Abraham: Faith That Passes The Test (Hebrews 11:17; Genesis 22) | Worship Service

And if you judged my sin, I'd never stand again. Be mercy in your help, so more than one can stand.

The Doxology and Opening Worship Songs

And as we sing the doxology.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him, all preachers. Here be her son and whole.

In her strain their filthy rags. For his righteousness supply.

Mercy cleansing every stain. Now rushing o 'er.

There the wretch and vilest ones. Stand adopted through his love. Mount of grace to from the law. Praise him. Love and justice shall agree.

Praise the Lord. The price is paid. The curse defeated by the lamb.

Sons were slaves by birth.

Sons and purest king. Of the salt. The Lord is my salvation.

Darkness fall. His strength will help me scale these walls. I'll see the dawn of the rising sun. The Lord is my salvation. My hope is hidden in the Lord.

Promise of his word.

Winter fades. I know spring will. The Lord is my salvation. In times of waiting. Times of need. When I know loss. When I am weak. I know his grace will renew me. The Lord is my salvation.

It's like the Lord.

And when I reach the final day.

My salvation. My salvation. The spirit is our salvation. The Lord is our salvation.

You may be seated.

Majesty. Bound with strength and.

Behold.

Seekers bow. Beats rush to. When oceans roar. He reigns. Above the storm.

Enthroned on high.

Behold.

The seas. God from everlasting. In his decrees.

Behold.

Our trust. Faithful to. His prayer. With us. When oceans roar. He reigns. Above the. With grace and love. Winds and waves. Are stilled. In reverence. Thunder. You will hold.

Announcements and Reading from Isaiah 53

You turn now please to Isaiah 53. And while you're doing that. Just have a couple of announcements. One is that the new round of fellowship dinners is starting up in May. And if you are interested in participating in that.

There's a sign up sheet in the foyer. And the information in your bulletin that I would direct you to. And then second next week is our resurrection celebration. There will be no Sunday school next week.

Adult or children. Instead we're going to serve breakfast here from 8 to 930. And please sign up on the sheet that is in the foyer for that as well. If you plan on being here for that. Isaiah 53. When you found your place would you stand with me as we read.

Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a tender shoot. Like a root out of parched ground. He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon him.

Nor appearance that we should be attracted to him. He was despised and forsaken of men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And like one from whom men hid their face. He was despised and we did not esteem him.

Surely our griefs he himself bore. And our sorrows he carried. Yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken. Smitten of God and afflicted. But he was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.

The chastening for our well-being fell upon him. And by his scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way. But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him.

He was oppressed and he was afflicted. Yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb that is led to slaughter. And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers. So he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away.

And as for his generation. Who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living. For the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due. His grave was assigned with wicked men. Yet he was with the rich man in his death.

Because he had done no violence. Nor was there any deceit in his mouth. But the Lord was pleased to crush him. Putting him to grief. If he would render himself as a guilt offering. He will see his offspring.

He will prolong his days. And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand. As a result of the anguish of his soul. He will see it and be satisfied. By his knowledge of the righteous one. My servant will justify the many.

As he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great. And he will divide the booty with the strong. Because he poured out himself to death. And was numbered with the transgressors.

Yet he himself bore the sin of many. And interceded for the transgressors. Let's pray together. Our Father you are merciful and gracious and good. As to provide a sacrifice for our sin. We are the transgressors.

We are the guilty ones. The straying sheep that are mentioned in this passage. For we have sinned against you. And we deserve none of your grace. No mercy. All we deserve is your justice. We deserve your wrath for the weight of our sin.

If we were to bear it. It would be more than we could bear. We could never count up or measure our transgressions. And you know all of them. And we thank you that you have sent your son. The Lord Jesus Christ.

To die in the place and in the stead of guilty sinners. That we may have eternal life. And that we may praise you. That we may be called by your name. We call him our brother. We call you our God. And we thank you gracious Father for this work of grace in our hearts.

Which has brought us to saving faith. Thank you for the opportunity this morning to rejoice and to celebrate. To contemplate these things. We pray that you would be honored through the meditation of our hearts.

The words of our mouths. And the worship of our spirit. We pray in Christ's name.

Amen.

