Genesis Lesson 12
GOD TESTED ABRAHAM
Genesis 20:1-22:19
Key Verse 22:12
"Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything
to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have
not withheld from me your son, your only son."
Today’s passage talks about the birth of Isaac and God’s final test for Abraham. The birth of Isaac is the fulfillment of God’s promise and God’s test was the final confirmation needed for Abraham to become a source of blessing. In order to lay the foundation of his salvation work, God called one man, Abraham, and labored to help him to grow. God helped him to learn the secret of faith and to become a father of many nations. Through God’s hard work, Abraham’s faith became solid and his belief became rooted in the word of God’s promise. His faith grew and bore beautiful fruit until the events described in Chapter 18. However, in order to be used by God as the father of faith for all peoples on earth, he needed more training. Through today’s passage we can learn why God tested Abraham and how Abraham passed God’s test.
God Fulfilled His Promise (20:1-21:7)
After the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham moved to the Negev region of Gerar in order to find a pasture for his flock. There he repeated the same error he had made years earlier, saying that his wife was his sister. Then Abimelech, King of Gerar, sent for Sarah and took her. When we look at this unfortunate tendency of Abraham’s, we wonder how he could have repeated the same mistake. In Chapter 12, where he first showed this tendency of his, his faith was weak, so we understand how he could have made such a mistake. But by the point we read of in today’s passage, Abraham had grown in faith to be a father of many nations and he had had much more personal experience of God. Yet he repeated the same mistake. His mistake shows the depth of man’s sinfulness and his limited faith. When we look at Abraham, who could not overcome this bad tendency of his, we realize how challenging it can be to overcome our old, sinful habits. But no matter how difficult it is, we must cast off our old self and put on a new self (Eph 4:22-24). Abraham lied because he thought, “There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife” (11). It shows that his knowledge of God was still limited. He did not know that God is omnipresent and he is the sovereign Lord over all kings. Abraham also did not fully understand why God had established him as a father of many nations, so he was afraid of worldly rulers and authorities. When Abraham repeated the same mistake, God could have been despaired of Abraham and left him alone so that he might suffer. But God appeared to Abimelech in a dream and thereby helped him return Sarah to Abraham. Despite Abraham’s mistake, God did not want his promise to be broken. God did not rebuke Abraham for his mistake. God might have thought that Abimelech’s rebuke for Abraham was enough. Through his experience in Gerar, Abraham must have tasted extreme pain and shame. At the same time, he experienced God, who covered all of his mistakes and weaknesses. Where sin increased, grace increased all the more (Ro 5:20b). When man’s weakness is exposed, God’s grace is revealed all the more. As he had promised Abraham he would be, God was on his side and protected him and cared for him.
Consider verse 7. God said to Abimelech, “Now return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all yours will die." God not only protected Abraham but also honored him highly as a prophet. A prophet represents God and he delivers God’s will to men. God wanted to reveal his will to the world through Abraham, so Abraham became a prophet. God told Abimelech that he would live through Abraham’s prayer. Abraham’s prayer had the power to kill someone or bring him to life; to bless him or curse him. Abraham became a prophet not because of his works but because of God’s grace. After Abimelech rebuked Abraham, he sent Sarah to him with many gifts, and he allowed Abraham to stay in his land. What Abimelech did shows that he was a noble man. However, God honored Abraham over Abimelech and only through Abraham’s prayer did God solve Abimelech’s family’s problems.
Despite Abraham’s mistake, God did not withdraw his promise to Abraham, and fulfilled it in his own time; see 21:1,2: “Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him.” God visited Sarah as he had promised and performed his miracle for her. God is faithful to his promises. Worldly rulers make many promises, but once they obtain power, they do not fulfill all of them. That is the reason why we cannot trust many worldly leaders. But God never fails to fulfill his promises. God’s faithfulness is the basis for us to believe in God’s promises and to live by faith.
The Bible is full of God’s promises. Christianity is a religion of promises. The Old Testament and the New Testament are all promises. By giving his promises to men, God binds himself to his promises. He carries out his work of salvation based on those promises. The life of faith is living by believing in the promises of God. One example of God’s promises is in Matthew 6:33, which reads, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” When we live by believing in God’s promises, we can live a victorious and blessed life. The greatest promise of all was the promise to send the Messiah, who would save men from the power of sin and Satan. When his time came, God sent the Savior.
