The Test and the Type

So we continue our series on the great stories of the Bible this morning and

really the idea for the series comes from the logic of Deuteronomy chapter 6

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

where God tells the Israelites to teach your kids the commandments and tell your

kids the great stories of the mighty works of God. And so we do that we have

storybook Bibles that we used to do that. The Israelites did that at nighttime

around the campfires. We do that in the modern world at bedtime. And this series

is really an adults look at the stories that have made it into the storybook

Bibles. But Genesis 22 it's not actually one of them because few have been so bold

as to translate this story to a children's storybook Bible. Sally Lloyd

Jones did do it in Jesus storybook Bible so that's commendable. Because it's

difficult for kids to come to terms with what's happening in this passage and

it's even harder for adults. Because what looks like is on the line here is that

God seems to be commanding something that is contrary to his law. The death of a

child, a child's sacrifice, something that only is done in pagan worship in the

ancient Near East. But this is truly a great story. And some Old Testament

scholars say it's the greatest story of the Old Testament. Gordon Winnum one

commentator he says this, no other story in the Old Testament can match the

sacrifice of Isaac for its haunting beauty and its theological depth. And so

that means that it's hard in 30 minutes for me to unpack the importance of this

text really and how important it's been for the church throughout history, for

theologians throughout history, and even for philosophers both religious and

non-religious. Emmanuel Kant maybe the most famous philosopher in a thousand

years. This was one of the texts that drove him away from traditional

Christianity. He said that Genesis 22 to could not be spoken by God. And on the

flip side, Sorin Kikrgar, who some of you have heard of the Danish philosopher in

the 1900s, he wrote an entire book about this passage responding to Emmanuel

Kant called Fear and Trimbling, a very famous book. And so it's been immensely

important this passage through all of history. And thankfully for us the New

Testament interprets the Old Testament on this passage. We don't have to guess

what's going on here. Hebrews 11, the passage that we read earlier, our New

Testament reading tells us exactly how we are supposed to understand Genesis 22.

And it says really two things. In verse 17 of that passage it says by faith

Abraham was tested and he offered up Isaac by faith. He passed the test by

faith. So the first thing is that this is a test and God is intending that we see

this test of Abraham and we see his faith. We see the power of his faith in

this test. And then secondly in verse 19 it says that Abraham considered that God

is able to raise people even from the dead from which he also received Isaac

back as a type. In other words the second thing that that we're supposed to see is

that Isaac was intended as a type or a symbol for something greater than himself

in Genesis 22. And so those are the two main ideas, the test and the type. And in

order to see it I want to just want to ask three questions this morning for a

few minutes with you. What is the test? What's the... sorry what is a test in

general? What's the nature of this test of Abraham's test? And then how do you

pass it? How do you pass the test? Okay so first what's a test? Genesis 22 verse 1

Genesis 22:1

says God tested Abraham and it's important from the outset to know that

the Bible teaches the fact of the test. The fact that God tests his people. So

what does that mean? Well what's a test? What is a test? What is a test in

general? I mean every one of us knows what a test is. We've all been tested.

Tests when they are at their best, they're meant to do two things.

They're meant to reveal what you are and what you aren't. Right so if you want to

learn a foreign language for instance and become fluent let's say French you

will go take a course in French to become fluent in French but the first thing

that they're gonna do when you come to study French is they're gonna give you

a placement test. And that placement test is meant to do two things. It's meant

to tell you where you are or who you are, what you know. It's meant to show you

what you know and then secondly it's meant to show you what you don't know, what

you aren't, what you don't have in order that you would grow. You see it's a test

when they're at their very best they're meant to grow you. To test you and

what you don't have so that you can know how to grow. But there are also tests

that come at their very worst and we have all had test givers in our lives

that don't give tests like that. They give test in order to destroy you, in

order to kill you, in order to make you bleed, in order to show you that you're

terrible. There are test givers that give tests like that. I remember when

I was living in Jackson, Mississippi before moving here that all the people

who would start medical school at the University Medical Center there in

Mississippi they would say that they would go in to the class first week and

all the professors would say the same thing and they would say the only reason

that this semester exists, this first semester, is for us to get rid of half of

you. Half of you aren't gonna be sitting in these chairs about come December.

