Thoughts on Genesis 22 – Part I
Yesterday morning I had another chance to preach at a sister church about an hour and a half south of where we live. I love these opportunities whenever they arise because I really love to preach and because I get to spend a little more time focused on a particular passage of scripture in a way that I do not normally do in preparation for teaching or in my own reading.
For the text, I chose Genesis 22, the chapter about God commanding Abraham to offer Isaac as a burnt offering. These thoughts are things beyond what I was able to cover in my single message, but they are thoughts which have richly blessed me over the past week as I have reflected on this portion of the Word.
Whenever I’ve dealt with this passage in the past, I’ve always approached it as a myopic on Abraham’s faith. The main character in the story is Abraham, and this passage is a tribute to Abraham’s absolute faith in God and God’s provision of a lamb for the sacrifice. The applications I’ve heard and given myself could be boiled down to “we should have faith like Abraham” and there is the typical nod to Jesus, the ultimate Lamb that God would provide, who is foreshadowed by the ram caught in the thicket.
Certainly, these are valid themes and right applications of the text – but I am convinced that there is far more here than that and to focus on Abraham as the main character in the story is a superficial reading of the text. The main character in the story is not Abraham, it is God. The main theme of the story is not Abraham’s faith, but God’s faithfulness.
Consider the situation, as if we ever could fully conceive of what this was like for Abraham. But try to put yourself in Abraham’s shoes for a minute. God says to him, “Offer your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac.” Each of the four phrases in the command had to be like a dagger right through Abraham’s heart as each builds on the one before and makes the magnitude of the command more and more acute. “Offer your son.” But just so it’s clear, as if Abraham needed to be reminded, God points out that this is, “your only son.” Not only is this his only son, but this is the son whom he loves. And God doesn’t stop there, he calls him by name, Isaac – laughter - to call to Abraham’s mind all that this precious child meant to him and to his wife, Sarah. Laughter, joy, delight and how great was that joy that this child brought to a 90 year old woman and her 100 year old husband!
And God commands Abraham to kill him, to take a knife and plunge it into his chest, on an altar of sacrifice to his God.
What is going on here? Should this lead us to cringe that the God of love and compassion commands this brutality? Is this barbaric on God’s part? Is this some sort of cruel joke being played on Abraham? Is God like the mean kid next door in Toy Story who takes apart toys and puts them back together as monstrosities or just blows them up on a whim, just because he can?
It is all that, and more, if you throw out all that God has already done in Abraham’s life - if you forget what God has taught Abraham over the 35 or so years leading up to the point that he commands this sacrifice.
However, if I approach this story with the conviction that God is good and all that God does is good, if I have that already established in my mind as Abraham did, I can move past trying to interpret His motives or questioning His love. If I know, as Abraham did, that God is absolutely faithful and He always keeps His promises, I don’t cringe in embarrassment at what I interpret as brutality on God’s part, I rejoice in God’s faithfulness and I am free to see the grace of God and the glory of God in this episode.
If you are always throwing out “absolutism,” if nothing about God remains knowable, you will spend a lot of time in very uncomfortable territory and you will eventually slide over the edge into something that might be called generous, but the something will not be orthodoxy.
Which brings me full circle back to the point. What you believe IN matters more than the fact that you believe because your belief is only as good as the object on which it is fixed. Abraham’s faith, as great as it was, was nothing without the One-Who-Is-Faithful to back it up. The main character in the story is not Abraham, it is God and the main point in the passage is not Abraham’s faith but God’s faithfulness.
How does commanding Abraham to offer his beloved only son Isaac highlight the faithfulness of God? That is the rest of the story and for that we have to roll back to the beginning of Abraham’s story, back in Genesis 12…
For the text, I chose Genesis 22, the chapter about God commanding Abraham to offer Isaac as a burnt offering. These thoughts are things beyond what I was able to cover in my single message, but they are thoughts which have richly blessed me over the past week as I have reflected on this portion of the Word.
