Summarising chapter 16

The idea that God could command Abraham to destroy his own son strikes many as being preposterous.

The problem is compounded by the fact the child sacrifice was very prevalent among the nations of the ANE, and by the consideration that the OT itself repeatedly condemns the practice.

The usual evangelical approach is to note that the Spirit of Christ finally breaks through.  At the last minute God prevents the sacrifice from taking place and provides a substitute.

Paul Copan has argued cogently that the passage is not only about testing Abraham’s obedience to God’s command, but also his trust that God would provide a way out that did not involve sacrificing his son.  In Gen 22:5 Abraham says to his servants, ‘We will come back to you’; cf. Heb 11:17-19.

Copan’s account is largely compelling.  But it doesn’t really explain why God would issue such a dreadful command in the first place.  Moreover, if Abraham’s trust was as secure as Copan would have us believe, why did God need to test that trust?  Gen 22:16 implies that Abraham’s trust had hung somewhat in the balance.  So it is better (argues Boyd) to suppose that Yahweh did not merely allow Abraham to think that he had commanded the sacrifice of Isaac; rather, on this occasion God did actually give the command.

Note, firstly, that Abraham did not object to the command.  This is surprising in the light of Abraham’s earlier plea on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 18:16-33).  But, as a former pagan, the command to sacrifice his son would not have struck Abraham as exceptional.  It would be centuries more before God would make clear his abhorrence of child sacrifice.

Secondly, God had employed this strategy before.  Abraham and Sarah had attempted to ‘help’ God to fulfil his own promise, by Abraham’s using Hagar as a concubine (Gen 16:1-4).  The plan went horribly wrong.  But, even then, God made them wait another 13 years before delivering on his promise.  He took them to the very edge of despair.  They were having to learn that God would fulfil his promise his way, not theirs.  God’s covenant is based on faith, not works.

The change of name from Abram (exalted father) to Abraham (father of many nations) signals this change of outlook (Gen 17:5-7).  Sarai, too, is given a change of name and receives promises similar to those given to her husband.  The difference in Abraham doing things his way, compared with doing things God’s way, is emphasised by Paul in Gal 4:23).

In this light:

‘it’s apparent that Yahweh had to bring Abraham and Sarah to a point where it looked as though Yahweh was not going to fulfill his promise, and where no work “according to the flesh” could be of help. And Yahweh did this in order to convince them that, in contrast to the pagan gods of their past, Yahweh is able to fulfill his promises without any human help whatsoever. They needed to learn that receiving God’s promises comes by faith alone, apart from all human striving.’

Thirdly, in Abraham’s world, sacrificing one’s first-born son was the ultimate step one could take in proving one’s loyalty to a god.  So if there remained any suspicion that Yahweh was like other ANE gods, it would be in this:

‘As a means of finally freeing Abraham from every remnant of this cursed view of divinity, God humbly stooped to temporarily take on the likeness of this cursed view.’

Imagine the turmoil in Abraham’s mind as he and Isaac traveled to Moriah.  Up to the very moment when Abraham lifted the knife to slay his son, Yahweh looked just like the pagan gods of the ANE.  God pushed Abraham to the very edge in order to teach his this unforgettable lesson.

‘Through this testing, Abraham demonstrated the same level of loyalty that the pagan gods demand when they required a child sacrifice. But this dramatic paradigm shift enabled Abraham to understand that his ultimate loyalty was to a God who not only did not require child sacrifice, he provides the sacrifice. Abraham therefore named the place where he had bound Isaac, “The Lord will provide” (v. 14). And those of us who know God as he is fully revealed in the crucified Christ know more deeply than Abraham possibly could the profundity of this name. For on Calvary we learn that, rather than requiring humans to offer up sacrifices to him, the true God sacrifices himself for all humans.’

The question facing Abraham and ourselves is this:

‘Will we trust God’s loving character even when God appears to be acting in ways that contradict this character?’

And so, to summarise the message of the book as a whole:

‘When we encounter horrifically violent portraits of God in the written witness to God’s missionary activity, will we remain confident that we reallydo know the true God, down to his very essence, in the cross-centered life and ministry of Jesus? Will we therefore assume that something else is going on when OT authors depict God in violent ways that contradict this revelation? Or will we instead suspect that the cross doesn’t reveal the full truth about God’s character and will?

Will we suspect that God might actually be capable of the atrocious violence OT authors sometimes attribute to him, thereby empowering these violent portraits to compromise the beauty of God’s character as it is revealed on the cross?’