Day 7 - Genesis 21-23

ONE-YEAR JOURNEY OF THE BIBLE

Day 7 - Genesis 21-23 (Would You Kill Your Child if God Told You?)

“Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am."  Then He said, "Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you." …

And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.  But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" So he said, "Here I am."  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."  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 22:1-2, 10-13)

This is undoubtedly one of the most difficult passages in the Bible to comprehend and I know my title does help ease the difficulty.  It does, however, drive the point very pointedly.  If you were in Abraham’s sandals, would you take your son whom you love more than anything in life and kill him because God told you to?

Before you shut off this whole account in the Bible as fiction or as something that did not happen, you need to understand a few things:

1. God is God and He cannot be unjust or be the author of evil; therefore, He must have a just and righteous reason for everything He does no matter how wrong it may appear to us.  In the case of our text, God never intended for Abraham to kill Isaac but only to test Abraham’s obedience.  God already had provided a ram as an offering even before Abraham decided to obey God.
2. Abraham spoke with God on many occasions as a man speaks with another man and so we can conclude that Abraham was not disiilusioned when he heard God command him to kill Isaac as an offering to Him.  As the whole Scripture testifies, God indeed commanded Abraham to kill Isaac:

“By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, "In Isaac your seed shall be called," concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.”  (Hebrews 11:17-19)

3. We know from the passage above in Hebrews that Abraham was fully resolved to kill his son Isaac and reconciled his dilemna by believing that God will raise up his son Isaac from the dead which He did in a figurative sense.

What is the lesson for us from Abraham’s test of obedience?  One lesson for me is this:  No matter how difficult or impossible God’s commandent may appear, my response must be that of absolute obedience knowing that God is good and just and always has my best interest in mind.