Devotion

Romans 4:3

For what does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.”[a] 

Many times throughout his life, Abraham was able to demonstrate that he believed God.  God told him that Isaac would be a father of many believers, so when God told him to sacrifice his son, he was willing to do so knowing that God had a plan.  

So what did his belief get Abraham?  That faith in God's promise was credited as righteousness.  

The same trust that we display is also a gift from God that is a sign that He has given us that grace, too.  

1. Romans 4:3 Genesis 15:6

Devotion

Friday, February 9, 2024

Genesis 22:8 And Abraham said, "My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering." So the two of them went together.

Paternal Instincts

If the maternal instinct is to coddle a child, paternal instinct might be the opposite. Fathers can be known for rough-housing and wrestling, playing about on the edge, and pushing their little ones, at times, a little too far.

Abraham went farther than most, when he takes his little boy up Mt. Moriah, binds him to an altar, and only last minute is stopped: “Abraham, Abraham! Do not lay your hand on the lad!”

An admittedly extreme test of faith, Abraham exuded such confidence in the resurrection of the dead, he was willing to suffer the temporary loss of his son’s life at his own hand—if that truly was the will of the Lord.

The Lord intervened and offered a sacrifice in Isaac’s place. But the real way out of all your trials in this life is when God the Father pushed His Son over the edge, in order to pull you out of sin and hell. Here is the mystery of God’s love for you in Jesus’ suffering and death: “It pleased the Lord to bruise Him” (Isaiah 53:10).

Fathers tend to express their love in physical fashion, and their push is meant to prepare their children for the future. When God the Father raised His Son from death in bodily form, you find comfort that anything difficult you must endure in this life can only be in preparation for your eternal goal.

So your God toughens His children up, by pushing you out of your comfort zone, to lay down your pride and rely on His promises alone to carry you through what might make little sense to human reason: “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24).

He only does so for your good, to strengthen your faith and push it out in the open for others to see and believe. Have no fear. Ultimately, like Abraham, you have nothing to lose, not with the great resurrection just around the corner.

Monday, August 26, 2024

Proverbs 9:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Should You Fear God?

Do you fear God? For many years Martin Luther was terrified of Him. John’s description in Revelation of Jesus as Judge was never far from his mind: “His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire...Out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance” (Revelation 1:14ff.).

Today, many people have no fear of God at all. They imagine Him to be an easy-going buddy, like Bob next door, who doesn’t pass judgment on anything you say or do. Or they treat Him as they might a fragile, elderly grandma who isn’t really aware of what the world or their life is like.

It’s a “comfortable,” non-threatening view of God, but also entirely false and dangerous. There is a proper fear of God based on who He really is. He is not the guy next door who is like us and far from perfect. He is the holy God who has no equal and who does not tolerate sin. His commandments are not just “suggestions” for improving one’s life and getting along with others. They are His unbending will for human behavior. Any failure to live up to His law incurs His judgment of eternal death. There are no exceptions. Jesus warns, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28). With that in mind, how can we not be afraid of God and His righteous judgment upon sin?

However, God is not just the righteous Judge who condemns the sinner. He is the God of love who promised Abraham that He would give him a son through whom all nations on earth would be blessed. Through Abraham’s son a greater Son would come into the world who would save sinners from the eternal punishment they deserved. Jesus wouldn’t overlook God’s justice, He would fulfill it through perfect obedience and by suffering the full penalty for sin on the cross. “Where sin abounded grace did much more abound!”

Fear God? Absolutely! Let us fear Him by holding Him in the greatest awe and reverence for who He is. Let us fear Him in the way that glorifies Him, both as the holy Judge and as the loving Lord who pronounces us righteous by faith in Jesus. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10).

Devotion

Friday, March 22, 2024

Genesis 22:13-14 “Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. And Abraham called the name of the place, The-LORD-Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, “In the Mount of the LORD it shall be provided.”

A Substitute Offered

When it was clear Abraham had passed the test, God told him not to harm his son. Instead, the Lord provided a substitute sacrifice: a ram caught in the thicket by its horns. Here it was the ram and not Isaac which prefigured Christ. As the ram took the place of Isaac, so the Lamb of God took your place and mine as our Substitute on the tree of the cross.

