The shedding of blood was the norm in false religion as well as in true religion. Noah’s first act upon leaving the ark was to build an altar (Gen. 8:20). Abraham built altars in Shechem (Gen. 12:7), Bethel (12:8), Mamre/Hebron (13:18) and then worship at the altar of Melchizedek, the King/Priest (14:18-24). None of these were done in response to a command of God. They were worship, acknowledgment that He was God and that they were thankful to Him. They didn’t set up a memorial stone or build a church building; they erected an altar because they needed to shed blood. These altars provided an opportunity for the worshiper to express his faith in the God who had promised to send a Man (“seed of the woman”, Gen. 3:15) who would be the bloody Substitute for sinners. He would exchange His life for theirs.
Then came a significant event (Gen. 22). God tested the faith of Abraham, commanding him to take his only son Isaac, the son God had promised to Abraham and who was born in his old age, and to offer Isaac on an altar on a mountain in the land of Moriah. Abraham’s faith had been up and down but in this situation his obedience was immediate. Abraham brimmed with confidence, telling his servants “we will come back to you” and assuring Isaac “God will provide for Himself the lamb”. All we know about Abraham’s confidence in God is what the New Testament says: Abraham concluded “the God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense” (Heb. 11:19).
It was a “figurative” resurrection because Isaac didn’t die. God stopped Abraham. And then there was a substitute, another animal. Isaac was not the “seed of the woman” God had promised but this story provided truth about God’s plan, truth not only for Abraham and Isaac (they called the place Jehovah Jireh, the Lord will provide) but for Moses who wrote the story and concluded, as it is said to this day, ‘In the Mount of the LORD it shall be provided.’
Everyone learned two amazing things from this story and we should understand these things. The lesser truth is that the “it” to be provided, the provision of the Substitute, would happen in that holy Mount of the LORD, in the land of Moriah. Golgotha, the place of the Skull, is in that Mount. Just outside Jerusalem, to the north of the altar at the temple (Lev. 1:11), the place made famous by Gen. Charles Gordon.
Of immeasurably greater importance is this truth: through Abraham and Isaac God was telling the world that He would send His only Son to be the sacrificial substitute for sin. God would become a Man and thus able to shed His blood for sin. He would be “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” In Him we have redemption, through His blood, the forgiveness of sin.
Today, as has always been the case, God calls us to faith in Christ, to believe God’s promise of a Substitute, a promise that has been fulfilled in Christ. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved (Acts 16:31).
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