In our study of Genesis 22 we have saw the faith of Abraham.  God’s call to him to sacrifice the promised son on a hill far away.  This wasn’t the first time Abraham was called to go to a place “he knew not of”.  He had heard and obeyed as many as 60 years previous to this in leaving Ur.

At the point we get into this journey, Abraham and Isaac have left the servants, and Abraham saying to them, “I and my son are going to worship God over on that hill, and then, we both will return to you here”.  The faith of Abraham still in the forefront.

Have we ever considered the faith of Isaac?  In many artists renderings of Isaac at this scene is depicted as only a child, completely under his father’s authority and power.  There is evidence that Isaac could have been as much as 37 years of age.  I will get to that later in this study.

“And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.”  Genesis 22:6-8 (KJV)

Looking at this text we see that Isaac was going to carry the wood.  The wood was the means by which the fire would burn; it was the fuel.  This would not have been a small load, but a bulky, heavy load.  This first sentence of the text ends with the phrase, “…they went both of them together”.  They were not alone, and  without the other.

The size of the load tells us that this was no small child.  He was a man.  Sarah, his mother was still living, but seems to have died shortly after this being 127 years of age, making Isaac around 37 years, having been born when Sarah was 90 years of age.  I know there is no time given between these events, but it does seem a great possibility that Isaac could have been, at least in his thirties when he went with his father as a burnt offering to Moriah.

Abraham brought all the tools necessary for the offering, with Isaac carrying the load of the wood.  He had the fire, a knife; and Isaac poses to him a question; “Father, we have the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”  Abraham answered, “Son, God will provice Himself a lamb for a burnt offering.”  At this moment it seems as though Abraham is believing God will not let him go through with the killing of his son, but even if He does, Abraham is believing in the power of God to resurrect and restore his son to him again.  We are told again, “…they went both of them together.”  Father and son.

Just as Abraham and Isaac walked the way to the hill far away, together, alone as father and son, so too, hundreds of years later; God the Father and His Son Jesus walked up that hill, to do a work that only two persons of perfection could do.  Jesus God’s Son in complete obedience to His Father took the weight and wood of His cross, carried it to the top of that hill, and became the offering for sin, for all people, of all times, and glorified His Father; as no other man could have done.

God did provide Himself a Lamb for the burnt offering.  That Lamb is Jesus Christ, His Son.

-Tim A. Blankenship