Son of Promise: Isaac's Grace

Adam and Eve lost Eden and a future of everlasting life in a garden of beauty and unbroken communion with God, but they took one thing with them--a seed from the Tree of Life--the promise of a Redeemer in Genesis 3:15: "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel." Interestingly enough, God gave this promise to mankind while directly addressing the serpent whom He cursed. The book of Genesis shows the serpent's seed multiplying since Eden--Cain, Noah's generation, Babel, Sodom; but the woman's seed, the Divine Deliverer, takes hundreds of years to conceive.

And in the interval, we see several dramatic flashes of God's judgment upon sin: Adam and Eve are cast out of Eden; Cain is cursed and sent to wander east of Eden; the Great Deluge washes away all but eight people; Babel is overthrown and all nations are confused; and Sodom and Gomorrah are burned with brimstone. And yet out of this wilderness of sin and destruction, God has called one man to sojourn into a land of promise which his descendants will fill. And Genesis 3:15, like a tiny stream meandering across a wasteland, gushes forth with Abraham's promise in Genesis 12:3, "I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed."

When Abraham is 100 years old (Genesis 21:5), the son of promise is born, twenty-five years after God called Abraham out of Ur and gave him the promise of blessing in Genesis 12:3. The son of compromise borne of Hagar was to be named Ishmael, but the son of promise born through Sarah is named Isaac. "Isaac" means "laughter" in Hebrew because both of his parents laughed when God told them they would have a son. Sarah laughed in derision, but Abraham laughed in delight. We might say that God always has the last laugh. Who would have thought Abraham and Sarah would ever have had a child? But this child belonged to the Lord long before he was even born. He would be loved so deeply that Abraham had to dream of him for well over a generation before he ever got to see his face. The anticipation alone of holding this precious boy in his arms builds through the years with a yearning that cannot be expressed.

And then one day, it happens. True to His Word, God visits Sarah. "And the LORD visited Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as He had spoken. For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him" (Genesis 21:1-2). Isaac was the promised heir born at the promised time. Why the perfect time should have been when Sarah was ninety years old and Abraham, one hundred, we cannot fathom. And, yet again, it makes perfect sense, for this promised heir mirrors the coming of the Promised Seed, Christ Himself, whose birth is nothing short of miraculous, as is the work He came to do. The promise of being set free from the presence of sin awakens in all of creation a longing for God's grace that cannot be denied.

The miracle of redemption is rooted in the necessity of blood sacrifice, as we see not only in the coats of skins God provided Adam and Eve in the Garden, but also in the acceptable sacrifice of Abel, in Noah's sweet-smelling sacrifice, and in the covenant God made with Abram in Genesis 15. And, as surely as all of Genesis points to Abraham's beloved son, as surely does it point to his sacrifice. It is as if the trail of promise has been steadily climbing, steadily building, to the climax of Mount Moriah. In this episode of Abraham's life, all of his failures and victories converge into one Divine Moment.

But let's suppose that this moment is not about Abraham at all. Let's suppose it is about Isaac, who is about to be sacrificed. Can we even begin to fathom the grace with which he stands still while his father binds him and lays him on the wood he has carried up the hill? He is a strong young man who could easily overcome his aged father. Yet he makes no resistance whatsoever. What love, what trust, between father and son! Yet, even so, with what cold rush of shock and adrenaline, not to mention, disbelief, does he look up at his father about to plunge the knife in his chest? All this time, he had been eyeing that knife and the fire that his father carried up the hill, until his curiosity could contain itself no longer. "My father!" How stoically Abraham responded, "Here I am, my son" (Genesis 22:7). "Look, the fire, and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" How richly does his father's voice vibrate with agony, faith, and love, "My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering" (Genesis 22:8). So surely did Isaac play the part of the lamb.

And yet what a parable of grace Isaac will live out the rest of his life, from the very moment that the Angel of the LORD stays his father's hand, calling, "Abraham, Abraham! Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me" (Genesis 22:12). How eloquently will Isaac place his own faith from here forward in the substitutionary lamb pointing to the one perfect sacrifice as fulfilled by Abraham's prophecy of perfect faith, "God will provide for Himself the lamb." And what grace spared not only Isaac that day but every wandering sheep who kneels at last at Mount Calvary, where our Gracious Father bound His only beloved Son so that you and I could go free? Christ Himself is the ram caught in the thicket on Mount Moriah (Genesis 22:13), so close to Mount Golgotha centuries later.

Unlike Abraham, God the Father did not spare His only begotten Son. And, unlike Isaac, God the Son did not question His Father's will, for long before the fall of Adam and Eve, long before even the foundation of the world, Christ had offered Himself willingly on our behalf. Up Calvary's Mountain, He carried Isaac's Cross--and Abraham's--and yours--and mine! And, although in His agony, He would cry out for a glimpse of His Father's Face Who looked away in grief for His beloved Son, we know that, for the joy set before Him, Christ endured the Cross, despising the shame. And in triumph on that third day, He arose, just as Abraham foresaw that the Lord could raise Isaac from the dead (Hebrews 11:19)!

With what perfect faith did Abraham prophesy to his two servants that day, "The lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you" (Genesis 22:5). Let us come and worship at this last altar Abraham built before the Throne of his beloved Heavenly Father, the altar of full surrender at the foot of the Cross. Let us ponder the depth with which Abraham loved his own Isaac--enough to consider him the ultimate sacrifice to his God. And then let us multiply that love by the stars in the heavens and by the sands of the seashore and yet again by the dust of the earth, and we will fall light-years short of ever glimpsing the love that God the Father has for His only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus. And yet He gave Him to us, that we, wicked though we have been, might be saved and live eternally!

Thus did Isaac carry Easter in his heart and heaven in his soul. What grace of son to father and what grace of God to man!