Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #23 of Genesis, chapter 22, and we are going to read Genesis 22:13-14:

And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of JEHOVAH it shall be seen.

We are moving along, continuing to look at this historical event, and we see that God had stopped Abraham from slaying his son.   He did so in order to paint a picture.  It was a demonstration, causing Abraham to go through the motions, but He did not have Abraham actually do it.  It illustrated the Lord Jesus Christ as He basically lived out a “tableau” to show what He did at the foundation of the world.

After stopping Abraham, God caused a ram to be caught in a thicket by his horns very close by, as it says in Genesis 22:13:

And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns…

A ram is an animal that is often associated with sacrifice.  We are not going to go to the verses, but you can find a number of verses in Leviticus and Numbers where God specified that a ram was to be offered in certain sacrifices.  So it was an appropriate animal to be used as a substitute to paint this picture, as every sacrifice is a parable that shows forth that God must receive sacrifice of an “innocent” in order to forgive the sins of the “guilty.”  The animal typified the Lord Jesus Christ, as Christ is called the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.

This ram was caught in a thicket, and we saw that the word “caught” had to do with “taking hold,” as in judgment, just as the Lord Jesus Christ was taken hold of in order to face judgment, as God delivered Him up into the hands of His enemies to be crucified.  It was according to that determinate fore counsel and will of God, as the Lord arranged all things so that the Lord Jesus would go to the cross.  There could be no other determination.  Pilate saw that He was innocent, and he wanted to set Him free, but the Jews insisted.  God was working through all those occurrences at that time, even through political pressure; Pilate was governor of the Jews and he was concerned how his rule would go forward if he displeased the Jews in this matter.  They were so insistent that this “man” be crucified, so Pilate washed his hands and he allowed Christ to be crucified.  Again, it was God’s working that this would take place, because it had to take place.

So, too, with this ram that stumbled into the thicket and got caught.  Notice that God tells us that the ram was caught in a thicket by his horns.  If we look up the word “horns” in the Bible, we find it has to do with the atonement.  There were “horns” upon the sacrificial altar.  It says in Exodus 30:10:

And Aaron shall make an atonement upon the horns of it once in a year with the blood of the sin offering of atonements: once in the year shall he make atonement upon it throughout your generations: it is most holy unto JEHOVAH.

The horns were essential to the atonement process and, of course, the ram caught in the thicket is picturing the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Also, God tells us about horns in 2Samuel 22:3:

The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; thou savest me from violence.

A similar statement is made in the New Testament in Luke 1:67-71:

And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David; As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began: That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us;

We can see that “horns” are associated with the atonement and God’s salvation, as salvation took place only through the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ.  The ram was caught in the thicket by his horns; that is, Christ had to die.  Even in the demonstration, He had to die a second time according to the will of the Father.  Remember that Jesus began to suffer in the Garden of Gethsemane, and that was when the three days and three nights began.  Christ began to pray, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.”  Three times He prayed this, concluding the prayer, “Thy will be done.” 

We see that here it was connected to God’s salvation program because when Jesus went to the cross in 33 A. D. and went through that whole time of suffering, His death and resurrection was showing forth what He had done at the foundation of the world.  And everything was “concerning” sin.  It was for the benefit of all who would see it and all who would read about it, and they could see it acted out before their eyes and on the pages of the Bible in order to comprehend what God had done at the foundation of the world.  So it had everything to do with the atonement and the Lord’s salvation program.

Let us continue reading the second part of Genesis 22:13:

… and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

I mentioned in the previous study how glorious and wonderful it is that God is a God that recognizes substitutionary atonement.  God is a God who accepts as just and legitimate that one can die for another.  The One can say, “I know this other individual has done wrong and has offended you, but put that on me – whatever wrong he has done.”  There is a book of the Bible we do not read that much.  It is the book of Philemon, which is found right before Hebrews.  It is a little book of one chapter.  It has a curious story of a servant that ran away from a master that happened to be a believer.  Philemon is an Epistle scribed by the Apostle Paul to the master of the servant that had run away.  It says in Philemon 1:1:

Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon our dearly beloved, and fellowlabourer, And to our beloved Apphia, and Archippus our fellowsoldier, and to the church in thy house: Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Then it says in Philemon 1:10-19:

I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds: Which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me: Whom I have sent again: thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels: Whom I would have retained with me, that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel: But without thy mind would I do nothing; that thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but willingly. For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him for ever;Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh, and in the Lord? If thou count me therefore a partner, receive him as myself. If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account; I Paul have written it with mine own hand, I will repay it: albeit I do not say to thee how thou owest unto me even thine own self besides.

You see, here, Paul is really in the place of Christ.  That is why I wanted to read that last statement that says, “…thou owest unto me even thine own self…”    If this man became a believer, he owes his life to Christ, so Paul is in the place of Christ and said that whatever wrong Onesimus, the runaway servant, has done was to be put on Paul’s account.  That is what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for His people.  So, again, it is a wonderful thing that God recognizes and accepts substitutionary payment for the sins of another and One can say, “This person did wrong and I will pay for it.” 

Of course, the problem with mankind is that one man cannot speak for another man and say to God, “Whatever wrong that man has done, I will pay for the sins he has done.”  A father would do this for his son, if he could, and he could say to God, “O, God, I see my son has done wrong.  I see that he has offended you in these sins.  Put it on my account and take my life for his life.”  But that is not acceptable.  Why?  I was just saying that God accepts substitution.  Yes, but the problem is that the earthly father that would say this on behalf of his son has his own sin that he is in trouble for, so how can God accept payment from the father for another when the father has to pay for his own sin?  He is in his own trouble.  He is not a worthy substitute.  He cannot take the place of his son or anyone else.  This is why in the beautiful book of Ruth, Boaz, who is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, tells Ruth that he would do the part of a near kinsman, but there is a kinsman nearer to her that must be consulted first.  We read this in Ruth 3:11-12:

And now, my daughter, fear not; I will do to thee all that thou requirest: for all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman. And now it is true that I am thy near kinsman: howbeit there is a kinsman nearer than I.

