There have been some dark and difficult times in my life. They were times that seemed overly oppressive and wearisome. And yet it was in this times God expanded my view of Him as I continued to cling to Him. It is never exciting to be plummeted from a cliff into a dark valley. But there is comfort when the still small voice of God is beside you in the midst of it.
As we see this trial in the life of Abraham we note well the darkness of those three long days in which he was called to give up his only son through God had promised great things. And yet when the trial was over he saw God and His works in a greater way than he would have had he not experienced it. The key idea of this passage is that genuine biblical faith allows us to overcome and observe the power of God in action when we are tested.
Again, the author uses the term, “By faith” to introduce Abraham’s sacrifice of his son. Let’s define once again for us what we understand faith to be. Faith is the trust we exhibit in the Word of God and His promises found in Scripture. It is not a trust we have in our abilities, it is not listening to voices in our head as the Word of God. It is trust in the written Word of God that He has given for our edification. Now the author mentions these people to whom God spoke directly as believing His words. But let’s not get confused to think that God still speaks directly and gives his words to people today. The Scripture calls these people, such as Abraham, prophets. And the author of Hebrews also makes it clear to his readers that the written Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit and the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. The perfect, complete Word of God has come to us that we may place our trust in it. All kinds of groups throughout the centuries have been trying to redefine that in which we should place our trust. Some have said, “Trust in these councils and tradition.” Others have said, “Trust this human leader.” Still others have said, “Trust me because God told me this.” But faith is to be directed toward the sixty-six books of Scripture God has given us that never change. If I tell you that God said something but I cannot show you from the Scripture that God said it do not believe me. Better than that, “You’d should say, “Dave you need to stop making yourself some kind of authority above the Word of God. The only authority I have is derived authority. And this authority is derived from the Word of God. Without it I have no authority at all. We must guard ourselves from the Catholic mysticism of the middle ages that gave everyone their own interpretation of the Scripture and in reality sucked all the true authority out of its pages because it could mean whatever someone wanted it to mean.
Now we want to look at what the author says concerning Abraham’s faith. He notes three aspects to Abraham’s faith.
I. The Condition of His Faith
The first aspect of Abraham’s faith we note is the condition of his faith. We see this in the first part of verse 17. There we read, “By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac.” The key words to note are “when he was tested.” Here Abraham’s faith was in a state of being tested. The passage describes Abraham’s faith while he was tested.
James gives us a glimpse into the testing of our faith in his letter to the churches. In chapter 1, he notes, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.” God brings us through periods of testing to produce in us the endurance we need to prove the genuine quality of our faith. And James says this testing should really be a source of joy for us because without it we will find there is no growth or strengthening of our faith.
Some years ago scientists produced this biosphere experiment in which they provided everything needed for life in a large tank. But something went wrong with the trees. They found that without any wind the trunks did not have the necessary strength to support the trees. Without the stress of the wind the trees could not grow and thrive, as they ought to have. The same is with our faith. If our faith does not encounter any trials it will not grow strong in our God. If we see no difficulties, if everything were easy we would have a flimsy faith. This is why in today’s “God’s your genie” Christianity we have many who fall away because they think everything should be catered to them. And when things don’t go their way they figure God is not worth knowing.
In his first letter, Peter describes for us the purpose of testing. In chapter 1, verses 6-7, he says, “In this you greatly rejoice though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof (genuine quality) of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
God allows these trials to separate those who have genuine faith from those who merely have a professed faith. The rocky ground hearer is a good example of this person with faith that is not genuine. Jesus says he instantly receives the word for joy but, “when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away.” As testing occurred in this man’s life he rejected his faith because, in Peter’s words, it showed that his faith was not of genuine quality.
Abraham was in the midst of a period of deep testing in his faith. His faith was passing through the fire that would determine its character. Remember the longer the fire the purer the gold. God wants to bring you through the fire to cause you to experience joy in the midst of trial so that you will gain endurance. He may keep you in the midst of the trial until you can see His sovereign hand in it and rejoice.
II. The Difficulty in His Faith
Secondly, we come to the difficulty in his faith. Verses 17-18 describe this. The author says, “He who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, ‘In Isaac your descendants shall be called.’” There are two reasons in this passage that reveal the difficulty in his faith.
