Beyond The Basics

Transcript:

Welcome to the Beyond the Basics Bible Study Podcast. My name is Dan Snyder and I am your host. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Beyond the Basics where we are exploring the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, one chapter at a time.

Well welcome. Thank you for joining me one more time for the Beyond the Basics.

This episode we’re going to go through Genesis chapter 22. And this takes place, if you remember from the last chapter, right after Abraham and Abimelech made a covenant. Abraham is living in Beersheba in the land of the Philistines. And here we get to chapter 22.

And Abraham goes through a very significant and intense test by the Lord. And this is a difficult chapter. It’s one that a lot of people struggle with, a lot of people wrestle with. So we’re going to go through it and hopefully we can find some understanding and get a little better grasp on what this chapter is trying to say.

All right, so it starts off. God told Abraham to take Isaac to Moriah and offer him as a burnt offering.

Isaac, if you remember, is Abraham’s son, his only son by Sarah, and obviously his second born son, Ishmael being his first. But Isaac is the son that is supposed to inherit the promise that God had given Abraham.

So God told Abraham to take Isaac to Moriah and offer him as a burnt offering. So Abraham got up and went to Moriah and he arrived there on the third day. And Isaac asked where the lamb for the offering is. And if you’ve read this story, this is going to sound familiar. Abraham responded that God will provide the lamb for the offering.

So they got to Moriah. Abraham built the altar and laid Isaac on it. He’s about to kill Isaac when the angel of the Lord called out and stopped him. And he said now God knows that Abraham will not withhold his only son. So Abraham lifted his eyes and saw a ram caught in a thicket. He took the ram and offered it on the altar. So God blessed Abraham once again because he had obeyed God’s voice.

So Abraham and Isaac returned to Beersheba, where Abraham finds out that his brother Nahor has had children by his wife, Milcah, and they had seven children and he also had four children by his concubine Reumah. Bethuel is one of the children that he had by his wife. And Bethuel ends up being the father of Rebekah, who we will meet in a later chapter.

So let’s get into the chapter.

So in verse one, it says, after these things God tested Abraham. And this word tested, many times we think, especially in our modern western culture, we think of a test as a pass fail system or maybe we get a letter grade. You know, God tests us and maybe we get a “B” on that test and hopefully we get an “A” next time or something. Or maybe we just failed that test and hopefully we pass the test next time.

But that’s not what God’s tests are all about. God’s tests are intended to reveal what is there rather than produce a result necessarily. So in this case, God is testing Abraham to reveal Abraham’s faith. To reveal the kind of faith that Abraham has at this point in his faith journey. That’s the purpose of God’s tests.

It’s not to produce a result. It’s not something that Abraham can study for and later pass or fail. It’s not even intended to say Abraham you did good or bad. It’s simply to say “Abraham, this is the amount of of faith that you currently have.”

This is actually more like a chemical test to determine the percentage of certain substances. So the classic example is gold. Gold, when it’s being made, is tested and the impurities rise to the surface and you can see what impurities are in the gold and scrape them off. And that’s how you test gold.

If any of you have ever worked with chemicals, I’ve worked with chemicals in the past. I worked at a metal finishing shop and we did a similar thing. We would do pH tests. We would do chemical composition tests to make sure that the chemical that we were using was the correct composition for what we needed it for.

And Peter talks about this, in fact, in 1 Peter 1 verses 6 through 7. It says: In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith – more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

So Peter is saying that we’re grieved by trials, circumstances in life. Things come at us that grieve us, but these things happen so that our faith can be tested. Just like gold is tested by fire, our faith is tested by fire, by trials, so that hopefully it will show the type of faith that we have. And hopefully that faith that we have will be a faith that praises and gives glory and honor to Jesus.

So God called to Abraham and Abraham responded, “Here I am.”

This is more like saying, “At your service, at once.” It’s an immediate response saying, “God, here I am, at your service.”

So Abraham does not hesitate. He is ready to respond to God and do what he says. God says, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love.”

