Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son
Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac
I.
That we may properly ascertain the extent of Abraham’s virtue, we must consider THE RELATIVE SITUATION IN WHICH HE IS PLACED AT THIS CRITICAL PERIOD. Two Abrahams combated one against the other; but divine and heavenly principles raise him far above those which are carnal and terrestial. Grace triumphs over nature. Abraham makes a double sacrifice to God; an exterior sacrifice upon the mountain, and an interior sacrifice in the secret of his soul. In the one he takes his son and binds him; in the other he immolates to God the sentiments of his soul. Outwardly it is Isaac who is offered up, inwardly it is Abraham who suffers and who sacrifices himself. Abraham goes out of himself, and rises indeed to God. Never did the Deity regard the sacrifice with so much pleasure--never did heaven behold so delightful a spectacle.
II. In fact, the sacrifice of Abraham has been handed down to us as A GREAT AND SPLENDID TYPE OF THE SACRIFICE OF THE CROSS. Abraham immolates his only son. God also sacrifices His own Son. Behold the agreement which subsists between these two sacrifices, and which obliges us to consider one of these objects in the other as in the most perfect type; but behold the difference which distinguishes them, and which discovers to us how much the image sinks below the original. Go to Moriah, and you will there find a victim who follows the priest without knowing at first whither he is going, and who asks his father, where is the lamb for a burnt-offering? Turn your eye towards Calvary, and you will see Jesus Christ who exposes himself voluntarily to the sword of His Father, and who perfectly acquainted with His destiny, says to Him, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. There angels are sent from heaven to arrest the arm of Abraham; here devils issue from hell to hasten the death of Jesus Christ. In the sacrifice of Isaac, the fire, the knife, the sacrificer, are visible, but the victim does not at first appear; in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the victim appears first, but the knife, which is the sword of divine justice, and the fire, which consists in the ardour of his wrath and judgments, are invisible, are only seen by the eyes of faith. Upon the mountain of Moriah Abraham sacrifices his son to his Master, to his Benefactor, to his Creator, to his God; upon the mount of Calvary, God immolates his Son for the salvation of men, who are nothing but meanness, misery, and corruption. (Abbadie.)
The perfection of Abraham’s friendship with God
God is to this man a friend to be trusted, even though He slay; to be loved better than an only son; to be obeyed where reason refuses its light to justify the command, and nature with all her voices can only exclaim against it. It is the perfection of a man’s friendship with God to be thus loyal. It puts the all-perfect Lord, Whose name is Love, in His just place. It pays Him such honour as is His due. Irreligious minds, it is true, cannot rise so high as to comprehend this. To them, such an absolute sacrifice of everything to the Supreme must sound both unreasonable and unnatural. Even religious men are apt to find the air upon this height of sacrifice too rare for them to breath with comfort. It is only at moments of somewhat similar trial, when the Christian is lifted above his usual self-indulgent level, that he can taste a similar blessedness, or feel his heart at one with that ancient saint upon Moriah. None the less does this act of Abraham express the kind of self-surrender which must be natural to any one who perfectly knows God, and is in close friendship with Him, and therefore can repose in Him an unfaltering trust that He will act like God. To souls made perfect and set free from the shadows of earth into that vision of the Eternal Face for which it is our present blessedness to long, such a temper of sacrifice as Abraham attained may prove to be not natural only, but easy, and even rapturous. (J. O. Dykes, D. D.)
A typical transaction
Isaac was eminently a type of Christ; but throughout the whole of this instance how beautiful and striking! Look at the father; can anything be more analogous than Abraham’s conduct and our heavenly Father’s? Why did God say to Abraham, “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah: and offer him there for a burnt-offering”? Why did He make Abraham himself prepare all the materials? Why did He make him take the knife himself, and the fire in his hand? Because it was exactly what our heavenly Father Himself has done, and because it was to be an appeal to our feelings, that we might have some understanding of what our Father has done. Did not our Father take His Son, His only Son, whom He loved, and offer him up upon a Mount, as a burnt-offering for us? Did He not take the knife? Did He not say, “Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd”? Did He not Himself bruise that Son? “It pleased the Lord to bruise Him.” Did He not Himself lay on that Son all those afflictions, and Himself literally cause that death, that His own demands and justice might be satisfied for your transgressions and mine? The parallel runs entirely through the deed. Thus He prepared the Son; He prepared a body for Him; He sent Him into the world, sent afflictions on Him, bruised Him, grieved Him, unsheathed the sword against Him, and made Him a burnt-offering in the furnace of His own wrath. Where shall we find the Lamb? This is what perplexed Isaac, and what perplexed the whole universe. “My son,” said Abraham, “God will provide Himself a Lamb.” So He did. “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotton Son”; and therefore, when He came, “Behold the Lamb of God.” said his precursor, “that taketh away the sin of the world.” (C. Molyneux, B. A.)
Prohibition of human sacrifice
Several Greek myths have been compared with this narrative; but the similarity exists but remotely in some external circumstances. Iphigenia, Agamemnon’s daughter, was to be sacrificed to Diana, and the priest Calchas was on the point of performing the fearful ceremony, when the virgin was carried away by the goddess in a cloud, and an animal offering was presented in her stead. But the motive for the intended sacrifice was perverse and barbarous; Agamemnon had killed a stag sacred to Diana; and the incensed goddess would only be reconciled if the king’s eldest and dearest daughter were offered to her. The future fate of Iphigenia was enveloped in mystery; it was only many years later that her abode was accidentally discovered by her wandering brother Creates. Thus, the cruel command, devoid of purpose or moral end, was the result of divine wrath and caprice. But the trial of Abraham was as important as regards the doctrine which it involved, as it was pure in the motive from which it arose. (M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D.)
