The Heart of a Son

One of the greatest events of the Old Testament is the sacrifice of Isaac. God directed Abraham to sacrifice his only son; this was the trial of faith God sent Abraham to see if he really trusted and loved God. This time, Abraham passed this very difficult test. There are many parallels between Isaac and Jesus here.

Abraham had to walk for three days to get to the place of the sacrifice. In his mind, Isaac was as good as dead for those three days. “On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. Then Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the ass; I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.’ And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together” (Genesis 22:4-6). Isaac carried the wood for the burnt offering; this is no task for a young boy for that is a decent amount of wood to be carried to a place “afar off.”

This carrying of the wood is fulfilled when Jesus takes up His cross to His sacrifice. Another similarity between the two is that Isaac’s sacrifice and Calvary where Jesus was sacrificed are both on Mount Moriah, so they both take place in the same general geographical location. Jesus and Isaac are both righteous first-born sons and only children who are sacrificed by their father. Both are tests of faith. Instead of Isaac actually being killed, there was a ram caught by its horns in a thorn bush, and this is a symbol of Jesus being crowned with thorns.

Jesus willingly offered Himself up to the Father. Did Isaac willingly offer himself? Abraham was 100 when Isaac was born, and now Isaac is at least a teenager which would make Abraham somewhere between 115 and 135 years old. If Isaac is strong enough to carry all that wood such a long distance, surely he is strong enough to escape from an elderly man. Since Abraham bound Isaac, doesn’t that mean Isaac was not a willing victim? Not necessarily. If Isaac could easily overpower his father, then he would want to be bound before he offered himself so that he would not escape when the time arrived. Out of fear Isaac could change his mind and escape from his father if he is not bound; he does not want to do escape; he wants to offer himself.

At the first, Isaac did not know that he was going to be the victim. He was walking with his father with the wood on his back, “and Isaac said to his father Abraham, ‘My father!’ And he said, ‘Here am I, my son.’ He said, ‘Behold, the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?’ Abraham said, ‘God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.’ So they went both of them together (Genesis 22:7-8). Isaac soon finds out that he is the sacrifice, that he is the lamb. Yet on another level, Abraham is prophesying about the Lamb of God that the Father will send—Jesus.

As Abraham was in the act of sacrificing his son, “the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here am I.’ He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the lad 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’” (Genesis 22:11-12). Abraham passes his ultimate test of faith for he believes God will raise Isaac even from the dead. Isaac, too, believes in God that God will resurrect his body so that he can go on to be the father of a multitude. For three days, Abraham considered his son to be dead, and on this third day, he re-gains his only son; this, of course, parallels Jesus’ three-day-old death which was followed by his resurrection.

Isaac is spared the knife, but a sacrifice still needs to take place. Abraham looked up and saw a ram with his horns entangled in a thorn bush. “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 22:13-14). Isaac was passed over, and God provided the sacrifice.

God is so pleased with Abraham and Isaac’s trusting hearts that He does something which is no where else recorded in Scripture. He swears by Himself and puts Himself under a curse. “By myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore. And your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves, because you have obeyed my voice” (Genesis 22: 16-18).

This is Israel’s life-insurance policy which saves them and brings them out of Egypt, keeps them alive after the Golden Calf, keeps them alive after the ten faithless spies don’t trust God to give them the Promised Land, keeps them alive with all their grumbling in the desert, keeps them alive when the second generation was about to go into the promised land and they sinned again with Baal of Peor. It is Abraham and Isaac’s faithfulness which keeps them going, for God has sworn to bless them and to have all the nations bless themselves by Abraham’s descendants.

This sacrifice brought down so many blessing upon the earth. It became Israel’s life-line, and it would be what called down God from heaven. Because God swore an oath to bless the nations through Abraham’s descendants, He was under a curse to make this happen. Jesus takes this curse upon Himself as Paul explains: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree’—that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:13-14). Paul is quoting Deuteronomy 21:23, and he sees the curse Christ took on for our sakes as the fulfillment of the oath sworn to Abraham. God became accursed so we could be blessed.

God tests us, and that testing is not only for our sakes and benefit. When we are faithful to God, in whatever capacity and to whatever degree, we bring blessings upon the earth. God does not save us against our will and in spite of ourselves; He wants us to cooperate with Him and to participate in our own and others’ redemption. Insofar as we imitate Abraham and Isaac and their unreserved and total gift of self, insofar as we lay down our life for our beloved like Jesus, this is the degree we are blessed by God and bring many blessing upon the world around us. World peace comes about through this type of self-sacrifice.

In baptism we receive adoption as sons, “and because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Galatians 4:6). These are the words of Isaac as he asked his father where the sacrificial lamb was that they were going to slay. Abraham tells him a bit later that Isaac himself is the lamb. Baptism makes us children of God who are willing to lay down our lives for others and to be faithful to God to the point of shedding our blood. The Eucharist is that pierced heart of Jesus on the cross that replaces our dead, stony heart so that we, too, can love with such a love and lay down our life in service to others in all that we do, both big and small.




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