Tuesday
Tuesday
The Testing of Abraham’s Faith
Some time later God tested Abraham.
Genesis 22:1
A welcome mark of the realism of the Bible is that it does not conceal the faults and failings of the great. Abraham is an example. In an amazing act of faith, he had left his home and family “even though he did not know where he was going” (Heb. 11:8). But then, driven by famine to take refuge in Egypt, he asked Sarah (because she was a very beautiful woman) to tell people that she was his sister, not his wife. It was a despicable action, risking her safety to secure his. The root of it was unbelief (Gen. 12:10–20).
After noting this glaring contrast between faith and doubt, we naturally ask ourselves how Abraham will respond to the extreme test of his faith, namely God’s instruction to him to sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering. We may be sure that the first purpose of this terrible command was to tell Abraham that Yahweh did not require human sacrifice, for it was one of the chief abominations committed by the people of Canaan on account of which God commanded their destruction (see the discussion on Sunday of week 8).
But the story also had a deeper meaning. Three times Isaac is most touchingly described as “your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love” (22:2). This identifies him not only as a precious only boy but as the unique one of whom God had said that “it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned” (21:12). Abraham and Sarah had waited for years for the birth of this child of promise; were they now to secure his death?
Abraham clung to God’s assurance that his promises would be fulfilled in Isaac’s line. He even “reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death” (Heb. 11:19). It was a superlative act of faith and obedience.
For further reading: Hebrews 11:8–19