Tomorrow I’m preaching on the story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22. I’m still, after all these years, baffled by it. God tested Abraham by asking for a child sacrifice.
Here are the insightful questions of Eugene Peterson:
There is so much here that we cannot comprehend, so much that violates our pious sensibilities, so much that refuses to conform to our expectations. How can God command a murder? And not just murder in general but the murder of a beloved son? How can God go back on the miracle-promise fulfilled in the birth of Isaac? How can God, who our parents and pastors have taught us loves us from eternity, command this cold-blooded cruelty? How can God, who Jesus tells us has such a tender heart that he is moved even by the death of sparrows, command a father to kill his son, without so much as a hint of explanation? We Can’t handle this.
I’m blown away by the willingness of Abe to offer Ike–as a Dad, I’d like to think I’d “make a deal with God”–Let my son Ike live and I’ll be the sacrifice. Two things about this story that challenge me–the Dad obivously had taken the son to “worship” before and hence, the son knew something was missing. Hebrews 11 shows the depth of Abe’s faith–he believed if he killed Ike, tht was okay cuz God could bring him back to life (cf Cosby–”I can take him out of this life…and God can bring him back”). Curious also as to type/antetype, etc of Mount Moriah-temple-cross location
As a parent, I can logically explain it, and speak of it. I can hold it out and examine it from all angles and leach the lessons derived from it. But I cannot go inside it. I just can’t even begin to get it. I think I see enough of it to know that I don’t want to get it.
Mike, when you recently spoke about baptism and you showed all the Highland pictures of baptisms…in my mind the image of Abraham with Isaac just popped in. So many pictures of fathers burying their children…in the waters of baptism…God saying that you have to give them up. God saying that I want to bless you with children and I want you to love them but I want them back…they belong to me. I don’t really know why I made that connection at that moment…it just came unasked for…
Just some more thoughts…
We might say that water is easier to give them up to than the altar but do we really give them up so easily? We have dreams for them and ambitions for them and God is saying that they are wanted for is the kingdom and kingdom work. He doesn’t necessarily want them safe like we do but out in the world as salt and light. He has bigger plans.
What an awful story.
A few days ago, during a meeting of a men’s study group, we were considering one of these mysterious things, in Jeremiah 20. As Sarah was saying above, we were holding up to the light and turning it every which way, trying to make sense of it.
qb suddenly had this random but persistent thought: I don’t *want* to deconstruct this to the point of understanding it. I want it to remain a mystery. If we get to the bottom of this difficult thing, we’re in danger of reaching the very heart of God and finding that He is explainable, predictable, searchable. At that point, my religion would be empty, I think.
The story of Abraham and Isaac on Moriah is one of *those* stories, seemingly included to remind us that we have NO SHOT at figuring God out. Our choice is to submit to Him, or not, but understanding Him? Not an option.
Just musing,
qb
Just some questions to add to the ones Patterson has posed. I have always wondered (1) if God did this because by this time in his relationship with Abraham, Lot and the rest, he was losing hope in his own creation of mankind. He really wanted to keep his promise and vision for his future together, but he just wanted to be sure he could trust the one person he chose — Abraham — to carry out his will for generations. While there is still the issue of God as infallible Creator, his creation — mankind — is not. Abraham and Sarah waited so long to have their own flesh and blood. As God would later have Christ die for us, he had Abraham die his own death by sacrificing his own son. (And let’s not forget the consequences of Sarah’s reactions if Isaac had been killed to appease this God who was continually inconveniencing her.)
As I used to live with Moslems, where it seemed we daily saw many who could easily have resembled Abraham and Sarah, I also have also asked (2) why God did not seem to put much stock or value in Ishmael life, full stop. Was it again a trust issue when Abraham and Sarah lost faith in him to bless them with their own child(ren) so they took control and had Ishmael through a surrogate? (Abraham listened to Sarah’s need for a child and took the bait much like Adam took a bite out of Eve’s apple). After Ishmael and his mother were rather rudely turned out of the camp, had God lost faith in Abraham and Sarah? Was God afraid they would cling so much to Isaac that their focus on him — JHVH — to follow as HE willed would become less of a priority? Who could he have chosen as a leader if Abraham had slipped out of total devotion to him? I mean, in the beginning he had lost Adam; was he now upset he might lose Abraham?
