An Unthinkable Test?

March 12, 2026 

Genesis 22:1-14

22 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”

“Here I am," he replied.

2 Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”

3 Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 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.”

6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”

“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.

“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.

9 When they reached the place God had told him about, 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. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the Lord^t called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

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.”

13 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. 14 So 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.”

This story is one of the most famous in the Old Testament, and to be honest, it is one of the more difficult passages in the whole Bible. If we were to go back 10 chapters to Genesis 12, we would find God introducing Abraham as the person through whom every family on earth will be blessed. That is a huge promise!  And by the time we reach this moment in Genesis 22, the journey that started with God telling Abraham to leave everything familiar has reached its most intense point yet.

From my perspective as a father, God asks Abraham to do something that feels, to me at least, unthinkable: offer up his only son. Doesn’t that request hit even harder when you remember how long Abraham and Sarah waited for this child.  They had lived with disappointment for years, wondering how God’s promise of a great nation could ever come true when they couldn’t even have one child.

After finally receiving the son they prayed for, think of this, God asks Abraham to do something that seems completely backwards. We are left to wonder, “How could sacrificing Isaac possibly lead to the blessing God promised?” It does not make any sense.

Perhaps, the answer becomes clearer when we look at this story through the lens of Jesus.

Abraham’s declaration that God himself will provide the lamb (Genesis 22:8) reminds us of God’s gift of the Lamb to save the world (Mark 10:45; John 1:29, 36).

God’s provision of the ram on Mount Moriah foreshadows his sacrifice of his only son, Jesus Christ, the true Lamb without blemish who died in our place on the cross.

Like Isaac, Jesus is the lamb led to the slaughter; yet unlike Isaac, Jesus didn’t open his mouth. Just as Isaac carried his own wood for the altar, Christ carried his own wooden cross (John 19:17). 

Go back and re-read our passage above with eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith (Hebrews 12:2).

Let’s Pray

God, I thank and praise you for sending your only Son into the world. The spotless Lamb who willingly sacrificed himself so that I might receive forgiveness and new life. Amen.