Right? And the point was that their test that was gonna be so terrible that they

were gonna kill you, that they were gonna get rid of you, that they were gonna

strain, strain the people that couldn't cut it. And so tests at their best are

meant to grow you. And tests at their worst are meant to kill you, destroy you.

And that's exactly the two types of tests that are present in the Bible and in

the Christian life. God does the first, tests that grow you, and Satan does the

second, tests that are meant to destroy you. It's important to know that the very

same word that is most often translated test in the Bible is also the same word

for temptation. And God, you could say in Genesis 22, tempts Abraham. And the

problem with that, that might come to your mind, is that in James 1, chapter,

James chapter 1 verse 14, it says don't ever say that God tempts or tests

James 1:14

anybody. But Genesis 22 here clearly says that God does tempt, that God does test

and that's supported throughout the whole Bible. And the point is made in

Genesis 1, James 1, 14 and 15, exactly the distinction between these two types of

tests. It says never say that God tempts, God tests in order to entice you to

sin. You see, in other words, God doesn't test anybody in order to destroy them,

he tests them in order to grow them. And Satan does the exact opposite. He tempts,

he tests in order to kill, in order to destroy. And the most famous example of

that is Job, the life of Job, Job chapter 1. Job, in the same context, in the same

Job 1 · chapter mention

moment, is being tested in both ways. Satan comes to Job in order to kill him, in

order to destroy him, to test him so that he'll curse God and die. And God comes to

him in the exact same circumstance, in order that he might prove Job blameless,

that he might grow him, that he might show him how to get more virtue, to

become holier. And in the very same context, you can be tested by your

evil desires, by Satan to be destroyed to sin and by God to grow. And so in

Genesis 22, God tests Abraham, he tempts him. And we know that because the Bible

tells us that Abraham knew that because God told him that. But the question is,

how do you know, how do I know when we're being tested, when we're coming under

the test, under the temptation of God? How do you know? And I think the only

answer we can give is that you don't, absolutely. But there is a measure, and

that measure is something like this, when you are under the test, you're not

under the test until it's so much easier in some circumstance to disobey than to

obey. When you know what's right, but you want so much more of what's wrong,

and when that circumstance comes, you're under the test, you're under the knife,

you're under temptation. Let me give you some examples of what I mean. You're

under the test when honesty in the workplace means major financial and job

security consequences. You're under the test when speaking the truth in love

may mean losing a relationship. You're under the test when believing in the

Bible makes you look like a fool in the public square. You're under the

test when obeying makes you deny your innermost desires and suppress your

feelings because you know what's right. That's when you're under the test. In

other words, the test of God means obedience is going to cost you something.

It's some figurative metaphorical temporary death to a perceived blessing.

Some of us avoid all contexts that we think might bring the context in

which we might have to obey to the point of great cost. We avoided it all cost.

This is why God tests. He tests that we will be unshaken on the inside no

matter what the circumstance is on the outside. He tests you so that you might

be strong, that you might grow, that you might become great. That's why in the

Bible the idea of the test, the test of God, Hebrews 12 calls it the trial of

discipline is often metaphorically presented as the process of smelting.

Smelting, it's when you put metal, I don't know that much about it, but it's

when you put metals into fire and burn away the dross and the impurities and

purify the metals, right? You see it all over the Bible. You've heard it a

million times if you go to church from preachers, but the thing is is that for

an ancient person that metaphor was alive. I mean they would see the black

Smith in the marketplace smelting all the time. We never see it unless you are

the 1% that works at a factory or something that does this. But the test,

it's going into the fire, it's burning away the impurity, it's for your growth,

it's for your good. When I think about my children, especially my oldest son

Ethan, and think about what I want him to become, I know that at least I want him

to become a man of godly character, right? And if you have a son, you probably

want him to become a man of godly character. And right now, Ethan suffers

a little bit in life, but on the whole life it's pretty easy for him.

Suffering at our house is when the ice cream runs out. That's a big deal for us,

for him. I mean that's the main trial he's working through right now. But look,

what I know is this, if he's ever going to become a man of godly character,

he's going to have to go through the fire. He's going to have to be tested.

