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“Questions and Answers, Part IV” by Romans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc6SSHuZvQE
We are continuing in our Series, “Questions and Answers.” Tonight, I will present to you, Installment 4 of the Series. We are still in the Book of Genesis. We have reviewed and examined the serpent's temptation of Adam and Eve, their attempting to hide from God, and their blame-shifting to God and each other and the serpent for their disobedience. This account was actually a return to our examination of the questions asked in the Garden of Eden. In our introductory Installment, we examined Cain asking, “Am I my brother's keeper?” Also in our first Installment, we examined in Genesis 18, Abraham being asked “Wherefore did Sarah laugh,” in regard to her being able to have a child at 90 years of age, and after a life of barrenness. We also looked at, that first night, God asking in response to Sarah's unbelief, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”
Still in Chapter 18 of Genesis, we are going to move on into a new conversation and two questions. Abraham understood in verse 20, leading up to his questions, that “the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and... their sin is very grievous.” We read, beginning in verse 22: “And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the LORD. And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein?
That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”
Through the remainder of the chapter, Abraham bargains with God as he interceded for the lives of forty-five righteous who may be dwelling in these doomed cities. He continues to downsize his appeal as he takes God through forty righteous, then thirty, then twenty, and finally ten where his bargaining stops. In the end, God agrees to spare the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah if only ten righteous are found living there. God only stopped at ten because Abraham stopped at ten.
Of this Adam Clarke writes, “Knowing that in the family of his nephew the true religion was professed and practiced, he could not suppose there could be less than ten righteous persons in the city, he did not think it necessary to urge his supplication farther; he therefore left off his entreaties, and the Lord departed from him. It is highly worthy of observation, that while he continued to pray the presence of God was continued; and when Abraham ended, “the glory of the Lord was lifted up,” as the Targum expresses it.
This chapter, though containing only the preliminaries to the awful catastrophe detailed in the next, affords us several lessons of useful and important information. The hospitality and humanity of Abraham are worthy, not only of our most serious regard, but also of our imitation. He sat in the door of his tent in the heat of the day, not only to enjoy the current of refreshing air, but that if he saw any weary and exhausted travelers he might invite them to rest and refresh themselves. Hospitality is ever becoming in one human being towards another; for every destitute man is a brother in distress, and demands our most prompt and affectionate assistance, according to that heavenly precept, “What ye would that men should do unto you, do even so unto them.” From this conduct of Abraham a Divine precept is formed: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Heb_13:2.
Whatever is given on the ground of humanity and mercy is given unto God, and is sure to meet with his approbation and a suitable reward. While Abraham entertained his guests God discovers himself, and reveals to him the counsels of his will, and renews the promise of a numerous posterity. Sarah, though naturally speaking past child-bearing, shall have a son: natural obstacles cannot hinder the purpose of God; nature is his instrument; and as it works not only by general laws, but also by any particular will of God, so it may accomplish that will in any way he may choose to direct. It is always difficult to credit God’s promises when they relate to supernatural things, and still more so when they have for their object events that are contrary to the course of nature; but as nothing is too hard for God, so “all things are possible to him that believeth.” It is that faith alone which is of the operation of God’s Spirit, that is capable of crediting supernatural things; he who does not pray to be enabled to believe, or, if he do, uses not the power when received, can never believe to the saving of the soul.”
Every man who loves God loves his neighbor also; and he who loves his neighbor will do all in his power to promote the well-being both of his soul and his body. Abraham cannot prevent the men of Sodom from sinning against God; but he can make prayer and intercession for their souls, and plead, if not in arrest, yet in mitigation, of judgment. He therefore intercedes for the transgressors, and God is well pleased with his intercessions. These are the offspring of God’s own love in the heart of his servant.
How true is that word, The energetic faithful prayer of a righteous man availeth much! Abraham draws near to God by affection and faith, and in the most devout and humble manner makes prayer and supplication; and every petition is answered on the spot. Nor does God cease to promise to show mercy till Abraham ceases to intercede! What encouragement does this hold out to them that fear God, to make prayer and intercession for their sinful neighbors and ungodly relatives!”
