Abraham’s great test in sacrificing his son Isaac was all the more difficult when you consider he was nearly sacrificed when he was younger, by his father, on an altar, in a false religious practice. When the true God whom he worshiped asked him to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac, Abraham was put in the exact position he knew from his own past experience to be evil.
Despite this, Abraham complied.
Then God Himself provided a sacrifice. (Gen. 22: 8.)
Not the ram found in the thicket on that day, but a living Son, later– in a direct corollary to what had first been asked of Abraham.
Many have stood back in amazement and considered the task given to Abraham to be outrageous, inexplicable and offensive. It was. But it was designed to make us realize how outrageous, inexplicable and offensive the sacrifice of God’s Only Begotten was on our behalf. Abraham was one of the few men whose experience allowed him to identify with God the Father.
Why was Christ made to SUFFER?
Why was it necessary that He be without sin, and THEN go on to suffer much much more than the most wicked person who ever lived on this earth?
My answer to this ties in with that which we are composed of. The STUFF of creation. God calls them intelligences…”organized” like us … and apparently “unorganized” as well (how can you organize something that isn’t unorganized?)
It is those intelligences which comprise us that must be swayed somehow. The same intelligences that were commanded to form a world and were then “watched” to “see” if they would actually obey. The same intelligences whom the Gods report “decided to obey us”
Christ brought about the “bowels of mercy” — not in God, but in the elements of creation itself. God is already merciful towards us. He has all the feeling of a tender parent. He doesn’t need to be convinced that He should let us come back home. He makes it clear that this is what He wants.
So who needed the convincing, and how were they convinced?
It was the intelligences witnessing the suffering of the Lamb. Unjustified, crazy, undeserved…all the things that Abraham had done to him and was asked to do. Unjust suffering of such a magnitude that when Christ says “These penitent souls who believed on me may pass” — they can pass by. Not deserving. Just faithful and obedient enough to qualify something unearned and otherwise unobtainable.
Tom