Perelandra

I taught a Sunday School lesson a while ago called "Remember who God is when you read the Bible".  I used the example of Genesis 22, where God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac.

You see, I’ve been allowed to believe for several years that God was testing Abraham for God’s sake.  There are a lot of things wrong with that:

1. God had already chosen Abraham.
2. God had already ordained Isaac as the chosen heir.
3. God had already made a conenant with Abraham.
4. God did not need to know how Abraham would react to His commands, God already knew.  He’s God.

I said that God was showing His faithfulness to both Isaac and Abraham.  Abraham would was gifted with bags of faith for his obedience and seeing that God is faithful.  Isaac would have a first hand witness to the terror and beauty that is our God and continue the legacy of of God’s chosen people.

Somehow, I missed the larger point of the passage.  I’d said many times in this class before how the entire Bible, even the hard to read parts of the Old Testament, is about Jesus.  The whole thing.

So…Abraham raises his knife to kill his son as God had commanded and God said:

     "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him"

Then they found a ram, provided by God, and sacrificed that instead.

Then one of my favorite verses: Genesis 22:14 (ESV)

So Abraham called the name of that place, "The LORD will provide";[b] as it is said to this day, "On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided."

That day, God provided a sacrifice for Abraham so that God’s righteous penalty wouldn’t have to be paid:  The death of Isaac.

This is the introduction of substitutionary atonement to all of mankind.  It starts a long and bloody tradition of substitutionary atonement in the temple.  It comes full circle with the death of Jesus on the cross.

God told Abraham, "Don’t kill your son, I have a substitute."
Jesus tells us, "Stop killing animals, I am your substitute."

We’re all sinners, even Christians stumble and sin.  Only Heaven will permanently free us from the bondage of sin.  For our sin, Jesus came at the will of God the Father, and became a substitute for our sins. 

The ram was an imperfect sacrifice for the righteous claim of God on the life of Isaac.

Jesus was the perfect and righteous sacrifice for sinners like us.