Obedience is going to cost him. Because human beings grow through trials.

Human beings grow through trials and God often grows his people through trials

and tests. And that's the truth of Scripture. Okay, so that's a test in

general. Secondly, what about this test specifically? What about the nature of

this test? This is the test of all tests. And you will never be tested like this.

This is unique. This is a once in a life, once in history moment. And in Abraham's

test, the first thing that Hebrews 11 wants us to see is that his faith was

astounding. That it's an example. And as Protestants, we often don't think enough

maybe about the characters of the Bible and their faith. But Hebrews 11,

that's exactly what it's trying to get us to see. This is what John Calvin,

the Protestant reformer, says about Abraham. We ought to esteem Abraham as a

man equal to a hundred thousand if we consider his faith, which is set before

us in the Bible as the best model of believing. Why is Abraham's faith so

significant in this passage? And in order to understand why it says

significant, you have to look at the little phrase in verse 1 before it says

God tested Abraham. It says, after these things, after these things, God tested

Abraham. And that's a marker to tell you that what has happened in Abraham's life

already is incredibly important for understanding what's happening in Genesis

22. This is the man who was called out of Babylon to be the people of God, to be

a blessing to the nations, to be the father of God's people. And every single

thing that God said to him in Genesis chapter 12 was all about the blessing.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

You're going to be blessed in so many different ways. And that was going to

come through a son. Now, Calvin, when he's looking at this passage, he chronicles

Abraham's life and asks this question, is this the man of blessing? Is this the

man of blessing that God had promised? And just listen to this. Genesis 12, he's

called by God, taken away from his father, from his home, from his family and

friends, from his land, from his security. And Calvin says, it's as if God

deliberately intended to strip him of all the delights of life. Then when he gets

to the land that was promised, it's in famine and his family is starving. And so

he leaves the land and he goes south to a place where he feels that he is forced

to prostitute his wife for the sake of his safety. And Calvin says, this is an act

probably more bitter than the many deaths. Then when he gets back to the land,

he's driven out of the land again because of a famine, because once again

there's no water, there's no food. And again, he goes to a bimilex land and he

feels like he's forced to prostitute his wife for their safety. And in all of this,

he has no children and his wife is barren. And the whole point of the promise was

that he would have a child who would be the beginning of the nations. And there's

no kids. And when he does finally get a kid, a child, a son, through Hagar,

his wife's servant, his name is Ishmael, the boy, Sarah hates Ishmael so much that

she commands Abraham to dismiss his son and send him into the desert with

bread and water forever. This is his son. And it might not be his wife's son, but

it was his son. And in the grand understatement of the Old Testament in

Genesis 21, it says, this much displeased Abraham. It crushed him. And in the very

next paragraph, we get Genesis 22. And now he has another son, Isaac. And this is

the son of hope. This is the son of the blessing. This is the son of the promise.

This will be the father of the nations. And as soon as he gets him as a boy, God

says, now you go take him to the hill and you slaughter him. And for all of us who

have children, and for all of you who are members here and have vowed to have

covenant children in this congregation, just listen to what Calvin says about

this. What more frightful thing can the human mind imagine than for a father to

become the executioner of his own son? If Isaac had died of sickness, who among us

would not say Abraham, the most miserable man of the world? As if God had given him

a son for a short time as a joke. And if he, if Isaac had been killed by some

stranger or some criminal, who among us would not say this tragedy is even worse

than if Isaac had died by sickness. But for a son to be slaughtered by his own

father, by his own father's hand, this surpasses every sort of tragedy imaginable

to the human mind. And so he sums up Abraham's life like this. Abraham was so

tossed in trouble that if anyone wished to paint a picture of a tragic life that

was supposed to be a blessing, he could find no model more appropriate than

Abraham. And the shock of the command here to take Isaac to the mount is even

more apparent in the Hebrew text that sits behind this English. Because in

Hebrew there is a verb that's used in this passage only one other time in the

whole Bible. A very peculiar verb appears nowhere else. It's as if it was just

made up and it's translated here go. Go to Mount Mariah and take your son

and offer him his sacrifice. But it's more literally translated it's more

Shakespearean. It's like go and go thyself up from here would be something the

way you could translate it. And it only appears in one other place in the whole

Bible and that's in Genesis 12 verse 1 when the first word that Abraham ever

Genesis 12:1

hears from God is go thyself up from here to the land of blessing. I will give

you a son. And the next time that verb is used in Genesis 22 go thyself up from

here and take the son of blessing that I promised in Genesis 12 and kill him. And

