For the Genesis 22:9-13 PODCAST, Click Here!
9 Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. 10 And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham" So he said, "Here I am." 12 And He said, "Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me." 13 Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. ~ Genesis 22:9-13
Today, we continue our study of the completion of the greatest test of faith imaginable. Abraham’s ultimate test points us all forward to something greater, the coming to this earth of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ who laid down His life for our sin. On that day at the peak of wind blown Mt. Moriah, God took center stage in Abraham's story. This is the point of every test that comes our way, each are designed to put God on greatest display. The lessons of this passage can only make us stand in awe of what God chose to do for each of us through the cross of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ for it was at the cross that God proved His love for us.
In v.9-10 of today's passage we read, "9 Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. 10 And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son."
The Bible does not reveal to us the age of Isaac at this point in his life, but, one thing is for sure, he was old enough to carry the wood up the hill, and it would have taken a considerable amount of wood. Abraham was now 100 plus whatever age Isaac was; If Isaac was 15, Abraham was 115. At this point in time, Abraham was an old man and yet, the record stands that he built an altar, placed the wood in order, and he bound Isaac and then laid him on the altar. Accentuated here was Abraham’s faith and Isaac’s obedience.
Abraham loved his son, but he loved God more. His love for God did not come about over night, though. It was through the intense trials of his life that positioned him to see God's heart for him. Isaac was God's gift to Abraham, but the gift had to become a sacrifice to God, otherwise the gift would have been more important to him than God. When the gift becomes more important to us than God, it then has become an idol to us. Abraham was a type of God the Father and Isaac of God the Son. Abraham didn’t spare his own son and neither did God. Abraham delivered his son up to God and God delivered His Son up for us.
In v.11-12 of today's passage we read, "11 But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, 'Abraham, Abraham' So he said, 'Here I am.' 12 And He said, 'Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.'"
It was the Angel of the Lord who was prefigured here in the story. The same One who was prefigured here was the very same One who called for the sacrifice to be halted. The very same Lord, however, would receive in full what Isaac was spared from that day on that mountain. God knew, as He knows all things, that Abraham feared Him but in an act of judicial necessity because God governs the world, and for the sake of man’s conscience which needs to be instructed by both practice as well as principle, God tested Abraham. What God knew, Abraham came to know through this most difficult trial. Abraham's faith was tested and it was found to be true. Abraham's fear was being replaced by his faith in God. The Hebrew word translated "fear" has a wide range of meanings, from terror to reverence to trust. This trial revealed that Abraham truly came to understand what it means to "fear" the Lord. It is in fearing God like this and trusting God like this that we experience the depths of friendship with God.
This act by the man of faith and by the son of promise is one of the Old Testament’s most important accounts in understanding what God has done for us through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. For Abraham, this had been a test of obedience, but a test of faith which necessitated obedience. In the case of Isaac, it was a test of obedience which necessitated faith.
In v.13 of today's passage we read, "Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son."
In an amazingly beautiful picture of substitution, God provided a ram in place of Isaac. Instead of the one deserving death receiving such, God sent a substitute to take Isaac's place. We are told in Leviticus 16 that on the Day of Atonement where God covered the people’s sins, a ram was selected as a burnt offering. The ram, along with other animals, was used as a picture of the work of the Lord Jesus on our behalf. The ram was completely burned up as Isaac was supposed to be. This pictures the complete destruction of the one tainted with sin. In Isaac’s case, a ram was also given as a substitute.
This becomes even more beautiful to picture when we note that the very spot where Abraham was to offer his son was the same spot where the temple would be built by Solomon a thousand years later. And this is where those sacrifices of the law were made. But those sacrifices couldn’t truly save anyone as the writer of Hebrews later explains. And so to fulfill God’s plans and to complete the picture they made, God sent His Son, who died, probably in the exact spot where the ram was that Abraham saw "caught in a thicket by his horns."
This picture is complete when we remember that the Lord Jesus was the ram and that He wore a crown of thorns, probably made from a bush that reached twenty feet in height. The crooked branches of this shrub were armed with thorns growing in pairs, a straight spine and a curved one commonly occurring together at each point. This ram became Isaac’s substitute. And the true Lamb, caught in the same thorns woven as a crown on His head in the very same location 1800 years later became the very One who laid down His life for the forgiveness of our sin.
