Lesson 8 – Faithfulness

• Take your only son (vs. 2) – Like God, the Father took His only Son to be a sacrifice.
• To the land of Moriah (vs. 2) – the place where Jerusalem would be built. Later, the temple was built; all the sacrifices of the Lord were there in Jerusalem. So, Jesus would be sacrificed on the Cross there in Jerusalem.
• It was on the third day that Isaac was spared. (vs. 4) For three days, Isaac was as good as dead as they traveled to the place appointed by God. So, Jesus was dead for three days.
• Isaac carried the wood on his back up the hill. (vs. 6) Like Jesus, who carried the wooden Cross up the hill of Calvary.
• Isaac asked, where is the Lamb? (vs. 7) God would provide His perfect lamb: Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
• Isaac was bound and placed upon the wood. And there is no record of any struggle from Isaac – he yielded to his father’s will. (vs. 9) Jesus yielded to the Father’s will – “Not My will, but Yours be done.” Jesus was bound to the Cross by three nails of the crucifixion. (I do not know for sure where Abraham built the alter – some say at Calvary, the very spot where Jesus would die, others say on the sight of the temple. Either way – Jesus' became the bloody sacrifice for us.)
• God stopped Abraham (vs. 11-12) but concerning Jesus – the Father did not stop, and the judgment and wrath of the Father toward sin was poured out upon His Son. God's knife of wrath plunged deep into the heart of Jesus.
• And at the end of that third day for Abraham and Isaac – Isaac was resurrected. “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, (18) of whom it was said, "In Isaac your seed shall be called," (19) concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.” (Hebrews 11:17-19 NKJV)

• The promise that “the Seed will bless all” is expounded upon by Paul:

"Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, "And to seeds," as of many, but as of one, "And to your Seed," who is Christ. (17) And this I say, that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect. (18) For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise." (Galatians 3:16-18 NKJV)