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The Story of Redemption
God but believed that God, who had in His providence given Sarah
a son in her old age, and who had required him to take that son’s
life, could also give life again and bring up Isaac from the dead.
Abraham left the servants by the way and proposed to go alone
with his son to worship some distance from them. He would not
permit his servants to accompany them, lest their love for Isaac
might lead them to prevent him from carrying out what God had
commanded him to do. He took the wood from the hands of his
servants and laid it upon the shoulders of his son. He also took the
fire and the knife. He was prepared to execute the dreadful mission
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given him of God. Father and son walked on 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.” Firmly walked on that stern,
loving, suffering father by the side of his son. As they came to the
place which God had pointed out to Abraham, he built there an altar
and laid the wood in order, ready for the sacrifice, and then informed
Isaac of the command of God to offer him as a burnt offering. He
repeated to him the promise that God several times had made to
him, that through Isaac he should become a great nation, and that in
performing the command of God in slaying him, God would fulfill
His promise, for He was able to raise him from the dead.
The Angel’s Message
Isaac believed in God. He had been taught implicit obedience
to his father, and he loved and reverenced the God of his father. He
could have resisted his father if he had chosen to do so. But after
affectionately embracing his father, he submitted to be bound and
laid upon the wood. And as his father’s hand was raised to slay
his son, an angel of God, who had marked all the faithfulness of
Abraham on the way to Moriah, called to him out of heaven, and
said, “Abraham, 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, seeing thou hast not withheld thy
son, thine only son from Me.
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