The One Test God Will Never Give You

Among all the stories in Scripture, this one stands apart. God tells Abraham to take his son, the promised child, Isaac, and offer him up as a sacrifice. It doesn’t seem like there are words that can possibly explain this story, and when Genesis 22 tells us that the whole thing was a “test” from God, an explanation seems mandatory.

What we’ll learn is that there are some tests that will never be given again.

A Hard Beginning

Let’s say it out loud.

What God asks of Abraham is hard to stomach.

Not just difficult. It’s Terrifying.

There is no human argument that makes this “okay.”

If there is justification here, it must come from God Himself… or there is none.

Scripture calls it a test. We should approach with fear.

Guardrails (So We Don’t Go Off the Cliff)

This command is unique. Once. Unrepeated.

Never again will a man be asked to sacrifice his child.

God stops it Himself.

And everywhere else He condemns child sacrifice.

So whatever we learn here, we do not learn a pattern.

We do not infer that God might ask this of anyone else.

This was Abraham’s test, not yours.

The Only Motive Strong Enough

Why did Abraham go?

Not because he had a taste for excitement.

Not because he loved tests.

He went because of a promise.

Isaac was the son through whom God swore to bless the nations.

The line to Messiah ran through that boy.

Hebrews says Abraham “considered that God could raise the dead.”

That is the only logic left when God’s command and God’s promise collide.

The Walk

Three days.

Wood on Isaac’s back.

Fire and knife in Abraham’s hand.

A question from the son: “Where is the lamb?”

An answer from the father: “God will provide.”

No speeches. No heroics.

Just a climb in silence.

The Knife. And the Voice.

The altar is built.

The boy is bound.

The hand is raised.

“Abraham…

Abraham...”

Stop.

A ram. Caught by its horns.

Substitution, not slaughter.

And a name for the place: Moriah: The LORD will provide.

The Aftermath We Don’t Hear

After Moriah, the text goes quiet about Abraham and Sarah together.

We should not say more than Scripture says.

But the silence is heavy.

Sarah dies in another town. Abraham negotiates the burial alone.

Was the whole thing just too much for her?

I almost hope it was. It would be too much for anyone but Abraham. 

This was his test only.

Perhaps this is the point: Moriah sits outside the normal.

Too strange to fold back into ordinary life.

Never again.

What God Was Doing

God was not asking Abraham to prove himself to God.

Neither was God proving Himself to Abraham.

God was proving Abraham.

More: He was preaching.

On that mountain the command ran headlong into the promise.

And God Himself resolved the collision. 

Isaac was not, in fact, a suitable sacrifice.

The only sacrifice God desires is the one he himself provides.

The test ends where the Word of God always ends: in provision.

What We Must Not Do

We must not tidy this up.

We must not say, “See? Abraham obeyed, so you should too,” as if that were the point.

We must not turn this into permission to “suspend ethics” whenever we feel led, or worse, because we think that’s what God wants.

No.

This story is not a license.

It is a singular revelation.

What We Are Meant to See

We are meant to see Christ.

Another hill.

God own Son.

Wood again on the back.

But this time there is no voice to stop the hand.

No ram in the thicket.

“God did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all.”

Isaac goes free because God provides a substitute.

You go free because God provides Himself.

Why This Was a Test. And Why It Isn’t Yours

Abraham’s faith was tested in a way that no one else’s need ever be.

Because only once would God stage this lesson.

Only once would He write, in fire and blood, that salvation is by substitution, not by any human sacrifice… not by any human deed other than the will of his Son.

Your test is not to build an altar for your son.

Your test is to trust the altar where God offered His.

What We Learn

When God’s command seems to contradict God’s promise, faith clings to the promise.

When our explanations run out, God provides the Lamb.

God’s command will not contradict his promise. Remember that.

This story is not here to make us fearless heroes.

It is here to make us worshipers.

Takeaway

Abraham’s test is not your test.

But its message is for you: the Lord will provide.

He has… in Christ. And because He has, the tests you do face will never require you to harm, to sin, or to carry what Christ has already carried.

Prayer

Lord of Moriah, teach us to tremble rightly.

Where our reason ends, anchor us in Your promise.

Keep us from foolish imitations and from tidy explanations.

Fix our eyes on the Lamb You provided, Your only Son, given for us.

Amen.