WHEN GOD REQUIRED A HUMAN SACRIFICE

Lesson on faith, Genesis 22

Starting with Genesis 12:1, Abraham and his wife Sarah were old and without children. God made His promise to Abraham of his inheriting the land of Canaan with descendants as numerable as the stars in heaven and through them a blessing to all mankind. “But God had some things to do with Abraham before He could do through him.” ⁱ

God tested Abraham after his son Isaac was born. He was to go a three day journey to Mount Moriah with his son. Abraham was to offer as a sacrifice his only son whom he loved. ⁱⁱ Abraham had three days to ponder over the coming “oxymoronicⁱⁱⁱ” circumstance. God's promises were to be through Isaac but it was Isaac that was now to be sacrificed (killed). Was God serious about this? However, Abraham did not question God but obeyed Him in faith. This is the only time that God authorized (or seemed to) a human sacrifice.

“Where is the lamb?” Isaac shows that he had been taught by his father how to worship God when he asked him, “Father, here is the wood and the fire but where is the lamb?”

“God will provide.” The answer that Abraham gives his son is, “God will provide.” Abraham faithfully leads his son to Mount Moriah and, in his mind, to be sacrificed. But God instead provides the ram as a substitute for Isaac. It would be 2000 years later that God would lead His only beloved Son Jesus, a descendant of Isaac through His earthly mother Mary, to this Mount Moriah (in Jerusalem) to be sacrificed. But that would not be a test. It was the real thing. For God would have provided His Son on the cross to fulfil the promise of a blessing to the world through Abraham.

Genesis 22:14, “And Abraham called the name of that place [i.e., Moriah] Jehovahjireh” which means “God will provide.” And God does that. And on that mount. His personal sacrifice on Moriah is the acceptable one to provide eternal life for us all. "... You [Jesus] were slain, and did redeem us to God by Your own blood, out of every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9b, AFV). God provided Jesus as the substitute sacrifice for all the children of Abraham through faith.

OUR LIVING SACRIFICE. "And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed” (Galatians 3:8). God's blessing of grace is through faith like the same devotion as Abraham had. Our intended blessing is realized only when we emulate Abraham in offering a human sacrifice to God. But it must be a living sacrifice of acceptable service.

Romans 12:1, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” God requires of us a personal offering of self. Our life is to be devoted to holiness, acceptable to our God.

Based on a sermon delivered by Slate Brown (church, Winter Haven, FL, 01/15/2023). Recorded on YouTube.