Why Did God Tell Abraham To Sacrifice His Son?

[00:00:00]There are some stories in the Bible that we don't really know what to do with. I mean, we read them, we feel the tension, and then we move on as quickly as we can because sitting with them just feels uncomfortable.

[00:00:13]And Genesis 22 is one of those stories.

[00:00:17]And in this story, what we see is that God tells Abraham to take his son, Isaac, the son he waited decades for, the son that God promised him, the son that he loves.

[00:00:30]And he tells him to offer him as a sacrifice.

[00:00:35]And honestly, that's a story that should bother us. And I don't think we should rush to clean this story up. I don't think we should try to explain it away.

[00:00:44]I don't think we should act like this is easy to understand because it's not.

[00:00:50]This is one of the most disturbing stories in the whole Bible.

[00:00:54]But here's what I found.

[00:00:56]If you stay with it long enough, if you don't skip the tension, if you don't rush past it, the story starts to show something about God that is both unsettling and incredibly beautiful. Because at the end, this story is not about a God who wants Abraham's son. It's about a God who will one day give his own.

[00:01:21]So, in this video, let's slow down and sit with this story.

[00:01:26]To start, we need to look at who Abraham was. And to understand his story, we have to go back to Genesis 12. And what we see is Abraham is not a religious hero. He has no spiritual resume, no track record. And God shows up to him and makes a promise.

[00:01:43]Abraham, leave everything. Follow me, and I will make you into a great nation.

[00:01:48]Your descendants will outnumber the stars. But there's one problem.

[00:01:53]Abraham and Sarah, his wife, can't have kids.

[00:01:56]And they're not young. By the time anything happens, they're pushing a hundred years old. And so for decades, Abraham holds onto this promise from God. He doubts. He makes some famously bad decisions along the way, but he keeps following. And then impossibly, Sarah holds a baby in her arms. And they name him Isaac. And Isaac wasn't just any baby, he was proof. Proof that God was real. Proof that the waiting meant something. Proof that the whole journey wasn't a waste. And it might sound like a happy ending, but then God speaks again.

[00:02:32]Says this, "Abraham, take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go sacrifice him."

[00:02:42]And what's most jarring about this request is what happens next. The very next morning, Abraham gets up, he loads up his donkey, and he heads out. No argument, no pushback, no desperate prayer, he just goes.

[00:02:56]Now, before you write this off as like some blind religious obligation, you need to know something. Abraham knew God was different. He'd argued with him.

[00:03:04]He'd watched him do the impossible things. This wasn't a man blindly following orders. This was trust that he'd built up over decades. And Hebrews 11 in the New Testament pulls back the curtain on what's really happening in Abraham's head. Hebrews 11 says he believed God could raise Isaac from the dead. And he thought, "Even if I drive the knife down, God will find a way to keep his promise." You see, every other god in Abraham's world took, demanded, and consumed. But Abraham had learned something about his god, about this god.

[00:03:37]This god provides. He just didn't know yet how far that would go.

[00:03:43]So, Abraham takes Isaac on this three-day journey to this mountain where he's going to sacrifice his son.

[00:03:50]He has three days to think.

[00:03:53]3 days to feel every step. 3 days of walking next to the boy who had no idea what was coming.

[00:04:01]And then Isaac asked this question. He looks at his father and he says, "The fire and the wood are here.

[00:04:07]But where is the lamb?"

[00:04:09]And I can't read that without feeling like a kid just noticing, just asking, no idea the answer to his own question.

[00:04:17]And I love how Abraham responds. Look at this face. He says, "God himself will provide the lamb."

[00:04:24]And maybe that's faith. Maybe it's the only words he can get out in that moment, but either way they keep moving.

[00:04:30]And eventually they reach the top.

[00:04:32]Abraham builds an altar. He lays the woods out the wood out and he binds Isaac and places his him on top of the altar.

[00:04:41]And then he reaches for the knife.

[00:04:45]And suddenly everything stops.

[00:04:49]He hears a voice cry out saying, "Abraham, Abraham, do not lay a hand on the boy." And he looks up and there's a ram caught in the thicket. God, at the last second, provided a substitute.

[00:05:06]Most people here they breathe a sigh of relief and then they move on.

[00:05:11]But I want to challenge us not to do this because this story is just getting started. I want to encourage you. I want to challenge you to sit with this for another minute.

[00:05:22]Picture yourself as Abraham.

[00:05:25]Put yourself there. Picture that is your child laying on the altar. Picture reaching for the knife. What's going on in your mind?

[00:05:34]What are you thinking?

[00:05:36]What are you feeling?

[00:05:39]Listen, I I I know that's uncomfortable.

[00:05:41]I have two boys and I once tried this out on my own. I genuinely tried. I placed myself in that moment. I tried to hold the image and I couldn't do it. I just got a few seconds in and I had to stop because it was too disturbing.

[00:05:53]I felt sick in my stomach. I had this like visceral reaction.

[00:05:58]And listen, I think that's the point.

[00:06:02]That's what we are supposed to feel.

[00:06:04]Because because here's what the story is actually doing. It's not just history.

[00:06:08]It's not just a kind of test of Abraham's faith. It's actually a foreshadowing.

[00:06:14]And it's foreshadowing something dark on purpose. And I think this story is supposed to disturb us because the thing it's pointing to is even darker. You see, God stopped Abraham from driving that knife into his son.

[00:06:30]But when it came to his son hanging on a cross he didn't stop it.

[00:06:36]He didn't intervene.

[00:06:38]He looked as the nails pierced his son's wrist. He watched as his son cried out in agony and took his last breath. And I want you to think about what this means.