Ponder also this, Christian friends: Abraham was sacrificing his son to his best friend, his God. But when God sacrificed His Son, He had no friends on earth: “When we were yet [God’s] enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son” (Romans 5:8).

The mystery of the Christian gospel is the holy truth of HE-FOR-US—how a loving Father sacrificed His only-begotten Son FOR US who, by nature, were His enemies, dead in trespasses and sins!

In an archived Lenten devotional (1956) by P. E. Kretzmann [author of POPULAR COMMENTARY] we find this hymn, under the theme THE SUBSTITUTING CHRIST:

For all He died!
Upon the cross He languished,
And by His death mankind’s dread foes He vanquished,
He gave His life, Himself He laid it down
To gain for us an everlasting crown:
For all He died!

For all He died!
His life He gave as payment
To gain of righteousness the spotless raiment,
His soul our ransom, given in our stead,
To save us from damnation’s curse and dread:
For all He died!

He died for all!
For all He came from heaven,
For all the world His precious blood was given;
All men He compassed with His Savior’s love
That they might share with Him His home above:
He died for all!

He died for me!
O cry of victory!
My Lord and Savior I shall ever see
And I with Him in heaven’s hall shall live,
Where I forever thanks to Him shall give:
He died for me!

Devotion

Thursday, March 21, 2024

Genesis 22:8-9 And Abraham said, “My son God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.” So the two of them went together. Then they came to place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood.

A Son's Unquestioning Obedience

How old was Isaac at this time? The text doesn’t tell us, but the fact that “Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son” (v. 6), while he himself took only the pot of fire and knife, suggests the son was in the prime of life, probably late teens or early twenties.

That also supports the assertion that Isaac exhibited an “unquestioning obedience” during this whole episode—because he could have physically resisted and/or simply run away. Yet the thought hardly occurred to him because he was an obedient son—obedient even unto death. Yes, think of how Isaac carried the wood to be used to sacrifice himself!

All of which reminds of how, centuries later, the Son of God would willingly carry His own cross, until He collapsed under its weight. Jesus too had the power to resist, but instead permitted Himself to be bound by the soldiers and the High Priest.

The writer to the Hebrews says, “Although He was a son, He learned obedience from what He suffered” (5:8). St. Paul too writes: “(Christ) humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8).

Dear fellow sinners, what comfort! When Christ came to Earth on His saving mission, He was put under the law as our Substitute. He had to be, and was, obedient to every jot and tittle of that law, even to the point of death.

As the prophet had forecast: “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He is led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth” (Isaiah 53).

Behold the unquestioning obedience, first of Isaac, and then supremely in the Son of God, our Savior!

Christ, the Life of all the living,
Christ, the death of death, our foe,
Who, Thyself for me once giving
To the darkest depths of woe:
Through Thy suff’rings, death, and merit
I eternal life inherit.
Thousand, thousand thanks shall be,
Dearest Jesus, unto Thee.

(The Lutheran Hymnal, 151:1)

Devotion

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Genesis 22:1-2 Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then He said, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”

Isaac—a Person Type of Christ

Ever since Sunday School when we first heard this command of God to Abraham, we considered it shocking. HOW and WHY could or would God ask a father to do such a thing?

Abraham is called the “father of believers” (cf. Romans 4:11). Over a lifespan of 175 years, he endured many testings of his God-given faith.

But never one quite like this. After all, hadn’t God said on another occasion: “…Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man”? (Genesis 9:6) Yes, Abraham knew that, AND YET here God commands him to shed the blood of his only son!

Again, Abraham cherished the Lord’s promise to him that “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3); and Abraham believed Isaac was the one from whom the Messiah was to come to fulfill that Promise. AND YET the very Lord God who had given him that Promise—and that special son—now commands him to offer up THAT SON as a “burnt offering.”

Can you believe it? Could Abraham? Bottom line: God was here “testing” Abraham—testing him in the sense of “proving” his faith. Abraham was being reminded—as we too need to be—that sacrifices and sacrificing are at the very heart of the Christian religion.

