Advent Abraham

Genesis 22:1-18 - Advent 1 Midweek - December 2, 2015
Abraham – Father of Faith

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In Catechism class we’ve been studying Bible history.  The next three lessons that we’re on schedule to study just so happen to form a very fitting three-part series for our midweek Advent services.  We’ll be considering the three Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  This evening we focus on Abraham

Abraham was a Christian.  His faith was Christian faith, because the promise God gave him to believe was the promise to send Jesus.  Jesus would be a blessing to all nations because he would be the Savior of all nations.  Abraham’s faith was great.  It was strong.  But what made his faith so great was not its strength.  It was its object – that is, it was what he believed in.  He believed the word of God.  He believed in the same Lord Jesus that we believe in.  Of course, Jesus wasn’t born yet.  But this didn’t keep him from believing in him.  Jesus tells us that it didn’t even keep him from seeing him. 

The Jews in Jesus’ day claimed Abraham as their father.  But they did not trust in what Abraham trusted in.  They trusted in themselves – and in their bloodline connection to him.  Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham” (John 8:39).  This made them angry, because they were quite proud of their works.  Then Jesus said that Abraham still lived because he believed in him.  So they accused Jesus of blasphemy.  Jesus responded to their charge by saying, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad” (John 8:56). 

Let us consider two things this evening:

First, what are the works of Abraham that Jesus was talking about?  And second, in what sense did Abraham see Jesus’ day?  With this we will consider how we might do the same works that our father Abraham did, and so also consider how we might with him see our Lord Jesus. 

By grace alone God called Abraham out of idolatry.  He gave him faith by making a promise to him that in his Seed all nations would be blessed.  This meant that a Child would come through him who would be a blessing to everyone.  His name was Abram, which means exalted father.  As one token of his promise, God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, which means father of many nations. 

But Abraham remained rather un-exalted as a father, not to mention the father of zero nations since he remained without an heir.  God promised it, but it didn’t come.  He was getting old.  His wife Sarah was getting old.  She was past the age of having babies.  But even though things started getting more and more impossible-looking, Abraham believed God.  God counted Abraham’s faith as righteousness, because Abraham’s faith was in the promise of Christ who was his righteousness. 

And yet he waited.  And waited.  The longer God took, the more laughably impossible it all looked.  The more impossible God’s promise looked, the more Abraham had to dismiss what he saw and understood, and simply cling to what God had said.  This is the nature of faith.  It does not rely on its own light, but on the light of God’s word.  And this is the nature of God testing your faith.  God removes everything that you might cling to except for that which cannot pass away: his word.  He does this because he loves you. 

Finally God kept his promise.  Sarah gave birth to a son and Abraham named him Isaac, which means laughter, because both he and Sarah had once laughed at the impossible thought of God actually giving them children.  But God graciously turned their laughter of doubt into laughter of joy.  And what joy they had when he was born!  It was like a mini-Christmas after all their long waiting. 

But after Advent and Christmas, eventually come Lent and Good Friday.  It was time to learn more clearly the purpose of God’s promise.  God tested Abraham once more.  All laughing ceased when God spoke to him one day telling him to sacrifice his son, his only son Isaac, whom he loves.  Abraham listened and obeyed.  God’s command was clearly a part of his messianic promise, because it clearly foreshadowed Jesus.  That is why Abraham was so quick to obey.  This is the work of Abraham that Jesus was talking about.  It was not such a good work that God was impressed with.  It was his faith, which God had worked in him.  Abraham did what God told him to do because he believed that God would still keep his promise even though he was again making it look all the more impossible.  God’s promise was to send a Savior to be born from Isaac.  God said so.  But now God was telling him to kill the promise. 

How could God demand so much of Abraham?  How could he do this just to test his faith?  He required not only that he lose his own child, but that he lose the promised Seed of salvation that had been so long in coming.  It goes too far.  It offends every sensibility we have.  What kind of a god would require a man to do what he himself says is wrong – to kill his own child?  What kind of heavenly father would require an earthly father to do the most impossibly horrible and unimaginable thing?  He appears to be cruel.  It looks like he is doing wrong.  But God is love.  He cannot do wrong. 