A. It related to his son
The first reason that revealed the difficulty in his faith is that it related to his son. This was no simple trial for Abraham. Verse 17 said, “he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son.” This trial took place over the dearest object in Abraham’s life. About 40 years prior to this event God had promised Abraham a son from Sarah. And for 25 years he waited for that promise to be fulfilled. He saw with his own eyes the beginning of a promise in which he would be the father of many nations. He loved his son. He saw in him his dreams fulfilled. Now, somewhere between 110-115 years-old God tells Abraham to offer his son back to Him. He tells Abraham to take a trip, build an altar and sacrifice Isaac, the son who made you laugh, back to the Lord.
What made this trial so difficult? The author here notes that he was his only begotten son. This doesn’t mean that Abraham had no other children. But it pointed to the fact that he was his special son, his one of a kind son. He was the son who came through the dead womb of Sarah. He was the son who was a miracle child. And now Abraham was asked to offer him up.
The text in Genesis gives him another description. In Genesis 22:2, God speaks to Abraham and says, “Take now your son, your only son, WHOM YOU LOVE, Isaac.” He was his beloved son. And so the choice came to Abraham. Would he love God and trust Him in this or would he love his son more. This was an absolute choice. God gave him no other alternative. The choice was God or Isaac.
Now the Koran, and the Muslim world says that Abraham offered Ishmael upon the altar and I think that if God hadn’t specified “Your son Isaac” that Abraham might very well have done that because Isaac was the son of his love. But God was very specific in this test. He allowed for no other option. It was Isaac or nothing. It was your beloved son or no son. But Abraham recognized that God was sovereign over life and death. After all hadn’t God reversed the process of death in his wife and himself? Could He not very well kill Isaac if He so wished? Abraham understood that Isaac belonged to God. He gave him to Abraham and He could ask for him back. But knowing this didn’t make the trial easy. It was difficult because it related to his son.
B. It related to his seed
The second reason that revealed the difficulty in his faith is that it related to his seed. Verse 18 says, “It was he to whom it was said, ‘In Isaac your seed shall be called.’” As Abraham recoiled at the thought of offering his son Isaac the question that must have come to his mind was, “How then can this promise that God gave to me be fulfilled?” It was an essential question because the matter of God’s faithfulness to His own promises was called into question. It was Abraham who asked God, years earlier, to fulfill His promises through Ishmael before Isaac was born but God told him that the promise concerning the coming Messiah would be through Isaac. Now Abraham is thrown back to the same question. If God said that the promises He made to Abraham would be through Isaac then how can He fulfill it if Isaac is killed? How can God be faithful to His Word? This was the difficulty in his faith. This was the quandary with which Abraham wrestled. And we will see its resolution in the last aspect of his faith.
III. The Rationality of His Faith
And this aspect is the rationality of his faith. We find this in verse 19. It says, “He considered that God is able to raise men even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.” Abraham obeyed God in offering his son Isaac. Why was he able to do this? It was not because he had a blind faith that caused him to leap without looking. The word “considered,” in this verse, literally means to reason out. It is the word from which we get our English word, “logical.” In other words, Abraham used logic to determine that God’s Word was trustworthy.
Now I don’t mean he simply made postulate after postulate until he arrived at who God was. The philosophers have tried to do this for millennia by various means to work their way to an understanding of God. But the difference between Abraham and these philosophers is they had no clear word from God on the matter. In fact, Socrates said as he was dying, “All of the wisdom of this world is but a tiny raft upon which we must set sail when we leave this earth. If only there was a firmer foundation upon which to sail, perhaps some divine word.”