Another important thing is the phrase, “at the very time God had promised him.” God’s promise was fulfilled in God’s time. God does not work according to man’s demands or situations. According to his sovereign will, he works according to his plan and in his own time. There is no failure in God’s work. We should never worry about God’s ability and intention to fulfill his promises. He has the power to fulfill his promises. We need not be anxious about when and how his promises will be fulfilled. Whether fulfillment is delayed or not, God keeps his promise in his own time. We cannot but be amazed at the fulfillment of God’s promises. Abraham and Sarah had to wait for a long time until God’s promise was fulfilled. At times they might have felt that the time of God’s fulfillment seemed endless. At other times, they might have felt that the possibility of God’s fulfillment was weaker rather than stronger. Yet the fulfillment of a promise of God does not happen gradually. We tend to want to be able to see how the fulfillment of God’s promises is possible. But sometimes God works suddenly, in his own time. Sometimes everything seems impossible, but when God works, everything is done quickly. What we can be sure of is that there is no failure in what God is doing and that he fulfills his promises in his own amazing way (Ro 8:28). That is, we need to grow from believing God’s promises to trusting God himself.
When Isaac was born, Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was 90. It was 25 years after Abraham had begun his life of faith. Why hadn’t God given him a son earlier? What was the training God wanted Abraham to have undergone before God gave Isaac to Abraham? Abraham was interested in solving the problem of his childlessness. But God was interested in planting faith in him by means of his life problems. Abraham wanted visible blessings in his own generation, but God wanted to give invisible and greater blessings throughout the generations. God wanted Abraham to open his spiritual eyes and serve God’s will. God demonstrated that the birth of Isaac was completely the result of his power and sovereign will. God also revealed that Isaac was not the son of flesh but the son of promise. And indeed he is the shadow of the Messiah to come. If God had given Isaac when Abraham wanted him to, Abraham would not have been able to learn the secret of faith and experience the love and power of God.
In this way, sometimes God does not listen to our prayers for what we earnestly desire. For example, he may not listen to our prayer for faithful bible students or for going out as missionaries. It is all because God’s time has not yet come. If God listens to our prayer early, we will feel self-sufficient and proud. We will not grow in faith and thus we will become useless to God. But when our faith grows, when our inner person becomes strong enough to bear God’s blessings and when God’s time comes he will surely answer our prayers with the best possible blessings. “God is best!” This is the confession of all believers. Therefore, when we want to receive the best blessings from God, we must wait for God’s time to arrive.
When Sarah gave birth to a son, Abraham named him Isaac, as directed by God. Then, on the eighth day, he had him circumcised. Abraham remembered God’s covenant and carried out his duty even in his joy. He was the same person even after he had been blessed by God. It is easy for a man to become a different person after he has been blessed by God. It is easy for a man to change after he marries. But Abraham did not change.
How joyful was Sarah when Isaac was born? See verse 6: “Sarah said, "God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me." Sarah may have already lost all of her teeth by that time, but she smiled from one end of her mouth to the other. Her laughter was different than her laughter of unbelief in 18:12. It is the laughter of faith and delight. The meaning of the word “Isaac” is, “he laughs.” God gave laughter to Abraham’s house and everyone who heard that laughter laughed as well. Isaac was the fruit of joy that came from God as the result of Abraham’s life of faith. It is proof of God’s amazing grace that this 90-year-old woman, old enough to be a great-grandmother, held a baby and nursed him. Sarah continued laughing from joy. Her shame and pain of the past must have vanished on the wind. Joy filled the house of Abraham. This was not simple joy but the joy that comes from bearing spiritual fruit, and it was true joy. Our life is not trouble-free. Sometimes we need to cross rivers, climb mountains and meet storms. Because of this, we may worry and become anxious and suffer from fear and doubt. Sometimes we may be filled with a sense of loss and failure. But when we live by faith, God gives us ultimate victory. Therefore we can sing of victory like the Apostle Paul: “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Ro 8:37).
Here we can compare the fruit of Lot and that of Abraham. Abraham had to endure multitudes of troubles because he lived by faith. He lived in a tent, leaving his country, his people and his father’s household. He gave up the best material things to Lot, he gave up his own dream of becoming a noble father, and he went through the pain of holding onto a promise of God that was not yet visible. However, he never entertained the idea of betraying the grace of God; he kept his faith. As a result, he bore the fruit of joy that comes from God and he became the man who laughed.