one commentator puts it this way in Genesis 12 in the most unique verb in

the book of Genesis Abraham is asked to relinquish the past in the hope of a

blessing. In Genesis 22 Abraham by the very same word is asked to relinquish

all hope in any happiness. Why is this the ultimate test in the Old Testament?

Because the command of God in this passage seems to contradict the promise

of God. How could God ask this? And the point behind it the point of every test

the point of this test the point of Abraham's test and your test and my test

is this God is asking Abraham am I your ultimate treasure? Am I your ultimate

hope? What's being asked of Abraham is can you lose your precious only the apple

of your eye the flower of your heart in the days of his youth and still hope in

God? And the answer for Abraham was yes and that's why his faith is commendable.

In verse 10 he builds the altar and he takes his son up the mountain and he

prepares to do the deed. The question is can you lose what is most precious in

your life? Your ring to put it in Tolkien's terms and still hope in God.

Let me be make a more direct relationship a more direct application. How

could some of us survive the death of a child and still hope in God? How could we

see them leave before us and have hope? How? And so that brings us to the final

point how do you survive the test? How do you hope in God at the expense of the

most precious thing in life? And there are two answers to that in the passage

briefly. The first answer is to think and just very briefly in Hebrews chapter 11

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

it says that Abraham reasoned that he reasoned. In verse 19 he reasoned in the

face of losing his son that God could raise his son Isaac from the dead. It was

no blind faith. He didn't just take a leap. Hebrews 11 said he thought he

processed through logic and probably what he did was he thought about this.

Abraham knew God already to be the giver of life. Not a God who takes life away

but gives life. The Creator, the one who opens old women's wombs who shouldn't

have children to give children. The one who called him out of a land that

practiced child sacrifice and said get away from there. And he reasoned that

that this God could raise his son from the dead and that's what gave him hope.

And it says in Hebrews 11 that he didn't say that God would raise Isaac from the

dead but Abraham thought he could. He didn't know. He stepped forward in the

faith and the logic of the doctrine of God that this God is the life-giving God.

He could raise Isaac from the dead. And so the first thing is he he it was a not a

blind faith but secondly and more importantly and finally how did Abraham

survive? And the answer in this passage is that he looked for the Lamb. He looked

for the Lamb. Now in verse 8 Isaac is no dummy. He's old enough to understand

what's happening and he's old enough to carry the wood on his back up the mountain

at least. And the King James is even better than this because it's he says

this Father. Behold Father the altar. Behold the wood. But Father behold where

is the Lamb? And Abraham says God will provide for himself the Lamb. He hoped

and at the point of death as Abraham binds his own son to the altar

bearing the knife putting it to his throat hoping beyond hope that there

might be a Lamb that there might be a Lamb called in the thicket. God comes

down in the form of the angel of the Lord and says do not lay a hand on the boy.

The Hebrew text is in fact it is literally don't touch the boy for the Lord

sees. And the substitute was in the thicket waiting there. Now to understand

very briefly what's happening here you have to see just just quickly three

details in the text to make sense of it. And the first is this what is happening

here? What has specifically been commanded? And what has specifically been

commanded is that Abraham give Isaac as a burnt offering not simply murder him

not simply kill him but this is a burnt offering and that's very specific. What

that means is a burnt offering is a ceremonial sacrifice that has a

specific intention and we know what that intention is from Leviticus chapter 1.

Leviticus 1 · chapter mention

Leviticus chapter 1 tells us exactly what a burnt offering is for. A burnt

Leviticus 1 · chapter mention

offering in the Old Testament is for the purification of the pollution that sin

has caused. And Leviticus 1 even calls it an atonement for sin. In other words

what's been commanded here is that Isaac's death is meant to be an atonement

for the sin of the people. He's being offered up here to God as an atonement

for the pollution of sin. And so that that's the first thing for forgiveness.

