Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis. Tonight is study #20 of Genesis, chapter 22, and we going to read Genesis 22:6-8:
And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.
I will stop reading there. We have already seen in this historical parable that Abraham is a picture God the Father and Isaac is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. Abraham took the wood and laid it upon Isaac, and we saw that the word “wood” is the same word as “tree.” We know that the Lord Jesus carried His cross, and the cross was a tree, according to 1Peter 2:24, He “bare our sins in his own body on the tree.” So we have seen that full picture developed. And, of course, Abraham had the fire and the knife in his hand, and this was all done according to the determinate foreknowledge and counsel of God. Everything was according to the perfect will of God, and these things were determined in the counsels of eternity past. When we read in the Bible of Christ’s death on the cross or, even before that, these historical parables were illustrating the death of Christ at the foundation of the world. We are reading of “ancient” things that are as ancient as God Himself, and there is nothing more ancient that we could possibly think of. You know, mankind always has ancient things in mind when they try to find answers to our beginning and how everything started. They are fascinated when they discover some old bones in an archeological dig, and they think it has some kind of answers for them. But it is “child’s play.”
They speak of “billions of years” as if that were true, which it is not, because they are “off” by billions of years because the world is a little over 13,000 years old. The year 1988 was the 13,000th year, so we are in the year 13,030 in the year 2018. Compared to billions of years, 13,000 years just lets us know how blind mankind can be and just how inaccurate mankind he can be. It is an incredible degree of inaccuracy. Anybody could take a “wild guess” and be closer to truth than the brilliant scientists have been with all their studied calculations as they are looking at all the evidence they claim to have found in fossils, and so forth. And they are billions of years off. Even if it were correct that there have been billions of years, it would be nothing in comparison to the Almighty God of the Bible and His beginning, because He has no beginning. He is the “Ancient of Days.”
So when are considering these matters that God tells us in His Word, they pre-date this world because Christ was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. When we study the Bible, we see this happened in eternity past and it is from everlasting, so we are really contemplating an ancient truth.
And here, again, it is right before us, laid out in illustrated form. Here, God is drawing a picture, using word stories by directing events in the lives of Abraham and his son. We see that Abraham had fire in his hand and a knife, and we read at the end of Genesis 22:8: “…and they went both of them together.” And we discussed how the counsels of the Godhead determined from all eternity to do these things, so there was full agreement among the Persons of the Godhead – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit – that these things be carried out. So the Lord Jesus Christ was the one who had the cross laid upon Him, just as Isaac had the wood laid upon them. He understood and knew perfectly what the Father had sent Him forth to do, and He obeyed, as we are told in Philippians 2 that Christ was obedient, even unto death, the death of the cross or the death of the tree or the death of the wood that was laid upon Him.
It is just a beautiful fact that the Lord Jesus Christ loved the Father. How do we know that He loved the Father? It was because He obeyed. He kept the Father’s commandment, and that is the Bible’s definition of “love.” Speaking to us, Christ said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” How do we know Jesus loved the Father? Was it because He told us? That would be one way, because He cannot lie. But more than that, we know He loved the Father due to His faithful obedience in keeping the commandments of the Father. The Father sent Him. The Father commanded Him what to do, and He fulfilled to perfection every “jot and tittle” of the Law. It was kept by the Lord Jesus Christ, even unto death, including the death that was a demonstration. He showed forth His great love through obedience to the Father.
It goes on to say in Genesis 22:7:
And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
Where is the lamb? That was the question that every human being is faced with: “Where is the lamb?” God requires sacrifice for sin. He requires death for sin as payment for sin. Here, they are going forth to build the altar. They have the wood, the fire and the knife. They have everything ready, but where is the lamb? In this case, Isaac was not aware that he was the “lamb,” and that Abraham intended to offer him as the burnt offering in obedience to the Father’s command. We know that, eventually, Abraham did not have to kill his son, because a ram was found later. (We will talk about that later.) But, here, Isaac asked, “Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” It goes on to say in Genesis 22:8:
…My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering…
The way this sounds is really how it was – God did provide Himself as a Lamb for the burnt offering for the sacrifice of the sins of His people. God did not require that His chosen people themselves be laid upon an altar and be slain, or that their lives be forfeited in payment for their own sins. Instead, God provided Himself a Lamb.
You know it says a very wonderful thing in Psalm 51, a Psalm that the Lord moved David to write after he had gone into Bathsheba and was involved in all kinds of awful sin. God sent Nathan the prophet to him to convict him of those sins, and he was guilty. And that is the character of the nature of the true elect child of God when the Word of God comes to us and shows us our sin. We do not try to make excuses for it. We do not try to justify it, which is the tendency of the natural man: “Well, let me explain why I sinned. It was because of my past – I had a rough childhood. I am poor and that is why I rob and steal and murder.” No – man does those things because he is a sinner who is naturally wicked in his fallen condition. But when the Word of God comes to the child of God, we admit our sin and we acknowledge it. It says in Psalm 51:1-6:
Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
You see, there was no trying to justify his sins. He was not trying to deceive God, as though that were possible, but this is what people do all the time: “Let me fool God, and let me explain why I did that sin. It was really not my fault, because of this and because of that.” That is not the way the true elect believer comes to God when the Bible convicts us. We recognize it: “It is true, O Lord. I have sinned. As a matter of fact, I was conceived in sin. I was born speaking lies, and my heart is deceitful and desperately wicked above all things.” We recognize, and we acknowledge the things the Bible says about us in our physical condition. Of course, in this case, David was a saved man, but his salvation was rightly brought into question by his own self – he doubted his own salvation because of his sins. And that is the honesty and the truthful nature of the elect child of God because that is the spirit God has placed within us when we sin. We do not try to cover it up or hide it, like Adam and Eve “sewed fig leaves” to hide their nakedness. No – we know God has seen it: “…but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.” Therefore, we freely tell Him, “O, Lord, I have sinned. I am guilty.”