And (3) if part of Almighty God’s infallible nature includes his jealousy why does he get to be jealous and suspicious, but when those traits crop up in our human nature we can be riddled with guilt and defeat?
And, I guess, finally: If God in his perfect all-knowing plan for mankind knew he would complete the Trinity by sending Christ to earth and blessing mankind with his further gift of the Holy Spirit, do you think he was using himself, Abraham and Isaac as an object lesson for later generations of what the Holy Trinity would be like? Although for the life of me, I cannot figure out how the Holy Spirit gets played out in this Mount Moriah scenario. Unless the Holy Spirit was the divine intervention that encouraged God, as the Father, to spare Isaac’s life?
(Okay, can you tell it’s way past my bedtime? Sorry I have not had a chance to put more thought into this — I read this just before bedtime. Will reflect and discuss with my husband tomorrow.)
Mike,
Have you ever read any of Soren Kierkegaard’s stuff on this. His book “Fear and Trembling” is all about that very story, and is quite profound. You can read the full text online or find a cheap copy just about anywhere (its in virtually every anthology of his work). Here’s the link to the full text: http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=2068
Enjoy!
AE
Mike,
Great post brother.
Sounds like it is going to be a great sermon.
I love the way Eugene H. Peterson put’s it.
I Can’t wait to hear the pod cast on this sermon.
Mike,
Don’t pull something trying some theological gymnastics trying to justify it. If God wanted me to kill any of my children then he is definitely not the God i will cast my lot with.
In an intensely searching period of my life, when I was rethinking and deconstructing the Bible, trying to come to terms with it, I wrote a short story in which Abraham said no to God’s command.
“I thought you were different,” the old man said. “Not bitter and capricious like the gods my fathers knew. Not the kind of deity who likes to traffic in suffering and misery, not the sort who finds delight in the tear of the knife through soft flesh and the thick pouring of blood, hot upon the altar. You came to me as a gracious god, quick to bless, quick to forgive. You gave me a child, a blessed bright boy, in this chilly season of my late old age. But now you have shown yourself to be worse than any of the vindictive lecherous gods I left behind, for you demand of me the murder of my boy….” Abraham is weeping now, racked with the bitter disappointment borne of thinking too highly of one’s god. “And I will not yield! I refuse! If you want blood you must shed it yourself, for I will not bow to a Lord who holds so cheap the life of a child. Strike me down and all that is mine if you wish, but I will descend to Sheol with no blood on my hands. I refuse!”
I’ve been a Christian and a minister for a long time now, and that still strikes me as the only correct response. The only thing I like less than this passage are the all-too-common attempts to explain away its offense.
Good Kirk C.
Leland,
Just curious, why hang around this site?
Oh, and Kirk too.
Be patient with Leland, Brad. God moves in mysterious ways.
A quick thought before giving into the clock’s nudge to get ready, get out of here and hear Mike’s sermon this morning.
1-It has struck me in this story the quintessential love of God and our incapacity to reach that level of love. God commands us….we cannot perfectly obey, but God shows His love by exceeding the limits of His command for us. We cannot possibly imagine giving up the life of our child on God’s command, but He did without question.
2-This story really tests us. Do we, like Abraham truly trust God? Do we really accept that He is the Creator, He is the Almighty, that He is the one in control here? There is absolutely any way we can fully understand the thoughts of God and this story proves that beyond any doubt in my mind.
Not as deep a thought nor a beautifully written as some the rest of you, but an inept attempt to express how necessary it is for us to give it up to Him, knowing He will make the right decision. Abraham got it, but we struggle with it.
My you be blessed as your worship God today in the company of your local congregations!
Shannon,
That wasn’t an invitation for them to leave or anything. Just a curious question on why hang around a site that believes in a God they don’t believe in, especially a christian minister who believes the only correct response to a God who commands something that doesn’t make a lot of sense is to “refuse to bow”. My only thought is that thinking and this site don’t really go together.
Why be alarmed at death if you believe in resurrection? (Hebrews 11:19)
eddy, AMEN
Brad, hopefully “unbelievers” or “questioners” are always uplifted in some way as Christians share their faith and doubts for all to see. Maybe someday….