So Boaz must find that kinsman, and he does so before all the elders of the people in chapter 4 and, finally, it is put to him that in order for him to inherit all that was Naomi’s husband and his family, he had to marry Ruth the Moabitess.   The kinsman said, in Ruth 4:6:

And the kinsman said, I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I mar mine own inheritance: redeem thou my right to thyself; for I cannot redeem it.

Basically, that is the Lord Jesus Christ who is in the family of man, and at the point of the foundation of the world God made Himself a body (from all we can read) and He bore the sins of His people and died and was resurrected with a new glorified body at the foundation of the world.  And that body was put on display before Jesus went to the cross.  On the Mount of Transfiguration when He met with Moses and Elijah, remember that the Lord Jesus shined with the brilliance of the sun.  He was transfigured before His disciples.  Where did He get that body?  The answer is that it was at the foundation of the world.  You see, there was a body “prepared” for Him or made for Him to enter into the world.  He could not enter into the world in His glorified spiritual body, so God made Him a body for the specific purpose of the demonstration.  We will not get into all this, but there are those that say, “It was necessary for Jesus to be born in a human body, so He could be this near kinsman.”  They say this because they are trying to insist that Jesus paid for sin in 33 A. D., but that is not the case.  God made the Lord Jesus Christ a body at the foundation of the world. 

Remember, it is not necessary to be “born of a woman” to have a human body.  Was Adam born of a woman?  No – God created him from the dust of the ground and, all of a sudden, he had a human body.  He did not come forth through a woman.  After Eve was made, then everyone else would be born of a woman, but the fact is that God designed and created Adam and equipped him with a human body.  If Adam was not human, then all of us that came forth from Adam’s loins are not human either, but he was very human.  And that means that God created humanity, and God could give Christ a human body at the foundation of the world – there is no problem.

That is how Jesus is our near kinsman, but there is a kinsman that is “nearer,” and that is our fellow humans that are in the same situation we are in.  So God, in setting up His substitutionary program of atonement, searched among the human race for the nearer kinsman than He, saying, “Can you redeem Ruth, a picture of God’s elect? Can you be the near kinsman standing in on her behalf?”  The response is, “Oh, no, lest I mar my own inheritance.”  You see, it goes back to the limitations of sinful man.  We cannot do this for another, so God took it upon Himself, and He would be the substitute.  He would be the One who would bear the sin and die in the stead of these blessed and chosen individuals, as it says in Genesis 22:13:

… and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

It is a glorious statement.  Of course, the ram did not pay for any sins.  We know that.  The Bible tells us that.  It is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats or any kind of animal to take away sin.  It is just another picture, but it is pointing to Christ.  He is the reality.  He is the substance that the signs and the sacrificial system and the types and figures pointed to, which was what He did at the foundation of the world.  I will read it again, in Revelation 13:8:

And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

There is the Lord Jesus Christ and there is that point in eternity past when He was bearing the sin (of His people) and He died the death the Law demanded.  He was slain by the Father, and He paid the price.  It was satisfaction for sin.  He had repaid the sin debt on behalf of all that were named in the Lamb’s Book of Life, so God could accept that payment from Him because He was sinless.  That is why the Lord specified in many of the sacrifices that the ram or the lamb had to be “without spot” or “without blemish.”  A spot or blemish would point to sin, and Christ was without sin of any kind and, therefore, He did not have to settle any debt for Himself.  And because He was free of debt in His own Person, He could take upon Himself the sins of others.  Then He stood before the Father, and the Father did “bring down the knife” and slayed His Son at that point in eternity past.

When we see that Abraham was going to slay Isaac, the promised seed (in a demonstration), remember what God said in Galatians, chapter 3.  We know this was a picture of God slaying the Lord Jesus Christ, but it is a dual picture because Isaac can also represent the elect.  It says in Galatians 3:29:

And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Isaac was Abraham’s seed.  We are Christ’s (seed), and we know that He is the seed (singular), but we are counted for the seed in Him.  So we are Abraham’s seed, spiritually, as much as Christ’s.  That is why God’s promise was that His seed would be as the stars of heaven for multitude, and it says in our verse in Genesis 22:13:

…and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

Or, it could say “in the stead of his seed,” as Isaac is, on one hand, picturing all of us elect as we are under the “knife” or under the wrath of God.  The fire was ready to be put to the wood, and our lives were all but ready to be consumed in the fire of God’s anger because of our sins.  And, yet, in this wonderful and glorious substitutionary salvation program, God sees or beholds the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world; that is, the sins of all the elect in the world, which may number as many as 200 million over the course of all history.  And that enormous weight of guilt and the dirty, rotten deeds and thoughts and ugly filth that God’s people committed against Him in all the history of the world were placed upon Christ.  He bore the weight of the mountains of sin, and then the Father struck Him dead, and slayed the Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf.  Thus He freed us. 

So Abraham could then put down the knife and lift his son up off the altar, and they could go back down the mountain to meet the other two lads, as Abraham had told them he would do.  And Isaac was free from the death of being offered up.  He could now live with his father in a new glorious freedom that had been purchased on his behalf.