No Abraham didn’t reason his way up to God. Abraham took God’s Word and he reasoned his way down to where the trustworthiness of God’s Word met his situation, where the Word of God and the difficulty of his situation touched. His obedience was based on a logical (or rational) estimation of who God is and what He could do. And though Abraham could not make human sense of the situation (it didn’t make sense to kill your only heir and yet expect children and a promise of a coming Messiah through him) he was able to recognize that God was powerful enough to literally raise Isaac from the dead if He so chose to do it. He found, through trusting God’s Word previously, that death was not an obstacle to God. What did Abraham do that caused him to be obedient? He “reasoned” that God would be able to raise his son from the dead. After all God was able to take Him and Sarah who were “as good as dead” and allow them to have children. And so this very test caused Abraham to recognize that God was bigger than he previously had thought. The test caused Abraham to think more deeply about who God is and how he could trust Him. Abraham reasoned, Abraham reckoned, Abraham considered that God was able to raise Isaac from the dead, so he trusted His Word and obeyed God to offer his son as a sacrifice.
Our faith is a faith based on reason, not feeling. Now this doesn’t mean we don’t feel good when we obey God’s Word. We ought to feel good when we do what He desires from us. And when we think of God’s greatness and power it ought to cause us to feel awe and wonder. But our faith is a rational faith. Some mystical moving of the Spirit doesn’t all of a sudden cause us to cry without the Word penetrating our heart. The Spirit doesn’t all of a sudden make us laugh for no apparent reason. We are thinking, rational beings. God doesn’t override our rationality to act.
Now how might we reason concerning God’s Word to find Him trustworthy when our circumstances of life do not seem to match up with what God is telling us? I think it might do you well to meditate on the Scripture and ask yourself these two questions.
A. Do I understand it?
First, do I understand it? Do I understand God’s Word? Is what I am reading really telling me what I think it is? When we come to a passage that seems to make a mockery of common sense we must ask ourselves do I understand it? Some difficult passages are truly paradoxes that make the world stand on its head when it comes to common sense. Jesus said, “The last shall be first and the first last,” “Whoever is to be your leader shall be the servant of all.” These are things that the world laughs at. But for the believer they are truly the principles of life.
There are three steps in answering this first question, “Do I understand it?” The first step is looking at context. Context is the material that surrounds what you are reading. Context brings to light what might first seem to be incongruity in the verse at which you are looking. Context may refer to the preceding or following sentence or chapter. It may be the entire book you are reading or it may be the whole body of material from a particular biblical author. As an example of understanding context you may read in 1 John that he says, “No one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.” Well this might seem to be saying that if you sin you are not a Christian. This might cause some great concern and even lead you to some kind of works-righteousness for your salvation. But when you look at the entire context of 1 John you begin to see that this is not the case at all. In chapter 1 we note John’s words, “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.” This tells us that we do sin and we must acknowledge it. Then at the beginning of chapter 2 John tells us, “I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” Here John describes the provision for when we do sin. And at the end of chapter 2 we find John telling us, “Everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” So just before that difficult statement in chapter 3 we find John calling for us to purify ourselves in our daily living. So this passage seems more to be indicating that the individual who is controlled by sin and continues to love sin has not seen or known God, not that the Christian is perfect.
So when you have looked at context, what do you do next to find if you have understood the passage? Next you want to put into practice some consideration. You want to think on the context that you have read to be able to understand it. Context alone will not bring you to a resolution. You have to think on it. Sometimes context doesn’t help you much at all. In the gospels, Jesus makes some pretty difficult statements. “If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.” Whoa! Can you imagine if people didn’t think this through? We’d have a whole bunch of patch the pirates walking around here. It takes some consideration to work on a passage like that. Or what about this passage? “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother, he cannot be my disciple.” That passage takes some thought. Of course I am not discussing these passages today so I will not give you their meaning. If you want to know what they mean, do some consideration on them.
The final step in seeking to know if you understand the passage is to draw a conclusion. Many people will refuse to draw a conclusion and make an application simply to give them an excuse to not obey the Word of God. They think, “If I don’t look into this or study that I will not be responsible if I disobey it.” Think again. If you are wondering what a passage says and wonder if it applies to you but you refuse to look into it so you don’t have to obey it then you are culpable for the sin of refusing to follow God’s Word. Your self-imposed ignorance will be a testimony to your disobedience. Do you think you can hide from God’s discriminating gaze? Did you think you could con him? He knows the thoughts and intents of our hearts. Don’t play games with God and His Word.
