'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, 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.
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! And Abraham said, My son, God will provide
Himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both
of them together. And they came to the place which God
had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and
laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and
laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched
forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And
the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven,
and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And
He said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do
thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest
God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only
son from Me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked,
and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his
horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered
him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh:
as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it
shall be seen.'--GENESIS xxii. 1-14.
I
A life of faith and self-denial has usually its sharpest trials at or
near its beginning. A stormy day has generally a calm close. But
Abraham's sorest discipline came all sudden, like a bolt from blue sky.
Near the end, and after many years of peaceful, uneventful life, he had
to take a yet higher degree in the school of faith. Sharp trial means
increased possession of God. So his last terrible experience turned to
his crowning mercy.
1. The very first words of this solemn narrative raise many questions.
We have God appointing the awful trial. The Revised Version properly
replaces 'tempt' by 'prove.' The former word conveys the idea of
appealing to the worse part of a man, with the wish that he may yield
and do the wrong. The latter means an appeal to the better part of a
man, with the desire that he should stand. Temptation says: 'Do this
pleasant thing; do not be hindered by the fact that it is wrong.'
Trial, or proving, says: 'Do this right and noble thing; do not be
hindered by the fact that it is painful.' The one is 'a sweet,
beguiling melody,' breathing soft indulgence and relaxation over the
soul; the other is a pealing trumpet-call to high achievements.
God's proving does not mean that He stands by, watching how His child
will behave. He helps us to sustain the trial to which He subjects us.
Life is all probation; and because it is so, it is all the field for
the divine aid. The motive of His proving men is that they may be
strengthened. He puts us into His gymnasium to improve our physique. If
we stand the trial, our faith is increased; if we fall, we learn
self-distrust and closer clinging to Him. No objection can be raised to
the representation of this passage as to God's proving Abraham, which
does not equally apply to the whole structure of life as a place of
probation that it may be a place of blessing. But the manner of the
trial here presents a difficulty. How could God command a father to
kill his son? Is that in accordance with His character? Well, two
considerations deserve attention. First, the final issue; namely,
Isaac's deliverance, was an integral part of the divine purpose from
the beginning of the trial; so that the question really is, Was it
accordant with the divine character to require readiness to sacrifice
even a son at His command? Second, that in Abraham's time, a father's
right over his child's life was unquestioned, and that therefore this
command, though it lacerated Abraham's heart, did not wound his
conscience as it would do were it heard to-day. It is impossible to
conceive of a divine injunction such as this being addressed to us. We
have learned the inalienable sacredness of every life, and the awful
prerogative and burden of individuality. God's command cannot enforce
sin. But it was not wrong in Abraham's eyes for a father to slay his
son; and God might shape His message to the form of the existing
morality without derogation from His character, especially when the
result of the message would be, among other things, to teach His
abhorrence of human sacrifices, and so to lift the existing morality to
a higher level.
2. 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
homely 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.
The elements of the trial were two: first, Abraham's soul was torn
asunder by the conflict of fatherly love and obedience to God. The
narrative intimates this struggle by continually insisting on the
relationship between the two. The command dwells with emphasis on it:
'thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest.' He takes with him
'Isaac his son'; lays the wood on 'Isaac his son.' Isaac 'spake unto
Abraham his father'; Abraham answers, 'Here am I, my son'; and again,
'My son, God will provide.' He bound 'Isaac his son'; he 'took the
knife to slay his son'; and lastly, in the glad surprise at the end, he
offers the ram 'in the stead of his son.' Thus, at every turn, the
tender bond is forced on our notice, that we may feel how terrible was
the task laid on him--to cut it asunder with his own hand. The friend
of God must hold all other love as less than His, and must be ready to
yield up the dearest at His bidding. Cruel as the necessity seems to
flesh and blood, and specially poignant as his pain was, in essence
Abraham's trial only required of him what all true religion requires of
us. Some of us have been called by God's providence to give up the
light of our eyes, the joy of our homes, to Him. Some of us have had to
make the choice between earthly and heavenly love. All of us have to
throne God in our hearts, and to let not the dearest usurp His place.
In our weakness we may well shrink from such a test. But let us not
forget that the trial of Abraham was not imposed by his own mistaken
conceptions of duty, nor by a sterner God than the New Testament
reveals, but is distinctly set before every Christian in essence,
though not in form, by the gentle lips from which flowed the law of
love more stringent and exclusive in its claims than any other: 'He
that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me.'
The conflict in Abraham's soul had a still more painful aspect in that
it seemed to rend his very religion into two. Faith in the promise on
which he had been living all his life drew one way; faith in the later
command, another. God seemed to be against God, faith against faith,
promise against command. If he obeys now, what is to become of the
hopes that had shone for years before him? His whole career will be
rendered nugatory, and with his own hand he will crush to powder his
life's work. That wonderful short dialogue which broke the stern
silence of the journey seems to throw light on his mood. There is
nothing in literature sacred or secular, fact or fiction, poetry or
prose, more touching than the innocent curiosity of Isaac's boyish
question, and the yearning self-restraint of the father's desperate and
yet calm answer. But its value is not only in its pathos. It seems to
show that, though he knew not how, still he held by the hope that
somehow God would not forget His promise. Out of his very despair, his
faith struck, out of the flint of the hard command, a little spark
which served to give some flicker of light amid the darkness. His
answer to his boy does not make his sacrifice less, but his faith more.