Let's be our God's sons. Let's be our chosen.

Christ's Exaltation and the Call to Worship

Chapter 2 verses 8 through 11 it says. Being found in appearance as a man. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death. Even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him. And bestowed on him the name which is above every name.

So that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow. Of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. To the glory of God the Father.

Join us as we sing. Turn your eyes.

We turn our eyes.

Abraham's Offering of Isaac in Hebrews 11

We're going to begin today in Hebrews chapter 11.

So please turn there in your Bibles. Hebrews chapter 11. When you've found your place let's pray together before we begin. Our most gracious God our desire is that we may hear your voice in the pages of Scripture.

That you would speak to us in your word. Help us to see Christ. Help us to see the intention of the author and of the spirit of God in this passage. So that our hearts may see what it is that we are to obey.

And what it is that we are to adore. Be honored here through the meditation of our hearts. We pray in the preaching of your word. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. In our study of Hebrews 11 and specifically the life of Abraham as a role model for the faithful.

And as an example of faith. We come now to one of the most intriguing. The most stunning. The most incredible examples from the life of Abraham. And that is his offering of his son Isaac. His willingness to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice.

We read that in Hebrews chapter 11 beginning in verse 17. By faith Abraham when he was tested offered up Isaac. And he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son. It was he to whom it was said in Isaac your descendants shall be called.

He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead. From which also he received him back as a type. Now that event in Genesis which we're going to be turning back here in a moment in Genesis 22.

That event is a high water mark in Abraham's life in terms of the demonstration of his faith. It is mentioned in James chapter 2. And it is mentioned here in both contexts. The authors of those passages are trying to show that in offering his son Isaac.

This was the ultimate demonstration of Abraham's faith. Truly no list of examples of faithful men and faithfulness. And demonstrations of faith would be complete without this. Because even though it occurs early in the biblical record all the way back in Genesis chapter 22.

Almost 4 ,000 years ago. Even though it occurs all the way back there. It is difficult to think of another episode in the life of anyone since that point. That demonstrates that kind of faith. It is truly a mountaintop example in more ways than one.

Figuratively because it is really as I said the high water mark of Abraham's faith. But second it's a mountaintop experience in the sense it was on a mountaintop that he offered Isaac. So in more ways than one this is the height of faithfulness.

It is the height of an example of faith in the life of Abraham. And we've observed a pattern in these verses in Hebrews chapter 11. Beginning in verse 8 and coming all the way down through the end of verse 19.

A pattern where the author is focusing on two aspects of the Abrahamic covenant. And the promises that were given to Abraham. The promise of a land and the promise of a son. Those are the two things that he has been focusing on as really the center around which the examples of Abraham can be grouped.

The son and the land. In verses 8 to 10 Abraham believed God and he arrived in a promised land. And you'll notice the pattern is that the author focuses on the land promise. Then the son promise. Then the land promise.

And then the son promise. So he alternates back and forth between these two things. In verses 8 through 10 Abraham believed and he arrived in a promised land. In verses 11 to 12 Sarah believes and she receives a promised son.

Then back to the land in verse 13 through 16. The author shows us Abraham's faith as he obeyed God by living in the land for that extended period of time. Living in tents all the way through for a hundred years until Abraham died.

And now we're back in verse 17 with the promise of the son. Abraham shows his faith in being willing to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. So not only is there a pattern there. Land, son, land, son. But with each of these examples that the author gives us the intensity of it is escalated.

Abraham believed the Lord that he was going to be given a land. And so Abraham moved from one location to another. That is an example of faith. Abraham demonstrated his faith in obeying the Lord. But listen, people move from one location to another location all the time in hopes of improving their condition.

So that is faith. But it's not the best example of faith. It's not the ultimate example of faith. It's not the peak of it. But it is escalated a little bit with the promise of a son. Because both Abraham and Sarah had to believe God for a son.

And it's one thing to believe God that he'll give you land. It's another thing to believe God that he will give you a son. When your whole history with your wife is one of where she has been barren. And then the Lord waits until after she has passed the point of childbearing.

Abraham, the Lord could have fulfilled that promise when Sarah was being... When things were happening where Sarah could have had a child. But when she's passed the point of childbearing, then you're trusting God for almost overcoming two hurdles as it were.