Kirk: magnificently rendered. In truth, that is the only worthy human response.
Now: why did Abraham choose a different one?
qb
P. S. to Eddy: I’m thinking your question makes an end run around the central issue. Abraham is not concerned with death per se, and neither is Kirk. Compared to the real issue at hand, death itself is child’s play.
Kirk’s response is a fullback dive into the heart of the matter: can a God like this - who would command the seemingly willful, arbitrary, capricious, cruel and mocking murder of an innocent, only child by his father simply as a demonstration of fealty to God, when other demonstrations might easily have sufficed - be adored and trusted with everything that amounts to one’s life, including one’s family?
I love listening to Mike sermons.
They are verying uplifting and encouraging.
His books are great too.
I can’t wait until his new one comes out.
qb (wink, wink)
That’s the heart of the matter, whether God can be trusted or not. Ask Gideon, who God said had too many men to go into battle. Too many men? That doesn’t make sense. Ask Noah, who was commanded to build the ark? An ark? Are you serious? Why on earth??? Ask Moses, who God led straight into a dead end at the Red Sea with Pharaoh hot on his heels. If people refuse to follow God because they need it all to make sense to them, then they’re right, they’ve picked the wrong God.
But which god is next on the list?
Brad,
I don’t think it’s a matter of needing God to “make sense” to us… I think the disturbing thing is the question of whether or not God’s nature is consistent and Loving. What if Abraham had applied Jesus’ teachings on evaluating the fruit of an action to determine whether it was good or bad–or Paul’s for that matter? What if Abraham had said to himself “Can bad fruit grow on a good tree? Can fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?” and then decided that this command MUST of necessity have come not from God, but from an demon posing as an “Angel of light”? This is difficult stuff here… not just a matter of needing God to make sense, but rather a matter of discernment of God’s nature and the nature of the message that is being delivered.
Challenging stuff!
Evidently, Abe thought God INDEED be trusted. 20-20 hindsight–Abe was right regardless of how comfortable we are with it or not.
Scott,
Great questions. It seems to me that God wants us to question, wants us to delve deeper into His character, I’m sure He’s sure we will finally come to the multi-faceted answer to those questions if we truly trust in Him.
As was said in our class this morning and by Mike in his sermon - had Abraham turned to loving the gift [Isaac] rather than the Giver? Followed by; what is our Isaac that needs to be offered, sacrificed, cut out of our lives? Are we worshiping the gifts or the gift Giver?
btw-this would apply to our kids as well. They are, after all, gifts from God. Do we love the gifts more than the Giver? I would say Abraham loved the Giver so much He knew and said if anything happened to end Isaac’s life that day, he knew God would restore Isaac. He trust God completely. I must ask myself, do I trust and love Him to that degree? If not, what now?
I always wonder what Isaac’s take on this whole situation was. Can you imagine your own dad being willing to go through with something like this?
Is there a podcast of this sermon? This story has baffled me for years, or [ confession ] maybe I just don’t want to “get it” since I love my own children so much.
Scott,
Good points. I’m not so sure it is as challenging as we try to make it, at least it didn’t seem all that challenging to Abraham. Not one word of “but God”, not a hint of “I don’t think I can”, not a whisper of “this really isn’t like you, God”. There wasn’t any contemplating of good fruit from a bad tree, fresh and salt water from the same stream, or any of that. At least it’s not in the text. Here was a guy who was sold out to God, who proved he would not withold anything from Him, including his own son. I think Kathy is right. He realized the Giver of his son was greater than the gift of his son and was willing to return it if asked.
It is quite a challenge for those not sold on God. But for those who are, like Abraham, Moses, Noah, Daniel, Joshua, Gideon, etc. it doesn’t seem to create all that much doubt about God’s character and righteous intentions.
Great discussion, all.
I’m not sure the text always gives us insight into ALL the doubt that might have gone on in the heads of our patriarchs and matriarchs. Sure, we see doubt and pain in David (a man after God’s own heart)but only because we have his personal journal– the psalms. I wonder… since Abraham isn’t the one who wrote down the story, are you sure we know that Abe didn’t struggle a bit with all of this? Let’s remember, Moses and his scribes writing all of these oral traditions down (as inspired by the spirit of God of course) would be giving Israel a picture of their “father” Abraham as handed down. I’m not sure his deep-seated doubts… or even his questions to God would necessarily have made the cut into the story–orally or in writing.