The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews gives a somewhat different
turn to his hopes, when he tells us that he offered up the heir of the
promises, 'accounting that God was able to raise him from the dead.'
Both ways of clinging to the early promise, even while obeying the
later command, seem to have passed through his mind. The wavering from
the one to the other is natural. He is sure that God had not lied
before, and means what He commands now. He is sure that there is some
point of reconciliation--perhaps this, perhaps that, but certainly
somewhat. So he goes straight on the road marked for him, quite sure
that it will not end in a blind alley, from which there is no exit.
That is the very climax of faith--to trust God so absolutely, even when
His ways seem contradictory, as to be more willing to believe apparent
impossibilities than to doubt Him, and to be therefore ready for the
hardest trial of obedience. We, too, have sometimes to take courses
which seem to annihilate the hope and aims of a life. The lesson for us
is to go straight on the path of clear duty wherever it leads. If it
seem to bring us up to inaccessible cliffs, we may be sure that when we
get there we shall find some ledge, though it may be no broader than a
chamois could tread, which will suffice for a path. If it seem to bring
us to a deep and bridgeless stream, we shall find a ford when we get to
the water's edge. If the mountains seem to draw together and bar a
passage, we shall find, when we reach them, that they open out; though
it may be no wider than a cañon, still the stream can get through, and
our boat with it.
3. So we have the climax of the story--faith rewarded. The first great
lesson which the interposition of the Divine voice teaches us, is that
obedience is complete when the inward surrender is complete. The
outward act was needless. Abraham would have done no more if the
flashing knife had buried itself in Isaac's heart. Here is the first
great proclamation of the truth which revolutionises morality and
religion, the beginnings of the teaching which culminates in the ethics
of the Sermon on the Mount, and in the gospel of salvation, not by
deeds, but through faith. The will is the man, the true action is the
submission of the will. The outward deed is only the coarse medium
through which it is made visible for men: God looks on purpose as
performance.
Again, faith is rewarded by God's acceptance and approval. 'I know that
thou fearest God,' not meaning that He learned the heart by the
conduct, but that, on occasion of the conduct, He breathes into the
obedient heart that calm consciousness of its service as recognised and
accepted by Him, which is the highest reward that His friend can know.
'To be well pleasing to Him' is our noblest aim, which, cherished,
makes sacrifice sweet, and all difficult things easy. 'Nor know we
anything more fair Than is the smile upon Thy face.'
Again, faith is rewarded by a deeper insight into God's will. Much has
been said about the sacrifice of Isaac in its bearing upon the custom
of human sacrifice. We do not believe that Abraham was led to his act
by a mistaken idea, borrowed from surrounding idolatries. His position
as the sole monotheist amid these, the absence of evidence that human
sacrifice was practised then among his neighbours, and, above all, the
fact of the divine approval of his intention, forbid our acceptance of
that theory. Nor can we regard the condemnation of such sacrifices as
the main object of the incident. But no doubt an incidental result,
and, we may perhaps say, a subsidiary purpose of it, was to stamp all
such hideous usages with the brand of God's displeasure. The mode of
thought which led to them was deeply rooted in the consciousness of the
Old World, and corresponded to a true conception of the needs of
humanity. The dark sense of sin, the conviction that it required
expiation, and that procurable only by death, drove men to these horrid
rites. And that ram, caught in the thicket, thorn-crowned and
substituted for the human victim, taught Abraham and his sons that God
appointed and provided a lamb for an offering. It was a lesson won by
faith. Nor need we hesitate to see some dim forecast of the great
Substitute whom God provided, who bears the sins of the world.
Again, faith is rewarded by receiving back the surrendered blessing,
made more precious because it has been laid on the altar. How strange
and solemn must have been the joy with which these two looked in each
other's faces! What thankful wonder must have filled Abraham's heart as
he loosed the cord that had bound his son! It would be many days before
the thrill of gratitude died away, and the possession of his son seemed
to Abraham, or that of life seemed to Isaac, a common thing. He was
doubly now a child of wonder, born by miracle, delivered by miracle. So
is it ever. God gives us back our sacrifices, tinged with a new beauty,
and purified from earthly alloy.
We never know how sweet our blessings are till we have yielded them to
Him. 'There is no man that hath left' anything or any person for
Christ's sake and the gospel's who will not 'receive a hundred-fold
more in this life, and in the world to come life everlasting.'
Lastly, Abraham was rewarded by being made a faint adumbration, for all
time, of the yet more wondrous and awful love of the divine Father,
who, for our sakes, has surrendered His only-begotten Son, whom He
loved. Paul quotes the very words of this chapter when he says: 'He
that _spared_ not His _own Son_, but delivered Him up for us all.' Such
thoughts carry us into dim regions, in which, perhaps, silence is best.
Did some shadow of loss and pain pass over the divine all-sufficiency
and joy, when He sent His Son? Was the unresisting innocence of the son
a far-off likeness of the willing eagerness of the sinless Sufferer who
chose to die? Was the resolved surrender of the father a faint prelude
of the deep divine love which gave His only Son for us? Shall we not
say, 'Now I know that Thou lovest me, because Thou hast not withheld
Thy Son, Thine only Son, from me'? Shall we not recognise this as the
crown of Abraham's reward, that his act of surrender of his dearest to
God, his Friend, has been glorified by being made the mirror of God's
unspeakable gift of His Son to us, His enemies?