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Full Episode
Hey Bible Readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. Yesterday, we saw God fulfilling his 25-year-old promise to Abraham by giving him a son, Isaac. Today, we hit a pretty important story in Abraham's life. There are some really unique language things happening here that we need to pay attention to.
So first, we start out with God's call to Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. This is crazy, right? Human sacrifice? That's not the God we know, is it? No, you're right. It isn't. God does not delight in human sacrifice. This becomes obvious later, but it's even hinted at here. Abraham is called to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, not to sacrifice him. It's an offer God rejects, fortunately.
And here's another interesting language detail. God also refers to Isaac as Abraham's only son, which we know isn't literally true because of Ishmael. But in terms of the uniqueness of God's covenant with Abraham, it certainly is true. You may remember that when God commanded Abraham to be circumcised, he immediately obeyed. And we see the same thing happening here.
Abraham and Isaac set out on their journey early the next morning. Some of the toughest assignments in all of Scripture are given to Abraham— And he doesn't seem to hesitate with any of it. First of all, Abraham knows that God is not going to make him kill Isaac. Or that if he does, God will raise him from the dead. Which, by the way, is something we have no biblical record of prior to this.
According to Hebrews 11, Abraham's faith is a huge faith. It's a faith that believes in something that has never yet been done. But it's not the size of our faith that makes things happen. It's the plan of God. And God's plan is for Isaac to live, but for Abraham to be tested. God knows our hearts, but the testing he puts us through reveals a lot to us about what we truly believe.
And Abraham willingly faces the test. Now, here's where a lot of us may be shocked, because most of us have gotten our theology from Renaissance paintings, which I've previously mentioned as being terrible Bible teachers. Most of us picture Isaac as being a young boy when this happens, like five or six years old. But most Jewish historians say he's probably 25 to 30.
And even logic would tell us that a small boy couldn't carry the large amount of wood required for an animal sacrifice up a mountain. At the very least, he would have been a teenager. This also points us to the fact that anyone who is strong enough to carry wood up a mountain is strong enough to resist their elderly dad when he tries to kill him.
Abraham is well over 100 years old at this point, but Isaac doesn't resist being the sacrifice, just like Christ. And the wood that is laid on him that he carried up the mountain, does that sound familiar? This whole story is actually pointing us towards something greater than Isaac. Isaac is a Christ type, a foreshadowing.
But then, as Isaac is on the altar, we see an appearance of the Angel of the Lord, capital L-O-R-D. In other words, God the Son before he is born on earth as Jesus. He shows up and puts a stop to things. God provides a substitute. God provides the sacrifice, just like Abraham says in 22.8. It reminds me that all my sacrifices to God and for God originate as gifts from God.
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