The Preacher's Homiletical writes, “Upon each successive petition for the guilty people, God concedes to Abraham the principle that He is ready, in His temporal judgments, to spare the wicked for the sake of the righteous. Abraham knew that the righteous were the salt of the earth. From what we know of the character of God, we are safe in supposing that He sets a high value upon righteousness, and will do much for the sake of those in whom it is manifested. He will favour the good, even though He should have to withhold His hand from inflicting deserved judgment. The thought that God, in the end, will do right, and will not allow goodness to remain under any disadvantage, gives us a warrant for all such intercessory prayers.”
Alexander MacClaren writes, “The main importance of the incident is in the wonderful picture of Abraham’s intercession, which, in like manner, veils, under a strangely sensuous representation, lofty truths for all ages. It is to be noted that the divine purpose expressed in ‘I will go down now, and see,’ is fulfilled in the going of the two (men or angels) towards Sodom. The first great truth enshrined in this part of the story is that the friend of God is compassionate even of the sinful and degraded. Abraham did not intercede for Lot, but for the sinners in Sodom. He had perilled his life in warfare for them; he now pleads with God for them. Where had he learned this brave pity? Where but from the God with whom he lived by faith?
How much more surely will real communion with Jesus lead us to look on all men, and especially on the vicious and outcast, with His eyes who saw the multitudes as sheep without a shepherd, torn, panting, scattered, and lying exhausted and defenceless! Indifference to the miseries and impending dangers of Christless men is impossible for any whom He calls ‘not servants, but friends.’ Again, we are taught the boldness of pleading which is permitted to the friend of God, and is compatible with deepest reverence. Abraham is keenly conscious of his audacity, and yet, though he knows himself to be but dust and ashes, that does not stifle his petitions.
His was the holy ‘importunity’ which Jesus sent forth for our imitation. The word so rendered in Luke 11:8, {the importunate friend asking for bread for his midnight visitors} is found in the New Testament there only, literally means ‘shamelessness,’ and is exactly the disposition which Abraham showed here. Not only was he persistent, but he increased his expectations with each partial granting of his prayer. The more God gives, the more does the true suppliant expect and crave; and rightly so, for the gift to be given is infinite, and each degree of possession enlarges capacity so as to fit to receive more, and widens desire. What contented us to-day should not content us to-morrow.
Again, we learn the precious lesson that prayer for others is a real power, and does bring down blessings and avert evils. Abraham did not here pray for Lot, but yet ‘God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow’ in Genesis 19:29, so that there had been unrecorded intercession for him too. The unselfish desires for others, that exhale from human hearts under the influence of the love which Christ plants in us, do come down in blessings on others, as the moisture drawn up by the sun may descend in fructifying rain on far-off pastures of the wilderness. We help one another when we pray for one another.
The last lesson taught is that ‘righteous’ men are indeed the ‘salt of the earth’ not only preserving cities and nations from further corruption, but procuring for them further existence and probation. God holds back His judgments so long as hope of amendment survives, and ‘will not destroy for the ten’s sake.’ We have seen that the fruit of Abraham’s faith was God’s entrance into close covenant relations with him; or, as James puts it, ‘It was reckoned unto him for righteousness; and he was called the friend of God.’ This incident shows us the intercourse of the divine and human friends in its familiarity, mutual confidence, and power. It is a forecast of Christ’s own profound teachings in His parting words in the upper chamber, concerning the sweet and wondrous intercourse between the believing soul and the indwelling God.
