“By faith Abraham, when he was
tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in
the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, ‘Through Isaac
shall your offspring be named.’ He considered that God was able even to
raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did
receive him back” (Heb. 11:17–19).
Apart from Christ’s obedient sacrifice, probably the greatest act of
faith in fear and trembling recorded in all of Scripture is the obedient
response of Abraham when God commanded him to sacrifice his son Isaac.
This occurred after God had given Abraham a promise of future
generations through Isaac and after God had made him wait many years for
the birth of Isaac. In the interim, Abraham had taken steps to make
sure that this promise was fulfilled with the aid of his wife Sarah,
who, regarding herself as barren, offered her handmaid Hagar as a
surrogate mother so that Abraham could have a son in order to fulfill
the promise. Hagar had a son named Ishmael—but he was not the son of
promise. Finally, after more years of waiting, God opened the womb of
Sarah, and in her old age and in her barrenness, she brought forth a son
who was given the name Isaac (when told she would have a son, Sarah had laughed, and the name Isaac means “laughter” in the Hebrew language). All of Abraham’s hopes, his entire destiny, was wrapped up in this child. Continue at R. C. Sproul
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