Not just the barrenness of a dead womb and the history of that. But also then she's passed the point where she normally would be able to have children. And so that takes even more faith. But then it escalates again when we get to verse 13.

The promise of the land. There we see the longevity of Abraham's faith. That he lived in that land for a hundred years. Even after he was told, you will not inherit this in your lifetime. You will die.

Your descendants will go into another nation. They will come out in the fourth generation and I will bring them into this land. That's a longevity of faith that you see there. But then we reach almost an inexplicable faith in verse 17 through verse 19.

Where Abraham is told to offer his son. And his obedience to this command of God demonstrates that this faith is not explicable in merely human terms. This is a faith that is a divine gift. This is the faith you cannot explain in terms of just normal, ordinary human belief.

This is a faith that when it is tested, the proof of that faith is more precious than gold which is perishable as Peter says. This is a faith that is supernatural. It's a supernatural gift from God. And it is evident in Abraham's life when he offers up Isaac.

And you see there in the escalation of that faith that he goes from believing God for a land. And then trusting God for a son. And then living in that land for a long period of time. And then being willing to offer that son to God.

That there's this escalation that takes place. But Abraham's faith is growing all along with it. This is how the Lord deals with his people. Abraham wasn't commanded to have that kind of faith at the very beginning.

Through Abraham's life as he lived and saw the promises of God being fulfilled. And the faithfulness of God in his life. His faith grew. And as God gave him greater and greater opportunities and occasions to demonstrate his faith.

Abraham's faith was revealed to be stronger and stronger as time went on. The longer narrative that we find in Genesis chapter 22 is captured here in these three verses. And before we turn back to Genesis 22.

I just want you to notice the three things that the author here focuses on in Hebrews 11. Because in the weeks to come we're going to come back to Hebrews chapter 11. I'm going to draw these three things out.

But I just want you to see them here as we sort of set the table for our perusal through Genesis 22. First, though faith is not mentioned in Genesis 22. The author clearly sees faith on everything that Abraham does in that chapter.

So we're going to go back here in a moment. And you're not going to see faith referenced in Genesis 22. But you're going to see faith demonstrated in Genesis 22. It's not going to be spoken of. But you're going to see it lived out in Abraham's life.

Second, Abraham's faith is inseparable from his obedience to the Lord. Obedience to God's command is the way that our faith is made manifest to ourselves and to everybody else. And so Abraham's act of obedience really is a demonstration of his faith.

It is the living out of his faith. And third, Abraham's faith had a specific object. Namely, a God who raises the dead. Look at verse 19 in Hebrews 11. He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead.

From which also he received him back as a type. It is a resurrecting God which is the object of Abraham's faith. And Abraham's actions are inexplicable apart from that belief. Apart from the belief that God is able to raise the dead, Abraham's actions in Genesis 22 are completely inexplicable.

He had an unwavering belief in a God who raises the dead. Now it is quite providential that we're talking about this today. Since next week we're going to be talking about bodily resurrection. Celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Next Sunday is Resurrection Sunday. And so it's quite appropriate that we have spent the last several weeks looking at this theme of bodily resurrection. And the connection of resurrection to this. We've been focused on that for a number of weeks.

We're going to for a couple more weeks after Resurrection Sunday. You'd almost think that I planned it that way, wouldn't you? It seems awfully like you were planning this. I promise you that no planning was involved in this.

This is entirely providential. It didn't occur to me until a couple of weeks ago that this was going to work out this way. And you would think that I might take today to preach on Hebrews 11, 17, and 18.

So that next week we could talk about verse 19, which says that God is able to raise people from the dead. You would think that that's what we would do, but that's not what we're going to do. Instead, we're going to turn back to Genesis chapter 22 today.

So do that now. Turn to Genesis 22. I'm not going to tell you what the plan is for next week because I want to have the freedom to bail out at any time between now and then and go whatever direction that the Spirit may lead me between now and then.

Isaac as the Son of Promise and the Test of Faith

So Genesis 22, we have gone through the book of Genesis and traced the land promise from Genesis 12 through the end of the book of Genesis. And that was in connection with verse 8 of Hebrews 11. We have gone through the book of Genesis and traced the son promise, the lineage of the heir in connection with verse 11 of Hebrews 11.

