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| Of Abraham’s Obedience and Faith, Which Were Proved by the Offering Up, of His Son in Sacrifice, and of Sarah’s Death.
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Chapter 32.—Of Abraham’s
Obedience and Faith, Which Were Proved by the Offering Up, of His
Son in Sacrifice, and of Sarah’s Death.
Among other things, of which it
would take too long time to mention the whole, Abraham was tempted
about the offering up of his well-beloved son Isaac, to prove his
pious obedience, and so make it known to the world, not to God.
Now every temptation is not blame-worthy; it may even be
praise-worthy, because it furnishes probation. And, for the most
part, the human mind cannot attain to self-knowledge otherwise than
by making trial of its powers through temptation, by some kind of
experimental and not merely verbal self-interrogation; when, if it
has acknowledged the gift of God, it is pious, and is consolidated
by steadfast grace and not puffed up by vain boasting. Of course
Abraham could never believe that God delighted in human sacrifices;
yet when the divine commandment thundered, it was to be obeyed, not
disputed. Yet Abraham is worthy of praise, because he all along
believed that his son, on being offered up, would rise again; for
God had said to him, when he was unwilling to fulfill his wife’s
pleasure by casting out the bond maid and her son, “In Isaac
shall thy seed be called.” No doubt He then goes on to say,
“And as for the son of this bond woman, I will make him a great
nation, because he is thy seed.”940
How then is it said “In Isaac
shall thy seed be called,” when God calls Ishmael also his
seed? The apostle, in explaining this, says, “In Isaac shall
thy seed be called, that is, they which are the children of the
flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the
promise are counted for the seed.”941
In order, then, that the children
of the promise may be the seed of Abraham, they are called in
Isaac, that is, are gathered together in Christ by the call of
grace. Therefore the father, holding fast from the first the
promise which behoved to be fulfilled through this son whom God had
ordered him to slay, did not doubt that he whom he once thought it
hopeless he should ever receive would be restored to him when he
had offered him up. It is in this way the passage in the Epistle
to the Hebrews is also to be understood and explained. “By
faith,” he says, “Abraham overcame, when tempted about Isaac:
and he who had received the promise offered up his only son, to
whom it was said, In Isaac shall thy seed be called: thinking
that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead;” therefore
he has added, “from whence also he received him in a
similitude.”942
In whose
similitude but His of whom the apostle says, “He that spared not
His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all?”943
And on this account Isaac also
himself carried to the place of sacrifice the wood on which he was
to be offered up, just as the Lord Himself carried His own cross.
Finally, since Isaac was not to be slain, after his father was
forbidden to smite him, who was that ram by the offering of which
that sacrifice was completed with typical blood? For when Abraham
saw him, he was caught by the horns in a thicket. What, then, did
he represent but Jesus, who, before He was offered up, was crowned
with thorns by the Jews?
But let us rather hear the divine
words spoken through the angel. For the Scripture says, “And
Abraham stretched forth his hand to take the knife, that he might
slay his son. And the Angel of the Lord called unto him from
heaven, and said, Abraham. And he said, Here am I. And he said,
Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto
him: for now I know that thou fearest God, and hast not spared
thy beloved son for my sake.”944
It is said, “Now I know,”
that is, Now I have made to be known; for God was not previously
ignorant of this. Then, having offered up that ram instead of
Isaac his son, “Abraham,” as we read, “called the name of
that place The Lord seeth: as they say this day, In the mount the
Lord hath appeared.”945
As it is said, “Now I know,”
for Now I have made to be known, so here, “The Lord sees,” for
The Lord hath appeared, that is, made Himself to be seen. “And
the Angel of the Lord called unto Abraham from heaven the second
time, saying, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord; because thou
hast done this thing, and hast not spared thy beloved son for my
sake; that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will
multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is
upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess by inheritance the
cities of the adversaries: and in thy seed shall all the nations
of the earth be blessed; because thou
hast obeyed my
voice.”946
In this
manner is that promise concerning the calling of the nations in the
seed of Abraham confirmed even by the oath of God, after that
burnt-offering which typified Christ. For He had often promised,
but never sworn. And what is the oath of God, the true and
faithful, but a confirmation of the promise, and a certain reproof
to the unbelieving?
After these things Sarah died, in
the 127th year of her life, and the 137th of her husband for he was
ten years older than she, as he himself says, when a son is
promised to him by her: “Shall a son be born to me that am an
hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old,
bear?”947
Then
Abraham bought a field, in which he buried his wife. And then,
according to Stephen’s account, he was settled in that land,
entering then on actual possession of it,—that is, after the
death of his father, who is inferred to have died two years
before.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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