I was studying in "Five Cities of Refuge" again this morning and came across something I had never thought about. To be honest, it made me feel a little bit better about something that has bugged me about God for a long time. The passage of study was the "Akedah" or "Binding of Isaac." This is the story where God inexplicably tests Abraham and tells him to go and sacrifice his son on Mt. Moriah. Just as an aside, "Moriah" in Hebrew means "awe-ful."
This story has always bugged me. Why couldn't God choose a test for Abraham that didn't include the near-slaughtering of his child? Why not have him walk to the nearest watering hole and tell him to walk across it? Why not tell him to spit a loogie in the air and tell him to make it, by faith, levitate in the air? I've never understood it until I studied this morning.
Abraham is standing on a mountain with a knife raised in the air, ready to drive it through Isaac, when a messenger of the Lord stops him. In order to understand the full depth of what is going on here, you have to look at all of the other cultures around at that time. Every other culture had "gods" that required infant or child sacrifice to appease them. God had to do this to show Abraham that he was a different god. He was the true God because he was so merciful and wasn't going to require this horrific act of his people. Sacrifice animals, not people.
For me, this helps me to see more of God's true nature. He isn't sick, he's merciful. I understand that he sent his only Son to be a sacrifice for the universe, but Jesus had the choice to go to the cross. He was human and could have backed out, but he didn't, so the argument that God sending his only Son to die being proof of God's sickness is irrelevant here.
This study this morning just reinforced my love for God and his mercy. Hopefully it does the same for yours.
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4 comments:
this entry didn't change my life, i want a refund.
one of my buddies here has a family member dealing with the idea that God is punishing them for their past lifestyle. this would speak volumes to them i think.
good thoughts. big fan of that book.
the interesting thing is that the text doesn't say anything about isaac returning down the mountain with abraham. all it says is that "abraham returned to his servants." some scholars believed that isaac went back down the other side of the mountain alone. could be that he was pretty ticked. or maybe he was just totally perplexed at what just happened.
every time i hear this story (and i've even preached it like this once) it is in light of Jesus' sacrifice and the fact that the stories are parallel. one never stops to consider the particulars of the relationship dynamic you two have been talking about. we always gloss over the detail stuff that isn't explicitly stated, as if these characters existed in a vacuum with no emotions or feelings regarding what was happening to them. we always talk about the people in the Bible being like us, but we usually don't mean it, or only half mean it. we treat them like two dimensional, poorly written characters, devoid of emotion and thinking skills.
i agree. we always try and divorce biblical characters from having any emotion or personality whatsoever. of course, when you believe that God's own fingers wrote the bible, you can do that. i feel like you have to take into account the feelings and writing styles and personalities of the biblical authors.
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