This is proof that Abraham is completely disowned Ishmael. If you remember, Abraham sent Ishmael away with no inheritance, nothing but a loaf of bread and some water. This is showing now that God says, “Isaac is your only son.”

Abraham has completely disowned Ishmael. Ishmael is essentially no longer Abraham’s son.

He says, “Your only son Isaac, whom you love.”

Now this is actually the first time that love is mentioned in the Bible, which is very interesting because it’s connected to a father’s love for his son and it’s connected to the sacrifice of that son. So the very first time that love is mentioned in the Bible, the word love, it’s talking about Abraham’s love for his son Isaac, whom he is about to sacrifice to God.

So God says, “Go to the land of Moriah.”

Now Mount Moriah is a very important place in the Bible. Mount Moriah is actually where Solomon built his temple. So Isaac is being sacrificed possibly at the very place where Solomon’s temple would be built many many years later. And this will be important later on. We’ll talk more about that later on as it points to Jesus. But it’s very interesting that this could be the same place.

Now, the text doesn’t actually specify that it’s a mountain. It just says Moriah. So it could possibly refer to the land of the Amorites. It’s not clear. But the Bible doesn’t really have a whole lot of coincidences. So I don’t think this is much of a coincidence that Isaac is being sacrificed at the same place where the temple would be built by Solomon. And we’ll talk more about that in a little bit.

And in verse 4 it says, the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes. So that number 3, the third day, represents a time of testing. That’s what that number 3 often is going to show throughout the Bible. And this is pretty obvious because we already know from verse 1 that God is testing Abraham. But not only did God test Abraham through asking him to sacrifice his son, but he’s also testing Abraham by asking him to make a three-day journey.

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He gave Abraham plenty of time to turn around, even if Abraham had immediately responded with a yes. If God had asked him to make the sacrifice right then and there, that’s one thing, but what if God asked Abraham to journey three days while he’s going to think about it and think about how every step closer brings him closer to the death of his son?

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Imagine if you were to go on that three day journey knowing that at the end of that journey you were going to have to kill your son. Or even if you weren’t the one that was going to have to kill your son, even if you just knew that your son was going to die. And every step would bring you closer and closer to that. How tormenting would that be?

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you

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So in verse 5, after he had seen the place from afar, Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey, I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you. This is actually an indication that Abraham believed that God would raise Isaac from the dead. And Hebrews chapter 11 confirms this. It says, by faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son.

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of whom it was said, Through Isaac shall your offspring be named. He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.” So what that’s saying is that Abraham knew that God was asking him to do this for a reason, and he knew that God was capable of raising Isaac from the dead. And he knew that Isaac was the one that God had promised him, so he clearly knew that God was testing him.

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I think Abraham knew that God was trying to see if he would withhold his only son from God, if there was something that would keep him from surrendering everything to God. I think Abraham knew this was what God was trying to get at, and he also knew that God could raise Isaac from the dead. So he knew that if he went and obeyed God, that there was a chance that Isaac would be raised. So going down to verse nine,

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When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar. So Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son, but the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven. So this word angel also means messenger.

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And I know we’ve talked about this several times already in this podcast. And I’m going to reiterate it again, probably just about every time that the angel of the Lord pops up, because I think it’s very important to see this evidence that the angel of the Lord is also God himself and is God in human form. And I think as a Protestant in

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many Protestants kind of take this for granted that it’s a pre-incarnate Jesus or that the angel of Lord is God, but not everyone that reads this will take this for granted. In verse 12, the angel of the Lord speaks as distinct from God. He says, do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God. So that sounds like this angel of the Lord is distinct from God. He’s separate from God.

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He’s speaking about God in the third person. But then in verses 16 through 18, he speaks as God. He says, by myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you. And I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed.

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my voice. So he’s speaking as God. So this is evidence that the second person of the Trinity is appearing to Abraham right here. So in verse 12, the angel of Lord says, do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me, just as God has not withheld his only son from us.