All that the New Testament teaches of love to God, as necessarily issuing in love to man, and of the true love to man as overleaping all narrow bounds of kindred, country, race, and ignoring all questions of character, and gushing forth in fullest energy towards the sinners in danger of just punishment, is here in germ. The friend of God must be the friend of men; and if they be wicked, and he sees the frightful doom which they do not see, these make his pity the deeper. Abraham does not contest the justice of the doom. He lives too near his friend not to know that sin must mean death. The effect of friendship with God is not to make men wish that there were no judgments for evil-doers, but to touch their hearts with pity, and to stir them to intercession and to effort for their deliverance.
Another assumption in his prayer is that the righteous are sources of blessing and shields for the wicked. Has he there laid hold of a true principle? Certainly, it is indeed the law that ‘every man shall bear his own burden,’ but that law is modified by the operation of this other, of which God’s providence is full. Many a drop of blessing trickles from the wet fleece to the dry ground. Many a stroke of judgment is carried off harmlessly by the lightning conductor. Where God’s friends are inextricably mixed up with evil-doers, it is not rare to see diffused blessings which are destined indeed primarily for the former, but find their way to the latter.
Christians are the ‘salt of the earth’ in this sense too, that they save corrupt communities from swift destruction, and for their sakes the angels delay their blow. In the final resort, each soul must reap its own harvest from its own deeds; but the individualism of Christianity is not isolation. We are bound together in mysterious community, and a good man is a fountain of far-flowing good. The truest ‘saviours of society’ are the servants of God.
But the appeal to God to vindicate His own character by doing what shall be in manifest accord with His name, is bold language indeed, but not too bold, because it is prompted by absolute confidence in Him. God’s punishments must be obviously righteous to have moral effect, or to be worthy of Him. True as the principle is, however, it needs to be guarded. Abraham himself is an instance that men’s conceptions of right do not completely correspond to the reality. His notion of ‘right’ was, in some particulars, as his life shows, imperfect, rudimentary, and far beneath New Testament ideas. Conscience needs education. The best men’s conceptions of what befits divine justice are relative, progressive; and a shifting standard is no standard. It becomes us to be very cautious before we say to God, ‘This is the way. Walk Thou in it,’ or dismiss any doctrine as untrue on the ground of its contradicting our instincts of justice.
He has abundantly shown us in His Word, and by many experiences, that breath spent in intercession is not breath wasted. The tone of Abraham’s intercession may teach us how familiar the intercourse with the Heavenly Friend may be. The boldest words from a loving heart, jealous of God’s honour, Abraham appeals to God to take care of His name and honour, as if he had said, If Thou doest this, what will the world say of Thee, but that Thou art unmerciful? {This is} grand confidence in God’s character, {and} an eager desire that it should be vindicated before the world. For these God accepts the bold prayer as truer reverence than is found in many more guarded and lowly sounding words.
Abraham remembers that he is ‘dust and ashes’; he knows that he is venturing much in speaking to God. His pertinacious {or, unyielding} prayers have a recurring burden of lowly recognition of his place. Twice he heralds them with ‘I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord’; twice with ‘Oh let not the Lord be angry.’ Perfect love casts out fear and deepens reverence. We may come with free hearts, from which every weight of trembling and every cloud of doubt has been lifted. But the less the dread, the lower we shall bow before the Loftiness which we love. The ‘boldness’ which we as Christians ought to have, means literally a frank speaking out of all that is in our hearts. Such ‘boldness and access with confidence’ will often make short work of so-called seemly reverence. Abraham’s persistency may teach us a lesson.
Each petition granted only encourages him to another. Six times he pleads, and God waits till he has done before He goes away; He cannot leave His friend till that friend has said all his say. What a contrast the fiery fervour and unwearying persistence of Abraham’s prayers make to the stiff formalism of the intercessions one is familiar with! Is any part of our public or private worship more hopelessly formal than our prayers for others? Our Saviour Himself teaches that ‘men ought always to pray, and not to faint,’ and Himself recommends to us a holy importunity, which He teaches us to believe is, in mysterious fashion, a power with God. He gives room for such patient continuance in prayer by sometimes delaying the apparent answer, not because He needs to be won over to bless, but because it is good for us to draw near, and to keep near, the Lord.