The second thing you have to know is where? Where did this take place? And he

told God tells Abraham take your son to Mount Moriah to sacrifice him. Now

Mount Moriah, it doesn't say Mount Moriah. Moriah is a hill country in

Palestine and Israel and it's a series of small hills and the only other place

that appears in the Old Testament is in 1 Chronicles 3. I know all of you read

1 Chronicles 3 this morning and are up on this but Moriah is the place where

the temple of Solomon will be built. It's a series of hills. It's the place

where Jerusalem will one day land. Even more on one of the hills of

Moriah there will be a spot. One day the people will call it Golgotha. One day on

one of the hills of Moriah we call it Calvary. You see? 1500 years from now.

Isaac is meant to be a burn-off, an atonement for sin given up on the

future site of Golgotha to God. And then thirdly and finally who? And the text

says that Isaac is Abraham's only son, the one whom he loves. And Hebrews makes

even more of this. Hebrews says that he's his only begotten son and the reason

that Hebrews says that is because in the Greek translation of the Old

Testament of Genesis the translator uses the word for begotten or beloved for

Isaac. And this is the Bible that most of the New Testament authors were working

from, a Greek translation of the Old Testament. In other words in the Greek

translation of the Old Testament it says Abraham was to give up his only begotten

son. The point is that in John 3.16 John is working with Genesis 22 and he's

saying God so loved the world that just like Abraham he gave up his only

begotten son that whoever would believe in him would have eternal life. And so

you're getting the picture. You're getting the picture. What's happening here is

that God is commanding Abraham to do this in order to dramatize to illustrate

the relationship between God the Father and God the Son and how God is going to

secure the blessing for the entire world. This is an illustration. God is

commanding this so that Abraham and Isaac would dramatize what's going to

happen on the hill of Moriah, Golgotha on the cross some 1500 years later. That's

the point. This was never about child sacrifice. The point the whole time was

never that Isaac was going to be given up. It was never that this was a drama

so that the people of God 1500 years before it would ever happen would know

that God the Father the true and better Abraham would give the true and better

Isaac. He would put the knife to his throat. Why? John 3.16, for God so loved

you that he would give up his only Isaac, his only begotten. It's no

coincidence in Genesis 22.6 and we'll just close with this that Abraham laid

the wood on Isaac the sacrifice back to be carried up Golgotha's hill. A true

and better Isaac would do the exact same thing 1500 years later. What does this

mean? I'll just close with an illustration. Stephen Curtis Chapman, famous

CCM musician, contemporary Christian music. Yeah anybody in the CCM crowd. DC

Talk, Newsboys, yeah some of you. No matter what you think about CCM this

matters not. Stephen Curtis Chapman is a very famous singer in the 90s in that

scene. He adopted a little girl from China. Her name was Maria. His sons

were older and many of you know this about him and Will the teenage son

one day backed over Maria in their driveway. It's a terrible story and so

Stephen Curtis Chapman comes out of the house. He picks Maria up, he puts her in

the car, she's dying and he's trying to save her life and they are

going to drive away to the hospital and she doesn't make it. She dies in the

car. This little five-year-old girl that he had adopted and months later in an

interview in 2008 on Good Morning America in the States with Robin

Roberts. They were talking about you know what their families like after

this and how things were going and they especially focused on Will and how he was

coping with what he had done. He had killed his sister and Stephen Curtis

Chapman was talking about his relationship with Will and as Stephen

Curtis Chapman was driving away from the scene he rolled down the window and

looked out to his son and said I love you as he was driving away. Sorry I don't

usually do like this. Derek's the one that does this stuff not me. He looked out

at his son and he pointed at him and said son I love you. The son that had just

killed his daughter and the cross. The cross is the pronouncement of the father

pointing at you, at us, at your worst, at your very worst. It's him pointing at

you and saying son daughter I love you. At your very worst and he's saying I love

you so much that I will put the knife to my to my better Isaac. My better than

Isaac for you so that you know the hope of a resurrection life and that's the

gospel and it's good news. Let's pray. Father thank you for the gospel thank you

that you did not spare your own son for us but gave him up freely so that we

might know resurrection hope. We thank you in Christ's name. Amen.