After the formal covenant of blood had been made between Abraham and
Jehovah, there was a specific testing of Abraham’s fidelity to that
covenant, as if in evidence of the fact that it was no empty ceremony
on his part, whereby he pledged his blood,--his very life, in its
successive generations,--to Jehovah, in the rite of circumcision. The
declaration of his “faith,” and the promise of his faithfulness, were
to be justified, in their manifest sincerity, by his explicit “works”
in their direction.
All the world over, men who were in the covenant of blood-friendship
were ready,--or were supposed to be ready,--to give not only their
lives for each other, but even to give, for each other, that which
was dearer to them than life itself. And, all the world over, men who
pledged their devotedness to their gods were ready to surrender to
their gods that which they held as dearest and most precious--even
to the extent of their life, and of that which was dearer than life.
Would Abraham do as much for his Divine Friend, as men would do for
their human friends? Would Abraham surrender to his God all that the
worshipers of other gods were willing to surrender in proof of their
devotedness? These were questions yet to be answered before the world.
“And it came to pass after these things, that God did prove Abraham
[did put him to the test, or the proof, of his friendship], and said
unto him, Abraham; and he said, Here am I. And he said, Take now thy
son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and get thee unto
the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one
of the mountains which I will tell thee of.”[466] And Abraham rose up
instantly to respond to the call of his Divine Friend.
Just here it is important to consider two or three points at which the
Western mind has commonly failed to recognize the Oriental thought, in
connection with such a transaction as this.
An Oriental father prizes an only son’s life far more than he prizes
his own. He recognizes it, to be sure, as at his own disposal; but
he would rather surrender any other possession than that. For an
Oriental to die without a son, is a terrible thought.[467] His life
is a failure. His future is blank. But with a son to take his place,
an Oriental is, in a sense, ready to die. When therefore an Oriental
has one son, if the choice must be between the cutting short of
the father’s life, or of the son’s, the former would be the lesser
surrender; the latter would be far greater. Preeminently did this
truth have force in the case of Abraham, whose pilgrim-life had
been wholly with reference to the future; and whose earthly-joy and
earthly-hopes centered in Isaac, the son of his old age. For Abraham
to have surrendered his own toil-worn life, now that a son of promise
was born to him, would have been a minor matter, at the call of God.
But for Abraham to surrender that son, and so to become again a
childless, hopeless old man, was a very different matter. Only a faith
that would neither question nor reason, only a love that would neither
fail nor waver, could meet an issue like that. The surrender of an
only son by an Oriental, was not, therefore, as it is often deemed in
the Western mind, a father’s selfish yielding of a lesser substitute
for himself;[468] but it was the giving of the one thing which he had
power to surrender, which was more precious to him than himself. The
difference here is as great as that between the enforced sending, by
an able-bodied citizen, of a “substitute” defender of the sender’s
country in a war-time draft, and the willing sending to the front, by
an aged father, of his loved and only son, at the first signal of his
country’s danger. The one case has in it more than a suggestion of
cowardly shirking; the other shows only a loyal and self-forgetful love
of country.
Again, we are liable to think of the surrender of a life, as the
dooming to death; and of a sacrificial outpouring of blood, as
necessarily an expiatory offering. In the case of the only son sent
into battle by his patriotic father, death may be an incident to the
transaction; but the gift of the son is the gift of his _life_, whether
he shall live or die. And although the war itself be caused by sin,
and be a result, and so a punishment, of sin, the son is sent into
it, not in order that he may bear punishment, but that he may avert
its disastrous consequences, even at the cost of his life--with the
necessity of his death.
This idea of the surrender of an only son, not in expiation of
guilt, but in proof of unselfish and limitless affection, runs down
through the ages, apart from any apparent trace of connection with
the tradition of Abraham and Isaac. It is seen:--in India, in the
story of the sacrifice of Siralen, the only son of Sirutunden and
Vanagata-ananga, as a simple proof of their loving devotedness to
Vishnoo;[469] in Arabia, in the story of the proffered slaying of the
two only children of a king, in order to restore to life by their
blood, his dearly loved friend and servant, who had been turned to
stone;[470] in the Norseland, in the similar story of the king and
his friend and servant “Faithful John;”[471] in Great Britain, in
the story of Amys and Amylion, the one of these friends sacrificing
his two only children for the purpose of curing the other friend of
the leprosy;[472] and so in many another guise.[473] Whatever other
value attaches to these legends, they show most clearly, that the
conception of such a surrender as that to which Abraham was called in
the sacrifice of Isaac, was not a mere outgrowth of the customs of
human sacrifices to malignant divinities, in Phoenicia and Moab and the
adjoining countries, in the days of Abraham and earlier.[474] There was
a sentiment involved, which is everywhere recognized as the noblest and
purest of which humanity is capable.
If, indeed, there were any reluctance to accept this simple explanation
of an obvious view of the test of friendship to which God subjected
Abraham, because of its possible bearing on the recognized symbolism
of the transaction, then it would be sufficient to remember, that one
view of such a transaction is not necessarily its only view. Whatever
other view be taken of the fact and the symbolism of God’s call on
Abraham, to surrender to him his only son, it is obvious that, as a
fact, God did test, or prove, Abraham his friend, by asking of him the
very evidence of his loving and unselfish devotedness to him, which has
been, everywhere and always, reckoned the highest and surest evidence
possible of the truest and holiest friendship. And this may well be
looked at, also, as a symbol of God’s purpose of surrendering _his_
only Son, in proof of his fidelity to his blood-covenant of friendship
with Abraham and Abraham’s true seed forever.
“Greater love [in friendship] hath no man than this, that a man lay
down his life for his friends;”[475] and no man, as the Oriental mind
views it, can so utterly lay down his life, as when he lays down the
larger life of his only son. Abraham showed himself capable of even
such friendship as this, in his blood-covenant with Jehovah; and when
he had manifested his spirit of devotedness, he was told to stay his
hand and spare his son: the will was accepted for the deed. “Yea,
he that had gladly received the promises, was offering up his only
begotten son; even he of whom it was said, In Isaac shall thy seed be
called: accounting that God is able to raise up even from the dead;
from whence he did also in a parable receive him back.”[476] Then it
was, that “the Angel of the Lord called unto Abraham a second time out
of heaven and said, By myself have I sworn [by my life], saith the
Lord, because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son,
thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying
I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand
which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of
his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be
blessed: because thou hast [even to this extent] obeyed my voice.”[477]
The blood-covenant of friendship between Jehovah and Abraham had more
meaning in it than ever, through its testing and its triumph, in this
transaction.
And it is on this record, and apparently in this view of the record,
that the Apostle James says: “Was not Abraham our father justified by
works, in that he offered up Isaac his son upon the altar? Thou seest
that faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect
[consummated]; and the Scripture was fulfilled which saith, And Abraham
believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness; and he
was called the friend of God.”[478]