Genesis 22:8 - God will provide for himself the lamb

Genesis 22:8 – Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”

These words were spoken during, perhaps, the most poignant moment in the entire Bible. God had told Abraham to take his son to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him. This was the son that was promised to Abraham, the one through whom God would bless the nations.

Genesis 15:18 – On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land.”

This son, Isaac, was thus, the child of promise, through whom the Seed would come. Abraham was 75 years old when he was promised a son and 100 years old when Isaac was born. Sarah was 90. So, now the child was to be killed?

The Old Testament makes it clear that God was strongly opposed to human sacrifice; that is what the heathen nations did. So, why did God say, “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” (Genesis 22:2)? The heathen nations all around Abraham practiced child sacrifice. So, the concept was not foreign to Abraham. This was proposed by God as a test of Abraham’s faith. God did not need to know how strong Abraham was, but Abraham needed this test of faith, because as Job put it, “when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold” (Job 23:10). It was also proposed to establish a most beautiful lesson for the Christian era.

As they arrived at Moriah, Isaac noticed something unusual.

Genesis 22:7 – Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”

That is when Abraham prophesied that God would provide a lamb. Did Abraham guess God’s intention? He could not have known for sure. Perhaps Abraham reasoned that God’s promise would be fulfilled regardless of the killing of his son – that God would resurrect Isaac. However, there is no record of any previous resurrection up to this point. The story continues, Abraham “bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.” Abraham believed God so much that he was willing to sacrifice his only son of promise.

As Abraham raised the knife to kill his son, he heard God’s voice.

Genesis 22:11-12 – “the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

The next thing to happen has brought hope to Christians for two thousand years.

Genesis 22:13 – And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

The ram represents Jesus, who was God’s only Son of promise. As Abraham said, “God will provide for himself a lamb” – “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). God actually sacrificed His Son who left the courts of heaven to become a person so He could die the death that was ours under the law of God. The ram died instead of Isaac just as Jesus died the eternal death instead of us sinners.

Isaiah 53:5-6 – But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

John 3:16 – For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Interestingly, approximately 1,000 years later, Mount Moriah became the location of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem where sacrifices of rams and lambs were made to teach the people this same great truth of the substitutionary death of Jesus. At the end of the story God tells Abraham something important to us.

Genesis 22:16-18 – I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”

God is saying that through Isaac’s descendants, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. There is one descendant that is ever forefront in the stories and prophecies of the Old Testament, the Seed of the woman. The offspring of the woman would be as numerous as the stars of heaven and the sand on the sea shore. This means that the ministry of Jesus will save many people. These verses also say (“possess the gates of his enemies”) that Jesus will be victorious over the enemy with whom He has engaged in warfare over the ultimate fate of humans, that serpent of old called the devil and Satan.