This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Love of the Father” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, July 19, 1992.

Our scripture reading this morning is Genesis chapter 22. We will read from verse 1 through verse 14. This is Genesis chapter 22, beginning at verse 1. Listen to the word of God. And it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham and said unto him, Abraham, and he said, Behold, here I am.

And he said, Take now thy son, thy 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 laid the wood for the burnt offering on his shoulder, 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, 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 that God had told him about, 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. Then Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham, and he said, Here am I. And he said, Do not lay your hand on the lad, and do nothing to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only one, from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering in place of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord Will Provide.”

As it is said to this day, on the mount of the Lord it shall be provided. I think that you will agree that this text stands as something like a monument on the pages of the Old Testament. Not just with respect to the Old Testament, but with respect to the entirety of the scriptures. This passage is indeed extraordinary, so extraordinary that it gives us pause. We linger over it, we reflect upon it, and that in keeping with its intention, for it was intended to stop the children of Israel in their tracks as they were hearing the word of God recited to them, to stop them in their tracks so that they might then think about this test specifically and quite seriously. This is obvious to us because of what we know from the later revelation that was given to Moses. You recall how the law of God that came to Moses prohibited the very thing that God is commanding here. In fact, God, later on in his law, by his commandments, will call this very thing—that is, the offering up of a child in religious sacrifice—an abomination. Now here, you see, God himself is giving the command. The juxtaposition of this story with what we find later in scripture is intended to make Israel pause, linger, think about this text, and in their considerations penetrate it to its depths, mine it for its riches.

Now, we are not going to be able to penetrate all that is here today in this test. We do not have time. We are not going to be able to mine all the riches that are here. But there are some things that are important to keep straight. There are things that we do well to remind ourselves about as we think about this passage, as we consider it once more.

I want us to think this morning briefly about Isaac and about Abraham. First, Isaac. Isaac is in himself a prophecy. Isaac is in himself a prophecy. He forecasts what is coming in the program of God, and in this one, Isaac, we are able to perceive the pattern of the coming Christ.

Is the God of the Bible one? The God of the Bible, the God of the Old Testament, and the God of the New Testament—this is one God. He is the God and Father of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Even here, 2000 years before the birth of Christ, we see the pattern of Christ set before us in this young man, Isaac. He is like Christ.

In verse 2, we are told that Isaac is the only son, the well-beloved son of Abraham. This language will carry great meaning in the fullness of revelation, when God sends forth his only begotten Son, his well-beloved Son. Isaac, we are told, then, foretells the coming Christ. He is the only well-beloved Son of the Father.

In this story, Isaac is also the sacrifice. As you know, this will be true of Christ. Isaac foretells the coming sacrifice of Christ. In the fullness of time, it will not be a lamb offered in place of the Son, but the Son Himself will become the Lamb, and through Him the sin of the world will be forgiven. In the likeness of Isaac to Christ, we see him received back by his father after the ordeal of death. This is the focus, the central point, emphasized by the writer to the Hebrews in the eleventh chapter, verse nineteen, where he says that Abraham received his son back as a testimony that the one he worshipped was able to raise the dead. Isaac, in being restored to his father after undergoing the ordeal of death, becomes a type of Christ—like unto Christ. But Isaac is also one who is like us.

He is called to obedience in his service to the Father, an obedience that even leads him to the gates of death. Such is the nature of the obedience of this servant. We too are called to obedience, even to the point of facing death, even to the point of trusting our God, our Father, through death. But there is something else here.

Isaac is not perfect, he is not sinless, neither are we, and therefore Isaac cannot claim, as he pursues this course of obedience, that he is unworthy of death. In fact, the testimony of Scripture is quite the contrary. He is worthy of death. He is worthy of God’s justice and His wrath, of His condemnation.

And thus, you see, as the story completes itself, it is only out of God’s grace that a substitute is provided for Isaac. And Isaac himself is delivered. It is not because of the worthiness of Isaac. It is not because Isaac is but a lad, a child, innocent in the world. That is not the case at all.