He is ever at the door, ready to open, and if sometimes, like Rhoda to Peter, He does not open immediately, and we have to keep knocking, it is that our desires may increase by delay, and so He may be able to give a blessing, which will be the greater and sweeter for the tarrying. So the friendship is manifested on both sides: on God’s, by disclosure of His purpose and compliance with His friend’s request; on Abraham’s, by speech which is saved from irreverence by love, and by prayer which is acceptable to God by its very importunity. Jesus Christ has promised us the highest form of such friendship, when He has said, ‘I have called you friends: for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you’; and again, ‘If ye abide in Me, . . .ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.’”
As we proceed, still in the Old Testament, and still in the Book of Genesis, we come to one of most important questions in all of Scripture, namely, Isaac asking his father, “Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Let's go to Genesis 22, and see how this event, which led up to Isaac's deeply significant question, all unfolded.
Genesis 22:1-7: “And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. And Abraham rose up early in the morning...”
Let's stop right there. Would you agree with me that when God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son, it should have had, but didn't have, the emotional and spiritual impact on Abraham, as a wrecking ball crashing into and demolishing his world? I say should have had, but didn't have, for two reasons: I just read the first reason: “And Abraham rose up early in the morning...” This is why Abraham is called “the father of the faithful” in Romans 4:16. God had told Abraham that the Promises He made to him would be fulfilled in Isaac. We read in Genesis 21:12: “... in Isaac shall thy seed be called.” And now, before Isaac, who may have only been a teenager, had any children, or even a wife, God was commading him to take his life. “And Abraham rose up early in the morning...” to obey that command. That is beyond my comprehension.
Alexander MacClaren writes, “The great body of the history sets before us Abraham standing the terrible test. What unsurpassable beauty is in the simple story! It is remarkable, even among the scriptural narratives, for the entire absence of anything but the visible facts. There is not a syllable about the feelings of father or of son. The silence is more pathetic than many words. We look as into a magic crystal, and see the very event before our eyes, and our own imaginations tell us more of the world of struggle and sorrow raging under that calm outside than the highest art could do. The pathos of reticence was never more perfectly illustrated. Observe, too, the minute, prolonged details of the slow progress to the dread instant of sacrifice. Each step is told in precisely the same manner, and the series of short clauses, coupled together by an artless ‘and,’ are like the single strokes of a passing bell, or the slow drops of blood heard falling from a fatal wound.
The preparations for the journey are made by Abraham himself. He makes no confidante of Sarah; only God and himself knew what that bundle of wood meant. What thoughts must have torn his soul throughout these weary days! How hard to keep his voice round and full while he spoke to Isaac! How much the long protracted tension of the march increased the sharpness of the test! It is easier to reach the height of obedient self-sacrifice in some moment of enthusiasm, than to keep up there through the commonplace details of slowly passing days. Many a faith, which could even have slain its dearest, would have broken down long before the last step of that sad journey was taken.”
If I, personally, were ever receive such a command, IF I could somehow bring myself to obey such a command, I can tell you that I cannot see myself jumping out of bed early the next morning to obey. If anything, I would give procrastination a new definition. But we read nothing of Abraham dragging his feet, checking the clouds to see if it looked like rain, waiting until after lunch, or for any other similar excuse to wait. He rose up early in the morning to obey God! Matthew Henry writes, “Probably the command was given in the visions of the night, and early the next morning he set himself about the execution of it - did not delay, did not object, did not take time to deliberate; for the command was imperative, and would not admit a debate. Note,
Those that do the will of God heartily will do it speedily; while we delay, time is lost and the heart hardened.”
The Preacher's Homiletical adds, “It was a trial of remarkable severity. This last trial was the hardest of all. It was emphatically the trial of Abraham’s faith. We may judge of its severity if we consider—1. The violence done to his natural feelings. We read this incident well knowing the issue of it, and are therefore likely to be unmindful of that agony of distress which must have filled the heart of the patriarch on hearing this command. But Abraham did not know that issue. There was nothing before him but that awful word of God which was to be fulfilled with the greatest possible pain to his own feelings. Each successive portion of the command was calculated to fill him with increasing misery and terror. It seems as if each item in his suffering was arranged with cruel ingenuity.
