u. Its Use to us.
There are various lessons to be learned from it
» J. J. S. Perowne. ' J. 0. Dykes. " A. 0. Price.
GENESIS XXII. I, 2 195
1. They that are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. — It was designed to reveal to posterity the fitness of this man for the unparalleled honour to which God had summoned him — the honour of entering first into friendly alliance with Heaven, of receiving in the name of the universal Church Heaven's promise of eternal blessing, and of becoming to after ages the exemplar of that trust in God to which it has pleased Him to attach His favour and forgiveness. The issue of that probation was to justify the confidence reposed in Abraham by Abraham's almighty Friend.
2. True sacrifice is the surrender of the wUl. — The sacrifice, though commanded, was not exacted. Abraham's hand was stayed, before the fatal act was completed. This showed, once for all, clearly and immistakably, that in contrast to what was imagined of the heathen deities worshipped by Israel's neighbours, the God of Israel did nptjdemand human sacrifices of His worshippers. He demanded in reality only the surrender of Abraham's will. Abraham, by his obedience, demonstrated his readiness to part with what was dearest to him, and with something, moreover, on which all his hopes for the future depended ; thus his character was " proved," the sincerity of his religion was established, and his devotion to God confirmed and strengthened. It was the supreme trial of his faith ; and it triumphed. And so the narra- tive teaches two great lessons. On the one hand, it teaches the value set by God upon the surrender of self, and obedience ; on the other, it demonstrates, by a signal example, the moral superiority of Jehovah's religion over the religions of Israel's neighbours.
H We must take the history as a whole, the conclusion as well as the commencement. The sacrifice of Isaac was commanded at first, and forbidden at the end. Had it ended in Abraham's accomplishing the sacrifice, I know not what could have been said; it would have left on the page of Scripture a dark and painful blot. My reply to God's seeming to require human sacri- fice is the conclusion of this chapter. God says, " Lay not thine hand upon the lad." This is the final decree. Thus human sacrifices were distinctly forbidden. He really required the sur- render of the father's will. He seemed to demand the sacrifice of life.i
» r. W. Robertson.
196 THE PROVING OF ABRAHAM
^ Abraham never needed, himself, to be taught a second time that God does not wish the offering of blood. No Hebrew parent, reading that story in after years, and teaching it to his children, would ever think of pleasing the God of Abraham by offering to Him his first-born son; it became an abomination in Israel to cause children to pass through the fire to Moloch, and the later prophets knew that God loves mercy rather than sacrifice. Though the influence of surrounding idolatries may on rare occasions have led Israel into the tragic sin of offering human sacrifices, the Hebrew law and custom, and the whole providential leading of the people from Abraham's day were against it; and they who would sit in judgment upon this Divine procedure should not be suffered to ignore the decisive fact that the God of Abraham is the God whose course of moral education succeeded in destroying the fatal errors, and saving the vital truth, of sacrifice ; and that the beginning of this great, beneficent, provi- dential instruction in the true meaning of sacrifice was the vivid historical object-lesson which God taught Abraham of old, and which Israel has not forgotten to this day.^
3. Give God the first 'place. — In that most cruel rite of human sacrifice there is a truth providentially to be cared for, as well as a fearful evil to be abolished. At the heart of it lies this idea, that he who would be a friend of God must love nothing better than God, nor hold back anything which God's service demands. This is the same everlasting law which on the lips of our Lord Jesus found explicit and reiterated utterance : " He that loveth father or mother, son or daughter, more than me is not worthy of me." To disentangle this precious truth from the false and hateful inference which had become involved with it, that the literal slaying of a beloved child could constitute an act of wor- ship pleasing to the Deity, formed beyond question one design of the strange command, "Take now thy son Isaac and offer him up."
^ Do you say that such an act could not be done now ? That is all the more reason why it should have been done ; — why it should have been done when it could be done ; when the state of evidence admitted of it ; when the primitive standard of human rights gave the son to be the property of the father, to be sur- rendered by him, upon a call, as his own treasure. That idea — that very defective idea of the age — it was, which rendered
^ Newman Smyth.
GENESIS XXII. I, 2 197
possible the very point of the act, the unsurpassable pang of it, the self-inflicted martyrdom of human affection, the death of the son in will, by the father's hand. That idea of the age, therefore, was used to produce that special fruit which it was adapted to produce ; the particular great spiritual act of which it supplied the possibility, and which was the splendid flower of this stock.^