Test of Faith

Texts: Genesis 22:1-19, James 2:21-23

Pastor Phil Hughes, American Fork Presbyterian Church, Utah

February 9, 2025

This event has a specific name in the Jewish tradition. Jewish rabbi’s call this story the Akedah (ah-KAD-ah), which means “binding”. The name comes from Abraham binding his son Isaac to the altar to sacrifice him.

Perhaps no text in the Bible has been wrestled with more by Jewish, Christian and even Muslim readers than this one. The interpretations are numerous. The questions many. Who is this God that would ask a man to kill his own son? A son that God gave to him out of promise and faith and miracle? Is this God cruel?

The many, many attempts at answers and to understand this event only show how hard it is to figure out God. Figure out God. Maybe that is part of our issue. We try too hard to figure out God. I can’t figure out myself, and I’m going to try to figure out God?

If you want a God who is always reasonable, and limited by the confines of Western, enlightenment, cultural understanding, and limited by human understanding in anyway, then you don’t have the God of the Bible, the God of Abraham, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. You want a god who is much smaller.

There may be more in this event that we can’t understand than we can actually understand. That’s one thing about our faith: some things we will never understand.

The Akedah is deep. Soren Kierkegaard was a Danish Christian philosopher and theologian. He entitled his take on this event “Fear and Trembling”. I think that is how we come to this story, with fear and trembling. If it doesn’t stir you, I don’t know what will. If you read this and don’t wonder and question then you aren’t paying attention.

Kierkegaard said that Abraham left one thing behind, and he took one thing with him. He left earthly understanding behind and he took faith with him.

There is no earthly explanation for this event. Perhaps no interpretation really does it justice. Either we see this story with the eye and ear of faith, or it will just look very absurd and foolish to us. God said in Isaiah, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” The akedah certainly testifies to that.

God wants to test Abraham which immediately raises questions. Why does Abraham need to be tested? Hasn’t he gone through enough? Wasn’t waiting 25 years for the birth of a promised son, a birth that seemed a biological impossibility, enough of a test? “God, what more do you want?” What in, literally, God’s name is going on here?

And if God said that it was through Isaac that Abraham’s descendants would come, what sense does it make to sacrifice Isaac? Everything would be for nothing.

After God puts Abraham through this test we hear God say, “Now I know that you fear God.” (v.12) God tests Abraham because he wants to know something. God tests his people because we wants to know our hearts, our priorities, our faith.

(Why God, who knows and sees all, doesn’t already know this is another question. But we will leave that aside and take it that, for whatever reason, God wants to know.)

God has a pattern of testing his people. He tested his people Israel. Moses once told them while they wandered in the wilderness, “The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

Trials can test our faith. When our faith is put through suffering or adversity what comes out is what is genuine and real. Like gold through fire is proved so our faith through the fire of trials is proved.

One Bible teacher said this about God’s testing, and I’m going to lay it on you. Listen because it is deep:

Testing only happens in a faith in which there is one God who insists upon our undivided loyalty. This doesn’t apply to most religions. Most religions do not have a single god who insists upon loyalty. We might call these religions of tolerance. In religions of tolerance, God can be a lot of different things, to your own making.

The problem with making God into what we want him to be is that instead of him being our God, what we think about him becomes our God. (our idea about him becomes our god) And so, if God does something that doesn’t fit into our system – which usually means we face a tragedy, hardship, or things don’t go our way – we conclude God must not be God. We face a crisis of faith. Either God is wrong or our system is wrong. Either God is wrong or my thinking is wrong.

Do you know what syncretism is? Syncretism is the putting together of different beliefs to create your own belief system. You take whatever suits you from whatever book, message, idea or philosophy and put it together for your liking. Syncretism is a growing faith in our world.

There were times when God’s people were tempted to start looking to the other gods in other religions around them. It sure seemed much easier. We are tested at time to find an easier, less demanding alternative to God.

Oh, how we would like to find something less demanding than the God of Abraham, and our Lord Jesus Christ. We would like a god who doesn’t care if other things are more important, a God who wants our happiness and convenience first and foremost.

We are prone to want a God

…who serves us instead of us serving him,

…a God we can fully understand and where there is no mystery,

…a God who will do what we want, as we want, and when we want.

You know one of the things that tests from God do? They show if we mean what we say about our faith being in Him or in something else. God tests to find out, “Am I your God? Do you belong to me?” “Is your faith on my terms or your terms?”

Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year. It begins a ten-day period of self-examination ending with Yom Kippur. People are to look at their lives and see what is in the way of their loyalty to the Lord. This story, the akedah, is read on Rosh Hashanah.

One Rabbi writes how the power of reading this story on the Jewish New Year is to let go of cherished parts of our selves in order to serve God. I think this has overtones for Christians too. Perhaps one of the things our reading of this event can do is challenge us to be more for God instead of the prevailing culture we are living in with all it’s self-orientation, grabs for power, and desire for nothing but comfort.

Nothing tests like sacrifice. When we are asked to give up something, we find out where our loyalties and worship lie. Is there a place God might be asking you to sacrifice? Maybe it is a habitual sin we need to end.

Maybe it is an object.

Maybe money, property, or a position.

Maybe it is an attitude or an emotion toward another person or situation.