“Take now thy son.” He had been given by a miracle. Every time the father looked upon him he felt that he was a wonderful child. He was a special gift, most dear and precious. “Thine only son, Isaac.” He with whom all the greatness of thy future is connected—thine heir—the hope of nations. “Whom thou lovest.” As an only child, and so remarkably given, must be loved. We cannot conceive of a greater violence and outrage done than this to his human feelings as a parent. Moreover, Isaac was to die by his own hand.
It would have been some relief to have delivered his beloved son to another to sacrifice him, so that a father might be spared the heart-rending agony of hearing his dying groans. But there was no way of escape. He must himself do the horrid deed. He must come to the appointed place, to the dread moment, and take the knife to slay his son. There was no loophole by which he could slip out of his duty by a sudden turn of circumstances—no possible way of escape. He is bound to face the fact, or to retire.
The violence done to his feelings as a religious man. Abraham owed certain duties to his son and to his God. Now these two duties clashed with each other, raising a conflict in his soul of the most terrible kind. It seemed as if conscience and God were at variance, and this to a religious mind must give rise to painful perplexity. Abraham might well doubt the Divine origin of the command. Could it possibly have come from God, who had forbidden murder as the very highest of crimes? Was not such a command contrary to the character of that God who is love? Did not God Himself promise that in Isaac all the families of the earth should be blessed, and if he was thus to be untimely slain how could such a promise be fulfilled? It seemed as if the very ground of all his hope was gone. Such doubts as these must have passed through the mind of Abraham, even though they were momentary and other considerations prevailed.
III. This trial was endured in the spirit of an extraordinary faith. The difficulties which Abraham felt, the doubts which must have raised a storm in his mind, the overwhelming trials of his heart—these are not told us in the Bible. We have only the simple fact that his faith was equal to the occasion. His spiritual strength was severely tested, but it had not given way. He had that heroic faith which could overcome all difficulties, and of this the course of the narrative affords abundant evidence. His obedience was unquestioning. In this account the sacred writer makes no distinct reference to his faith. The thing insisted upon is his obedience.”
Let's return to the text, and the account: “And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.”
I need to stop, again. Did you catch what Abraham told the young men who accompanied he and Isaac to this commanded sacrifice? He said, “I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.” Who was he saying would come again? He and the lad... he and Isaac would go, worship and return. The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 4:3: “For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.” Now we have, named here, a third vital ingredient of a believer: To faith and obedience, we now list “belief.” Exactly what was it that Abraham believed that was counted unto him for righteousness? We read in Heb 11:17-19: “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.”
John Gill writes, “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, .... Or tempted; that is, by God, Gen_22:1. This temptation or trial respects the command given by God to Abraham, to offer up his son Isaac; which lays no foundation for a charge against God, either of sin or cruelty; for God's will is the rule of justice and goodness, and whatever he requires is just and good; and though his creatures are bound by the laws he prescribes them, he himself is not: besides, he is the Lord of life, the giver and preserver of it; and he has a right to dispose of it, and to take it away, when, and by what means, and instruments, he thinks fit; to which may be added, that the secret will of God was not that Isaac should die, but a command was given to Abraham to offer him up, for the trial of his faith and love; this was a temptation of probation, not of seduction, or to sin, as are the temptations of Satan; for God tempts no man with sin. The Jews speak of ten temptations, with which Abraham was tried, and in all which he stood; and say, that this of the binding of Isaac was the tenth and last.