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We’re going to get more into this in the segment when we point this whole chapter to Jesus. But this is very, very clear reference to what God did for us in not withholding His only Son from us, Jesus. So in verse 13, Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt.

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offering instead of his son. So God still required a sacrifice. It’s not like there was no longer a sacrifice that was needed, but God provided the substitute for the sacrifice. Are you hearing the language that is pointing us to Jesus? It’s all over the place. There’s going to be so much. I’m going to recap everything. I’m going to point out probably 10 or 12 different things that point us to Jesus in this chapter.

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There’s a lot of them. But this is one of them. God required a sacrifice. The sacrifice, requirement for the sacrifice, just like with the law given on Mount Sinai, required a sacrifice to cleanse the sins of the people, to atone for their sins. The sacrifice was still required, but God provided the substitute in Jesus. So, continuing in verse 16, he says,

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This is the third time God actually calls Isaac your son, your only son. And then God pronounces a three-fold blessing. says, will multiply your offspring just like the stars in the sand, which reaffirms the promise from Genesis 13 when he said, I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring can also be counted. And

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This comparison to stars is also interesting because the stars gave light upon the earth. And that was one of the purposes for stars being created. In Genesis 1, it was to give light upon the earth. And the purpose for the nation of Israel for being God’s chosen people later on, we’ll find out, so that they would be a light to the nations, that they would be a city on a hill, that they would be a nation

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that would draw all nations to God, to Yahweh. So that’s an interesting comparison there. So the second blessing God gives Abraham is that your offspring will possess the gate of his enemies. So that means that they’ll be victorious in battle. And then he says, in your offspring, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. And this is the Messianic promise that God gives to Abraham and his family. And then after this,

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After God gives this blessing to Abraham, Abraham finds out that his brother Nahor had twelve children. And that number twelve represents governmental authority. There are twelve Israelite tribes. There’s twelve disciples in the New Testament. This is how God expresses government. So, Nahor had twelve sons. Ishmael is going to end up having twelve sons all before Jacob.

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had twelve sons. So this is, it’s like the author is trying to tell us that this is man’s attempt to establish God’s kingdom without God’s blessing. And this is all going to come from the older brother. Nahor was Abraham’s older brother. Ishmael was Isaac’s older brother. And in fact, we’re going to see this with Esau again, that the older brother that does not receive the promise tries

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to take the promise by his own means. And we see that through Nahor’s 12 sons, Ishmael’s 12 sons, Esau is going to try and take the promise in a different way. We’re going to get to that in a later chapter. But I think that’s why that’s the significance of 12 sons here. And in fact, Nahor’s firstborn is called Uz, and Job, who is the main character of the Book of Job, is from the land of Uz.

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And Job’s righteousness was tested by God just like Abraham’s was. He lost all his children, all his wealth, but gained even more blessing when his righteousness was proven. It’s not clear that this land of Uz is the same land as Nahor’s son Uz would be from. But again, I don’t think there’s a whole lot of coincidences in the Bible. So I think this is important in

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Revealing the purpose of why there are 12 sons listed here this isn’t just a list of names and I know that a lot of times we tend to Gloss over the list of names in the Bible. I know a lot of times we tend to just Read through them quickly because we don’t really know how to pronounce them and we don’t really know who they are anyway and who cares if there’s not a whole lot we can learn from just a list of names, but

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There is something there. There’s always something that we can learn. But sometimes we have to dig a little bit deeper. And here we find out that Nahor has a son called Uz, and that’s where Job is from. And Job was tested just like Abraham was, and in a lot of the same ways, he lost his children, lost everything, but his righteousness was proven, and so he got everything back.

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So that land of Oz is going to end up being symbolic of a difficult and unredeemed world where Job and his righteousness shines through in that difficult world, in that unredeemed world. It shows the need for a redeemer. And Job even says that at one point. He says, I know my redeemer lives. So these 12 sons of Nahor oh

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It’s man’s attempt to establish God’s kingdom without God’s blessing in a difficult and unredeemed world.