As the writer to the Hebrews says, it was necessary that blood be shed because “without shedding of blood there is no remission” (9:22); at the same time “…it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goals could take away sins” (10:4).

The Old Testament time period was full of all sorts of animal sacrifices, but animal blood was absolutely worthless in the sight of God.…Except for the fact that such blood signified and symbolized the blood which the Father’s Son, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, would shed for us sinners on Calvary’s cross.

So we love to sing:

Glory be to Jesus,
Who in bitter pains,
Poured for me the lifeblood
From His sacred veins!

Lift we, then, our voices,
Swell the mighty flood,
Louder still and louder
Praise the precious blood.

(The Lutheran Hymnal, 158:1, 6)

Devotion

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Genesis 22:7-8 But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” Then he said, “Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” And Abraham said, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.” So the two of them went together.

A Father's Willing Sacrifice

Abraham was 75 years old when God first promised to make a great nation of him and his barren wife Sarah. For the next 25 years his faith was nourished by repeated promises from the LORD. Then finally, when Abraham was 99 and Sarah was 90, the LORD appeared personally in the form of a man (Gen. 18) to announce the coming birth.

When the child was born, Abraham named him Isaac (a name meaning “laughter”). Thus Abraham was expressing joy at the prospect of having a child in his old age. IF EVER the hopes of a father were closely knit to his son, Abraham was that father. Even as we by Spirit-given faith cling to the cross of Christ, so the father of believers clung to the Promise linked to his son!

How then the sword pierced the father’s heart when the same LORD asked him to sacrifice his son! As the two marched together those three long days to the mountain the Lord would show them, and as he cut the wood for the burnt offering, what emotional pangs the father must have felt!

And who can imagine the pain when Isaac asked innocently, “My father…Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”—And then the pain when the father raised the knife to slay his son!

Throughout all this we see Isaac as a type of Christ who was also sacrificed by a loving Father. “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased!” said the Heavenly Father—both at Jesus’ baptism and at His transfiguration. Throughout the Gospel record the Father’s love for His Son is shown, including when He sent angels to strengthen Jesus when He was sweating drops of blood in agony in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Truly, the heart of the Christian gospel is that the Son of God was sacrificed by a loving Father.

God loved the world so that He gave
His only Son the lost to save.
That all who would in Him believe
Should everlasting life receive.

God would not have the sinner die;
His Son with saving grace is nigh;
His Spirit in the Word declares
How we in Christ are heaven’s heirs.

(Lutheran Service Book, 571:1, 3)

The lesson

Genesis 22:1-19

Abraham Offers Isaac

22 Some time later God tested Abraham. He called to him, “Abraham!”

Abraham answered, “I am here.”

2 God said, “Now take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains there, the one to which I direct you.”

3 Abraham got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, along with Isaac his son. Abraham split the wood for the burnt offering. Then he set out to go to the place that God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.

5 Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go on over there. We will worship, and then we will come back to you.” 6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and loaded it on Isaac his son. He took the firepot and the knife in his hand. The two of them went on together.

7 Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father?”

He said, “I am here, my son.”

He said, “Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”

8 Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them went on together. 9 They came to the place that God had told him about. Abraham built the altar there. He arranged the wood, tied up Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. 10 Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.

11 The Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, “Abraham, Abraham!”

Abraham said, “I am here.”

12 He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy. Do not do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

13 Abraham looked around and saw that behind him there was a ram caught in the thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 Abraham called the name of that place “The Lord Will Provide.”[a] So it is said to this day, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”

15 The Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven 16 and said, “I have sworn by myself, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will bless you greatly, and I will multiply your descendants greatly, like the stars of the sky and like the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the city gates of their enemies. 18 In your seed[b] all the nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”

19 Then Abraham returned to his young men, and they set out and traveled together to Beersheba. Abraham lived at Beersheba.

Hebrews 11:17-19

17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered Isaac. This man, who received the promises, was ready to offer his only son, 18 about whom it was said, “Through Isaac your offspring will be traced.”[a] 19 He reasoned that God also had the ability to raise him from the dead, and in a figurative sense, Abraham did receive him back from the dead. 

Questions.

Notes: