Why did God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac?
This is a difficult question to answer.
In the Bible, we read how God told Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering to the Lord. Abraham believed that God was going to resurrect his son.
Isaac was of age to carry the wood on the shoulder up the mountain.
As Abraham and Isaac got to the top and to the place where they were going, Isaac laid on the altar.
Then an angel of the Lord spoke out and told Abraham to stop what he was doing.
We read, “Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son.” (Genesis 22:13).
What is so great about the story, Abraham and Isaac walked up the mountain the ram was there because of God.
This story reminds us about how God provides for all of our needs.
We deserve sin, the wages of sin is death and all of us deserve eternal destruction.
Yet God in his grace did not lay us on the altar, but he laid his own son on the altar. Jesus gave his life for us and became the perfect lamb the perfect ram.
This is all a comparison of Jesus.
One of the most famous verses in the Bible is John 3:16, which tells us about God‘s love for the world.
So we know that God gave Jesus, but also we need to know that Jesus gave himself.
Isaac was of age where he could’ve rebelled and ran from his father.
He was aware of the situation when he even asked his father, “I see the word I see the altar I don’t see the sacrifice.”
Well, we know Abraham’s faith.
Isaac had faith as well.
Or perhaps he had a great trust in his father Abraham.
Augustine of Hippo, the North African bishop, described sacrifice as “the surrender of something of value for the sake of something else.”
For Abraham to give up what he loved, he had to remember what God had given him.
In the same way we must live our life for Christ.
We must remember what we have and be thankful for all that God has blessed us with. We are blessed to be a blessing.
