Gen. 22: Abraham sacrifices Isaac

Romans922 · #1 (**permalink**) 06-17-2007, 08:04 AM

I am doing a bible study on Gen. 22 and came to the verse 2 of this passage. Here God commands Abraham, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you."

If my understanding is correct, a burnt offering is a covering of sin and/or makes atonement for sin. So then I asked myself, is God asking Abraham to make a burnt offering for his (Abraham's) sin by using Isaac?

So that is my question.

I asked a leader in my church and he said we shouldn't necessarily read the Levitical law back into this. But then last night I came across the story of Noah.

It says in Genesis 8:20-22, "20Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, "I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.""

It seems that Noah made a burnt offering for sins and God accepted that offering and it made atonement for sins.

So What do you guys think, did God command Abraham to make a burnt offering to make atonement for his sins or am I just reading too much into what is going on?

Semper Fidelis · #2 (**permalink**) 06-17-2007, 08:25 AM

Isn't it amazing the parallels between God's commanding Abraham to offer Isaac as a propitiatory sacrifice and God's offering of His own Son.

...your only son Isaac...
...whom you love...

I don't know if you would want to say that Abraham thought that Isaac would be offered for his particular sins. I would reckon the sacrificial idea to a burnt offering for Sin rather than sins in the way the Passover lamb was. I also don't think this is reading the Levitical Law back into Abraham.

After all, God slayed an animal to make skins for Adam and Eve.
Abel offered sacrifices.
Noah offered sacrifices.
Job offered sacrifices.

The pattern that only sacrifice can propitiate the wrath of God is well established throughout the Scriptures.

Gen 22:7-8

Quote:

7. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
8. And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering

KMK · #3 (**permalink**) 06-17-2007, 09:45 AM

One need not 'read the Levitical law back into the passage' for it to be a 'sin offering'. As Rich points out the idea of sin offerings goes way back. They are all a shadows of the true sin offering, Jesus Christ on the cross. The blood of bulls and goats never was able to cover sin whether sacrificed by Abel, Noah or Abraham.

And I agree with Rich,

Contra_Mundum · #4 (**permalink**) 06-17-2007, 09:42 PM

Sacrifice to propitiate wrath, to cover guilt, is at least as old as the first family (i.e. Abel's sacrifice), so Leviticus is not the beginning of sin-offerings

Having said that, I think it is a mistake to consider Isaac as an atoning sacrifice. God simply told him to give him up, to make of him an oblation to God, to give to God the most precious thing that he possessed--the very essence of the covenant promises embodied. What was more important to Abraham, the promises of God, or the God of the promise?

Abraham chose well. He chose God.