Genesis 22: Abraham & Isaac

Scripture

⁹ 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.

Observation

Quite a few things to say here, and a few questions. Firstly, Abraham is well known for this story as a demonstration of his faith. He had already been promised descendants that would be uncountable, and he and Sarah were both very old by the time Isaac was born. Isaac was their hope for this promise to be fulfilled, and yet he does what God asks him to within 24 hours and is willing to give up that hope if that’s what God tells him to do. And this scene that I have picked out in verse 9, must have been heartbreakingly painful. Isaac must have been crying, asking his Dad why, and Abraham carries on tying him and getting  ready to kill him, presumably crying all the time too. I certainly would have been. And why does God ask him to do this? Because as he’s God, he already knows how much faith Abraham has and what the outcome is going to be.

Application

I confess, I don’t really have a great answer to this question. My guess is to show Abraham how much faith he has himself, so that in the future when God asks him to do hard things he knows that he was willing to go through with this, and God provided, so why not trust God again. And also, it gives us a picture of the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus, who dies in our place, as the ram dies in Isaac’s place. And despite all that, I still read this and ask myself, ‘Could I do that?’ Could I have that much faith and trust in God? Thankfully, he has never asked me to do something like that, but my answer at the moment is, ‘I’m not sure.’ And yet I know God’s provision in my life; even in the last 6 months I have seen him come through for me with work, with money, and both just at the right time. But I do wonder. Hmm, this isn’t the kind of thing I would usually write in the Application section, but it’s going to have to do.

Prayer

Father, thank you for your provision in all sorts of situations. Thank you that you have never asked me to sacrifice one of my own children for you! Please help me to trust and have faith in you, no matter what you ask of me, and to believe that you are all I need. Amen

 

Romans 3-4

Scripture

 

Romans 4:23-24

The words “it was credited to him” were written not for [Abraham] alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.

 

Observation

 

I have a confession. Most of Romans 3 goes totally over my head. It seems as though, with each new sentence, Paul makes these leaps in his logic that he expects his readers to keep up with, and I can’t! But when he starts in with the example of Abraham in chapter 4, and his belief in God’s word before he was circumcised, and before the nation of Israel had been given the law, it makes total sense, and the verses quoted above are the conclusion of that argument. And it’s all to prove that everyone in the world sins, and everyone in the world can be saved from that sin by belief in God.

 

Application

 

Simple, today – I am amazingly grateful that God will credit the same righteousness to believers as He did to Abraham all those years ago. Considering Abraham lived roughly 4,000 years ago, and he had nothing apart from perhaps some oral history to prove to him that God was God – no writings, no Bible – it’s astonishing to think that God will think of me as highly as he thought of Abraham, just for believing in Jesus as the Son of God, and his resurrection. What a gift!

 

Prayer

 

Thanks for this promise, Lord. Help me to live a life worthy of it.