Genesis 22:3 - Meaning and Application

Here we see Abraham’s obedience to this severe command. When he was tested, he offered up Isaac, as Hebrews 11:17 says. Many hard things stood in his way, but he pushed through them all.

It looked, at first, like this command went against God’s earlier law against murder, given with a serious penalty (Genesis 9:5, 9:6). Could the unchanging God command one thing now and forbid it before? The God who hates using robbery for a burnt offering (Isaiah 61:8) could not take pleasure in murder for a sacrifice.

It also cut across all natural love for his own son. This would have been more than murder, it would have been the worst kind of murder. Could Abraham obey God only by becoming unnatural? If God required a human sacrifice, why must Isaac be the victim, and why must Abraham be the one to do it? Must the father of the faithful become the worst of fathers?

God also gave him no reason for it. When Ishmael was sent away, Abraham was shown a just cause, and that satisfied him. But here Isaac must die, and Abraham must kill him, and neither one is told why. If Isaac were dying as a martyr for the truth, or if his life were saving someone more worthy, it would be different. Or if he had died as a criminal, as a rebel against God or his parents, like the idolater or the stubborn son (Deuteronomy 13:8, 13:9; 21:18, 21:19), it might have fit with justice. But that was not the case. He was dutiful, obedient, and full of promise. “Lord, what good is there in his blood?”

How could this fit with God’s promise? Had God not said that Abraham’s offspring would come through Isaac? What would become of that promise if this young life were cut off so soon? How could Abraham ever face Sarah again? What could he say when he came home with Isaac’s blood on his clothes? Sarah might say, as in Exodus 4:25, 4:26, “You have brought blood into my house.” That could have turned her heart against both Abraham and his God.

What would the Egyptians say, and the Canaanites and Perizzites, who lived in the land then? It would bring lasting shame on Abraham and on his altars. “Welcome, nature, if this is grace.” Many more objections could have been raised. But Abraham was fully sure this was truly God’s command and not a mistake. That was enough to answer them all.

God’s commands must not be debated, but obeyed. We must not take advice from flesh and blood about them (Galatians 1:15, 1:16). Instead, we must hold firmly to obedience with holy stubbornness.

Now look at the steps of Abraham’s obedience. Each one makes his faith and prudence more clear.

First, he rose early, as Genesis 22:3 says. The command was probably given in the night visions, and he set out the next morning. He did not delay, argue, or sit down to think it over. The command was direct and gave no room for debate. Those who truly do God’s will will do it quickly. Delay wastes time and hardens the heart.

He also got everything ready for the sacrifice. It seems he even split the wood with his own hands, as if he had been a servant himself. He wanted nothing to be lacking when the sacrifice was to be made. In the same way, spiritual sacrifices should be prepared carefully.

It is very likely that he said nothing about it to Sarah. This was a journey she must not know about, or she might stop it. There is already enough in our own hearts to hold us back from duty. We should keep out, as much as we can, of other distractions too.

He carefully looked for the place God had appointed, the place where God had promised to guide him by some sign. Perhaps the direction came through a display of God’s glory there, like a pillar of fire reaching from heaven to earth and visible from far away. That may be why he said in Genesis 22:5, “We will go over there, where you see the light, and worship.”

He left his servants some distance away, as Genesis 22:5 says, so they would not interfere or disturb him in this strange act of worship. Isaac was surely the favorite of the whole household. In the same way, when Christ went into his agony in the garden, he took only three disciples with him and left the rest at the entrance. When we go to worship God, it is wise and right to set aside thoughts and cares that will distract us. Leave them behind, so we can attend on the Lord without distraction.

He made Isaac carry the wood. This tested Isaac’s obedience in a smaller matter first. It also pointed forward to Christ, who carried his own cross (John 19:17). Abraham himself, though he knew what he was doing, carried the knife and fire with steady courage, Genesis 22:6. Those who, by grace, are settled on the main matter of serving or suffering for God should not be shaken by the smaller hardships that still make the work harder for human weakness.

Without any confusion or outward upset, he spoke with Isaac as though this were only a common sacrifice, Genesis 22:7, 22:8. Isaac asked a deeply moving question as they walked together: “My father.” That tender word, one would think, would pierce Abraham more deeply than the knife would pierce Isaac. Abraham might have thought, “Do not call me father, for I am about to kill you.” Yet he kept his calm and his composure in a remarkable way.

