Sunday March 6, 2011 | Greg Boyd
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, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”
Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled 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. 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[a] caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.
The Genesis passage of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac, raises questions about trusting in God. In this sermon, Greg honestly probes some of those questions about the passage. He also provides some thoughts on how we can replicate Abraham’s faith.
When we started this series on faith, we tackled a passage about God wrestling Jacob. This passage had a lot of questions surrounding it, and we took an honest look at it. As we finish up the series, we will again take another look at a troubling passage, and try to see what we can learn about faith.
In Genesis 22, God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Isaac had been promised, by God, to Abraham. Isaac also represented all of God’s promises to Abraham, and so this story begins with a lot of tension and questions. One scholar has even called it the most horrendous tale in the bible. We will ask a few questions of the text in trying to understand the text.
The first question that we encounter is “how could God ask this?” It seems that God is asking Abraham to commit murder, and if God is the one asking Abraham to commit murder, then God is at least partly responsible for that murder. But God is a good God, and surely he couldn’t ask of such a thing? God can’t lie, cheat, steal, or murder, so why does it seem like God is asking for this?
We must be careful when we read this text, and really take a look at the context of the situation. Abraham was living in ancient times, where there were “gods” that wanted the sacrifice of firstborns. Abraham may not have been too surprised at such a request—maybe. He had been walking with God for a few decades now, and had grown to know him. Yet, we see God requesting the sacrifice of Isaac. This type of sacrifice seems horrendous to us and out of place for God’s character, but may have been something Abraham could see any “god” asking of a human.
Our second question that is raised is “how do we know that Abraham knew it was God that told him to do this?” The text really never answers this for us. Knowing what we know of God in Jesus Christ, we can safely and accurately know that God would not ask anyone to sacrifice their child or kill another human. Any voice that might tell you to kill someone is not God and should be questioned and/or dismissed.
Abraham was between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, he believed and trusted what God told him to do. On the other, he knew that God was a good god and that this sacrifice didn’t make much sense to him. One thing we learn from the text is this–we see that Abraham carried forward trusting God’s character despite God’s word. God asked him to sacrifice Isaac, but Abraham believed that “we will come back” to the servants and “God will provide the lamb for the burnt offering.” He trusted that God was not like the other “gods” of the ancient times, even if God was requesting something that other ancient “gods” would have requested.
We are caught in the same place when reading things like this text. We know the character of God through Jesus. We know that God is non-violent, loving, and that God works good in every situation for us. Yet, we read some monstrous depictions of God in the Old Testament. Some of us may even believe that God is doing bad things in our lives, and is responsible for the life that we don’t want to live. We need to trust in the revelation of Jesus, and see the text through the eyes of that revelation.
The second thing that we learn about faith from this story is the idea of offering up everything to God. God commended Abraham, not for sacrificing his son, but for having the heart to offer everything to God. God wants the heart but not the action of a sacrifice of a beloved son. And we all hold things tightly on this earth, as Abraham held tightly to his miracle son. Whether it is security of finance, our wants of happiness and health, or our freedom to choose our own path instead of following Jesus, we all carry something that is difficult to give to God. Out of God’s love, it is in our interest to turn these things over to God now rather than later. God’s love will one day purify us from these desires to hang onto earthly things, but in the meantime, it will make following Jesus easier if we can give up that which we don’t want to give up. This is trusting in God’s character and love despite what we might feel on this earth.