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Some time later, God tested Abraham’s faith. “Abraham!” God called.“Yes,” he replied. “Here I am.”2 “Take your son, your only son—yes, Isaac, whom you love so much—and go to the land of Moriah. Go and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you.”3 The next morning Abraham got up early. He saddled his donkey and took two of his servants with him, along with his son, Isaac. Then he chopped wood for a fire for a burnt offering and set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day of their journey, Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 “Stay here with the donkey,” Abraham told the servants. “The boy and I will travel a little farther. We will worship there, and then we will come right back.”6 So Abraham placed the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac’s shoulders, while he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them walked on together, 7 Isaac turned to Abraham and said, “Father?”“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.“We have the fire and the wood,” the boy said, “but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?”8 “God will provide a sheep for the burnt offering, my son,” Abraham answered. And they both walked on together.9 When they arrived at the place where God had told him to go, Abraham built an altar and arranged the wood on it. Then he tied his son, Isaac, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. 10 And Abraham picked up the knife to kill his son as a sacrifice. 11 At that moment the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”“Yes,” Abraham replied. “Here I am!”12 “Don’t lay a hand on the boy!” the angel said. “Do not hurt him in any way, for now I know that you truly fear God. You have not withheld from me even your son, your only son.”13 Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. So he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering in place of his son. 14 Abraham named the place Yahweh-Yireh (which means “the LORD will provide”)

Lists of Words and Concepts (Faith)

2. Faith (Related Senses)Noun• righteous person• righteousness• truth (quality)• faithfulness• gospel content ⇔ faith• hope (object)• truth (statement)• unbelief• righteous deed• hope (feeling)• confidence• trustworthiness• trusted object• belief• assurance ⇔ faithVerb• to believe (accept)• to wait (look forward)• to be confident• to endure (persist)• to disbelieve (trust)• to expect (as due)• to be assured• to be faithful• to cause to trust.

3. Proverbs 3:5–7 5 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; And lean not unto thine own understanding.

The test was very real: he was to give Isaac back to God. As a test it was designed to prove faith. And for it to be a real test, it had to defy logic; it had to be something Abraham wanted to resist.)

It is one thing to claim to trust God’s word when waiting for something; it is quite another thing to trust and obey His word after it is received. This was a test of how much Abraham would obey God’s word. Would he cling to the boy now that he had him, or would he still obey and return him to the Lord? In other words how far would Abraham go in obedience? Did he really believe that God would still keep His word and raise the seed of promise?

God also reminded him of the fulfillment, which made the test so hard: Take your son, your only son Isaac [“laughter”] whom you love (22:2). The command to sacrifice his own son as a burnt offering would have undoubtedly seemed totally unreasonable How then could God fulfill the promises He made earlier to say nothing of Abraham’s emotional loss of his only son, born to him so late in life?

the three-day journey (v. 4) was probably silent and difficult. The distance from Beersheba to Mount Moriah was about 50 miles

he took only Isaac and had the two servants stay behind. His statement, We will worship and then we will come back (Gen. 22:5), is amazing. All Abraham knew was that (a) God planned the future around Isaac, and (b) God wanted him to sacrifice Isaac. He could not reconcile the two, but he would obey anyway. That is faith. In response to Isaac’s question Where is the lamb? Abraham again revealed his faith: God Himself will provide (v. 8; cf. v. 14). Isaac was brought “from the dead” twice—once from Sarah’s dead womb, and again from a high altar (cf. Heb. 11:17–19).

Hebrews 11:17–19 (ESV)

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, 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.

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