We’ll never know that. But I think Abraham was human enough that he would have had some kind of struggle. Otherwise, it’s just a silly, unrealistic fable. I believe it’s real, so I believe that Abraham struggled like any of us would.
By the way, it’s one thing to lay some precious “thing” I was gifted by God on the altar… it’s quite another to lay a person on the altar–unless we are talking figuratively ONLY. I understand giving my children up to God… but NOT drowning them in the bathtub because I truly believe that God has asked me to. I would KNOW God enough to know that HE wouldn’t ask me to do that.
I suppose I’m with those who will struggle endlessly with the mystery of this story. There is nothing simple or easy about it.
Scott,
Good stuff. Thanks for bantering with me a bit on this.
No, there is no figuring God out. God commanding Abraham to kill Isacc, though, is probably much easier than God commanding his people to commit genocide like he does in the book of Joshua. Bad God. If he is going to do stuff like that, I think I’d rather think of him as imaginary than real. That God of genocide and infanticide seems impossible to reconcile with the NT God of Jesus…well, except that that God killed his own son and some day will deliver the majority of humans up to die a “second death” (Rev. 20.14). If that’s not love, then I don’t know what is.
Mike Cope sure does have a gift from God.
Praise God for Mike and others like him, that are making such a difference in the Kingdom of God.
I just taught this story to first graders in a Wednesday night Bible class a couple of weeks ago. It was a challenge for me in many ways. As I consider the story, I am, like many here perplexed, confused, baffled, etc… as to why God would ask Abraham to do this seemingly wicked thing. I asked my first graders why they thought God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac and they just didn’t seem concerned with the “why” of it at all. But rather, they were curious about Isaac and how he must have felt. (Scared was the general consensus.)
We’ve been going through the book of Genesis since August, and at this point in the story of Abraham, the kids seem to get that he always does what God tells him to do. We’ve journeyed with him from being called out of Haran to his time in Egypt. From separating from Lot and then rescuing Lot, through the covenant and the whole Hagar and Ishmael debacle. Then we saw how Abraham dealt with the circumcision issue (when he becomes Abra-”ham”) and how he pleaded with God for Sodom. When Isaac was finally born, you could almost feel the sigh of relief. But it’s like it didn’t phase these first graders when we arrived at this part of the story. Our theme this semester is that “God always keeps His promises” and they get that. In their little first grade minds they get that at the end of the story, no matter what the circumstances, God will keep His promise to Abraham.
So for me, the bigger picture is not asking why God would do this, but rather, why not? We will never understand His methods, but we can understand His motives. To bring glory to Himself and to save people from their sins through the blood of Jesus. That’s it. It’s okay for me to question what I will never get an answer to. But it would be disastrous for me to presume upon the Lord that my perspective of life and death, of relationship and love is more significant than His sovereign plan for the universe.
Mike,
Actually the most baffling part of this passage to me is God’s response to Abraham’s obedience: “Now I know that you fear God,because you have not withheld from me your son,your only son.”
Did God not already “know” what Abraham’s response what be? If he didn’t know,how could be an omniscient God? Is it possible that God suspended his own foreknowledge? If so,why?
This phrase,”Now I know…” has baffled me for years.
I believe that Abraham had through successes and failures learned that human rationale was futile compared to trusting God. I believe he knew God so intimately that even if his son died, he would be raised from the dead. He knew that Isaac was the son of promise and that God could not nullify one promise by commanding something that seemed contrary to it by his human rationale.
The symbolism is huge. Here we have another foreshadowing of the lamb of God being substituted for our own destruction. I also love that Mount Moriah is made so important by God throughout the Bible. Jehovah is such a geography buff.
Brad,
Want me to leave? Or do you want me to agree with you and Mike all the time. Seems there are more than enough people to do that. When I make an ass of my self I admit it and move on. You or the author done that lately?