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you

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So what is the purpose of this story? Why do we have a story where God would ask Abraham to sacrifice his only son? Even if God stopped Abraham from doing it before he actually did it, this is really troubling. It’s disturbing, it’s problematic, and I’m not going to pretend to have all the answers to why God would ask Abraham to do this.

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But I do have a couple thoughts that hopefully can help us come to terms with this chapter a little bit better. I think we’re always going to wrestle with this chapter. We’re always going to struggle with why would God ask Abraham to do such a thing? This chapter should always disturb us. But that doesn’t mean that we should reject God because of it. What it means is that we should come near to God and ask him, what do you want to teach me about?

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you are. So my first thought on the purpose of this story is that Abraham’s life was really up and down in terms of obeying God. We’ve been through a lot of those ups and downs already. His life up to this point was really up and down. His faith was up and down. Sometimes he would express extreme faith and trust in God. Other times he would just completely

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completely go off the deep end and do ridiculous crazy things and try to take matters into his own hands and lie and commit adultery and he did a lot of terrible things but he also did a lot of really great things in terms of his faith and so the events of this chapter is what proves that he has faith in God and James tells us in chapter 2 verse 21

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He says, was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? So what James is saying is that this act that Abraham did by obeying God here was the final act that proved that his faith was real and genuine. And after this point, he never struggled with his faith again.

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We never see Abraham struggling with his faith, trying to take matters into his own hands anymore after this. So I think that’s the first thing. The second thing, the second thought that I have is that this is a prophetic reenactment. And this is rare, but it happens from time to time in the Bible where God asked prophets to reenact something in order to make a point. For example, God asked Hosea to marry a prostitute.

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in Hosea chapter 1 verse 2 when the Lord first spoke through Hosea go take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord so God is is saying Hosea I want you to take a prostitute for for a wife and have children with her because Israel is committing prostitution by forsaking me God is saying Hosea I want you to experience

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what I experience when my beloved Israel, when my betrothed wife Israel prostitutes herself and goes after other gods. And I want you to communicate that message to the nation. And again, that’s a really, really difficult task that God would ask Hosea to do. It’s very disturbing that God would ask Hosea to do that, but he asked him

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to reenact it, to make a point to the nation of Israel that this is what you are doing when you go and worship other gods. And then in Ezekiel chapter four, four through five, God says, lie on your left side and place the punishment of the house of Israel upon it. And this was a brick with the word Jerusalem engraved on it. For the number of the days that you lie on it, you shall bear their punishment. So God is saying, I want you to lie on your side and place oh

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this brick on top of you, which is symbolic of the punishment that Israel is going to receive. And do it for 390 days, because that’s going to be the number of years that they’re going to be punished. So this, again, is a reenactment of something that God was going to do to make the point that Israel is going to be punished for 390 years. So I think God does this from time to time. And I think that is what God is doing here.

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God is asking Abraham to reenact something that God is going to do in the future. And that brings us to our next segment where we’re gonna point this all to Jesus. Because there’s so many parallels between Isaac’s sacrifice and Jesus. And I think this is gonna show that this is more than just God testing Abraham’s faith. This is God saying, Abraham, I want you to show your offspring.

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what I’m going to do one day through my only son. This is one of the primary chapters that points to God’s redemptive purposes through his son Jesus.

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So first, as I’ve mentioned several times already, Isaac was Abraham’s only son, and Jesus is God’s only begotten son. Isaac was loved by his father, and Jesus was loved by his father. Third, Isaac was offered by his father, Jesus was also offered by his father. Isaiah 53 verse 10.

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says, it was the will of the Lord to crush him. This is talking about the suffering servant. This whole chapter, Isaiah 53, if you’re familiar with it, is all pointing to the coming Messiah. It says, Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

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So both Isaac and Jesus were offered by their father as an offering. Isaac was a burnt offering. And Jesus was a burnt offering. Ephesians 5 2 says, walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. That language, fragrant offering and sacrifice that that’s speaking of the burnt offering, which was a pleasing aroma to the Lord. Another one here, Isaac was offered on a mountain.