Maybe it is something that isn’t bad or good, but it just interferes with your relationship with the Lord.

Jesus said that the one who tries to save his life will lose it, while the one who loses his life will save it. There is always cost to being a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Martin Luther said, “Discipleship is not limited to what you can comprehend – it must transcend all comprehension.”

Abraham left his father and his home not knowing where he went. He trusted himself to God’s knowledge. It is as if God is saying to us, “That is the way of the cross. You cannot find it yourself, so you must let me lead you as though you were a blind man…it is not you, but I myself, who instruct you by my word and Spirit in the way you should go. Not the work which you choose, not the suffering you devise, but the road which is [totally] contrary to all that you choose or contrive or desire – that is the road you must take. To that I call you and in that you must be my disciple.”

Abraham is told by God to take his son, his only son. It is interesting that he is called Abraham’s only son. It distinguishes Isaac from Ishmael, who Abraham had through the slave woman, Hagar. It also emphasizes the value of Isaac to Abraham. This is the only son he has. It’s not like there is another if something happens to him. Isaac is of incredible value.

The Lord says, “Take your son…whom you love.” The dagger just goes deeper with each word. Isaac is the object of Abraham’s love. Abraham is being asked to give up what he loves.

Does it strike you that when God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac there is no discussion? Abraham doesn’t ask questions. We are told of no emotion. Abraham gets up early the next morning and prepares to do what God has asked him to do.

Some might impose their understanding on this event, and as if they have mastered faith, say how cruel God is and how utterly mindless Abraham must be to move forward with out any question.

Abraham has been walking with God for many years now. He has learned what faith is because he has learned who God is. He understands God to be faithful.

Gordon MacDonald, a pastor and writer, comments,

“…we need to understand that Abraham had been listening to this Voice for many years and had determined ever so painfully that it was entirely reliable. As difficult as the command was, the man had reached a point in his life where he simply obeyed.”

I’ll tell you something else about Abraham, he has walked so long and hard with God, that he is suspicious of God’s faithfulness. He seems to suspect God is going to do something. He smells it. A lot of faith is going by smell. You can’t see the fire, but you smell smoke.

Abraham says to the servants who go with him, “…we will come back to you.” (v. 5) We. Why does he speak this way? Does Abraham believe Isaac will return? In his suspiciousness of God’s faithfulness, Abraham believes God will provide. This is a story about God’s testing, but also about God’s provision.

Perhaps the most poignant part of this story is when Isaac asks of his father that he sees the fire and the wood, “…but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” What must Abraham have felt when he heard that? And Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.”

God will provide.

That word “provide” comes from two Latin words: pro and video…which literally means to see before, or to see to. The word provide also is related to the word “providence”. Providence speaks of God’s provision in all aspects of life. It is a word that speaks of God’s care, his preservation, and that he can see what we need and what is good for us way before we can.

So, the entire testing of Abraham is done in the context of God’s care and concern. It is done in the context of God’s goodness. God sees before what is going to happen, and, I think Abraham is suspicious of this.

This is how the writer of Hebrews interprets it, “Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead…”

Yes, God does test. But God also provides. This is a story of testing, but also of provision. We have to see all of this in the context of God’s providence and providing.

Here is a promise for us from 1 Corinthians 10:13: “God is faithful; he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”

Abraham binds his son Isaac, lays him on the altar, on top of the wood, reaches out his hand and takes the knife to slay Isaac. That is when the angel of the Lord calls out to him. Again, Abraham hears the voice of the Lord. It’s a good thing he has ears to hear that voice. The Lord tells Abraham not to lay a hand on the boy and that he now knows he fears the Lord and would not even withhold his only son from him. Abraham looks up and sees a ram caught in a thicket, and that ram becomes the sacrifice instead of his son.

And do you know what Abraham calls that place? He names it “The Lord will Provide.” God provided that ram in his providence and grace.

We see the pattern of the cross. Isaac was the only son. Jesus was an only Son, the only Son of our Father in heaven. As Isaac had to carry the wood for the sacrifice to the altar, so Christ carried the wood of his own cross. Isaac saw a knife. Christ saw the nails. Isaac climbed Mt. Moriah. Christ went up Mt. Calvary.

The difference is that while God spared Abraham’s only son, he didn’t spare his own Son but gave him up for us.

If Abraham being asked to sacrifice Isaac doesn’t make sense to you, remember that the cross of Christ didn’t make sense either. It looked foolish. But if not for the cross, you and I would still be under the curse of death.

When you see Abraham and Isaac and the Akedah, see Jesus, the Son of God. Who is this God who would allow his one and only beloved Son to be killed? The God who loves us in a way we cannot fathom. The God who while we were still sinners, and even enemies with him, gave it all up so that we could be forgiven and his friends. The God of Abraham, of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a God of provision and resurrection who always brings life in the end.

We place our faith in him. Oswald Chambers said, “Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One who is leading.”

Prayer: Lord God Almighty, God of Abraham, help us to walk by faith and not by sight. You see before us. You see what we don’t. We want to be able to trust you in what we can’t always understand.

Most of all, we thank you that you did not stop the sacrifice of your son, but gave him on the cross for us. We praise you for the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Thank you for your provision in our lives of Jesus. Amen.