And so having focused on the son promise that we observed Sarah's barrenness, we saw how the Lord promised them a son. And then specifically that that was not fulfilled when Abraham took Sarah's handmaid Hagar and had a child with her, Ishmael.

But instead there was a miraculous fulfillment. And so in order to set up the context for Genesis 22 a little bit, just look back at chapter 21 verse 1 and verse 2. Then the Lord, this is the fulfillment of the son promise.

Chapter 21 verse 1, the Lord took note of Sarah as He had said and the Lord did for Sarah as He had promised. So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age at the appointed time of which God had spoken to him.

Now the context here is important because God has fulfilled His promise in giving a son to Abraham through Sarah. Isaac is the only son that has been born to Sarah and the only son that would be born to Sarah, the only child that would be born to Sarah.

Then there is a conflict later in chapter 21 which is important in terms of coloring the narrative of chapter 22. Look at verse 9 of chapter 21. Now Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking.

Therefore she said to Abraham, drive out this maid and her son, for the son of this maid shall not be heir with my son Isaac. The matter distressed Abraham greatly because of his son, namely because of Ishmael and what this would mean for Ishmael.

Ishmael was his son as well. Verse 12, but God said to Abraham, do not be distressed because of the lad, that is Ishmael, and your maid Hagar. Whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her, for through Isaac your descendants shall be named.

Now God is simply there confirming, this is of me. Do exactly what it is that Sarah is asking you to do. Drive out the handmaid and her son. And of the son, verse 13, and of the son, the maid of the maid, I will make a nation also because he is your descendant.

So Abraham rose early in the morning, took bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder and gave her the boy and sent her away. And she departed and wandered about the wilderness of Beersheba.

Later on it says that they went down to the wilderness of Beersheba. They lived in Perun and then Ishmael ended up taking a wife from Egypt. You have to imagine that that is a painful encounter, right?

This is the result of sin, by the way, in that home. That Sarah, rather than trusting God in that moment, gave her handmaid to Abraham. Abraham made the mistake that most men make. They listened to their wife and then they got in trouble.

They had a child with Hagar and it was Ishmael. This caused strife so that when Sarah finally had a child, the child of promise, there was this mockery and this conflict between them. And you can only imagine the strife that exists in a home that is characterized by that.

Well, the Lord wanted to make sure that there was no confusion as to who the heir of this home was. So, by God's command, Abraham drove out Hagar and Ishmael. And that had to have been painful. Sin has painful consequences.

And this was a painful event. The boy settled outside of Beersheba where Abraham was, somewhere away from him. And we can only presume that Abraham would have had little, if not no contact with Ishmael and Hagar after that event.

So that by the time we get to Genesis chapter 22, Abraham and Sarah are together, and there is only one child in that home, and that is the heir of the promises, namely Isaac. So you have only Sarah living with him, only Isaac that has been born of them, and he is the son of promise.

He's the only one that Abraham has had through Sarah, and he is likely the only one that has been in the home for a number of years by the time we get to Genesis chapter 22. Now, there are two issues that we need to be aware of in Genesis 22.

One of them is Isaac's age. Let's deal with that here for just a moment. Isaac's age. There's no mention in the context of how old Isaac was when this event took place. I wish we did know. There are some clues as to how old Isaac was when this took place.

Most people suggest or believe that he was somewhere around 20 years old or in his early 20s. Now, I know that the children's Bibles that we see, if you have them, you should burn them. The children's Bibles that we see picture Abraham, this old man, holding the knife over Isaac and bound up in the ropes on the altar as some little six-year-old boy, at the most eight years old.

Isaac was not that young. I do not believe Isaac was that young. He was able to carry the wood upon which he would be sacrificed a long way off from wherever it was that Abraham left, his servants and his donkey all the way to the place of the sacrifice.

If you've ever had a son who was younger than 15, then you know it is difficult to get them to carry anything across the yard, let alone enough wood to burn their body all the way up to the top of a mountaintop.

So Isaac is a young man by this point, probably late teens at least in his early 20s. We know that he was not more than 37 because by the time he's 37, that's when Sarah dies. So it happened before he's 37, probably somewhere between the time of 20.