[00:06:49]Because this is God we're talking about.

[00:06:52]The one who parted seas. The one who shut the mouths of lions. The one who called the universe into existence with words. This is a God who could have stopped it.

[00:07:04]He had stopped it before. He knew exactly what was happening on that hill outside of Jerusalem. And yet he let it happen anyway.

[00:07:13]Even when he heard his son cry out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

[00:07:18]He saw it all and he did not intervene.

[00:07:22]I mean, you can see the similarities in these two stories, can't you?

[00:07:26]Look back at what Isaac carried up the mountain, the wood of his own sacrifice on his back. And centuries later, another son would carry wood up another hill to another altar. But this time he would not walk away.

[00:07:39]God did not spare his own son the way he spared Isaac. He went through with it.

[00:07:45]For you.

[00:07:47]For me.

[00:07:48]For all of humanity.

[00:07:50]And I've spent most of my life disturbed by what God asked Abraham to do.

[00:07:57]But I haven't spent nearly enough time disturbed by what God actually did.

[00:08:04]And not just what he did, but why he had to do it.

[00:08:08]Look, Jesus didn't deserve any of that.

[00:08:10]It was our punishment. It was us who deserved that place, but he took our place. He bore our sin. He paid the paid the price for what was on our head. And that's the thing that should disturb us.

[00:08:21]The weight that crushed Jesus belonged to us. He didn't earn it, we did. And he walked toward it anyway, carrying the wood up a hill, knowing exactly what was waiting for him at top.

[00:08:33]He took our place.

[00:08:35]He bore what was ours.

[00:08:37]Not because we deserve the rescue, because that's who God is. And Abraham had a name for that. He called the mountain the place that the Lord will provide. And this isn't like a theological footnote, it's a testimony.

[00:08:52]A man who walked up that hill with a knife in hand walked down with his son because God showed up in the middle of his worst moment and provided a way through.

[00:09:01]That's the God that we're dealing with.

[00:09:03]Not a God who's waiting for you to to screw up again, but or waiting for you to get your act together. Not a God who's tallying all your failures together. That's not him. That's the God that the the Abraham left behind. This God, he provides. And he provided provided it in the most costly way possible.

[00:09:25]So, the question is, what are we supposed to do with a story like this?

[00:09:30]And the reality is, a lot of us are still trying to provide for ourselves what only God can give.

[00:09:37]We're trying to create our own peace by controlling everything. We try to deal with guilt by beating ourselves up long enough that maybe one day we'll feel like we've paid for our mistakes. We try to find our worth in being successful, in being needed, in being impressive, being the strong one, being the person that never falls apart.

[00:09:57]We try to heal by ignoring the wound hoping that eventually it just stops hurting.

[00:10:03]We try to escape what's going on in the inside by numbing out, by scrolling, by eating, by drinking, by staying busy.

[00:10:10]Anything to avoid sitting alone so that we can actually feel what's happening.

[00:10:16]And maybe the reason that we do this is because deep down we think it's on us.

[00:10:23]We think it's on us to fix it.

[00:10:26]We think it's on us to prove ourselves, to carry our shame. We think it's on us to pay for what we've done.

[00:10:34]But that is not what this story is showing us.

[00:10:38]See, Abraham walked up that mountain with his son and God provided a substitute and centuries later God walked up another mountain with his son and he did not stop it.

[00:10:51]And that should disturb us.

[00:10:53]Not because God is cruel, but because Jesus uh and not because Jesus was trapped, but because this is how far God is willing to go to rescue us.

[00:11:05]The cross is God saying, "I will provide what you cannot.

[00:11:11]Forgiveness for the sin you keep replaying in your head.

[00:11:16]Mercy for that version of yourself that you're ashamed of. Strength for when you're tired of trying to be strong.

[00:11:23]Comfort for the grief that you're trying to outrun. A way back when you've wandered so far that you're not even sure how to get home anymore.

[00:11:32]And most of all, a a substitute.

[00:11:36]Because our deepest problem is not that we need more motivation.

[00:11:40]It's not that we need better habits.

[00:11:42]It's not that we need to finally get our act together. Our deepest problem is sin.

[00:11:47]That sin brought separation and guilt and the weight of standing before a holy God with nothing in our hands that can make it right. And God provided for that, too.

[00:11:58]So, yes, we should confess our sins. We should bring that thing into the light.

[00:12:02]We should get help. We should make the call. We should have the conversation.

[00:12:05]We should ask for forgiveness. We should walk away from our old life that was destroying us anyway.

[00:12:10]But do not stand there with that knife over your own life acting like your shame can save you because it can't.

[00:12:17]Jesus already carried for you what you cannot carry. Jesus already paid for you what you cannot pay. Jesus already walked up that hill so that you could find life.

[00:12:30]So, walk down that mountain.

[00:12:32]Not because nothing happened. Not because sin doesn't matter, but because God provided. And now you are forgiven.

[00:12:41]You are loved.

[00:12:43]And you are free.

[00:12:46]Thank you so much for watching this video. I hope that it helped you see this story in a new [music] light. If it did, would you make sure you're subscribed so that you can stay up-to-date on future videos that are coming out? And if you want to dive deeper [music] into topics like this, I have a whole series on my weekly newsletter called Rethink It's Theology You Can Actually Use. It's not academic or fluff, but practical [music] biblical insights. The link's in the description for that down below, where you can read all about Old [music] Testament stories that I've covered there.

[00:13:16]And leave a comment, too. I'd love to know your thoughts. Thanks for watching.

[00:13:20]We'll [music] see you next time.

[00:13:35]>> Mhm.