God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac: Part 2 the parable

God had told Abraham to sacrifice his only son, the one he loved as a burnt offering (Genesis 22:2).  God would provide the lamb for the sacrifice as a substitution for Isaac (verse 8). Some have seen this story as God demonstrating  that the then common practice of child sacrifice was not what God required. While there is truth in this (see 3 February),  we need to see this as a parable, a foreshadowing of what God was willing to do for us.

In particular God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son Jesus that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). Jesus is the  “Lamb of  God that takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). And He suffered and died in our place,   suffered “for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God (1 Peter 3:18).

I said last day that this story has puzzled and horrified people.  And   round about this time every year,  the Church celebrates Easter.   The world wants to think of this being about the Easter bunny, it wants to take Christ out of Christmas, and it wants to take the horror out of the Easter story. Either that or to declare God sacrificing His Son as barbaric declaring “I would not give my son for your sins.” There is however, within the mystery of the Trinity (one God three Persons),  a real sense that God is sacrificing Himself. I mean two of the Names of the Child to be born,  the One  we celebrate at Christmas are “the Everlasting Father,” and “Almighty God” (Isaiah 9:6).  I don't pretend to fully understand Trinity, but then if I fully understood God, I would be God, and I am not – Hallelujah!

But coming back to the horror,  and the incredible love that was shown at that first Easter,  Paul writes “I urge  you therefore,  
 brothers and sisters, in view of God's tender mercies, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God--this is your true and proper worship” (Romans 12:1). The last phrase in the NJKV says “this is your reasonable service.”  In other words the only reasonable response to all that God has done for us in coming and dying to put us right with God, the only reasonable response is to live sacrificially every day for Him. How very different from the “I, me, mine” of our culture.  Some people say He is asking too much, in asking us to take up our own cross daily and follow Him (Luke 9:23)   But God never asks of us anything that He Himself has not already done, and done in spades.

In particular, He did not expect Abraham to follow through, but He  “did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.” Paul goes on to ask that if He did not spare His own Son  “how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things” (Romans 8:32)? So does God have the right to test us? Does He ask too much? You will have to answer that for yourself!

Lord Jesus, thank You for coming to save us, we love Lord because You first loved us.  You tells us “If you love me obey my commandments” (1 John 4:19; John 14:15). So we surrender everything again this morning,  to be the living sacrifices to which You call us, in Your precious Name we pray Amen