
saying God so loved the world that just like Abraham he gave up his only
begotten son that whoever would believe in him would have eternal life. And so
you're getting the picture. You're getting the picture. What's happening here is
that God is commanding Abraham to do this in order to dramatize to illustrate
the relationship between God the Father and God the Son and how God is going to
secure the blessing for the entire world. This is an illustration. God is
commanding this so that Abraham and Isaac would dramatize what's going to
happen on the hill of Moriah, Golgotha on the cross some 1500 years later. That's
the point. This was never about child sacrifice. The point the whole time was
never that Isaac was going to be given up. It was never that this was a drama
so that the people of God 1500 years before it would ever happen would know
that God the Father the true and better Abraham would give the true and better
Isaac. He would put the knife to his throat. Why? John 3.16, for God so loved
you that he would give up his only Isaac, his only begotten. It's no
coincidence in Genesis 22.6 and we'll just close with this that Abraham laid
the wood on Isaac the sacrifice back to be carried up Golgotha's hill. A true
and better Isaac would do the exact same thing 1500 years later. What does this
mean? I'll just close with an illustration. Stephen Curtis Chapman, famous
CCM musician, contemporary Christian music. Yeah anybody in the CCM crowd. DC
Talk, Newsboys, yeah some of you. No matter what you think about CCM this
matters not. Stephen Curtis Chapman is a very famous singer in the 90s in that
scene. He adopted a little girl from China. Her name was Maria. His sons
were older and many of you know this about him and Will the teenage son
one day backed over Maria in their driveway. It's a terrible story and so
Stephen Curtis Chapman comes out of the house. He picks Maria up, he puts her in
the car, she's dying and he's trying to save her life and they are
going to drive away to the hospital and she doesn't make it. She dies in the
car. This little five-year-old girl that he had adopted and months later in an
interview in 2008 on Good Morning America in the States with Robin
Roberts. They were talking about you know what their families like after
this and how things were going and they especially focused on Will and how he was
coping with what he had done. He had killed his sister and Stephen Curtis
Chapman was talking about his relationship with Will and as Stephen
Curtis Chapman was driving away from the scene he rolled down the window and
looked out to his son and said I love you as he was driving away. Sorry I don't
usually do like this. Derek's the one that does this stuff not me. He looked out
at his son and he pointed at him and said son I love you. The son that had just
killed his daughter and the cross. The cross is the pronouncement of the father
pointing at you, at us, at your worst, at your very worst. It's him pointing at
you and saying son daughter I love you. At your very worst and he's saying I love
you so much that I will put the knife to my to my better Isaac. My better than
Isaac for you so that you know the hope of a resurrection life and that's the
gospel and it's good news. Let's pray. Father thank you for the gospel thank you
that you did not spare your own son for us but gave him up freely so that we
might know resurrection hope. We thank you in Christ's name. Amen.