THE CROWNING TEST AND TRIUMPH OF FAITH
by Alexander Maclaren
The first words of this lesson give the keynote for its meaning. 'God did
prove Abraham'; the strange command was a test of his faith. In recent times
the incident has been regarded chiefly as embodying a protest against
child-sacrifices, and no doubt that is part of its intention, and their
condemnation was part of its effect, but the other is the principal thing.
Abraham, as the 'Father of the Faithful,' has his faith tested by a series
of events from his setting out from Haran, and they culminate in this
sharpest of all, the command to slay his son. The life of faith is ever a
life of testing, and very often the fire that tries increases in heat as
life advances. The worst conflicts are not always at the beginning of the
war.
Our best way of knowing ourselves is to observe our own conduct,
especially when it is hard to do nobly. We may easily cheat ourselves about
what is the basis and ruling motive of our lives, but our actions will show
it us. God does not 'test' us as if He did not know what was gold and what
base metal, but the proving is meant to make clear to others and ourselves
what is the worth and strength of our religion. The test is also a means of
increasing the faith which it demonstrates, so that the exhortation to
'count it all joy' to have faith tried is no overstrained counsel of
perfection.
The narrative plainly declares that the command to sacrifice his son
was to Abraham unmistakably divine. The explanation that Abraham,
living beside peoples who practised child-sacrifice, heard but the voice of
his own conscience asking, 'Canst thou do for Jehovah what
these do for Moloch?' does not correspond to the record. No doubt
God does speak through conscience; but what sent Abraham on his
terrible journey was a command which he knew did not spring up within, but
came to him from above. We may believe or disbelieve the possibility or the
actuality of such direct and distinguishable
commands from God, but we do not face the facts of this narrative
unless we recognise that it asserts that God made His will known to
Abraham, and that Abraham knew that it was God's will, not his own thought.
But is it conceivable that God should ever bid a man commit a crime? To the
question put in that bald way, of course there can be but one answer, No.
But several conditions have to be taken into account. First, it is
conceivable that God should test a man's willingness to surrender what is
most precious to him, and what all his hopes are fixed on; and this command
was given with the purpose that it should not be obeyed in fact, if the
willingness to obey it was proved. Again, the stage of development of the
moral sense at which Abraham stood has to be remembered. The
child-sacrifices around him were not regarded as crimes, but as worship,
and, while his affections were the same as ours, and his father's heart was
wrung, to slay Isaac did not present itself to him as a crime in the way in
which it does so to us. God deals with men on the moral and spiritual level
to which they have attained, and, by descending to it, raises them higher.
The purpose of the command was to test faith, even more than to test whether
earthly love or heavenly obedience were the stronger. There is a beautiful
and instructive climax in the designations of Isaac
in verse 2, where four times he is referred to, 'thy son, thine only
son,' in whom all the hopes of fulfilment of the divine promise were
concentrated, so that, if this fruit from the aged tree were cut off, no
other could ever grow; 'whom thou lovest,'--there the sharp point pierces
the father's heart; 'even Isaac,' in which name all the ties that knit him
to Abraham are gathered up. Each word heightens the greatness of the
sacrifice demanded, and is a fresh thrust of the dagger into Abraham's very
life. Each suggests a reason for not slaying Isaac, which sense might plead.
God does not hide the painfulness of surrender from us. The more precious
the treasure is, the more are we bound to lay it on the altar. But it was
Abraham's faith even more than his love that was tested. The Epistle to the
Hebrews lays hold on this as the main element in the trial, that he who 'had
received the promises' was called to do what seemed to blast all hope of
their being fulfilled. What a cruel position to have God's command and God's
promise apparently in diametrical opposition! But faith loosened even that
seemingly inextricable tangle of contradiction, and felt that to obey was
for man, and to keep His promise was for God. If we do our duty, He will see
to the consequences. 'Tis mine to obey; 'tis His to provide.' Nothing in
literature is more tenderly touched or more truly imagined than that long,
torturing journey--Abraham silent, Isaac silently wondering, the servants
silently following. And, like a flash, at last 'the place' was seen afar
off. How calmly Abraham speaks to the two followers, mastering his heart's
throbbing even then! 'We will worship, and come again to you'--was that a
'pious fraud' or did it not rather indicate that a ray of hope, like pale
light from a shrouded sun, shone for him? He 'accounted that God was able to
raise him up even from the dead.' Somehow, he knew not how, Isaac slain was
still to live and inherit the promises. Anything was possible, but that
God's word should fail was impossible. That picture of the father and son
alone, the one bearing the wood, the other the fire and the knife,
exchanging no word but once, when the innocent wonder of Isaac's question
must have shaken Abraham's steadfastness, and made it hard for him to steady
his voice to answer, touches the deepest springs of pity and pathetic
sublimity. But the answer is in the same spirit as that to the servants, and
indicates the same hope. 'God will provide Himself a lamb, my son.' He does
not know definitely what he expects; he is ready to slay Isaac, but his
faith is not quenched, though the end seems so inevitable and near. Faith
was never more sharply tested, and never more triumphantly stood the test.
The divine solution of the riddle was kept back till the last moment, as
it usually is. The place is slowly reached, the hill slowly climbed, the
altar built, the unresisting Isaac bound (with what deep thoughts in each,
who can tell?), the steady hand holding the glittering knife lifted--a
moment more and it will be red with heart's blood, and not till then does
God speak. It is ever so. The trial has 'its perfect work.' Faith is led to
the edge of the precipice, one step farther and all is over. Then God
speaks, all but just too late, and yet 'right early.' The willingness to
make the sacrifice is tested to the utmost, and being proved, the sacrifice
is not required.
Abraham had said to Isaac, 'God will provide a lamb,' and the word
'provide' is that which appears in the name he gave to the place--Jehovah-_jireh_.
The name, then, commemorated, not the servant's faith but the Lord's mercy,
and the spirit of it was embodied in what became a popular saying, 'In the
mount of the Lord it shall be provided.' If faith dwells there, its
surrenders will be richly rewarded. How much more dear was Isaac to Abraham
as they journeyed
back to Beersheba! And whatever we lay on God's altar comes back a
'hundred-fold more in this life,' and brings in the world to come life
everlasting.
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