When I decided to pursue a doctoral degree a few years ago, I had to jump through a number of hoops. I had to have transcripts of my undergraduate and master’s level work sent to the institution. I had to get letters of reference. I had to write an essay talking about my call to ministry and why I’d like to be considered for the program. And I had to take a test called the Miller Analogies Test and score above a certain threshold. The Miller Analogies Test is an hour-long timed exam that a number of graduate schools use to measure an applicant’s ability to think analytically. It not only assesses your general knowledge but also your ability to identify connections between items … which means it’s one of those tests you really can’t study or cram for. You either know it and can do it, or you don’t and you can’t. The pressure I felt was immense, for so much was riding on it.
All of us have undoubtedly taken a test at some point in our life and felt the angst of knowing significant consequences are attached to the outcome. For those who long to go to medical school there’s the MCAT. For those who’ve completed law school, there’s the BAR exam. If you want to become a Navy seal, there’s a physical screening test. And you can undoubtedly think of others. We all know the mental pressure and emotional load that comes with the territory of testing.
But the Bible records a test—a gut-wrenching test God gave Abraham that makes for an account that’s very difficult to read—a test that far exceeds anything any of us has ever dealt with. It’s found in Genesis 22.
Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied.
Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”
Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”
Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. (Genesis 22:1-6a – NIV)
When God approached Abraham, He did soft pedal or tone down what He was up to. He told him exactly what he wanted him to do—sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering. I don’t think it’s possible for us to understand how much this came as a gut-punch to Abraham. To have held on against all odds to the promise of God … to have left behind everything that was common and familiar and travel to an unknown land at the instruction of God … to have seen Him miraculously break through in answer to that promise after you’d attempted to engineer an answer on your own and failed miserably … and then to have God ask you to sacrifice and surrender the child through which the promise was supposed to come—we can’t fully appreciate how challenging and difficult a situation this was for Abraham.
But look at how Abraham responds: “Early the next morning … (v. 3a)”. Abraham didn’t hesitate. He didn’t stall … or fluctuate … or delay. He immediately set about doing what he believed God was asking him to do.
How awkward and uncomfortable that three-day trip must have been. There was probably an eerie silence that fell over the entire journey. I can imagine Abraham reminiscing and re-living the memorable events from his son’s life—his first steps … some of the amusing and funny things that happened in the course of his growing up … memorable conversations they’d had as father and son. I also imagine him being deeply shaken in light of the reality of what God was asking him to do. He was struggling to get his mind around why a God who’d made a promise to him would ask him to do something that would shut it down before it could ever be fully realized. God had been very clear that Abraham would be the father of nations and Isaac would be the one through whom the promise would be fulfilled. My guess is we’ve all been at that place where we’ve asked God, “What in the world are you doing? I don’t remotely begin to understand.” I know I have!
Abraham only had two choices: (1) Believe God had gone back on His word or (2) believe He still had a plan to fulfill His promise even if he did what He was asking. Abraham had walked with God long enough to know that God was a God who kept His promises. So, he concluded that God must have a way of working things out and keeping His promise even if what he sensed God was asking him to do didn’t add up or make sense.
If you read the text closely, it appears Abraham believed God could raise his son from the dead … even though that had never happened before. We understand the concept of resurrection—in fact, the resurrection of Jesus is the foundation of our faith. But this was more than 2000 years before the resurrection. But what Abraham said to his servants in v. 5 was, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” He used the word “we”—not “I”. I don’t think he was being deceptive or delusional about the intent of their trip—He knew precisely what God was asking of him. Nor do I think he was trying to mislead or deceive his servants so they wouldn’t stop him. I honestly think he believed God would somehow be true to His promise … even if he did what He sensed the Lord was asking him to do. The trust Abraham exhibits is exceptional.
As Abraham and Isaac embarked on the journey and headed up the mountain, Isaac was seemingly still in the dark about what was in his father’s mind:
As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?” “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied. “The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.
When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”
Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. (Genesis 22:6b-13 – NIV).
So many elements of this story are fascinating. But perhaps the most interesting and intriguing is how Isaac came to be placed on the altar by his father. Remember—Abraham was an old man at this time. Isaac was likely in his upper teens or early twenties. He was no longer at an age where his father could subdue him physically. He could have easily outrun or overpowered his dad to avoid being bound and placed on the altar. He had to willingly sign on and agree to let his father snuff out his life until, at the very last instant, God stopped Abraham’s hand and directed him to a ram caught in the thicket.
