The Sacrifice of Isaac

Genesis 22:2
Then He said, “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 on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”

God telling Abraham to offer his son Isaac was pointing ahead to the day that God would offer His son Jesus as a sacrifice. When God created man and gave man dominion over the earth, this created a legal title of authority given to man and the sons of man. (Genesis 1:28) When Adam sinned against God’s wishes, he passed authority of the earth to satan by his servitude actions to satan. God had to find a way of regaining the legal authority of the earth that Adam had lost. Since man lost it then legally man would have to regain it. So God made a covenant between Himself and the man Abraham. In the covenant rules, each party making the covenant has to be willing to give all their resources to the other covenant party, even all that they love. It is clear that God could easily keep His end of the covenant rules, but the legal question is; could man keep the covenant and hold nothing back that he loves. To prove man could keep his part of the covenant, God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac, whom he loved. Through Abraham’s willingness to do this, it gave proof that man could keep the covenant. Being a covenant sacrifice, this gave God the legal inroad He needed to also give His son and hold nothing back that He loved. God had found a way to intervene in the earth, and correct the authority problem, and legally send Jesus to do this.

Old Covenant Sacrifice Exchange

When Abraham made the covenant with God, and honored covenant by offering Isaac as a sacrifice, there were several similarities in covenant exchange offerings of Isaac and Jesus. (Genesis 22, John 3:16, Matt. 21:2-10, Luke 24:13-21, John 19:17, John 19:2, Genesis 24:1-4, Ephesians 5:22-32, Rev. 21:2-9; 22:17)

• Isaac was Abraham’s only begotten son of promise; and Jesus was God’s only begotten Son.
• Both Jesus and Isaac were offered on a mountain or hill.
• Both rode on a donkey before their sacrifice.
• It was a three day journey for Abraham; Jesus’ journey was three days in the grave.
• Isaac carried wood on his back up the hill; Jesus carried a wood cross on his back up the hill.
• There was a ram in a thicket of thorns; Jesus the lamb was given a crown of thorns.
• A servant was sent for the bride of Isaac; Jesus a servant was sent for the bride of Christ.

When making a covenant, there were rules that had to be followed with strict guidelines. The promise of covenant to the seed of Abraham required his descendants to keep these rules, so that God could bring Jesus to save mankind. There were strict laws created for the people that had to be enforced, to help mankind bring about Gods ultimate saving plan. God saw from the beginning the weakness of man, and knew He would have to use his own strength to pull this plan off. As man continued to commit sins and break the covenant by actions of disobedience, sacrifices of bulls and goats were made, to pay the ultimate price of death, keeping the covenant in place. Through all of this Jesus was brought into the world, and a New Covenant could be made between God and God/man, a covenant between God and Jesus to regain the authority man had lost.

New Covenant Sacrifice Exchange

This New Covenant agreement of God, giving us what we don’t deserve, is not practical like the Old Covenant Agreement was where you earn what you don’t have and are rewarded according to your actions. This new agreement must be Spiritually Discerned and not earned by practical reasoning. (1 Corinthians 2:14) This New Covenant brings salvation through exchange, we exchange all of our sins and defects for Jesus’ righteousness and perfection, and by His strips we are healed. With satan causing the wrongful death of Jesus, because Jesus would not do servitude actions to satan, the authority of the earth was regained.

Beloved, this new covenant of exchange no longer requires anything on man’s part; it can’t be lost or broken. The New Covenant transaction is between God the Father and God the Son of man, and no longer dependent on weakness of mankind’s actions in any way. All authority the first Adam lost through disobedience has been regained by the second Adam through obedience. By grace we have been saved through faith in the covenant sacrifice Jesus made to receive all that God has for us and intended from the beginning. (Ephesians 2:8-9)