It is just like the parable of the man in Luke 18. You know this would be kind of refreshing, so I want to go into this a little bit because we have not talked about it for a while because we know the time for seeing our sins and being sorry for those sins unto repentance is past. So the Lord is not directing us to get into that kind of discussion so much any longer, but it is part of the Word of God. It says in Luke 18:9-14:
And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
A great many people that heard the Gospel call and responded went to the churches or to “Christianity,” and they quickly grabbed hold of the offer of salvation. They “accepted Christ” and “believed on the Lord Jesus,” and they thought they were saved. And, if they thought they were saved, then they did not have to worry about their sins because they had all been paid for by Jesus: “Okay, that sounds like a good deal. Let me accept that and take that to myself. And now I can do pretty much whatever I want because God has had grace toward me. So if I want to work on Sunday or go to a game, or whatever I want to do on Sunday, I will do it. If I want to speak badly about people and gossip and backstab or lie…well, I am sorry, Lord.” But five seconds later, it is out of their mind. They do not feel sorry for their sins. They have a quick remedy at hand. It is that “card” they got from their pastor saying that because they accepted Christ on such-and-such date, they have something that can cleanse their conscience and justify them.
And, yet, that was not true of the other man, the publican, who is a picture of one of God’s elect. He sees his sin. He sees the depths of depravity that is within himself, and he does not try to cover it up. He does not try to justify it through religious acts or services of any kind. He just beat upon his breast, saying, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” It was just like king David when he said, “Have mercy upon me, O, God.” Getting back to this in Psalm 51, after David acknowledged his sin to God and confessed his sin, he made the plea that he be “purged with hyssop” and that God would create in him a clean heart, as it says in Psalm 51:10. But then it says in Psalm 51:16:
For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.
And we are reading about a “burnt offering” in Genesis 22. Anyone reading the Bible will read about burnt offering, after burnt offering. It is all over the place. There were animals offered for burnt offerings. Here, God commanded Abraham to offer Isaac for a burnt offering. There were sacrifices, left and right. And as Mr. Camping used to say, the temple was like a “slaughter house,” because they performed so many sacrifices on a daily basis. Incredibly, the Bible says, “For thou desirest not sacrifice.” And this statement was made in the Old Testament. It even says, “thou delightest not in burnt offering.”
Many professors teaching the Old Testament (and I heard one of my professors say this) say that the Jews stood in a “special dispensation period” where they were saved through their sacrifices and offerings. I do not think that many hold to this, but some do. And they have no idea what they are talking about. God tells us in Hebrews 10:5-7:
Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.
God had no pleasure in sacrifices, in the sense of what it says in Hebrews 10:1-4:
For the law having a shadow of good things to come, andnot the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
God’s people understood that. David understood that, even though he was in charge of Israel, and he would have attended the sacrifices faithfully. He would have had the priests to perform them dutifully, because that was what God had commanded. And, yet, David knew that the sacrifice of these animals could never take away sin. And Abel knew this, right from the beginning, in Genesis 4 when God made it known to Cain and Abel that He required sacrifice. Abel offered a sacrifice from the flock, and Cain offered a sacrifice from the ground, and unto Abel’s offering God had respect, but unto Cain’s offering He had no respect. Why? Like we saw in Luke 18 with the two men, the “religious” man was trying to justify himself, and the other man, the publican, simply beat upon his breast and said, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.” Abel would have offered up his sacrificial animal, but he was looking toward the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the only Saviour, and he would have been looking to Him with the hope: “O, could it be, O God, that you have provided yourself a Lamb for my sins, and that you bore my sins in your own body on the tree and died in my stead in a substitutionary way.” This is what Abel would have been hoping for and trusting in and, therefore, his offering was respected by God.
It was not so for Cain. Cain’s response was, “Okay, God requires this, and I am going to perform it, and I will do it as well as anyone can do it. I will be very careful to do everything correctly, according to the sacrifice required of me.” And he probably did so, and that is why he was so mad. He did it all, but God had no respect unto his offering, because it was like the two men in Luke 18, where one went down to his house justified, rather than the other. So, too, it is true of men, whether it be regarding Old Testament sacrificial offerings or whether it be New Testament understanding of the Gospel, and men say, “I am going to do what the Lord commands me to do – I will believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and I will be saved.” It is the same thing as the offering of sacrifice that the Jews thought would save them. Both are wrong. It is God’s work. It is the offering up of Himself, as it says in Psalm 51:17:
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
It is His sacrifice; that is, it is the sacrifice of Himself that is the sacrifice of God (Himself) that is acceptable, and which God finds pleasure in and which are received by Him, a pleasant aroma of the smoke of the sacrifice that ascends up to heaven to His nostrils – it is the sacrifice of Christ. Actually, this is a good proof that Christ is God, as seen in Psalm 51:17.