And if that sounds odd to you, it's only because you get your theology from a children's Bible, and you should not do that, or an inaccurate Sunday school curriculum. You're going to see in a moment, in a little bit, why it is that that is a significant detail.

Now there's a second thing we need to deal with is what skeptics often say. This passage, this Genesis 22, is a playground for unscrupulous ignoramuses who are eager to raise objections and contradictions and moral dilemmas out of the text.

Objections and contradictions and moral dilemmas that with just a few moments of some serious thought about what is going on here and what the intention of God is in this incident, those things vanish.

And we're going to deal with them. I'll give you a couple of them we're going to address as we go through the passage. First, it is objected that God here is commanding human sacrifice, and this is morally reprehensible.

God is commanding something that is morally reprehensible. Second, that God is said to be testing or tempting Abraham when Scripture says that God tests or tempts no man. Third, Abraham lied to his servants and to Isaac.

You'll see in verse 5 that he says, I and the lad will return to you. People say that's Abraham lying because he was going up there to sacrifice Isaac. Verse 8, Abraham says to Isaac, God will provide for himself the lamb, and critics say that Abraham there is lying to Isaac just to get him to the place of the sacrifice so he can kill him.

And fourth, that it is objected in verse 12 that God didn't know the state of Abraham's faith since the angel of the Lord says, for now I know that you fear God since you have not withheld your only son from me.

So those are the objections that we'll deal with as we work through the passage. Genesis 22 could easily be the fodder for three, four, five sermons as we work our way through it, but I'm not preaching through Genesis, I'm preaching through Hebrews.

So we're just going to hit some of the high points of Genesis 22 as we work our way through there today. Let's start at verse 1. Now it came about after these things that God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham.

And he said, here I am. He said, take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.

Now you'll notice in verse 1 that it does say that God tested Abraham. The King James translates that God tempted Abraham. And so as the objection goes, James 1 .13 reads this, Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself does not tempt anyone.

And yet the King James translation says in Genesis 22 that God tempted Abraham. So is God tempting Abraham, Genesis 22, or does God not tempt Abraham, James chapter 1? The answer to that is what you mean by the word tempt.

The word that is used here, translated tempted by the King James and tested in the NASB, is a word that means to test or to prove something. In James 1 .13 when it says that God tempts no man, what we mean by that is that God does not put forth a temptation with the intention of luring men into sin.

God is not trying to trick men into sin. He is not the tempter in that sense. But Scripture does not promise us that God will not test our faith. If you think that God is above or that he is unwilling to test your faith, that is not a biblical concept.

God does test our faith. The purpose of the test is to demonstrate to us the genuineness of our faith and to other people who watch it. The purpose of the test is also to demonstrate the falsity of our faith.

If we are believing the wrong thing, and you see this happen all the time when people say, Yeah, I used to be a Christian, I used to go to church, and I believed the Lord, I worshipped the Lord, and then my child got sick and died, and I abandoned that.

Well, that test of faith only revealed that that was not true faith to begin with. So God does test faith in the sense of revealing the genuineness of the faith. That is what Peter is talking about in 1 Peter 1, when he says that proof of that faith is more precious than gold which is tried by fire.

When you persevere through the trial, you get to the other side of it and you say, My faith stood the test. That is a precious commodity. Because then you look at the faith and you say it is genuine. If this were a fake faith, I would have abandoned it a long time ago.

So there is a test that is going on here of Abraham's faith, and that test ends up revealing to Abraham the genuineness of his faith. And to us, because we are the beneficiaries of this test. A second objection that we should deal with is the fact that he is called in verse 2, your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac.

Do you notice that? The reference to Isaac being his only son is mentioned also in verse 12 and in verse 16. And the critic will say, but Abraham had more than one son at this point, didn't he? He had Ishmael.

So why does he call Isaac, Abraham's only son? Did the angel of the Lord not know about Ishmael? Had he forgotten about Ishmael? What is the point of that? The point of that is to reference, to call to Abraham's mind the fact that Isaac is his only son of the promise.

He has no other one to give. And he names him specifically, your son, your only son, in terms of being the only son through Sarah, the only son of the promise, the only son who is the heir of all of these blessings, that son, that one and only son of Sarah, you are to offer Isaac, whom you love.