Isaac’s question was, “Here is the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb?” He clearly knew the usual pattern of sacrifice. This shows the value of careful teaching. It was a trying question for Abraham, because Isaac himself was the lamb, though Abraham could not yet say so. It also teaches us something important: when we go to worship God, we should ask whether everything is ready, especially the lamb for the burnt offering.

The fire is ready, meaning the Spirit’s help and God’s welcome. The wood is ready, meaning the appointed duties and practices that stir our hearts. Without the Spirit, those are only wood without fire, but the Spirit works through them. All things are ready, but where is the lamb? Where is the heart? Is it ready to be offered to God and rise to him like a burnt offering?

Abraham’s answer was wise: “My son, God will provide himself a lamb.” These words may show the language of his obedience.

“We must offer the lamb that God has appointed to be offered.” In this way, Abraham was given a general rule of submission to God’s will, so he would be ready to apply it to himself very soon. Or, if we look at it another way, this also became a lesson about faith. Whether Abraham meant it that way or not, that was the meaning that came true, because a sacrifice was provided in Isaac’s place.

First, Christ, the great sacrifice for sin, was provided by God. When no one in heaven or on earth could find a lamb for that burnt offering, God himself provided the ransom (Psalm 89:20). Second, our sacrifices of thanks are provided by God too. He is the one who prepares the heart (Psalm 10:17). A broken and sorrowful spirit is a sacrifice from God (Psalm 51:17), because he is the one who gives it.

With the same steady resolve, after many thoughts and many inward struggles, Abraham went on to finish the sacrifice (Genesis 22:9, Genesis 22:10). He kept moving forward in holy determination. After many weary steps, and with a heavy heart, he finally reached the place of death. He built the altar, likely an altar of earth, the saddest one he ever built, though he had built many altars before. Then he arranged the wood for Isaac’s funeral fire, and now he told Isaac the shocking news: “Isaac, you are the lamb God has provided.”

Isaac, as far as we can tell, was as willing as Abraham. We do not read that he objected, begged for his life, tried to run away, much less struggled with his old father or resisted him. Abraham was doing this because God wanted it done, and Isaac had learned to submit to both. Abraham likely comforted him with the same hope that strengthened his own faith. Yet the sacrifice had to be bound.

The great sacrifice that was to be offered in the fullness of time had to be bound, and so Isaac was bound too. But what a painful task for tender-hearted Abraham, tying those innocent hands that had often been raised to ask for his blessing, or stretched out to embrace him. Those hands were now tied more tightly by the cords of love and duty. Still, it had to be done. After binding him, Abraham laid him on the altar and placed his hand on the head of the sacrifice. We can imagine him then giving and receiving the final farewell through many tears, a parting kiss, and perhaps another kiss for Sarah from her dying son.

When this was done, Abraham firmly set aside a father’s feelings and took on the solemn role of a sacrificer. With a steady heart and his eyes lifted toward heaven, he took the knife and stretched out his hand to cut Isaac’s throat. Let heaven be astonished, and let the earth wonder. Here is an act of faith and obedience that deserves to be seen by God, angels, and people. Abraham’s beloved son, Sarah’s laughter, the church’s hope, the heir of promise, lay ready to bleed and die by his own father’s hand, and Abraham did not shrink from it.

This obedience of Abraham in offering Isaac gives a vivid picture of two things. First, it shows God’s love for us, in giving up his only Son to suffer and die for us as a sacrifice. It was the Lord himself who was pleased to bruise him (Isaiah 53:10; Zechariah 13:7). Abraham was under both duty and gratitude when he gave up Isaac, and he gave him to a friend. But God was under no obligation to us, because we were his enemies.

Second, Abraham’s act shows our duty to God in response to that love. We must follow the faith of Abraham. By his Word, God calls us to give up everything for Christ, all our sins, even if they have become as dear to us as a right hand, a right eye, or an Isaac, and all the things that compete with Christ for rule in the heart (Luke 14:26). We must let them all go willingly. And by his providence, which is truly God speaking, he sometimes calls us to give up an Isaac. When he does, we must submit with cheerful resignation to his holy will (1 Samuel 3:18).