But what about Lot? He tried to live both for the world and God. He seemed to be a wise man in the world, but he lost all of his wealth in Sodom and Gomorrah. He was barely saved through Abraham’s intercessory prayer. But he could not bear it, because he did not have faith. Because of his desire for the world, worry, fear and despair filled his heart. In the end he lived in a cave with his daughters and in despair he allowed himself to be made drunk by his daughters and bore the fruit of sin.
Our final fruit in life is important. The fruit a man bears shows most clearly how he has lived his life. We can be deceptive about the process but that deception will be revealed in its fruit. Galatians 6:7-8 reads, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”
Isaac and Ishmael (21:8-34)
Isaac grew and was weaned. On the day Isaac was weaned, Abraham held a great feast. Usually a boy was weaned at around 3 years of age, which would have been around the time that Ishmael was 17. As they grew older, Ishmael mocked Isaac. Here the word “mocked” means “despised,” “made fun of” and “persecuted.” Ishmael had lost his birthright because of Isaac. So, out of jealousy, he must have intentionally persecuted and despised his brother. When Sarah saw this, she advised Abraham to get rid of Hagar and Ishmael. The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. Abraham loved Ishmael. Isaac was his son, but Ishmael was also his son. Now Ishmael was almost an adult; getting rid of Ishmael was unthinkable. When Abraham was in great distress, God gave him clear directions: "Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned” (12). Then God told Abraham that Ishmael also would be a nation because he was Abraham’s offspring (13). Then Abraham obeyed God and sent Hagar and Ishmael away. To do this, Abraham had to distance himself from all the purely human approaches he had used in the past to try to solve his problem of not having an heir.
When we read these parts of the Bible, we may wonder why God asked Abraham to send them away. We may feel that Sarah’s request was too much. “Why couldn’t Abraham raise Isaac and Ishmael together?” “Why couldn’t he extend his love to both of them?” People who do not understand the spiritual world criticize God because God asked Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away. But we must get rid of the humanistic elements that can be a source of division and worldliness. Most of all, we must listen to what the Bible says. Apostle Paul explains it very well in Galatians 4:21-31. Ishmael was born of a slave woman and was born in the ordinary human way. Isaac was born of a free woman and as the result of God’s promise. Ishmael was a child of Abraham’s human path because he was born as the result of Abraham’s own plans and efforts, whereas Isaac was a child of God’s promise. In other words, “Ishmael” represents all men’s efforts and deeds and obedience to the law, by means of which they try to appear righteous before God’s eyes. But Isaac represents people who acknowledge that they cannot be righteous before God based on their own deeds and abilities, because they are totally helpless. Sarah knew that she did not have the ability and strength to bear a child. Because of this, Ishmael could not share in God’s inheritance. God carried out his work of redemption through Isaac. Ishmael pertains to “law” and Isaac to “grace.” Ishmael pertains to “humanism” and Isaac to “the gospel.” The conflict between Isaac and Ishmael is the like the conflict between law and grace and humanism and gospel. Humanism is “man-centered” and “gospel” is “God-centered.” “Humanism” is based on “reason” and “gospel” is based on “the word of God.” These two powers cannot exist harmoniously. As Ishmael mocked Isaac, thus does law insult grace and humanism persecute gospel. Ishmael was strong but Isaac was weak; Isaac needed to be protected in order for him to thrive. Therefore Ishmael had to be resolutely cast out.
In our generation, “Ishmael” can refer to “humanistic Christianity.” Humanistic Christians do not believe in Jesus according to what the Bible says. They believe in him relatively. Jesus said to those who wanted to follow him, “If anyone would come after me he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mk 8:34), but humanistic Christians do not deny themselves, neither do they take up the cross of mission. They want only to enjoy blessings from the gospel. Such humanistic Christians are the worst enemy of the gospel. There are many humanistic Christians around us. Their unbiblical faith is a bad influence on unbelievers. Humanists mock and insult those who genuinely believe in the gospel. They claim that it is foolish to live according to the word of God and that the word of God should be changed to suit each generation. They have the appearance of godliness but do not have power. In our hearts we carry elements of Ishmael. Some people value their relationships with their friends more than their relationship with God. In order for absolute faith in the gospel to be born, humanistic elements such as these should be removed from our hearts. In this there should be no compromise. We must choose between Isaac and Ishmael.