At issue is whether or not Abraham would offer his only child of promise. And the Hebrew author captures this, and did you catch it when we read it a few moments ago? The Hebrew author captures this when he describes Isaac as his only begotten son.

The author there in Hebrews 11 is trying to capture something, and that is one of the meanings of begotten. It does not just mean to beget in the sense of to procreate, but begotten, monogamous, is the word that means unique.

And it is translated in Scripture as unique, and oftentimes should be. And that's the sense in which it is used in Hebrews chapter 11. Isaac was not his only son, he was his only unique son, the unique son, the special son of promise.

And that is the idea there by calling him his only son. He said in verse 2, take now your son, your only son whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.

Abraham, take your son, not an animal, your son, your only son, not Ishmael, but Isaac, and which son? The son whom you love. He's recalling all of his familial affections there, and the son whose name is Isaac.

The Lord refers to him, the angel of the Lord here refers to him in four different ways. Your son, your only son, the one you love, Isaac. Just narrowing it down, right? Just your son, no confusion about which one we're talking about.

Your only son, the unique one, yeah. The one you love, Isaac, that's the one, the one named Isaac. Laughter is the name. Every reference to Isaac just would have to be pulling on Abraham's heart. And he is to offer him as a burnt offering, not just as a normal sacrifice, but as a burnt offering, and I think this is significant.

I'm going to tell you why here, just in case I forget this in a couple of weeks. Abraham could have been commanded to just offer Isaac as a sacrifice, to kill him and to slaughter him and do nothing with the corpse, bury the corpse, but he's commanded to offer him as a burnt offering, which means that he was to kill his son and then burn the corpse.

Why is that significant? Abraham obeyed because he believed in a God who does what? Raises the dead. This is significant because Abraham believed in a God not just who was able to resuscitate dead bodies, but a God who was able to reconstitute dead bodies.

That's the resurrection. How many millions of Christians have died over the years and have been consumed by worms, have been burned up in flames, have been eaten by animals or fish, and their bodies are no more?

There's no two cells of their body together in existence anymore. But we still believe in a God who, on the day of resurrection, is going to recreate out of the elements those same bodies, bodies glorified, different bodies but the same bodies.

That's the doctrine of physical resurrection. Abraham could have thought if he was just asked to sacrifice Isaac, he could have thought, okay, I believe in a God who can give life to a dead corpse, but do you believe in a God who can reconstitute a dead body out of nothing after it has been consumed by flames?

That's the biblical doctrine of resurrection. So he was not just to go off and to murder Isaac, but he was to offer him as a sacrifice. And the idea behind a sacrifice and a burnt offering would have made Abraham realize that this was to be an act of worship, and later on he describes it as an act of worship.

The lad and I are going to go over yonder and we are going to worship and then we will return to you. Abraham knew that he was not just called to go out in the middle of a field and sacrifice his son, he was to go out to a mountaintop and there, in an act of worship with all the sobriety and the giving of himself and his son to Yahweh, this was intended to be an act of worship from the heart in doing what he was doing.

Not just go kill your son for me, it is offered him up to me in worship as a gift to me. That's what the command was for. So here's where the objection that God is simply commanding human sacrifice is raised and where it falls short.

Abraham knew that what he was being asked to do was not a murder. He knew that murder was contrary to the nature of God. He knew that human sacrifice was contrary to the law of God and to the law that was written on his heart.

And even though he was given no reason for doing this other than just do this because God had commanded him to do it, Abraham could have rest assured that God was not asking him to do anything which was in that moment a violation of his law.

God can command or cause the death of anyone for any reason. God can never be charged with murder because since he is the giver of life, he also can take life at any time for any reason and whatever reason God has for that is automatically justified since it comes from his holy and just nature.

You can never charge God with murdering anyone. If I die in a car accident on my way home this afternoon, God is the one who takes my life, but you cannot charge him with doing any wrong or murdering.

He gave me my life and if he takes my life from me, he has done me no wrong. He has done nothing immoral. So God can therefore command the taking of somebody else's life for whatever reason or purpose he might have which is morally justified and in God doing it, it is therefore morally justified.