Test Answers: Genesis 22:1, 8, 14
Photo by Thanti Riess on Unsplash
In my high school, all the teachers always “reviewed” for the test the day before we took the test. That practice really lightened my testing anxiety. I felt confident as I studied and as I took the test because the teachers had provided all the answers and formulae in advance.
In Genesis 22, Abraham (now over 100 years old) was being tested by God. At 100+ years, you’d think he wouldn’t need any more tests, but instead, he was to face his greatest test yet. God told him to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac, for whom he and his wife Sarah had waited for decades.
(Sacrificing a child, literally, with a knife on an altar, seems like a barbaric thing for God to ask for. It was. That was the point. All of Abraham’s neighbors believed in gods whose worship demanded child sacrifice. God was making the point that he was no such god. But that’s getting ahead of the story.)
The Bible says, “God tested Abraham and said to him…, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and… offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you’” (Genesis 22:1-2 ESV). So Abraham did. He took Isaac, who was old enough to know how they sacrificed sheep to God for sins in promise of atonement, and they went to the mountain together.
Along the way, Isaac asked, “Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” And Abraham replied, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son” (7-8). And after going to the mountain, setting up the altar, and finding no offering but Isaac, Abraham put his son on the altar and raised the knife. But that’s when God stopped him! An angel pointed out a ram, caught by the horns in some nearby brush, and indicated that that was the sacrifice. God didn’t want human sacrifice. God would provide his own sacrifice. In fact, the Bible says, “So 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’” (14).
(And God would provide again and again, until one day, (just like he said to Abraham) he provided his own son, his only son, the son whom he loves: God the Son. And that Son became man, was named Jesus, died for our sins but rose again the third day, who was indeed the Lamb, the Offering, provided by God, to be received by the test of faith.)
When God provides a test, he provides the answers. The first test is, what will you do about your sin? The answer is Jesus. After that will be many more tests along these lines: how will you love God and love your neighbor in spite of the sacrifice you might need to make? Or, how will you endure this current trial? And over and over, God will provide the answer. So: God provides the test, and God provides the answer. The person of faith looks to God to provide.