Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3)
Abram was born and raised in the city of Ur located in the Chaldean region of Mesopotamia, an area known for its many gods. Each deity tended to be associated with a specific city and had to be appeased in order for that city to flourish. Sacrifices, even human sacrifices, had to be made in order to curry their favor.
Surprisingly, within this divine milieu, Abram encountered a God who wasn’t interested in local politics but who wanted to make a global statement. God recruited him as his running mate and took him on the campaign trail, changed his name to Abraham, and promised to start a new movement by giving him a son, Isaac.
Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. And Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me.” And she said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” (Genesis 21:5-7)
What follows is a scene that is difficult for any parent to imagine: God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son. The humor that the elderly Abraham and Sarah saw in the birth of a child quickly became no laughing matter.
When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “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.” And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.” (Genesis 22:9-14)
How do we understand this seemingly cruel test of Abraham’s will?
We need to remember that this God that Abraham encountered was unlike any God he had ever previously known. Abraham certainly would have flashed back to thoughts of his hometown gods and their uneasy relationship with humans. Gods who felt that caring for the earth was below their station so they created mortals to do the work for them. For Abraham, it would have been no surprise that a god would ask for a human sacrifice (1). He most likely would have felt that it was a perfectly reasonable request from one of his fickle hometown gods. What Abraham didn’t expect was a God who would stop a human sacrifice. The staying of Abrahams hand was a startling revelation that Abraham was dealing with a deity unlike any other.
Who was this God that promised Abraham that he would be a blessing to all the nations of the earth? A God who would make a covenant with a mere human and then swear He would never break it. A God who didn’t need human sacrifice to make the world a better place.
And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.” (Genesis 22:15-18)
Mount Moriah is traditionally associated with the temple mount in Jerusalem. It is the place where we discover the real God where a human sacrifice is stopped and a divine sacrifice is offered. The unique God that Abraham encountered turned out to be even more peculiar than he could have ever imagined. The gods of his homeland who demanded human sacrifice were replaced by a God who sacrificed Himself. The little gods he had grown up with who insisted on their pound of human meat were supplanted by a God who would offer His own flesh. The crucifixion of Jesus was the ultimate sacrificial act that would bless all the nations. Abraham smiled.
“Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” (John 8:56)
The story of Abraham and Isaac reveals just how different the God of the Bible truly is. The Mesopotamian gods created humans to do hard labor on their behalf but the Judeo-Christian God went to work for them. We have been granted a stay of execution because the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob chose to be pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities so that by His wounds we could all be healed.
Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:4-6)
Photo by Francesco Alberti on Unsplash