This has really been a great discussion with some thoughts and comments that are looking at this issue full-circle. (Some of us do not have benefit of Mike’s preaching, and I realise for others of you they are extensions of your Sunday mornings with him.)
I appreciate your comment, Donald, underscoring God’s sense of follow-through in upholding his promise. And also how Abraham, by the time he was asked by God to make this journey to Moriah, could look back upon his relationship with God and just trust him absolutely through another test. What conversations with God must have gone through his mind and how many emotions flowed through his heart as he led Isaac along on this trip?
Thanks also, KellyW, for sharing your observations from the viewpoint of one who thinks through the process of teaching these stories of faith to young children: how do stories like this fit into the cognitive grasp of age-appropriate theology, and how will our own understanding (or lack thereof) become engaging and meaningful in the life of a 6-year old? At this age, a ‘promise’ becomes a very real part of the age-6’s world. It would be interesting to know how young lads between the ages of 12 and 18 resonate with Isaac’s side of the story.
Adam Ellis, I also appreciate your Kierkegaard link to ‘A panegyric upon Abraham’.
‘…That glorious treasure which was just as old as faith in Abraham’s heart, many, many years older than Isaac, the fruit of Abraham’s life, sanctified by prayers, matured in conflict — the blessing upon Abraham’s lips, this fruit was now to be plucked prematurely and remain without significance. For what significance had it when Isaac was to be sacrificed?’
I am awe-struck that such leaders of faith like Abraham who lived with God on the other side of the Cross would devote their lives and dedicate their worship to a God whose promise they would never see fulfilled in their lifetime. They did not have the Gospels or Epistles to buoy their faith. They are with God and can see Jesus now, but how did they know the Messiah then?
(My psyche was at half-mast as my brain and fingers typed ‘Patterson’ for ‘Peterson’ in my previous comment. Mid-aged moments. Mercy!)
Outside the true spirit of debate and dialogue… There seems to be a personal vendetta going on, and getting off-stream. Genesis 22 and the lessons contained therein are bigger than sniping at each other. For there to be healthy discussion, compelling and thought-provoking, there will inevitably be opposing thoughts. Many of us do not live in Abilene (’the buckle of the Bible Belt’, as one British travel guide describes the place). Not all of us will agree with Mike or others who comment here and attend a big American church like Highland all the time. We each read Mike’s thoughts and comments through a different lens, as God approaches each of us through a different scope, through the context of how and where we live.
Can we not maturely accept this, respect differing positions from around the holy catholic church, and rise above provoking one another? Can we not keep this a safe place for introspection?
Peace.
Leland,
This isn’t as sinister as you are making it. As I said earlier, I’m not asking you to leave, quit commenting, go jump in a lake, or anything else. You are a curious fellow to me. For a guy that seems to want nothing to do with God, you seem to hang around here alot. Actually, I would like to hear more from you than the little bombs of opposition you drop from time to time.
A comment was made by one of our ladies in my class yesterday morning that caused a chorus of “wow” from the group. She commented that in the call to Abram was a call to leave his past; while the call of Isaac was one of the future, similar to our call by Jesus to come out of our past and go into His future.
Another lady commented that she is intrigued by the three day walk of Abraham and Isaac, reminding her of other three days mentioned elsewhere; Jonah in the fish’s belly, Jesus in the grave, for instance and in our time the 3-day Walk to Emmaus.
I pass these along to bring to mind the layers and layers of teachings that God has given us in the story. It probably would take the collective “wisdom” of all mankind to even scratch the surface of the meanings in this story. But one of the most powerful to me was a call to love the Giver more than the gift and a challenge to identify my “Isaac”, offering it up to the Giver of all gifts - to not hold back any part of my being from God - to give Him my all.
Great discussion, y’all and I affirm Deb’s comment; “Can we not maturely accept this, respect differing positions from around the holy catholic church, and rise above provoking one another? Can we not keep this a safe place for introspection?”
Jeff:
Highland does do podcasts, but they aren’t updated very quickly or regularly. (The last one available is from 7 October 07.) What there is can be found on Highland’s web site under resources or on iTunes in their podcast section. (Search for Highland Church of Christ. You’ll get a couple of hits but can tell which one is the right one by the logo and speaker’s names.) I imagine the Abraham one will be up eventually. I’m still waiting for the Jerry Taylor one that was mentioned several weeks ago.
