The Sacrifice of Isaac

At the end of a long day looking after the sheep and the goats, Isaac used to come back to the tent where his beloved Rebecca had prepared the evening meal. Then, when they had eaten, he would spend some time with his twin boys, before they went to sleep. Often he would tell them stories, about the family, its history, travels and adventures. "What story would you like me to tell you tonight, boys?" he would ask. And how often Esau and Jacob would answer, "Abba, Daddy: tell us about the time Granddad was going to kill you and offer you as a burnt offering to God."

Well, I wonder if that ever happened? The story of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac is one of the hardest stories in the Bible. It leaves so many questions unanswered (which is probably what makes it a good story). One of the questions I want to ask is, what did Isaac think of it all? If we were able to eavesdrop on Isaac and his bedtime stories to Esau and Jacob, what would we hear? In our text we've got his question: Father, we have the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb, the sacrificial victim, for the burnt offering? And Abraham's reply: God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son. Yet when they get to the place there's still no lamb, and it's Isaac who finds himself being tied up and laid on the altar. Was he full of calm, confidence, trust? Trusting his father with his life, trusting that Abraham knew what he was doing, and trusting God? We might certainly like to hope so. Or was he terrified? What could be worse than finding that your own father was about to kill you, in cold blood, because God had told him to?

I think it's at least possible that Isaac never told this story to his sons; that it was something he never spoke about to anyone. In Genesis 31 there are two interesting verses including a name of God that never appears anywhere else. Jacob is talking to Laban and says, v.42. And again in verse 53, Jacob swore by God, the Fear of his father Isaac. Was God always a terror to Isaac, because of what had happened that day?

So what did happen? We're told: After these things God tested Abraham, by telling him to offer his son as a burnt offering. What's this all about? Did God really tell Abraham this, or was Abraham mistaken, and just imagined God had said it? It seems such an unlikely thing for God to do. Isaac was the most precious blessing in the whole of Abraham and Sarah's life and faith. They had waited for years to have a son, they had trusted God and believed, hoped against all hope, St Paul tells us. This was the fulfilment of all their faith and hope, this was what it was all about, this was God's Promise. Could God really be demanding that Abraham should consent to God taking it back again? No doubt there is a spiritual message here: there is no blessing God gives that we should cling to, as if we owned it, or were owed it in some way. No person, no relationship, no possession. It is good to be willing to let go of everything and everyone, because some time or other we will have to, anyway. It is good to look to God and believe in God himself alone, and not depend on any of his gifts or blessings. But that is not the same as destroying things, or slaughtering people, at the command of God.

I seem to remember at Sunday School (and in church too), that we were given the impression that Abraham passed this test of faith that God set him. Well, actually I think he failed it. When he built the altar, laid the wood on it, bound Isaac and laid him on the wood and reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son - he failed the test. When he heard God telling him to do all this, or thought he did, what he should have said was, No. No, Lord. If you ask this of me, you are not fit to be my God. There are far too many people even now, who are prepared to kill others in the name of God. They may even claim they didn't want to, they really loved those others, but it was all for God's sake. We need people who will have the courage to say No to God, if this happens; because in fact it's not God, it's their own blindness, hatred, idolatry, sin that is speaking to them. Just take a look at Jesus. A long, hard look at Jesus, will convince us that God never, never, never requires the killing of another human being. He might require us to lay down our own life for another person, our neighbour, but never to take our neighbour's life. It would just be impossible. If I kill someone who, like me, is made in the image of God, then I kill a part of myself, I kill a part of God.

But the truth of this story, the holy truth, is still there in Abraham's words. He was a hero of faith, even if he didn't always get it right. God himself will provide a lamb for the burnt offering, he said. And God himself did. At the end of the day, Isaac was spared, Isaac lived, because God gave that ram caught in the thicket, to be the offering Abraham made.

This has always, rightly, been taken as a prophetic foreshadowing of the Cross. It is only when we look at the Gospels that we can really understand that this is about Jesus. God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And John the Baptist said of him (says it on our E. window) Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. God does not require us to give up our sons to death, because he gave up his Son to death instead.

The Cross is the place where Jesus died to take away our sins, the sins of the whole world, and to reconcile us to God; to make peace between God and human beings, to make us at one. It's the doctrine of the Atonement.

In just the last few months, we've seen that this can still be a controversial subject. Steve Chalke, who is a well-known Baptist leader, recently published a book called The Lost Message of Jesus, and ran into a lot of criticism from the Evangelical Alliance because the book questions the penal substitutionary theory of the Atonement (which has always been regarded by Evangelicals as the most important theory). The penal substitutionary theory of the Atonement says, that God (because he is perfectly just and righteous) had to punish people for their sin, but Jesus took their place, and God punished him instead. The part of this that many people find objectionable, is the idea that God punished Jesus, when he was not guilty of these sins.

But in fact, the doctrine of penal substitution is only one of a number of 'theories' of the Atonement. If you look these up in a Dictionary of Christian Theology you will find, for example, that there is an Exemplarist Theory (Abelard): that Jesus on the Cross shows the extent of God's love for us in such a way, that it stirs sinful human hearts to deeper repentance. The Classic, or Dramatic Theory (Luther): on the cross, Jesus did battle with the Devil and defeated him once for all. The Juridical Theory (Anselm), that Jesus' death provided satisfaction for the penalty that ought to be exacted for human sin (penal substitution belongs to this family). The Sacrificial Theory (writer of the Letter to the Hebrews): that Jesus' death is the sacrifice that is an expiation for human sin. These are all impossibly brief summaries; but the point of mentioning them however briefly is to underline the fact that, although there is no doubt that Atonement happened, and the Cross is the place where it happened, there is considerable leeway in understanding how it happened.

Let's have a look back at Isaac. He could have said: I would have died, there on Mount Moriah; but that ram who was caught in the thicket died instead, in my place. (That story might carry some of the residue of fear of a murderous father, or a God who might require such a thing.) Or he could have said, God provided a sacrificial lamb, as he promised he would, so that we could worship him and express our faith and love: a story with quite a different feel. Neither story is true to the exclusion of all the others, yet each is true because of what it does say.

And it's the same with theories or doctrines of the Atonement. All of them tell us something important and true, and in different contexts we need to attend to one or other of them, for our faith to be nourished and strengthened. But none of them is the whole, sole truth. More important than knowing how or why Atonement happened, is being sure that it happened, and that it happened because God loved us and loves us, and God gave Jesus to save us, and Jesus gladly accepted that and laid down his life for us, his friends.

It's as friends, then, that we come to his table this morning. We may have many questions, uncertainties, arguments with God about all kinds of things. But what this act of worship expresses is that we are accepted, loved by God, he has reconciled us to himself, and he himself provides the means for us to make the offering of our lives, our love, to him who first loved us.

 

Preached at St Nicholas, Marston, June 26th, 2005