Appearances deceive.  God makes things look impossible for his children in order that they might not trust in their own understanding.  He often appears as cruel in order that we might flee to where he reveals his kindness.  God made things look impossible even for himself by demanding the death of Isaac.  How could he possibly keep his promise to send Jesus if Isaac dies?  But he did this not to confuse and trouble Abraham.  He did this to teach him more clearly what his promise would consist of.  What is impossible from our perspective is always possible with God.  As Abraham said who carried the wood on his back, “God will provide.” 

And he did.  Just as he was about to kill his son at God’s command, the Angel of the Lord stopped him.  This Angel of the Lord was no created angel.  He was the eternal Son of God.  He was Jesus Christ before he was born.  He was the God who would become flesh in the Virgin Mary’s womb.  In stopping Abraham from killing Isaac he obligated himself to replace Isaac on the mountain.  The ram that Abraham sacrificed then and there pointed forward to the sacrifice of Jesus on Mt. Calvary.   It pointed forward to what Abraham said by faith in God’s promise, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.”

And he would.  He would provide his own Son as the Lamb of God who, suffering all the burning wrath of God against all sin, would offer a pleasing aroma from the cross and take away the sin of the world.  Though Abraham died before this occurred 2000 years ago, yet by faith he saw Jesus’ day since there it was that God provided.  He not only provided a replacement for his only son Isaac whom he loved by sending the ram.  He provided also a picture of him who would serve as the replacement for all sinners, namely, God’s only Son whom he loved, our Savior Jesus Christ. 

So what did God demand of Abraham?  What really?  To believe this.  That’s what.  To know and rely on the love of God as only God can truly show it.  His works of faith consisted in placing before his eyes the promise that God had made.  The works of Abraham that Jesus praises is nothing more than to see Jesus’ day and be glad. 

Remember, it is not the strength or devotion of Abraham’s faith to which God would call our attention this evening.  God does not teach us to honor and remember our father Abraham because he was so devoted to some cause, or because he stood firmly and stubbornly on some noble principle. No, it was because he did not withhold his son, his only son, from God.  And in so doing he confessed that God would not withhold his.  By this work of faith, Abraham taught Isaac, Isaac’s children and grandchildren, and all the faithful yet to be born, who shall outnumber the stars and the grains of sand, that there is no greater love than to be willing to sacrifice your son, your only son.  In other words, there is no greater faith than the faith that trusts in God’s love for us in Christ. 

Just as Isaac’s mother could not conceive because she was too old, Jesus’ mother could not conceive because she was a virgin who had never known a man.  But what is impossible for us is possible for God.  Isaac was born of a miracle.  So was Jesus.  Just as Abraham’s son was bidden to carry the wood up Mt. Moriah for his own death, so also God’s Son would be bidden to carry his cross up Mt. Calvary for his own death.  For Isaac it looked cruel.  In Jesus we see that it was pure mercy.  Because whereas God did not require Abraham to go through with his sacrifice, he did require it of himself instead.  Every other false god that the nations invent, every idol that sinners craft in their own image, every hope for humanity that foolish minds entertain is exactly opposite of our God.  He does not become our God by demanding that we give.  He becomes our God by giving what he demands. 

What looked like the opposite of love – God demanding the sacrifice of Abraham’s son – was actually the clearest picture of love and the only answer to all human hatred.  It is the eternal love of God demonstrated so plainly in the form of a prophetic sign and promise. 

These are the works of our father Abraham that God also requires of us.  He will often make us wait for the relief or comfort that we plead for.  But our waiting is intended to increase our reliance on his promise.  Our gracious God will often take away from us what we love, and will even demand that we willingly give it up.  He is thereby teaching us not to trust in what we see, but in what he says.  In our pain and sorrow, it often seems like God is distant or unconcerned about our pain.  But how can that be?  He who provides you with all you need has provided you with your deepest need.  He knows your suffering because he suffered it.  The God who cannot suffer or die became a Man to suffer and die and so by his suffering and death to bless all of the nations in this world. 

This blessing comes to you not by your works, not by your heroic faith or perseverance or constant positivity that you must find within.  These are not the works of Abraham.  Rather this blessing comes to you when God places before you what he placed before our father in the faith.  He reveals the love of a Father who was willing to give up his Son, his only Son, whom he loved, for us.  This love inspires every good and noble and loving deed we will ever do.  This love defines our lives.  Having this love, we see Jesus day with gladness and we have everything we could ever hope for.  St. Paul writes: 

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? 

Amen