17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him,
offered Isaac as a sacrifice.
He who had received the promises
was about to sacrifice his one and only son,
18 even though God had said to him,
"It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned."
19 Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead,
and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.
Abraham had received an incredible gift from God, a son, which the Lord asked him to sacrifice for His sake, despite what he'd thought he'd heard from God. In fear, and in faith, he obeyed, and prepared the death of his son on the alter.
The case of Abraham presents two reasonings for sacrificing his son for the sake of obeying the commandments of the Lord:
- That God has the ability to raise people from the dead, and therefore could raise his son from the dead if he were to lay down this sacrifice at the alter, and the the Lord would fulfill His original promises of future generations being born through Isaac.
- That Abraham had heard wrong about the Lord's promises, and the future generations to come, and that God had other, greater plans, and that God could be trusted to provide in spite of the death of his son through the sacrifice he would make.
Regardless of the outcome, Abraham trusted in God.
He had faith, he had fear; he obeyed even when the commandment of God
seemed contradictory to everything he knew
and the Lord provided.
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(SPOILER ALERT: Right before his son's death, knife in hand, God commanded Abraham to get a goat from a thicket near by and sacrifice that instead of his son. This was the beginning of the sacrificial lamb - which ties back to Jesus, the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of God to redeem the world in place of us, God's children)
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