Abraham struggled between the two and chose Isaac, according to God’s command. How painful it must have been for Abraham when he sent Hagar and Ishmael away! He crucified his sinful nature with its passions and desires (Gal 5:24). Abraham won a victory against his humanistic elements. By removing humanistic elements from his heart and from his family, his faith grew purer and more sincere. God also took care of Ishmael (15-21).
Now Abraham’s faith grew greatly. He became a spiritual giant and was a good influence to people around him. See 21:22: “At that time Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his forces said to Abraham, ‘God is with you in everything you do.’” Abimelech and Phicol saw that Abraham was all the more prosperous because of God, and they became fearful of Abraham. Thus they came to make a peace treaty with Abraham. Abraham complained to Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech's servants had seized; when the peace treaty was made, Abraham secured his right to these wells. This shows that Abraham had changed, from a man who feared worldly rulers to a man who could rebuke them.
What did Abraham do then? See verse 33: “Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called upon the name of the Lord, the Eternal God.” A tamarisk tree is an evergreen. It grows well in desert sand or salty earth. This tree represents Abraham’s everlasting faith, and he must have wished that peace would last forever. Abraham called on the name of the Eternal God. This means that his knowledge of God grew deeper. He realized that God lives eternally in an eternal history. His faith was now rooted in the eternal God. Abraham had left his present time and entered into the eternal world of God. Now his faith could not be shaken by situations or conditions. He believed in God and he became a man of faith in any circumstances. When God gave him Isaac in an impossible situation his faith grew. His faith became fully mature, but this was not enough. He had to take one final test in order to become a source of blessing and the father of all believers.
God Tested Abraham (22:1-19)
The word “sometime later” in verse 1 refers to a moment in time after Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and after he called upon the name of the Lord, the Eternal God (21:33). When we look at Abraham’s life as a whole, this refers to the time after God had poured out his blessings to Abraham without limit. Isaac, the son of God’s promise, was growing well, and Abraham’s faith grew. He did not lack anything in his physical and spiritual life. At the very time of God’s blessing, God tested him. A storm came to his life. God had been silent for a long time, and then he spoke. But God’s words were totally different from the kind of words he had used in the past. It seemed as if God chose his words in order to hurt Abraham as much as possible. There are two kinds of test: one comes from Satan and the other from God. Satan’s test is temptation and it has evil intentions, but God’s test is in the spirit of discipline and it helps believers to grow in their faith. The Hebrew verb nasa that is used here means, “to test; to try; to prove.” The word is totally different from the Greek word peirazo(Jas 1:13), which describes things that tempt man to do evil. In most contexts, nasa conveys the sense of testing or proving the quality of someone or something, often through adversity or hardship. In this passage, God tests Abraham to see if he will be obedient. God tested Abraham so that his faith could grow more. Therefore, God’s test was the expression of God’s ultimate love for Abraham. God does not test us beyond what we can bear (1 Co 10:13).
How did God test Abraham? See verse 2: “Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about." This trial seemed to be too much. Isaac was the son from God’s promise, waited for through many years of trial and hardship. He was the one and only son of Abraham, and Abraham loved him. He was the only son who could be Abraham’s heir. Isaac was Abraham’s only hope and the meaning of his existence. For Isaac’s sake Abraham had even cast out Ishmael. Now God wanted Abraham to offer Isaac, whom he loved, as a burnt offering, like the pagans who offered their children to their idols. The test was unreasonable, immoral, and inhumane. Abraham could have argued with God based on God’s unreasonable command. He could have doubted the love of God and complained.