Whenever I’ve dealt with this passage in the past, I’ve always approached it as a myopic on Abraham’s faith. The main character in the story is Abraham, and this passage is a tribute to Abraham’s absolute faith in God and God’s provision of a lamb for the sacrifice. The applications I’ve heard and given myself could be boiled down to “we should have faith like Abraham” and there is the typical nod to Jesus, the ultimate Lamb that God would provide, who is foreshadowed by the ram caught in the thicket.
Certainly, these are valid themes and right applications of the text – but I am convinced that there is far more here than that and to focus on Abraham as the main character in the story is a superficial reading of the text. The main character in the story is not Abraham, it is God. The main theme of the story is not Abraham’s faith, but God’s faithfulness.
Consider the situation, as if we ever could fully conceive of what this was like for Abraham. But try to put yourself in Abraham’s shoes for a minute. God says to him, “Offer your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac.” Each of the four phrases in the command had to be like a dagger right through Abraham’s heart as each builds on the one before and makes the magnitude of the command more and more acute. “Offer your son.” But just so it’s clear, as if Abraham needed to be reminded, God points out that this is, “your only son.” Not only is this his only son, but this is the son whom he loves. And God doesn’t stop there, he calls him by name, Isaac – laughter - to call to Abraham’s mind all that this precious child meant to him and to his wife, Sarah. Laughter, joy, delight and how great was that joy that this child brought to a 90 year old woman and her 100 year old husband!
And God commands Abraham to kill him, to take a knife and plunge it into his chest, on an altar of sacrifice to his God.
What is going on here? Should this lead us to cringe that the God of love and compassion commands this brutality? Is this barbaric on God’s part? Is this some sort of cruel joke being played on Abraham? Is God like the mean kid next door in Toy Story who takes apart toys and puts them back together as monstrosities or just blows them up on a whim, just because he can?
It is all that, and more, if you throw out all that God has already done in Abraham’s life - if you forget what God has taught Abraham over the 35 or so years leading up to the point that he commands this sacrifice.
However, if I approach this story with the conviction that God is good and all that God does is good, if I have that already established in my mind as Abraham did, I can move past trying to interpret His motives or questioning His love. If I know, as Abraham did, that God is absolutely faithful and He always keeps His promises, I don’t cringe in embarrassment at what I interpret as brutality on God’s part, I rejoice in God’s faithfulness and I am free to see the grace of God and the glory of God in this episode.
If you are always throwing out “absolutism,” if nothing about God remains knowable, you will spend a lot of time in very uncomfortable territory and you will eventually slide over the edge into something that might be called generous, but the something will not be orthodoxy.
Which brings me full circle back to the point. What you believe IN matters more than the fact that you believe because your belief is only as good as the object on which it is fixed. Abraham’s faith, as great as it was, was nothing without the One-Who-Is-Faithful to back it up. The main character in the story is not Abraham, it is God and the main point in the passage is not Abraham’s faith but God’s faithfulness.
How does commanding Abraham to offer his beloved only son Isaac highlight the faithfulness of God? That is the rest of the story and for that we have to roll back to the beginning of Abraham’s story, back in Genesis 12…
posted by g_man at
12/04/2006 02:38:00 PM
3 Comments:
Some of us like to hear you preach and would be like to be made informed on when and where you do so. We might make an effort to be there since we miss your preaching/teaching.
By
Eryn, at Wednesday, December 06, 2006 10:06:00 AM
I've never really understood the Abraham/Isaac story. I'll read this again, I promise. It just seems either plain cruelty or unbearable power-mongering on God's part which is patently ridiculous. Plus it seems almost anthropomorphic in that God isn't human and these are human requests.... But I am thrilled to be reading your entries and look forward to more and more!
By
jau, at Wednesday, December 13, 2006 11:12:00 PM
Eryn - that is very kind and definately undeserved. I'll try to let you know next time.
jau - I would be interested in your thoughts after re-reading. I hope to put up more on this very soon. I've been overwhelmed with other things lately.
By
g_man, at Sunday, December 17, 2006 9:50:00 PM
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