"The Gospel of Genesis" -- Study 35 SURRENDER AND SACRIFICE And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham! So he said, "Here I am.'" Genesis 22:10-11 Abraham had followed God for about 40 years, his faith strong at some points and weak at others, when he came to the ultimate test. God commanded him to sacrifice his most precious possession in the world, his son Isaac. Abraham passed the test. He laid down not just his wealth and position before God, as he had when he left Ur, but the son who was his greatest joy and hope. He reasoned that even if death took away Isaac, God was more powerful than death and would raise the boy from the dead. Abraham's faith and his actions worked together. Through the years of struggle and falling short, his faith had been perfected. It was tested and proved to be sufficient. The great message of this story, however, is not Abraham's faith but God's unimaginable love for us. On Mount Moriah, God foreshadowed what He Himself would do to redeem mankind from the curse of the Garden of Eden. In the same place that Abraham raised his hand to slay his son, God raised His hand and offered His own Son, Jesus, as the perfect sacrifice for our sin. No angel cried out at the last
moment when the Roman soldiers nailed Jesus to the cross. He died a sinner's death. God warned Adam and Eve that if they ate of the forbidden tree, they would surely die. Jesus died in their place. He became Adam and Eve's sin. He became our sin. He bore the wrath of God. What happened on Mt. Moriah is good news beyond human comprehension. The source of our relationship to God is not our sacrifice for God but God's sacrifice for us. "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins..." (1 John 4:10) SURRENDER AND SACRIFICE STUDY QUESTIONS 1. Read Genesis 22:1-18. According to Verse 1, what was God's reason for commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac? Was the command designed to test whether Abraham was righteous? 2. Child sacrifice was a common practice among pagan people's in Abraham's time. For example, the Ammonites passed their children through the fire before their god, Molech, seeking his favor. Read Leviticus 18:21. What is God's command to the Jewish people about child sacrifice? Why would God command Abraham to engage in a forbidden practice? What was God's purpose in having the angel stop Abraham before he killed Isaac? 3. Mount Moriah later became the site of Jerusalem. Why did God have Abraham travel to that site to offer the sacrifice of Isaac? How is what Abraham said in Genesis 22:8 prophetic? 4. Read Hebrews 11:17-19. Did Abraham believe that God was breaking His promise by requiring him to sacrifice the son of promise, Isaac? What did Abraham believe God would do?
5. Read Matthew 26:36-46. Did Jesus face a moment of testing as Abraham had on Mt. Moriah? Was Jesus' reaction the same as Abraham's? 6. Read John 12:25 and Matthew 16:24. How is what God calls believers to do similar to what He told Abraham to do? Does each believer have to go to his or her own Gethsemane? 7. Read Hebrews 12:1-2. Why is the cross, an instrument of torture, described as the "joy set before" Jesus? 8. Read Hebrews 10:19-23. How did Jesus sacrifice on the cross change our relationship with God? 9. Read James 1:2-4. Why should we consider our times of suffering "joy?" 10. Read John 8:54-58. Did Abraham finally get to see what God was up to that day on Mt. Moriah? Did Abraham look back on the trial on Mt. Moriah with joy? SURRENDER AND SACRIFICE LEADER S GUIDE 1. God was testing Abraham s faith. This was not a test to see if Abraham was righteous. God already had accounted him righteous when Abraham believed Him ( And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness. Genesis 15:6) Even had Abraham failed the test on Mt. Moriah, God still would have accounted him righteous. Rather the test was intended to demonstrate that Abraham s faith had been perfected in the years since he had left Ur to the point where he trusted God with everything that was precious to him.
2. In the Mosaic Law, God strictly forbid the practice of child sacrifice. Nevertheless, the Psalmist indicates that the people of Israel engaged in it at times (Psalm 106:38). Even King Solomon built an altar to Molech. In giving the command to Abraham, God tested Abraham s faith. Was Abraham willing to give up his precious son to God? God never intended to allow Abraham to actually carry out the sacrifice. He sent the angel to stop Abraham because the covenant He made with Abraham ultimately would not be sealed with the blood of Isaac but with the blood of God s own Son, Jesus. 3. The story of the Israelites in the Old Testament centers on the city of Jerusalem. Melchizedek, the prefiguration of Jesus, who met Abraham returning from his rescue of Lot, was king of Salem, later Jerusalem. Under David, Jerusalem became the capital of Israel. Solomon built the temple in the city, where generations of priest offered the animal sacrifices required under the Mosaic Law to cover the sins of the people. Ultimately, God s Son would die on a cross on that site. Abraham s words proved prophetic because God ultimately provided His own Lamb, Jesus, as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. 4. Abraham believed nothing would deter God from fulfilling His promise to bring forth a great nation from Isaac and bless all families on the earth through that nation. He reasoned that even if he offered Isaac as a sacrifice to God, God would raise Isaac from the dead to fulfill His promise. 5. Yes. While Abraham was tested by God s command to offer up his precious son, Isaac, Jesus was tested by God s command to take all the sins of the world on Himself and bear the full punishment for those sins on the cross. He was sorrowful and deeply distressed and even sweated blood (Luke 22:44), but in the end He prayed that great prayer of faith, not as I will, but as Your will. Like Abraham, Jesus cast Himself into His Father s hands. 6. Jesus tells believers the hard truth of following Him. Just as Abraham had to surrender all that was precious to him, we must surrender our
very lives to God. This does not mean that we physically die any more than Isaac had to physically die. God is not interested in seeing our bodies sacrificed but our inward identity. We must lay down our inner lives before God in our own personal Gethsemane and cease to belong to ourselves. We must go to the cross and die with Jesus that we might be raised with Him. This is a painful but glorious experience. 7. Death on the cross was not a joyful experience for Jesus. He suffered more than any man in the history of the world, bearing not only the physical pain of torture but also the spiritual pain of bearing the sin of the world. The joy set before Jesus was the joy of our redemption from the power of sin and spiritual rebirth as children of God. God so loved the world that He was willing to offer up His Son to such a death. Jesus so loved us so much that He was willing to be humble Himself to death, even death on a cross, to pay the price for our salvation. 8. In dying on the cross, Jesus washed us of our sin and made it possible for us to enter into the intimate fellowship with God intended in creation. The Hebrew recipients of this letter would have understood the Holiest to mean the Holy of Holies in the temple in Jerusalem where God abided with His people. A veil, which symbolized the sin that stood between man and God, separated the people from the presence of God in the Holy of Holies. On the cross, Jesus became that sin and died. As his body was broken, so was the power of sin. The veil in the temple was rent in two (Mark 15:38), allowing the people access to the very Presence of God. In the same way, the blood of Jesus washes us from sin and makes us holy in the sight of God that we might enter His presence and enjoy intimate fellowship with Him. 9. Suffering was never God s intention for us. It is the hallmark of a world that is in rebellion against Him. However, as He did with the evil of Calvary s cross, God uses the suffering in the lives of believers for good. Through suffering, we learn to trust God more and lean less on our own strength and understanding. In this way, our faith is perfected and we grow in the joy of knowing the fullness of God s faithfulness and provision for our lives.
10. Yes, Jesus assures us that Abraham saw from heaven the fulfillment of God s promises in the incarnation of Jesus as a human being, His perfect sacrifice on the cross, and His glorious resurrection. Abraham left Ur walking in faith, not knowing where he was going or what God was doing in his life. In the end, Abraham came to see the fullness of God s salvation and rejoiced. Likewise, believers will someday see God face to face and know as we are known. All of history will be laid before us, and we will see the fullness of God s love and grace.