Galatians 3:14 says that Jesus “redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Jesus Christ.”
In other words, it’s because Jesus redeemed us that the promise God made to Abraham of blessing all peoples on earth was made possible. So did God help Abraham see Jesus in his role of Redeemer/Saviour too?
Yes he did, and in the most dramatic way, by asking Abraham to “sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering” in Genesis 22:2, because a burnt offering pictured Jesus perfectly. It was totally burnt, with nothing left but ashes, picturing Jesus giving up his life in total, his body completely shattered to “obtain eternal redemption” for us (Hebrews 9:12).
Abraham knew what burnt offerings meant too, and especially what they meant to God – because four hundred years earlier in Genesis 8:20, Noah had done burnt offerings right after God had destroyed the known world because of how evil humans had become. But Noah’s burnt offerings in response to the Flood pleased God so much he determined there and then “never to destroy all living creatures” again (21). Not only did the burnt offerings represent an atoning for the sins of the world, then, they were also such a “pleasing aroma” to God (21) that he guaranteed the world would never end.
Which, again, pictured Jesus perfectly, because when Jesus “gave himself up for us,” Ephesians 5:2, that was “a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” too. So God was asking Abraham to go through a vivid enactment of the role Jesus would play – in Jesus not only offering up his body totally to atone for the world’s evil, but also to be so pleasing to God that God would guarantee our eternal redemption.
And it was in Abraham that God made these points so vivid and clear, because his plan of salvation through Jesus began with Abraham. And the burnt offerings – that were already a familiar form of sacrifice by Abraham’s day – fit in with that. We see that in Isaac asking Abraham in Genesis 22:7, “The fire and wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” So Isaac knew burnt offerings involved the sacrifice of a lamb, the lamb too picturing Jesus perfectly in his title as “the lamb of God” (John 1:29, 36).
So much of what Jesus would later be as a burnt offering for the saving of the world was being played out here in Genesis 22, and Abraham clearly understood the significance of such an offering, because he never questioned God as to why he should sacrifice Isaac.
There’s more too in “The parallels with Jesus in Genesis 22”…(next blog)
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