Brad,
Fair enough, thanks.
I am not a parent but I am very thoughtful about the parenting process and as I get older I respect my own parents more and more. So my question here relates to Julie’s post close to the top. There are some parents that make a conscious decision to bury their child in baptism and give their child back to God in this process. And as someone pointed out this seems less scary than placing your child on on alter to kill them. So, how much do parents really give their children to God, consciously? How much of that is their child’s own faith walk that would take place with or without the parent’s giving or blessing?
Me and my siblings have not always made choices that our parents liked. One of my siblings has made some unsafe choices, by my parents reasoning, and gone on some mission trips that caused some concern. The first of these trips was forbidden by my parents and met with the repsonse that if God wants me to go then how can I deny him to obey you? My parents agreed with that statement but didn’t like it. So did they give my sister to God or did they tolerate her own faith decision as something they didn’t have control over in the first place?
Randy says: Is it possible that God suspended his own foreknowledge?
ISTM, this story makes it very difficult to discount an open view of God as complete heresy.
What does it do to one’s faith to consider that God was learning about his creation the same way Abraham was learning about his God?
As a Christian, it is puzzling to me how people immediately assume Andrea Yates is insane (as she surely is) for drowning her 5 children and claiming that God told her to; yet many of the same people read this troubling story and bend over backwards trying to find some justification for this awful command of God to Abraham (and Abraham’s awful obedience). The fact that it all turned out okay in the end (or the justification of Abraham’s belief in resurrection provided in Hebrews) doesn’t make it all better in my mind. I’m not saying you can’t find something good in this story, but as Christians if we are going to have any integrity at all in how we approach stuff like this in scripture, we must honestly deal with the horror of it.
Leland, glad you are here.
Brad, when we only dialogue with like-minded people, we lose perspective. We should all follow Leland’s example and spend some time on the blogs of those whose opinions and beliefs challenge us.
Peterson at the end of the chapter states that the Akedah , the binding was not strange to Abraham. For him God was not being outrageous.
It comes down to a complete trust in God. He is sovereign and all-knowing. We are not.
Ray B.
I believe that God is all-knowing as well, but my capacity to perceive him is limited (because I am not all-knowing). Our problem is how to differentiate between an all-knowing and unquestionable God and my own imperfect perception of Him. If I kill another human being based upon my imperfect perception of Him (which I believe happens all the time every time a religious terrorist succeeds) then I have not done God’s will. Even if we NEVER question God’s will, we must ALWAYS question our understanding of it… right? Otherwise, I’m just like the terrorists… acting in the NAME of God, but out of my own limited understanding.
Scott,
Your concept of “all knowing” is created entirely with your knowing vocabulary. “I just don’t get it kills the conversation” and destines it to go only in one direction.
The concepts we give to God and say they must be deeper than ours (i.e. love) are based entirely upon our limited knowledge, so how do we know God us not just a violence freak which more closely resembles reality and my vocabulary.
Good point Leland… I suppose the “faith” element in all of this is that I have faith in a perfect and good and loving God. I don’t have much faith in my own capacity to see and live out what that means in its entirety. SO, as I perceive God as loving and graceful, I assume that my perceptions are valid. When I perceive that God desires something that is hurtful and destructive, I usually assume my perception is at fault and search the matter out more.
I know that doesn’t fit with much OT text (especially the Joshua stuff) but it “feels” like Jesus to me… and I have to think that the Spirit is pushing me and my understanding of biblical texts in the direction of Christ rather than away from him.
All of it, of course, is perception. But I think I’m more likely to be held accountable for what I did with my perception than for what I did based on some nebulous “truth” that I never did understand in the first place.
“Seek and you’ll find” gives me comfort that my seeking is what I must do. The “finding” is what Jesus said God would do for me.
Scott,
Thanks for your response.
One has to ask why Abraham even tried killing Isaac.
The psyche wards are full of Abrahams that succeeded. Why is the voice they heard discounted?
It’s not. Abraham goes free and Joe Blow gets medication.
It just boils down to being in the Bible and having to justify it somehow.