The heart of faith, someone who truly believes God’s Word studies a difficult passage to be able to put it into practice with firm conviction. The heart of unbelief studies a passage to be able to avoid doing it. The person with the heart of unbelief may say something like (And I’ve heard these before), “Well I’ll have to look into that (with no intention of doing so),” or “I don’t think I have enough information to make a decision yet.” But the intention of the person is to never study it well enough to ever have to do it. They use those lines as a ruse to put off being obedient. This is never the reason a genuine believer studies a passage. So if you want to see if you understand the passage you are reading look at the context, consider its meaning and draw some conclusions.
What we want to note again is that God uses these tests of obedience to determine the genuine quality of someone’s faith. How we give doesn’t save us but God may use it in an individual’s life as a test of obedience to demonstrate the genuineness of their faith. Baptism does not forgive sin but God may use it as a test of obedience to show if someone’s faith is real. Abstaining from immorality will not bring us eternal life but God may use moral purity as a test of obedience in a person to reveal the reality of their faith.
For example, a person may go so far in obeying God, but only so far. In essence they give an ultimatum to God. “I will go this far but no further. I will do this but not that.” The heart of genuine faith says, however, “God, what you say I will do.” Now some people get confused and think that struggle means no faith. But struggling to say yes to God is part of the testing. It is whether a person is going to trust God’s Word or blow it off as unnecessary to their life. That is the difference between the heart of faith and the heart of unbelief.
B. Do I understand Him?
The second question you need to ask yourself when your circumstances of life do not seem to match up with what God is telling you is, “Do I understand Him?”
Sometimes we don’t have a complete understanding of the God of the Bible. We don’t think God would have us do or not do something because we have a misunderstanding of His Person. This should cause us to seek His Word in a more diligent manner. Two examples: In one case, when I confronted an individual about their adultery they said, “Jesus wouldn’t want me to give up this other relationship because he wants me to be happy.” The first thing this person didn’t understand was that Jesus is concerned about our holiness. Secondly, this individual didn’t understand that true happiness isn’t found in our circumstances but in our holiness. It would have been good for this person to search the Scriptures to get a different picture of Jesus than what they thought He was like. This person should have asked the question, “Do I understand Him?”
Another example of a person who is in need of asking, “Do I understand Him?” is the person who says, “I don’t think you can know for sure whether you have eternal life, that sounds presumptuous.” But they need to see that God wants us to serve Him out of love not fear. He wants people to know that He provided a way that removed the sting of death that they might serve Him without fear. This kind of person who questions God’s goodness should seek to understand Him from the Scriptures. Ultimately we see that in His Word is where we find faith.
Abraham learned something about God through this trial. He had to consider who He was and what He had done. He had to process the Word he had received but after he did, he came out with an expanded knowledge of the work of God in the world.
Now we know, in looking at the rational nature of Abraham’s faith that God was teaching him something beyond whether he trusted God enough to offer his son. Through this, God taught him about what He would do through the Messiah. The author describes this in verse 19 by saying, “He considered that God is able to raise men even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.” Abraham’s faith in offering Isaac caused him to see that he received Isaac back “from the dead” as a type. A type is something that is a figure or representation of something to come. Now the word translated, “type” here is literally the word “parable.”
Isaac became for Abraham a story conveying spiritual truth by which he was able to see the future of God’s work in the world. This story taught him that one day God the Father would offer his only begotten Son in the place of every sinner. As the ram caught in the thicket became a substitute for Isaac so Jesus the Son of God would become the substitute for the sins of the world. And those who would place their trust in Him as Savior would also receive life back from the dead. This revelation of God came through trusting Him in the midst of a great and seemingly insurmountable struggle.
God wants to teach you more about Himself in the midst of difficulty. He calls us all to search His Word and look for the lesson of His faithfulness in the midst of the struggle. Romans 8:28 says that, “All things work together for good to them that love God and are the called according to His purpose.” Allow the difficulties in which you find yourself cause you to discover God’s purpose for you. And allow these difficulties to cause you to study and cling to God’s Word instead of driving you from them. The heart of faith looks for answers in God’s answer book. The believer may walk through the valley but he never walks alone. God has given us His Word to speak to us in the darkness of difficulty. Trust Him.