The first words of this lesson give the keynote for its meaning. 'God
did prove Abraham'; the strange command was a test of his faith. In
recent times the incident has been regarded chiefly as embodying a
protest against child-sacrifices, and no doubt that is part of its
intention, and their condemnation was part of its effect, but the other
is the principal thing. Abraham, as the 'Father of the Faithful,' has
his faith tested by a series of events from his setting out from Haran,
and they culminate in this sharpest of all, the command to slay his
son. The life of faith is ever a life of testing, and very often the
fire that tries increases in heat as life advances. The worst conflicts
are not always at the beginning of the war.
Our best way of knowing ourselves is to observe our own conduct,
especially when it is hard to do nobly. We may easily cheat ourselves
about what is the basis and ruling motive of our lives, but our actions
will show it us. God does not 'test' us as if He did not know what was
gold and what base metal, but the proving is meant to make clear to
others and ourselves what is the worth and strength of our religion.
The test is also a means of increasing the faith which it demonstrates,
so that the exhortation to 'count it all joy' to have faith tried is no
overstrained counsel of perfection.
The narrative plainly declares that the command to sacrifice his son
was to Abraham unmistakably divine. The explanation that Abraham,
living beside peoples who practised child-sacrifice, heard but the
voice of his own conscience asking, 'Canst thou do for Jehovah what
these do for Moloch?' does not correspond to the record. No doubt God
does speak through conscience; but what sent Abraham on his terrible
journey was a command which he knew did not spring up within, but came
to him from above. We may believe or disbelieve the possibility or the
actuality of such direct and distinguishable commands from God, but we
do not face the facts of this narrative unless we recognise that it
asserts that God made His will known to Abraham, and that Abraham knew
that it was God's will, not his own thought.
But is it conceivable that God should ever bid a man commit a crime? To
the question put in that bald way, of course there can be but one
answer, No. But several conditions have to be taken into account.
First, it is conceivable that God should test a man's willingness to
surrender what is most precious to him, and what all his hopes are
fixed on; and this command was given with the purpose that it should
not be obeyed in fact, if the willingness to obey it was proved. Again,
the stage of development of the moral sense at which Abraham stood has
to be remembered. The child-sacrifices around him were not regarded as
crimes, but as worship, and, while his affections were the same as
ours, and his father's heart was wrung, to slay Isaac did not present
itself to him as a crime in the way in which it does so to us. God
deals with men on the moral and spiritual level to which they have
attained, and, by descending to it, raises them higher.
The purpose of the command was to test faith, even more than to test
whether earthly love or heavenly obedience were the stronger. There is
a beautiful and instructive climax in the designations of Isaac in
verse 2, where four times he is referred to, 'thy son, thine only son,'
in whom all the hopes of fulfilment of the divine promise were
concentrated, so that, if this fruit from the aged tree were cut off,
no other could ever grow; 'whom thou lovest,'--there the sharp point
pierces the father's heart; 'even Isaac,' in which name all the ties
that knit him to Abraham are gathered up. Each word heightens the
greatness of the sacrifice demanded, and is a fresh thrust of the
dagger into Abraham's very life. Each suggests a reason for not slaying
Isaac, which sense might plead. God does not hide the painfulness of
surrender from us. The more precious the treasure is, the more are we
bound to lay it on the altar. But it was Abraham's faith even more than
his love that was tested. The Epistle to the Hebrews lays hold on this
as the main element in the trial, that he who 'had received the
promises' was called to do what seemed to blast all hope of their being
fulfilled. What a cruel position to have God's command and God's
promise apparently in diametrical opposition! But faith loosened even
that seemingly inextricable tangle of contradiction, and felt that to
obey was for man, and to keep His promise was for God. If we do our
duty, He will see to the consequences. 'Tis mine to obey; 'tis His to
provide.'
Nothing in literature is more tenderly touched or more truly imagined
than that long, torturing journey--Abraham silent, Isaac silently
wondering, the servants silently following. And, like a flash, at last
'the place' was seen afar off. How calmly Abraham speaks to the two
followers, mastering his heart's throbbing even then! 'We will worship,
and come again to you'--was that a 'pious fraud' or did it not rather
indicate that a ray of hope, like pale light from a shrouded sun, shone
for him? He 'accounted that God was able to raise him up even from the
dead.' Somehow, he knew not how, Isaac slain was still to live and
inherit the promises. Anything was possible, but that God's word should
fail was impossible. That picture of the father and son alone, the one
bearing the wood, the other the fire and the knife, exchanging no word
but once, when the innocent wonder of Isaac's question must have shaken
Abraham's steadfastness, and made it hard for him to steady his voice
to answer, touches the deepest springs of pity and pathetic sublimity.
But the answer is in the same spirit as that to the servants, and
indicates the same hope. 'God will provide Himself a lamb, my son.' He
does not know definitely what he expects; he is ready to slay Isaac,
but his faith is not quenched, though the end seems so inevitable and
near. Faith was never more sharply tested, and never more triumphantly
stood the test.
The divine solution of the riddle was kept back till the last moment,
as it usually is. The place is slowly reached, the hill slowly climbed,
the altar built, the unresisting Isaac bound (with what deep thoughts
in each, who can tell?), the steady hand holding the glittering knife
lifted--a moment more and it will be red with heart's blood, and not
till then does God speak. It is ever so. The trial has 'its perfect
work.' Faith is led to the edge of the precipice, one step farther and
all is over. Then God speaks, all but just too late, and yet 'right
early.' The willingness to make the sacrifice is tested to the utmost,
and being proved, the sacrifice is not required.
Abraham had said to Isaac, 'God will provide a lamb,' and the word
'provide' is that which appears in the name he gave to the
place--Jehovah-_jireh_. The name, then, commemorated, not the servant's
faith but the Lord's mercy, and the spirit of it was embodied in what
became a popular saying, 'In the mount of the Lord it shall be
provided.' If faith dwells there, its surrenders will be richly
rewarded. How much more dear was Isaac to Abraham as they journeyed
back to Beersheba! And whatever we lay on God's altar comes back a
'hundred-fold more in this life,' and brings in the world to come life
everlasting.