But Abraham did not say a word of complaint or rebellion. He got up early the next morning and prepared to obey God fully. He was ready to do whatever God commanded him to do. If he had doubted God’s love even the tiniest bit, he would have fallen into a deep pit of doubt. However, Abraham did not entertain this human thought for even one second. He honored the spiritual order at the cost of his own life. He could do so because he trusted God and loved him absolutely. He believed in the sovereignty of God. He also had faith that God would raise the dead Isaac, based on God’s promise (Heb 11:17-19). He understood the heart of God who was testing him. God had led Abraham step by step, and Abraham’s fellowship with God had deepened bit by bit. Thus Abraham had come to trust God more and more as he moved forward, step by step, with God. Now, through all of these steps, Abraham had learned how to entrust everything to God and how to trust God. Abraham took two servants and Isaac and a saddled donkey to Mount Moriah. It was a three-day journey. Abraham walked the road silently for three days, which reminds us of Jesus Christ, who silently carried his cross to Mount Golgotha. When Abraham reached Mount Moriah, he said to his servants. "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you" (5). Abraham’s word was not empty. His heart was filled with the desire to worship God. True worship is to believe that God’s will is the best and kneel down before God whatever the cost. It is to accept the will of God with great thanks even if when we do not understand it and even if it means our death. Jesus also worshipped God by obeying God’s will (Heb 5:8; Php 2:8). Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. Then Isaac must have realized that something was strange and asked his father, “Father?” “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied. "The fire and wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" How painful it must have been for Abraham when he heard his son’s words. But he answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." He had faith in God who provides. "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son" was a prophecy that God would provide the Lamb of God when the time came, just as he had provided the burnt offering for Abraham.
Finally the two arrived at the place that God had mentioned. Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Mysteriously, Isaac did not resist his father, but silently obeyed his father’s will. This is the symbol of Jesus, who became the Lamb of God and silently obeyed God’s will. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. He did not just make a gesture but actually moved to kill his son. God was greatly moved by Abraham, and called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!" He had passed his test and was accredited by God. See verse 12: “Do not lay a hand on the boy. Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." Through this event, God learned that Abraham loved God above everything else.
From here we learn what God wanted from Abraham. This was to fear God. To fear God means to love God above all and to honor God with awesome respect. It is to have the faith to be satisfied by God alone and it is to have the faith to be joyful and enjoy God alone. It means that nothing, neither family, nor sheep, nor dreams, nor hopes, nothing can come between us and God. It is the complete union between us and God. God asked Abraham to choose between Isaac and Ishmael, and then he asked him to choose between himself, God, and Isaac. Isaac was the son of God’s promise, but he was still a blessing from God. If Abraham had allowed the blessing to make him blind and proud, he would have become more miserable. God wanted Abraham to hold onto him, the source of all blessings, rather than onto one of his blessings. Abraham was not bound by the blessing from God but rather held onto God, who is the source of all blessings. By fearing God, he obeyed God absolutely. In this way he glorified God. Abraham looked up, and there, in a thicket, he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. Then Abraham called that place “The Lord Will Provide.” And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided." God knows the needs of his people and he provides. God is “The Lord who provides.” Sometimes our heart becomes dark because of uncertainty about our future or issues in our marriage, but God will provide believers with the best solution.
Consider verses 16-18. God called Abraham a second time: "I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me." This oath is a final confirmation. God swore by himself, who never changes. In this way he confirmed his promise in every respect (Heb 6:13-18). In order to teach Abraham what kind of blessings his obedience would bring, God said, “I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore.” There are 10 to the 25th power stars, even if we only count those that we can see with our physical eyes. Such a number is beyond our imagination. The number of particles of sand on the seashore is as countless. This all refers to the number of believers who would believe through Jesus Christ. In addition, God revealed victory and salvation through Jesus Christ. God used the word “seed” three times; “the seed” is singular, and refers to the Messiah who would be born from the line of Abraham (Gal 3:16). Based on this promise, God sent Jesus. Jesus overcame the power of death through his death and resurrection and crushed the head of Satan. He allowed believers to take possession of all their enemies’ cities and to conquer the world with the gospel. Furthermore, through Jesus Christ, all peoples on earth may receive eternal salvation. Through one man, Adam’s sin of disobedience and curse and death entered into the world. But now, through Abraham’s obedience, the work of salvation had begun, and through the obedience of Jesus Christ, God’s salvation work would be completed. God was pleased to become the God of Abraham and said, “I am the God of Abraham.”
Through Abraham and Isaac, God showed how much he loved his Son Jesus. Isaac is the shadow of Jesus Christ (Gal 3:16), and what Abraham and Isaac experienced on Mount Moriah is the shadow of what Christ would experience on Golgotha when he offered himself as a sacrifice. God sacrificed his one and only Son for our sins. In this way God demonstrated his love for us while we were still sinners (Ro 5:8). Sometimes God tests us to see where our heart is. He commands us to offer our Isaac, whom we cherish the most, to the Lord. This is because God wants to give himself, who is far greater than Isaac, to us. Praise the God of Abraham.