Abraham knows that. Isaac knows it. The children of Israel know it. We know it. We are called, as was Isaac, to faithfulness and obedience even unto death. And as we face death, we cannot claim that we are unworthy of death or even innocent in the face of it. But God is merciful to us, as He has been to Isaac, in providing us a substitute who bears our judgment and our punishment, that we might in fact go free. That, then, is Isaac.

Facts about him we should remind ourselves of. But what about Abraham? Abraham also is like us. Abraham has been called the father of faith, the one in whom faith is found, a model. The impact of Abraham carries on into the New Testament, so that he is set before the Church of Jesus Christ as an example of what true faith is all about.

As a man of faith, he is not one who is immune to trial. In fact, he is set for trial. He is destined for trial. Trial will in fact come, and that invariably, to the man of faith. And it will come by God’s design, not by Satan’s schemes and plots. It will come by God’s design. Abraham is like us. We ought to be like him. He is a man of faith. We should be a people of faith, knowing full well that our faith will be tested, as Abraham’s faith was tested. And the object of that test, that trial, is specifically with regard to the promise or the word of God.

Do we believe him or do we not? Do we believe God or do we not? Is his promise true or is it not? To what extent will we hold fast to this promise, this word of God? Are we prepared? Are we prepared to hold on to that promise and to persevere in our faith, even though life itself in this world is threatened? Some people say faith is acceptable as long as it brings them things in this world and makes them comfortable. The purpose of the test for Abraham, and the purpose of the test that comes to us, is to examine our confidence in the word of God and in God’s promise.

Is God faithful? Will his promise be fulfilled for us? Is there life to be found with him and in him, as he has claimed? Is God sufficient for us? Will he truly provide for us? Not only the things of this life, but will he also provide eternal things that will never end? So Abraham is like us. Abraham is like God. If Isaac is like the Son of God, then Abraham, the father, is like God the Father.

This father is called upon in this specific trial to offer up his son. This act, like the offering that is to come, is prophetic. Abraham’s action here foreshadows the event of the gospel itself, when the Father in heaven will offer up his Son. The connection between Abraham, the father in this world, and the Father in heaven, becomes the standard by which we judge the progress of our love for God. The alignment between ourselves and the one who is above then becomes the measure, the standard, by which we assess our growth in the love that is found in God. For what now comes into focus in this test of Abraham? It is this.

Will I give up that which I love most in this world for the sake of Him I love in heaven? Do you see how this matches what is true about the Father in heaven? For the Father in heaven will give up the one He loves most in heaven for the sake of those He loves on earth. It is this mutuality that confirms the love which Abraham bears for God, and which, in time, will confirm the love that God bears for Abraham.

So it is for you. The test of Abraham sets before you not some ordeal in which you must take a child of your own and place him on an altar, raising a knife over him, but it does set before you this truth: those who are of faith are prepared to give up whatever they love most in this world for the sake of the one they love in heaven. And in the end, you see, in the end, that alone is true faith. That alone is true faith.

Nothing else. The measure of it is how it conforms to the action of the Father, I will say it once more: the Father gave up the one He loved most in heaven for the sake of those He loves on earth. His Son comes. His Son dies. His Son takes upon Himself the full weight of our judgment, and by His Father He is raised up on the third day. How glorious. How marvelous. Let us pray.

Our Father, may we be sobered by what we have heard. May our minds and souls be straightened, if in fact they are crooked. May we be righted, Lord, if in fact we are overturned. May we be introduced to Your goodness and greatness, even in the face of the plain and evident testimony of our own sinfulness. O God, that we might be conformed to Your image, that we might be like You. And that what we find in Father Abraham might be instructive to us for this purpose.

Our God, as we have thought about Isaac and as we have thought about our Savior Jesus Christ and His sacrifice, we would then, Lord, look to the supper, the table, which is set before us. And keep in mind these marvelous truths as we come to partake of this sacrament which has been ordained for us. We pray it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.