There are a number of lessons and insights that we can take away from this story. But perhaps none is more important than this … that God tests us, not to harass or harm or bully us, but to perfect us and help us grow. God’s objective is not to make us uncomfortable or to cause us injury or pain. Rather, God wants to forge in us a depth of reliance and trust in Him that would be impossible apart from the test. He tests us for our benefit—not for our detriment. Think about it: The reason for this “test” was not about God finding out where Abraham was—He already knew! He’s omniscient. Nor was it about putting Abraham in an impossible situation so He’d fail and deal with the negative consequences … and so God could derive a perverse sense of satisfaction from watching him struggle. It was about Abraham moving to a deeper level of knowledge and maturity—a place of increased reliance and confidence in God.
Granted—tests are typically painful. If we knew in advance what was in the works, we’d probably choose to bypass it. But God uses those times of testing in incredibly beneficial ways. For when we face times of testing and opt to cling to God and find Him faithful, our faith grows greatly. As I look back at my life, it’s those seasons of exceptional challenge and difficulty—those times when life got really hard and I wanted to believe God was up to something, but I didn’t know what it was or why He was doing what He was doing—that were my times of greatest growth when my trust in Him soared. At the end of the day, tests are not about God learning something new about us so much as it is about our confidence in His character and faithfulness going to a new level.
A second and equally valuable lesson from this story is that our faith is not revealed by what we claim to know or what we say we believe, but by what we do. Knowing and doing are two completely different experiences that result in two completely different outcomes. But how often do we use the fact we say we know something to excuse our reticence or unwillingness to do? How many times have we said “I know … I know … I know” as a justification to excuse our hesitancy to do something? Saying we know is often held up as grounds to justify and defend our refusal to do. We turn to it as if that’s enough—and it’s not!
One of the clear takeaways from this story is that Abraham’s faith was evidenced by what He did. He believed God so much that He did what He was asking him to do—even though it didn’t make sense … even though he didn’t understand … even though the thought of it was incomprehensibly painful. Until God stepped in and said, “Don’t do it!”, Abraham was willing to follow through and fulfill what He perceived God was leading him to do. Which raises the very pertinent question for us: Do our lives truly reflect the kind of faith and belief we claim to have? When we claim God is your top priority, does the way we live truly reinforce that claim? Quite often it’s really easy for us to talk a good game about our faith. But what we truly believe is always revealed, not by what we say, but by what we do and how we live.
Third—real faith involves a willingness to sacrifice. Again … imagine what this must have been like for Abraham. Nothing was more precious to him than his son. He’d waited for this child his entire adult life. Isaac was the fulfillment of a promise that was decades in the making. For God to come along and say, “I want you to relinquish that? I want you to give that which I gave you back to me?” I can’t fathom how excruciating and incomprehensible a situation this was for Abraham.
But it raises a very thought-provoking question: What might be the “Isaac” in your life and mine? What is there that, if God were to ask us to give it up, we’d struggle with? What things might we be tempted to hold on to rather than relinquish and surrender to Him? If we take inventory of our lives and ask what we’d have trouble sacrificing if the Lord were to ask us to do it, then chances are we’ve uncovered something that either is—or has the potential to be—an idol to us. And the presence of idols are at odds with a life of complete and profound trust.
This story really gets under my skin because, when I look at Abraham, I’m not sure I really trust God that much. I don’t think, had it been me, I could have done what He did. I’m not sure, when it came right down to it, I’d be willing to offer up and sacrifice that which is most precious to me. But this story also gets under my skin because it’s a picture of what my Heavenly Father did for me thousands of years later. Only this time there wasn’t someone to cry out at the last minute and stay the hand of the executioner. This time there wasn’t someone to spare the life of the son. This time there wasn’t a ram caught in the thicket that could step in and take the condemned one’s place. Jesus was the ram in the thicket for us. He signed on to the plan of His Father and become the perfect sacrifice who absorbed the blow and took the punishment we deserved.
A friend recently told me about someone he knew deciding to swear off God altogether because of this story and the audacity of such an inhumane request—the nerve of God even putting Abraham in such a position in the first place. What kind of monster would even make such a request to begin with? Yes—on the surface it is a very cruel and brazen ask on God’s part! But when you realize it is an example of the lengths to which He would go to demonstrate His love for us, it begins to paint things in a different light. We see this story differently—not as a ruthless demand from a callous and heartless God, but as the foreshadowing of an empathetic act of compassion and tenderness engaged in for our benefit from an unbelievably loving one.