The light at the end of the tunnel for me with regard to this story is to realize how foreign human sacrifice--or any animal sacrifice--is from my world. Indeed, even by the time the Old Testament books were reaching their current form, human sacrifice was becoming a horrible thing of the past.
But in Abraham's world--and perhaps at whatever time this story is approaching the form in which we now see it--child sacrifice was a known category.
The Greeks knew legends about Agamemmon sacrificing his daughter Iphigenia at the behest of a god to ensure Greek victory against Troy.
We remember that Jephthah offered to sacrifice the first living thing that came out of his house when he returned from battle if God would give him success. It turned out to be his daughter and Jephthah followed through with his vow.
Solomon and other wicked kings horribly allowed the sacrifice of children in the valleys outside Jerusalem.
In one of the most startling OT stories (2 Kings 3), the king of Moab sacrifices his son to the God Molech on top of the wall of Moab to keep Israel away. And the horrible thing is that it works. Israel withdraws!
It is in a context such as this that we realize that offering his firstborn son is not an unusual thought for Abraham. The remarkable thing is that God does not actually require it! If Tozer emphasized the obedience part of my title "obedience...," the original meaning of Genesis 22 emphasizes the "...not sacrifice" part. God does not want or require human sacrifice.
Abraham of course had no Bible, not even the Law. He did not have Deuteronomy 12:31 that tells Israel not to be like the horrid Canaanites who burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods. In the world of Genesis, this story is the narrative proclamation that God does not require human sacrifice, a proclamation of His "nature" in this regard.
Ironically, the very point of this story is that God is not a God who requires human sacrifice. It is an amazingly optimistic story that tells of God's graciousness, not his arbitrary whimsy!
I ended the sermon with the echoes of this story in the story of Jesus. The words at the baptism, "This is my son whom I love" and the words of John about Jesus as God's only son, allude to the fact that God sacrificed his Son for us. Genesis 22 begins the same way, "Take your only begotten son whom you love..."
I ended with words from 2 Corinthians 5:21, Romans 5:7-8, and finally, John 3:16.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Powerful and ultimately thought provoking. I love the "obedience not sacrifice" concept and if you don't mind I may run with it in a later sermon. Quick question. Do you think it was Satan tempting him or is that just a logical conclussion to your thought process. Thanks for the visit to my blog, but I must say I'm a bit embarrassed, there's nothing there of much substance yet.
I don't know. It seems to me that the late OT view of the Satan is still a little different from the NT. In the late OT, Satan seems to work for God as one of his divine court whose job is to test the loyalty of His subjects. By the time of the NT, he is more powerful and more of a self-directing evil being.
I hesitate to commit because the Bible does not actually say this and my end interpretation resolves most of the problems, I think.
Facinating concept. Is there anyplace I could get more information on this? Do you think the satan of the OT and Satan of the NT are the same entity?
Post a Comment