Offered up Isaac; he showed great readiness to do it; as soon as he had the command given him, he travelled three days' journey in order to it; took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it on his son; took fire, and a knife in his hand, with the one to burn the wood, with the other to slay his son; he built an altar, laid the wood in order on it; and bound his son, and laid him on that; and took the knife, and stretched forth his hand to slay him, and fully intended to do it, had he not been prevented: and all this he did by faith; he believed the equity, justice, and wisdom of the divine command; he was fully assured of the truth and faithfulness of God in his promises, however contrary this might seem thereunto; and he was strongly persuaded of the power of accomplishing them in some way or another. This was great faith, and it was greatly tried, as follows:
and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son; he had a promise made him that he should have a son, and that a numerous issue should spring from him, which should inherit the land of Canaan; yea, that the Messiah himself should be of his seed: and he had received these promises; given credit to them, and firmly believed them, and fully expected the performance of them; as he had reason to do, since the first was fulfilled, the son was born; and yet now he is called to offer him up, on whom his expectation was placed; everything was trying; it was an human creature he was called to offer, whose blood is not to be shed by man; a child of his own, a part of himself;
a son, an own son; an only begotten son; a son whom he loved; an Isaac, a son of joy; a son of promise; and his heir, the son of his old age, and who was now a grown up person. The Jews are divided about the age of Isaac at his binding: Josephus says he was twenty five years of age; others say twenty six; some say thirty six: but the more prevailing opinion is, that he was thirty seven years of age; only Aben Ezra makes him to be about thirteen; rejecting the more commonly received account, as well as that he was but five years old, that being an age unfit to carry wood. Some Christian writers have thought he might be about three and thirty years of age, the age of Christ when he suffered, of whom he was a type.”
Targum in Cant. vii. 8. Pirke Eliezer, c. 26. & c. 31. Maimon. Jarchi & Bartenora in Misn. Abot, c. 5. sect. 3. (y) Antiqu. l. 1. c. 13. sect. 2. (z) Tzemach David, par. 1. fol. 6. 1. (a) Targum Jon. in Gen. xxii. 1. (b) Zohar in Gen. fol. 68. 2. & 74. 4. & 76. 2. Targ. Hieros. in Ex. xii. 42. Pirke Eliezer, c. 31, Juchasin, fol. 9. 1. Prefat. Echa Rabbati, fol. 40. 2. Seder Olam Rabba, c. 1. p. 3. Shalshelet Hakabala, fol. 3. 1. (c) In Gen. xxii. 4.”
Let's return to the text to get, finally, to Isaac's question: “And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”
Adam Clarke writes, “Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb - Nothing can be conceived more tender, affectionate, and affecting, than the question of the son and the reply of the father on this occasion. A paraphrase would spoil it; nothing can be added without injuring those expressions of affectionate submission on the one hand, and dignified tenderness and simplicity on the other.”
Matthew Henry observes, “He obliged Isaac to carry the wood (both to try his obedience in a smaller matter first, and that he might typify Christ, who carried his own cross, (in John 19:17), while he himself, though he knew what he did, with a steady and undaunted resolution carried the fatal knife and fire. Note, Those that through grace are resolved upon the substance of any service or suffering for God must overlook the little circumstances which make it doubly difficult to flesh and blood. Without any ruffle or disorder, he talks it over with Isaac, as if it had been but a common sacrifice that he was going to offer.
(1.) It was a very affecting question that Isaac asked him, as they were going together: My father, said Isaac; it was a melting word, which, one would think, would strike deeper into the breast of Abraham than his knife could into the breast of Isaac. He might have said, or thought, at least, “Call me not thy father who am now to be thy murderer; can a father be so barbarous, so perfectly lost to all the tenderness of a father?” Yet he keeps his temper, and keeps his countenance, to admiration; he calmly waits for his son's question, and this is it: Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb? See how expert Isaac was in the law and custom of sacrifices. This is, [1.] A trying question to Abraham. How could he endure to think that Isaac was himself the lamb? So it is, but Abraham, as yet, dares not tell him so.