Why is it so important to be people of the book? Why not just be people of the honest and decent realm. Atheist’s get it why don’t Christians. By the way I am not an atheist, probably more of a pantheist.
Thanks for acknowledging me Scott.
Here’s a Fred Craddock story related to Gen 22:
I had a student some years ago who, I’m sure, has since repented of his ways. First class in preaching, introduction to preaching, preaching in class, and I, that semester, allowed the students to choose their own texts. He chose Abraham offering Isaac. Well, first-year student, Abraham offering Isaac. I knew Martin Luther had said, “That text is too big, I can’t preach on it,” but my student, you know. So I called him into my office, and I said, “Are you sure you want to preach on this?”
“Oh yeah, I like that story. I want to preach on that.”
I said, “Okay, but I think you’ll discover this is a mountain too high, and you might not be able to climb it.”
“Oh, I think I can do it.”
“Okay.”
So he explained Abraham offering Isaac, and then he needed an analogy. What was that like, to raise the knife over one’s own son, in confidence that God will provide? So he said, “There are a lot of sacrifices we make, if we believe in God and want to serve God. I know when I came to school here, I arrived in early August to get settled, and my apartment wasn’t ready, so I was put in temporary housing. It was not a very nice apartment, but the thing about it is, it was not air conditioned. And there I was in August, in Atlanta, without air conditioning.”
So he knows what Abraham was all about.
Fred B. Craddock, Craddock Stories, edited by Mike Graves and Richard F. Ward (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001), p. 123.
“So he knows what Abraham was all about.”
Does he? Air condition = sacrificing son. Streeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetch.
I love this account too. The book “Fear and Trembling” by Kierkegaard is the best book on this story.
http://www.matthewsblog.waynesborochurchofchrist.org
In my humble opinion, the only way to approach the Akedah is through midrash. A straight up reading is too problematic.
Scott,
There needs to be the constant study of the will of God. And yes some of it is hard to understand and requires deep stody. However , it can be understood. My killing like a terrorist is not justified in the scriptures.
The Akedah in the Gen. 22 narrative was Abraham beieving in the promise of God. His belief that Isaac was the child of promise and therefore a faith in resurrection.
Ray B.
Our “dispensationalistic” view of scripture has made it too easy for you and me. It’s too easy to say that God spoke in direct ways to Abraham, but not in direct ways now. Now I have to follow what Jesus said in scripture (which is always loving) but if I were Abraham back in the day and God said “kill this person” then I’d just have to follow. I want to understand the nature of God that is unchangeable. I believe the NT writers claimed a great consistency in the God of Israel and the Word that became flesh. It’s too easy to say I’d never kill someone UNLESS I was living in a time when God could talk to me in a loud voice and tell me to directly.
I think if I heard that loud voice telling me to kill an innocent child, I’d assume it might be someone other than God– and NOT because I’d say “God doesn’t talk to us that way anymore” but because I’d know that killing innocents isn’t HIS nature.
BTW, you’re welcome Leland– I always look forward to your comments. Honestly!
Scott,
In the new covenant there is no reason to believe that God would ask you to kill an innocent child. Again, Abraham obeyed out of his deep experience of faith in God. In telling the servants that “we will come back to you” , speaks to his faith in resurrection.
I understand what you’re saying Ray B., but there are those who would justify killing during the “new covenant” based upon the killing allowed or commanded during the “old covenant” and it’s very difficult–as has been shown time and time again in discussions on this blog–to clearly delineate those “dispensations”. It’s so difficult, IMHO, that our “that was the old covenant and we’re in the new…” argument is just a villianously oversimplified way of short-circuiting the discernment process.
Was Isaac ever really in danger?
Great discussion. I’m with Amy & always think about it from Isaac’s point of view. Did they have have therapy back then?
The purpose of this story is threefold: to establish Abraham as a model for obedience and faith; to demonstrate that God keeps his promises to Israel; and to dramatise the difference between the “old” religion of Abraham’s ancestors and the henceforth “new” religion of Abraham’s descendants.
Abraham’s ancestors had “served other gods,” (Joshua 24:2) such service often including child sacrifice, so there would be an understandable conflict in his mind. Was the voice of ancestral custom, the voice that now told him to sacrifice Isaac, the same voice that had promised “through Isaac will all the nations be blessed?”
