Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20060806.htm

THE PREINCARNATE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST
Part III: Christ's Ministry With Abraham And Isaac: God's Sure Provision In Fulfilling His Promises To Us
(Genesis 22:1-24)
  1. Introduction
    1. When God makes a promise in His Word unto us, He fully intends to keep it.
    2. That is the great lesson of Christ's preincarnate ministry to Abraham and Isaac in the offering of Isaac:
  2. Christ's Ministry With Abraham And Isaac: God's Sure Provision In Fulfilling His Promises To Us.
    1. God had promised to bless Abraham through giving him God's miraculous gift of a son, Isaac, the son of both Abraham and Sarah in their old age, Gen. 18:11-12; 21:1-3. God had then announced that through Isaac God's promise about the covenant seed of Abraham would be fulfilled, Gen. 21:12c with 12:1-3.
    2. This promise had already cost Abraham a great price: he had obeyed God in sending away Ishmael, his firstborn, for he had stood to block Isaac's inheritance and the fulfillment of God's promise, Gen. 21:9-14.
    3. However, God then told Abraham to give up the promised son, Isaac as a burnt offering, a call that from the human view seemed to contradict God's plan and Abraham's will in every way, Genesis 22:2:
      1. By offering up their only son of their old age, Abraham would have harmed his relationship with Sarah.
      2. By killing Isaac, Abraham would have seen his son die with great misunderstanding of his father.
      3. By slaying Isaac, Abraham's hope for purpose in his life through God's promise would have ended!
    4. Yet, Abraham rose up early to obey God, going with Isaac toward Mount Moriah for the sacrifice, 22:3.
    5. When they came in sight of the mount, and Abraham left his servants behind to take with him only Isaac and the materials for the sacrifice, Isaac asked where the animal was for the sacrifice, Genesis 22:4-6, 7.
    6. In great faith in God, Abraham replied, "My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering," Gen. 22:8. The verb "provide" is ra'ah, meaning "to see", and carries here the connotation of "to see to it" or "provide" typical of our own idiomatic use, cf. H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Genesis (1974), p. 626.
    7. So great was Abraham's faith in God's promise regarding Isaac that Hebrews 11:17-19 explains he trusted God would raise Isaac from the dead after he had slain him! This reasoning is based on the fact that God had previously miraculously produced Isaac through the relatively "dead" reproductive systems of his elderly parents, so Abraham had reason to believe God would bodily raise Isaac after he had slain him!
    8. As Abraham then raised the knife to plunge it into his son's body to kill him, the "Angel of the Lord", whom we learned in previous lessons is the Preincarnate Jesus Christ, called unto Abraham, telling him not to slay or harm his son in any way, Genesis 22:11-12a. The Preincarnate Christ explained He knew Abraham revered Him in that he had not withheld his only and beloved, covenant son from Him, 22:12b.
    9. Abraham then saw a ram nearby that was caught in a thicket by its horns, so he offered it up in Isaac's place, a perfect picture of the future substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ, Genesis 22:13; 2 Cor. 5:21.
    10. Remarkably, the location was Mount Moriah, the same area where the temple of Solomon was later built in Jerusalem, cf. Genesis 22:2b, 14b with 2 Chronicles 3:1. Essentially, this pictured the time when Christ Himself would give His own life as the Lamb of God in man's place, meaning the Preincarnate Christ here destined to put Himself in Isaac's place by ordering Abraham not to slay his son! (John 1:29; 2 Cor. 5:21).
    11. Abraham named the place, "Jahweh Jireh," meaning "God will see to it!" or "God will provide!". It came to be a beloved saying to later worshippers at the Jerusalem temple, the saying that God would meet their deepest needs of the heart in His grace as He had in Abraham's case at that spot so long ago, Gen. 22:14.
    12. The Preincarnate Christ then enlarged His covenant promise to Abraham, Genesis 22:15-18.
    13. Consequently, shortly after this event, Abraham heard that his brother back in Haran of Mesopotamia had had fathered children, opening the door for Abraham later to seek a wife for Isaac from there to promote the fulfillment of the multiplication of Abraham's seed in God's plan, cf. Gen. 22:19, 20-24 with 24:1-10!
Lesson: Though God's promise to bless Abraham through his son Isaac seemed HUMANLY impossible by God's calling him to offer Isaac as a burnt sacrifice, Abraham trusted God to fulfill His promise beyond all human capacity, and God KEPT His promise by making a provision to spare Isaac's life.

Application: Like Abraham, may we trust God's promises to us even though the FULFILLMENT of them seems IMPOSSIBLE from the HUMAN perspective! We serve a SUPERNATURAL God, so we must function in complete OBEDIENCE to HIM regardless of the HUMAN LIMITATIONS involved!