God of The Invisible
The God of Abraham - Part 6
Sunday, October 8, 2023
Genesis 22:1-18
The messenger said, “Don’t stretch out your hand against the young man, and don’t do anything to him. I now know that you revere God and didn’t hold back your son, your only son, from me.” Abraham looked up and saw a single ram caught by its horns in the dense underbrush. Abraham went over, took the ram, and offered it as an entirely burned offering instead of his son. Abraham named that place “the Lord sees.” That is the reason people today say, “On this mountain the Lord is seen.”
Genesis 22:12-14
Listen to this Week’s Sermon here:
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Perhaps one of the most difficult and gut-wrenching passages of scripture is the famous story of God asking Abraham to kill his son Isaac as a human sacrifice to prove his loyalty and faithfulness. And of course, as a man whose faith is credited to him as righteousness, he willingly offers his beloved child up to die.
Yes, we know the end of the story. We know how God spared the boy and sent the ram. There are volumes of theological texts explaining how God sent a ram instead of a lamb because the lamb would be his own son, Jesus, who would willingly give his life as a ransom for sin.
I don’t want to diminish God’s faithfulness to Isaac or the redemptive work of Jesus in his own sacrificial love, but if we’re really honest, none of these outcomes are sufficient to help us process what to do with a God who would ask such a thing in the first place. Yes, Abraham lived in a different culture and time, but to simply say OK to some mysterious voice in the sky who tells you to kill your child and assume that voice comes from a loving God is not something most rational human parents would do.
In Abraham’s culture, human sacrifice was not uncommon. It would not be surprising for him to assume that such a sacrifice would be required as a faithful response to God’s blessing. But instead of accepting the sacrifice, God steps in to definitively put an end to this whole ordeal. “Do not stretch your hand out against him.” Throughout the prophets God rejects the sacrifices of his people, declaring that he seeks mercy, justice, and humility rather than violence and bloodshed.
What if the question or “test” is: “Would you make the same offering to me, your God, as the Canaanites make to their gods?” Or to look at it another way, what do we do when what we are sure God is calling us to do actually runs counter to God’s character? Is it possible that when we use God’s word to do harm, that we have misunderstood or misused God’s word?
It's easy to take everything God “says” in scripture at face value, but if we’re honest, we put words into God’s mouth all the time. We take a particular view on an issue and find verses to support it, claiming God’s absolute agreement with our position. What if the Biblical writers did too? What if they were doing the best with what they had, trying to paint Abraham as absolutely loyal and faithful as possible in the only way that would be expected according to their cultural norms? But then God steps in and writes a different story.
When we look at God through the lens of Jesus, we see a God who will do anything to re-write the human story of violence and death. No matter what scripture may appear to say at first glance, God is always a God of life!