Abraham demonstrates obedience to the voice of his ancestral gods by setting off to perform the sacrifice. The journey towards the place of sacrifice symbolises progressive revelation of the one, true God e.g. the God who called Abraham to Canaan would not renege on his promises; both he and Isaac would return; God would provide the lamb; even if death were required, his God could raise from the dead (Hebrews 11:17-19.
So Abraham’s faith in the power of God is established and his absolute obedience extolled and rewarded, even though the particular act of obedience is explicitly repudiated, both then (by the angel of YHVH) and later (by Micah and Jeremiah).
Ray B,
“Scott,
In the new covenant there is no reason to believe that God would ask you to kill an innocent child. ”
Unless your Joshua.
Vynette,
You said…
“The purpose of this story is threefold: to establish Abraham as a model for obedience and faith; to demonstrate that God keeps his promises to Israel; and to dramatise the difference between the “old” religion of Abraham’s ancestors and the henceforth “new” religion of Abraham’s descendants.”
… and then went on to detail a very clear interpretation of the story.
I think some of us have a problem with exactly HOW we are to read this. What I mean is this: If I were to talk academically about the meaning of, say, the Epic of Gilgamesh (an ancient Sumerian / Babylonian / Assyrian myth) then I might take the same tone… ie: “The purpose of this story is to show…”
Do we read this as a “mythic” story with deep significance? Or, do we read this as a documentation of what a God-follower thousands of years ago actually said and did? OR… do we somehow read it as BOTH?
I have no problem seeing the mystical, theological significance of the story– it’s packed full of that like nothing else in the Bible! But when I place myself in the story… like it was something that might have happened last week, or last year, or 500 years ago… or 3000 years ago… then things get tricky. It’s suddenly lifted out of the realm of archetypes and into the realm of reality.
“There was this young boy once whose father heard a voice and believed it with all his heart. So the father took his boy and tied him up and placed him on a rock and began to slice his throat…”
Difficult, very difficult outside of the realm of symbolism.
The Genesis 22 narrative is history. It tells of Abraham who believed and obeyed God. Abraham fully trusted in the promise of God. He knew God could and would raise the dead.
Heb. 11 : 17 - 19.
Ray B,
Still
“In the new covenant there is no reason to believe that God would ask you to kill an innocent child. ”
Unless your Joshua.
A few years back I read in a volume, Eye for Eye-Old Testament Ethics for Today, by Christopher J.H.Wright (I think that’s his name)–that the meaning of this story was God would never ask his followers for child sacrifice–He would provide the lamb.
That has been a very satisfying interpretation to me.
Thanks Beverly– that is helpful. But isn’t this a story in which God DOES ask for child scrifice, but then HE provides the child? (in Jesus of course, as we extend the metaphor)
I can understand that, but it means for me, literally today, that I may be asked to do something that SEEMS wrong, but God will actually step in with the solution at the last minute. In ancient Greek plays they called that “deus ex machina” or “god out of the machine” in which an impossible situation was solved by a “god” who came in at the last moment. Usually, the Greeks used a big mechanical crane device to accomplish this–hence the name.
I don’t believe God works this way… I see it nowhere else in scripture (I mean allowing us to believe we are supposed to do something wrong… and then saving us from ourselves at the last minute). I think God’s ways are God’s ways, and I’m okay not understanding them, but I do believe that God doesn’t lie, that he doesn’t deceive, that he isn’t a “trickster” (to borrow from other pagan archetypes). I’m just still grappling with what this story DOES teach about my practical living and relationship with God.
Perhaps the “grappling” part is the point. We aren’t given clear, easy do-it-yourself sorts of answers. We must grapple with God in order to follow him seriously.
Thanks for your helpful comment!
God revealed himself in a diversity of ways in the pagan world of Abraham’s time. In a world of child sacrifice this might have been an effective way to give a very specific message.
Beverly,
“In a world of child sacrifice this might have been an effective way to give a very specific message.”
What kind of God controls this world you speak of? If you hurt the least of these…..? And Jesus according to yall represents the father. Seems like theological smoke and mirrors.