WorthyIsTheLamb
Joined: 20 Aug 2007
Posts: 6
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 Posted: Sat May 31, 2008 8:52 am Post subject: Re: The sacrifice of Isaac: why? |
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| davelarge wrote: | Abraham acts with tremendous faith and does as he is bid, but I can't help wondering why God would ask him to do this in the first place. It seems almost as if He is playing with Abraham - leading him up the garden path like that, only to send an angel to stop proceedings at the last moment.
So, why (in your opinions) did God do this? |
Personally, I think it's an excellent illustration of the way faith works.
We live in a world where many say, "Show me the evidence for a God and I'll believe". God says, "Believe and I'll show you the evidence" 
Abraham had to trust God. He wasn't to know that God had something planned at the last minute. He wasn't to know in advance how God would resolve what seemed like an apparent contradiction (Issac was the one through whom God had promised that all the nations of the earth would be blessed).
There is another (and very important principle for today's reasoning age) that I also learn from this incident, not from the verses in Genesis, but the verse in Hebrews 11:19
| Quote: | | Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death |
So when faced with an apparent contradiction, Abraham trusted to God's integrity and tried to figure out what might have to happen in order for God's promises to be still fulfilled. It contrasts with the arguments of some unbelievers today who find what they think are contradictions / anomalies in the Christian faith and then use them as excuses to justify their stance of unbelief. The danger for the Christian is that we could unwittingly start to think in the same way and then find that in the Christian life we are walking less by faith and more by sight. |
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