Advent 2023: November 8 - People

Wednesday, November 8th: People

Read Genesis 22.

Isaac is a type of Jesus Christ.  By type, we could say a “foreshadowing.”  Moments in the life of Isaac will suddenly remind us of Jesus Christ.  We see that in Genesis 22 today.
 
From Genesis 12-21 we keep hearing God make promises.  He promises several times to Abraham that he will have a son.  Abraham was 75 years when we first met him in Genesis 12.  Now in Genesis 21, Abraham is 100 years old.  Abraham had to wait 25 years for the birth of his son Isaac.  Isaac is a long hoped for promise.  Just like how Jesus is for us.

But then in Genesis 22, God tells Abraham, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.
 
Talk about an “eyes jumping out of your head” moment as you read this.  How can God command this?!  Human sacrifice?  How does this make sense?  Is God just being capricious?

Or should we be seeing this as a moment that shows us the love that God has for us in Christ that caused God to not spare his Son, his only begotten Son, whom he loves, and sent him to the cross to be our substitute for sin?  See Matthew 4.
 
Indeed, this is how we should read this.  Isaac points us to and foreshadows Jesus.  The Son who is born by a special promise.  Who carries the wood of the burnt offering upon him to the place where God provides.  Jesus likewise bears his own wood to the hill called Golgotha and is offered up for us.

And Abraham trusted God, even in this.  He kept faith, knowing that God would have to raise Isaac from the dead to keep his promise.  And indeed, he did receive him back as Hebrews 11 tells us.
 
A note here would also be good to keep in mind.  The mount upon which Isaac was laid to be sacrificed is the place where the Temple was to be laid (2 Samuel 24, 2 Chronicles 3). The temple, where the blood of the lambs was offered for the sins of the people, points us to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29).