Isaac: The Picture of a Sacrifice

Isaac was a very special son to Abraham and Sarah. They had waited for many years for this promised child. This was the child through whom the promised Son would come to save the world. But God wanted to know that Abraham truly followed the way of God, even when it was hard. So God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac to God. Abraham didn’t understand what God was doing but he knew if God could give an old man and woman a son to be the ancestor of the promised Son, God could also raise that son from the dead if he died.

So early in the morning Abraham took Isaac and a servant up onto a mountain to make a sacrifice. They brought only the sticks to make the alter, not the animal that would normally be sacrificed. On the way up the mountain Isaac asked his father where the animal to be sacrificed was. In faith Abraham responded that God would provide the sacrifice. When they reached the top Abraham did what was unthinkable: he put Isaac on the altar to sacrifice him, just like God had told him to do. Abraham raised his knife in the air to kill Isaac but right before he was about to kill Isaac, God spoke to him and told him to stop. Instead, God provided a ram, stuck in a bush near by for the sacrifice. Isaac was a special son but God was pointing to an even more spectacular sacrifice where there would be no other sacrifice in the bushes–the sacrifice of God’s very own Son to save the broken world.