The Testing of Abraham by Gustave Dore
When was the last time you took a test? If you’re a student, your most recent test was probably one to measure how well you learned the subject matter you were taught. Others may have taken their last test to qualify for a drivers license or professional license. I think the last test I took was the one to become a Canadian citizen.
Most tests are meant to measure competence or ability, but tests can also be teaching tools. They can help us discover our strengths or weaknesses. And sometimes we learn from the mistakes we make and come away knowing more after a test than before it.
In the last two pieces in this series on the faithful people commended in Hebrews 11, we discussed Abraham’s faith. His faith wasn’t perfect, but he did trust God to fulfill his promises, and he stayed faithful during some difficult trials. Before we leave Abraham, we need to discuss one more episode from his life, a time when God gave him a test.
Here’s what Hebrews 11 says:
By faith Abraham when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death (Hebrews 11:17-19).
Do you remember this story? God told Abraham to sacrifice his young son Isaac as an offering to the Lord, so Abraham took Isaac and two servants and set off for the place of sacrifice. When they neared their destination, Abraham told his servants to wait “while I and the boy go over there. We will worship” he said, “and then we will come back to you” (Genesis 22:5).
At the place of sacrifice, Abraham prepared to offer his son to the Lord, but the moment he took the knife to kill Isaac, the angel of the Lord stopped him. “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him” (Genesis 22:12). In the end, Abraham did not sacrifice Isaac, but by being willing to do so he passed what must be one of the most difficult tests God has ever given a human being.
According to the author of Hebrews, Abraham was willing to obey God’s command because he still expected to walk away from the place of sacrifice with a living and breathing Isaac beside him. I must confess that for many years I read this story and thought Abraham was being deceptive when he told his servants that he and Isaac would both be returning to them. But the author of Hebrews took Abraham’s statement at face value. Abraham, he said, was convinced that if he sacrificed Isaac, God would raise him from the dead.
How did the author know what Abraham was thinking? He knew it because he was an attentive reader and a careful thinker. He knew Abraham’s life story well, and he put two and two together.
Remember, this particular test wasn’t the first one God gave Abraham. Before God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, he had already asked him to trust him in some difficult circumstances. When God told Abraham to leave his home in Haran for an unknown destination, he was asking him to leave his past behind and trust God for his future. When God asked him to keep on believing that he would give him an heir even though both Abraham and his wife were very old, he was asking him to continue to trust his future to God even when God’s promise to him seemed impossible to keep.
By the time God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, Abraham had already learned a few important lessons. He knew that God always keeps his word, even when it requires him to do things that seem impossible (Genesis 18:14). He also knew that God would only fulfill his promises through Abraham’s miracle son Isaac (Genesis 21:12). None of his other children would do.
So even as Abraham prepared to sacrifice Isaac, he was sure Isaac would come out of the sacrifice alive because a living Isaac was necessary for God to keep his promises. Abraham reasoned that God, who called into being a living baby from Sarah’s dead womb (Romans 4:17,19) could also call his dead son Isaac back to life in order keep his word.
And he was right—or at least mostly right. Isaac did return from the sacrifice alive, but God didn’t accomplish this in the way Abraham predicted. After the angel of the Lord stopped him from killing Isaac, Abraham looked up and saw “a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns” (Genesis 22:13). Isaac returned with Abraham because the Lord supplied a ram to replace him on the alter. The ram was killed and Isaac lived.
Are you a bit uncomfortable with the idea that God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac? It helps to keep in mind that God’s command was a test. He intended for Abraham to be willing to sacrifice his son, but he never intended for Abraham to actually complete the sacrifice. When he gave his command to Abraham, God already planned to provide a ram to sacrifice instead of Isaac. When he told Abraham to sacrifice his son, God meant for things to unfold exactly as they did.
One of God’s reasons for giving this test was to confirm Abraham’s faith, both for his benefit and ours. Abraham’s faith, attested to by his obedience, was an example for those who lived after him. The author of Hebrews used the story of Abraham’s testing to strengthen the faith of those who first received his letter, and we can use it to strengthen our faith, too.
What’s more, Abraham’s testing and God’s response helped establish a pattern of substitutionary sacrifices that would later be formally instituted in Leviticus and finally fulfilled in Christ. God intended the near sacrifice of Abraham’s son to foreshadow the true sacrifice of God’s own son.
I can’t help but think that God also meant for the near sacrifice of Isaac to foreshadow Christ’s resurrection. Since Abraham was determined to sacrifice Isaac, we might say Isaac was as good as dead. “[S]o in a manner of speaking,” the author of Hebrews argues, “[Abraham] did receive Isaac back from death.” Following the faint outline traced by Isaac’s return from near death, God the Father received back his Son from actual death by way of actual resurrection.
Do you think when Jesus taught that Abraham “saw [my day] and was glad (John 8:56),” he was referring to this story? Did God use this test of his faith to also teach Abraham? Did he use it to point him toward Christ’s future work of salvation?
The bottom line is that Abraham’s obedience to God’s command flowed from his faith—or, to put it another way, what he believed about God gave him the power to obey. The author of Hebrews used the example of Abrahams’s faithfulness to encourage his readers to maintain their allegiance to Jesus during their trials. (And “trials,” by the way, is just another way of saying “tests.”) If they, like Abraham, believed that God would keep his promises no matter what, they would be able to persevere in faith during the persecution that would come. If they believed God possessed resurrection power, they would be able to face the possibility of dying for their faith with courage, knowing that just as he had raised Jesus, he would also raise them.
The same principle applies to us. It’s what we believe about God that empowers steadfast obedience—and, for those of us who live after the time of Jesus, it’s what believe about him, too.
Do you really believe that God always keeps his word? That he has unlimited power even over death? Do you believe that God raised his son Jesus from the dead, and that all who are in the Son will one day be raised with him? Do you believe that Jesus is a powerful savior? That “he is able to save completely those who come to God through him” (Hebrews 7:25)?
Then let what you know keep you trusting in God’s promises and Christ’s sacrifice, the sacrifice to which the ram that substituted for Isaac pointed. If you do, God will one day raise you to eternal life, just as he promised.
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