[2.] It is a teaching question to us all, that, when we are going to worship God, we should seriously consider whether we have every thing ready, especially the lamb for a burnt-offering. Behold, the fire is ready, the Spirit's assistance and God's acceptance; the wood is ready, the instituted ordinances designed to kindle our affections (which indeed, without the Spirit, are but like wood without fire, but the Spirit works by them); all things are now ready, but where is the lamb? Where is the heart? Is that ready to be offered up to God, to ascend to him as a burnt-offering?
(3.) It was a very prudent answer which Abraham gave him: My son, God will provide himself a lamb. This was the language, either, [1.] Of his obedience. “We must offer the lamb which God has appointed now to be offered;” thus giving him this general rule of submission to the divine will, to prepare him for the application of it to himself very quickly. Or, [2.] Of his faith. Whether he meant it so or not, this proved to be the meaning of it; a sacrifice was provided instead of Isaac. Thus, First, Christ, the great sacrifice of atonement, was of God's providing; when none in heaven or earth could have found a lamb for that burnt-offering, God himself found the ransom. Secondly, All our sacrifices of acknowledgment are of God's providing too. It is he that prepares the heart. The broken and contrite spirit is a sacrifice of God, of his providing.
With the same resolution and composedness of mind, after many thoughts of heart, he applies himself to the completing of this sacrifice. He goes on with a holy wilfulness, after many a weary step, and with a heavy heart he arrives at length at the fatal place, builds the altar (an altar of earth, we may suppose, the saddest that ever he built, and he had built many a one), lays the wood in order for his Isaac's funeral pile, and now tells him the amazing news: “Isaac, thou art the lamb which God has provided.” Isaac, for aught that appears, is as willing as Abraham; we do not find that he raised any objection against it, that he petitioned for his life, that he attempted to make his escape, much less that he struggled with his aged father, or made any resistance: Abraham does it, God will have it done, and Isaac has learnt to submit to both, Abraham no doubt comforting him with the same hopes with which he himself by faith was comforted.
Yet it is necessary that a sacrifice be bound. The great sacrifice, which in the fullness of time was to be offered up, must be bound, and therefore so must Isaac. But with what heart could tender Abraham tie those guiltless hands, which perhaps had often been lifted up to ask his blessing, and stretched out to embrace him, and were now the more straitly bound with the cords of love and duty! However, it must be done. Having bound him, he lays him upon the altar, and his hand upon the head of his sacrifice; and now, we may suppose, with floods of tears, he gives, and takes, the final farewell of a parting kiss: perhaps he takes another for Sarah from her dying son. This being done, he resolutely forgets the emotions of a father, and puts on the awful gravity of a sacrificer. With a fixed heart, and an eye lifted up to heaven, he takes the knife, and stretches out his hand to give a fatal cut to Isaac's throat.
Be astonished, O heavens! at this; and wonder, O earth! Here is an act of faith and obedience, which deserves to be a spectacle to God, angels, and men. Abraham's darling, Sarah's laughter, the church's hope, the heir of promise, lies ready to bleed and die by his own father's hand, who never shrinks at the doing of it. Now this obedience of Abraham in offering up Isaac is a lively representation, (1.) Of the love of God to us, in delivering up his only-begotten Son to suffer and die for us, as a sacrifice. It pleased the Lord himself to bruise him (as we read in Isaiah 53:10). Abraham was obliged, both in duty and gratitude, to part with Isaac, and parted with him to a friend; but God was under no obligations to us, for we were enemies.
(2.) Of our duty to God, in return for that love. We must tread in the steps of this faith of Abraham. God, by his word, calls us to part with all for Christ, - all our sins, though they have been as a right hand, or a right eye, or an Isaac - all those things that are competitors and rivals with Christ for the sovereignty of the heart; and we must cheerfully let them all go. God, by his providence, which is truly the voice of God, calls us to part with an Isaac sometimes, and we must do it with a cheerful resignation and submission to his holy will.”
This concludes this evening's Discussion, Questions and Answers, Part 4.”
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on September 26th, 2018.