The God who keeps promises

The Lord’s messenger called out to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, “I give my word as the Lord that because you did this and didn’t hold back your son, your only son, I will bless you richly and I will give you countless descendants, as many as the stars in the sky and as the grains of sand on the seashore. They will conquer their enemies’ cities. All the nations of the earth will be blessed because of your descendants, because you obeyed me.”

~ Genesis 22:1-18, CEB

Today we're going to talk about the story of the Binding of Isaac- but first, here's a few details on the life of Abraham. 

Abraham’s story is one of seeking “the land.” This is a difficult concept for us to wrap our heads around today- but the land represented comfort, security, and stability. It was the move away from being a people who didn’t know where their next meal was coming from to being people who had roots. A stable source of food, the ability to plan for the future, and so on and so forth. This becomes a theme for God’s people throughout the Bible- the idea that they are a people without a home, exiles in a foreign land. Outsiders. The land represented a potential move away from this status as outsiders and towards life as an established and reputable group of people. This is the backdrop of the story we're looking at today. 

It's significant to realize that, in order to have the land, there's got to be a group of people to fill it with. God chose to start with Abraham- to promise that he was going to be a "father" to many nations- he was going to be the one responsible for populating this land. So he had to have a bunch of children. And, at the tender age of 75, he had none. God promised to provide- and that was a difficult promise to believe. This becomes a theme in the story- God promises things that are hard to believe...and God keeps His promises.

The story of Abraham is also the story of God tenderly reaffirming his promises to someone who struggles to believe them. Throughout Abraham’s story, he kind of does what is asked but he does so in fairly neurotic ways. For instance, God asks him to travel through certain lands and Abraham fears that he will be killed so that the rulers of these lands can marry his beautiful wife. So he tells these rulers that she is his sister. God then sends plagues upon the rulers who are then mad at Abraham for lying. Abraham goes where he’s told, but then kind of hedges his bets. All the while God merely reaffirms his promises to Abraham and continues on with the plan.

God promises to make him the father of many nations, as I said. Abraham loses confidence in this promise and tries to have a child with a servant- and does so successfully. This leads to conflict with his wife and the servant and so on, as you might image. Not as you'd imagine, though, God doesn’t seem to be mad, and there is no discipline. In fact, God responds to the servant, Hagar, with nothing but tenderness, promising to also give her many descendants. 

And that brings us to the story of Isaac. Abraham has finally been given a son after many years of trying and after many years of God making promises but not exactly following through. So, on the one hand, it seems crazy that Abraham wouldn’t believe the voice of God or angels. On the other hand, when God fails to deliver…well…wouldn’t anyone have some doubts?

Click here to read the story of the Binding of Isaac

There are many things we could say in response to this story. I'm going to give you a bunch of thoughts on this story in rapid fire fashion and I'm not going to try to wrap them up in a neat and tidy bow. This isn't a neat and tidy story, after all. 

At the outset, I want to point out something because, let's be honest, this story is uncomfortable. 

We know because of the intro that Abraham was going to have his son either way…Isaac lives if Abraham follows through, and Isaac lives if Abraham refuses to follow through (the intro to the story makes it clear that this is a test- and so we know God is not going to allow a child to be harmed). 

We also know, lest we judge Abraham too harshly, that Abraham believes God will provide a ram. Abraham perhaps recognizes that this is a test. At the very least, he trusts that this is a part of God’s plan to make a nation, not a way for God to take away his promises. He believes God will provide a way out, even though he also believes he has to commit to the test. In other words- Abraham presents his child to God not just because he’s some kind of religious robot who follows instructions with reckless abandon(see Gen. 18:22-33 for proof that this is NOT the kind of person Abraham is), but because he deeply trusts that God has something good and purposeful in mind.

Let's also consider something from God's perspective. God is making decisions about how the entire history of His people will unfold.  This should not be taken lightly.  When we become preoccupied with the details, we forget that this story is merely one piece of a much larger story:  God’s plan is to bless Abraham and his descendants so that this people can display God to the entire world, so the entire world may know God and benefit from God. Before we can begin this story, God needs to know if Abraham can tolerate the challenges of the job. And so it's important that we not over-personalize this story. Our stories are not analogous to Abraham's story. God would not need to see such extremes from you or I because, let's face it, God already has a group of people. A very large group. We simply don't have the responsibility Abraham had and, in my opinion, that's a good thing.

Let's also consider the context of the story itself. God has consistently reaffirmed His promises to Abraham in spite ofAbraham, not because of Abraham. And so, one wonders what would happen if Abraham simply weren’t able to travel upwards with Isaac. My hunch is that God would simply reaffirm His promise again. After all, that's the only precedent we've been given for how God interacts with Abraham. 

That brings me to the ultimate purpose of every story of the Bible- to try to provide an answer to the question: What do we know about God? 

People talk about the God of the Old Testament as if God somehow changed and forgot to tell us. God did not change and God is not angry or wrathful even in the Old Testament except in the rarest of circumstances. There are, of course, examples of God being angry and violent in the Old Testament and that's uncomfortable and we don't know what to do with that. However, it's not the norm. These are not the defining attributes of God- they are the exceptions, and they should be treated as exceptions. None of us wants to be defined by our outlier behaviors- and we shouldn't be. It would be an exercise in ignoring all of the "data." 

So let me make something clear: the Old Testament is far more explicit about the attributes of God (they have nothing to do with being all knowing and all powerful) than the New Testament. The Old Testament tells us in about a dozen places: God is slow to anger, quick to mercy, and full of steadfast love. These are His core attributes. And if you say you believe in scripture, then surely you believe the Old Testament when it tells us this. And you surely believe that the God of the Old Testament is slow to anger, quick to mercy, and full of love.

That is the God that we see in this story. God displays neither anger nor wrath in this story, but things like patience and perseverance. Even in stories like Sodom and Gomorrah, which happen earlier in Abraham's life, God is very quick to relent His position, willing to negotiate, and willing to offer chances at redemption. The same is true for Ninevah in the story of Jonah. The same is true for Israel at a great many points. 

And so here's what I want us to take away from this story. God stands by His promises. Abraham, as we said in our series on heroes last year, was not really a hero in the conventional sense. He was a person with fear and worry and insecurities. God made a promise through Abraham- not because he was special or good or righteous. Perhaps just because he was available. And Abraham responds to the call and kind of does what he's asked but with a great deal of flaws and errors in judgment. 

And this provides an opportunity to see what kind of God we worship. Not the kind of God who is angered and weighed down by the burden of Abraham's failures. There is hardly a word about how God feels about Abraham's mistakes, in fact. No- it's a good who is slow to anger, quick to mercy, and full of steadfast love. The kind of God who persists in his plans even when humans don't play their part exactly right. 

All I have to say to that is- as I consider my own life, my own failures, my oversights, the ways I let people down, the things I worry over, and so on and so forth. And I assure you that list is as long as it needs to be. These things are not a problem for God, and they won't hold him back. And if he does get angry, it will take quite a while to get there...and then He'll turn right around and offer mercy once again. Just as He's promised.