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and Jesus was crucified on a hill. This isn’t explicit in scripture, but it’s commonly thought and it follows the theme of the Bible. Mark 15-22 says, and they brought him to the place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull.

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And again, this, doesn’t explicitly call it a mountain or a hill, but historically it is thought, and you can even look up pictures of this place online, it does kind of look like a skull. Historically, if this is the correct place, it is a hill that Jesus would have been crucified on. Another one here. Isaac went to the land of Moriah on a donkey.

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And Jesus rode a donkey to the Temple Mount at Moriah. Remember I mentioned that Solomon’s Temple had been built on Mount Moriah? And Solomon’s Temple had been destroyed by the time Jesus was alive, of course. But it had been rebuilt. And so it was still in the same place. It was just a different temple. And so Jesus rode a donkey to the Temple Mount.

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Isaac also was accompanied by two young men. Jesus was crucified with two men. Another one, Abraham and Isaac arrived on the third day. Abraham actually considered that Isaac was as good as dead. I mentioned earlier in Hebrews 11 that he knew that God could raise him from the dead. it says that figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. So what’s going on here is that Abraham considered Isaac to be dead for those three days on that journey.

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To Moriah, Isaac was as good as dead to Abraham. He had already resigned himself to the fact that he was going to have to kill his son, and he believed that God was going to raise him from the dead on the third day. And of course, Jesus was also resurrected on the third day. Isaac carried the wood that would be used for his sacrifice, and Jesus carried the wooden cross for his crucifixion. And then Abraham gave his only son just like God gave his only son, which…

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Obviously, I mentioned that Isaac was Abraham’s only son, but this is specific language that John picks up in chapter 3 verse 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son. Speaking again to what Abraham did, that he gave his only son. And then finally, God provided Abraham and Isaac a ram for the offering, just like God provided a lamb for the whole world. So God provided that substitute for the offering.

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For Abraham and Isaac, God provided a substitute for the offering required by the law for the whole world. This chapter is one of the premier chapters that foretells what God is going to do one day to redeem the whole world. In chapter 20, we find out that Abraham was a prophet. In chapter 22,

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He prophetically re-enacts what God is going to do by giving his only Son for us as a sacrifice for the sin of the world. This chapter should move us to fear, it should move us to devotion, and it should move us to faith and trust in God, and it should move us to love, and it should cause us to respond to Jesus and what he did, knowing that this plan had been set in motion thousands and thousands and thousands of years beforehand.

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So let’s ask some questions for reflection. Let’s reflect on this chapter by asking some questions. Let’s think about these. And if you would like to purchase the study guides, I’ve got more questions on here than I’m not going to go through on this podcast, but you can get access to all the study guides. can go through these questions and more and hopefully go deeper into the chapter and hopefully discover even a deeper love.

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and adoration and devotion for Jesus and what he did for us on the cross. So first question, has God asked you to do anything that seems to contradict earlier promises or promises found in scripture? And how have you responded to God? What was God testing in you during those times? How quickly do you respond to God when he speaks to you?

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Is your trust placed in God’s promises or in the God who makes the promises? It’s an important distinction. Do trust the promises or do trust God?

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If you have children, you model your faith and obedience to God for your children? Are they learning submission to God by watching you?

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So last question, reflect on the fact that Jesus took your place as the sacrificial lamb. How does that make you feel? What is something that you can do to show your gratitude for his sacrifice? That’s what it all points to. That’s what it’s all about. How can we turn this chapter that points us to Jesus as a sacrificial lamb into worship? So think about that. Well, thank you once again for listening.

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And if you want to go further, go ahead and subscribe on the website, get access to these study guides, go through some more uh study questions, get all the notes. We’d love your support. Always want to hear your feedback. Don’t forget to leave a comment on the website. We love hearing from you guys. So thank you once again for listening.