THE LIGHT OF VISION (8)

“Then ABRAHAM LIFTED HIS EYES and LOOKED, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns” – Genesis 22:13a

The final rung in the ladder of the Testing of Abraham’s Faith, was the LIGHT of VISION: “Then ABRAHAM LIFTED HIS EYES and LOOKED, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son” (Gen.22:13). The God of the Outcasts and underdogs opened Hagar’s eyes to see a well of water that delivered her and Ishamel from death (Gen.21:19). The same Covenant God opened Abraham’s eyes to see “a ram caught in a thicket by its horns”!

Abraham was to be the head of the faithful; hence it was crucial for his faith to be tried. Entire obedience is the test of Perfect Faith. Abraham had shown his faith when he left his own land; and when he waited patiently for a son. In the previous tests he had promises to rest on. Now he must trust without any promise to buoy him up in the bewildering sea of trial: “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering” (v.2a). This sacrifice was symbol of the future sacrifice of Christ. God never intended that it would be carried out, having foreseen Abraham’s faith, and having determined at the right moment to interfere.

What God elicited was the highest exercise of faith, not the blood of Isaac! Abraham was willing to slay his boy and his own ardent hopes. The only gleam of light was in the hope that God who first gave Isaac could also restore him from death; hence Abraham’s reply to his young men: “...the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and WE WILL COME BACK to you" (v.5b). Again, he told Isaac: “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering” (v.8). Abraham passed: his obedience proved his faith. He did ‘sacrifice’ Isaac, though he did not kill him. God provided an innocent substitute, and Isaac’s life was redeemed, as it were, from the dead (vv.9-14; Heb.11:19; Jam.2: 21-24).

God manifestly approved of Abraham’s Faith and Perfect Obedience by: The Voice from heaven; the sacrifice provided; and the repeated promise of blessings, confirmed by a solemn covenant: “BY MYSELF I HAVE SWORN, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son –  blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice” (vv.16b-18). The Light of Vision is critical to the Perfection of our Faith!