Genesis 22 is one of the classic Old Testament Gospel texts. In this marvelous, dramatic passage we see the God who provides the Lamb. In this passage, we have the Gospel picture of both God’s provision of a substitutionary sacrifice in His Son and the resurrection of His Son from the dead. Knowing this God and His Son Jesus Christ is to have eternal life.

Well I hope you got to sleep in a little bit this morning, right? Of course, I woke up and it was still 3 a.m. My time. Alright? So we're going to be looking at Genesis 22, so if you want to go ahead and and turn there that'd be great of course famous passage maybe one of the most famous in the Old Testament we're gonna read verses 1 through 14 and just so that you know I'll be reading from the New American Standard so any NAS only fans out there just kidding.

Alright this is the Word of the Lord. Now it came about after these things that God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, here I am. He said, take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him, there is a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you. So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son and he split wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance.

Abraham said to his young men, Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there, and we will worship and return to you. Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son and he took in his hand the fire and the knife so the two of them walked on together. Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, my father, and he said, here I am, my son. And he said, behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering? Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.

So the two of them walked on together then they came to the place of which God had told him and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood and Bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son but the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham, and he said, here I am. He said, do not stretch out your hand against the lad, do nothing to him for now I know that you fear God since you have not withheld your son your only son from me then Abraham raised his eyes and looked and behold behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son Abraham called the name of that place the Lord will provide as it is said to this day in the mount of the Lord it will be provided. Well let's just ask the Lord's help as we start this. Father we do pray that you would show us Christ in this and help us to know you better through your word.

We give you thanks in Jesus' name, Amen. Well you come to this passage and this passage is, I mean this is high drama is it not? God could have just said, Abraham feared me, he was willing to offer his son, I stopped him in time, and Abraham's obedience was blessed. I mean, God could have just said it that way. But he doesn't.

He actually presents to us this dramatic narrative and the reason that God gives us his word not just in proposition not every book of the Bible's like Romans God gives us these narratives to draw us in to the story and there is a gripping drama that's going on here and so as we come to this text there are a few things that just sort of set the table for us. And the first is, if you've been reading in Genesis up to this point, there's an immediate tension between God commanding Abraham to do the unthinkable, which would end up destroying the very promise that God had just kept to Abraham. And so you get to 22 and all of a sudden you realize that there is a tension here of God asking Abraham to do the unthinkable which would undermine the very promise and covenant that God had made. There is also in this text Abraham's faith. Going all the way back to chapter 12, Abraham has been in the school of faith.

Sometimes he gets an A minus, sometimes he just flunks. I would remind you that there were certain points in Abraham's life where his faith and his obedience were lacking but now he comes as it were to graduation day and he is going to graduate magna cum laude in the school of faith. In this passage, you also see God's amazing provision, right, he is, and this is one of the names of God that we learn, he is, in the old-fashioned way of saying it, Jehovah Jireh, right? He is the one who will provide. He ends up providing the sacrifice.

And then of course in this passage you have to be blind not to see the unbelievable typology that is happening throughout. In fact as you come to this text this has got to be one of the most glorious and straight forward in a sense gospel texts in the Old Testament and so we're going to look at the God who himself provides the lamb for the sacrifice we're just going to work our way through the text and then we'll draw out some conclusions at the end so verses 1 & 2 we get God testing Abraham And so when the text tells us, now it came about after these things, in all likelihood, maybe about 10 to 15 years after the last time God had appeared in the events of chapter 21, that God tested Abraham. Now, why is that important? Well, it's important because you as the reader actually have sort of the inside story of what's going on. You have to remember that that Abraham is not operating on the basis of verse 1 and God tested Abraham.

Abraham is simply operating on this command. You know though that he's being tested. Is there a little bit of anxiety in the sense if you were reading Genesis for the first time and the answer is yeah because Abraham hasn't always passed these tests and so you see God testing him again and Abraham responds here I am This is the language by the way of course of self presentation, God calls your name and it is here I am, I stand at the ready to hear your word, to hear what you have to say. Now I want you just to, I encourage people to read, especially biblical narrative, with a little bit of sanctified imagination. Because this was, this is real history.

These things really happened. And so as you think about this, you have to put yourself in Abraham's place and here's the Lord of the universe who has appeared to you, has spoken to you, revealed himself to you and every single time it's been an amazing experience and so here God appears once again and he says Abraham and here I am and you could imagine Abraham's mind what is the Lord have in store for me now he's kept his promise he's established his covenant what more could he tell me in fact maybe you could imagine Abraham thinking this right Maybe Yahweh has some really really good news for me maybe about the land. This is what God says, take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac. Isaac. Now I want to just tell you that this fourfold description is designed to, as it were, accentuate the unthinkable of what is about to be told Abraham.

Your son. The son that I promised to give to you and which I gave. Ten times by the way in this section you will see that phrase your son. But it's not just your son, it's your only son. Your unique son, yes there's Ishmael, but Isaac is special.

He is your one of a kind son. He is the son by miracle and special promise, whom you love. The very center of Abraham's world, the very center of his heart, that one son. We would say something like, Isaac had the heart of his father. He was Abraham's beloved son.

And then to top it off he tells him, reminds him of his name, Yitzhak, Isaac. You know the son who brought laughter to an old man and to an old woman. The very joy of your heart. We all love our children and they all bring us joy, but my goodness, put yourself in the place of Abraham and Sarah. And then God says, not only take your son, your only son whom you love, Isaac, he says, go to the land of Moriah, one of the mountains that I'll show you.

By the way this language sort of echoes Abraham's original call back in chapter 12 you're to go out from here to a land which I will show you. What's interesting is that Mount Moriah would end up being the very location of Solomon's temple and would be a short walk to Calvary. And then God says what really is just shocking and offer him there as a burnt offering. Now even though the readers have been clued in that this is a test, the fact is that it is still shocking. When you put it all together God in a sense drawing out this promise really over 25 years.

The promise is finally fulfilled they have their son and now God says take that son and offer him as a burnt offering by the way a burnt offering would be an offering that was consumed completely on the altar. When you stop and think about what God is telling Abraham to do, it is shocking. Take your son, cut his throat, and then offer him as a burnt offering on that altar. Dale Ralph Davis says, the demand is clearly wrenching. That comes across in the phrase by phrase, anguished phrase by phrase build-up of the language, your son, your only son, the knife goes deeper and deeper with each phrase.

And so there's a sense in which you get to this and it seems absurd. After years of barrenness, sustained by a promise, the covenant hangs on this boy. And so you have to ask yourself, of course you know the rest of the story because you've read your Bible, but think about it in a fresh way. Is God actually asking Abraham to nullify the promise and to destroy the covenant? Is God now in a sense contradicting himself?

Has God somehow transformed into a moral monster like Baal or one of the gods of the Canaanites? Is he actually asking Abraham, kiss the promise and the covenant goodbye? Dale Ralph Davis makes this comment. He says it doesn't matter how much reformed theology you've read or even if you know RC Sproul personally there will be times when you cannot make head nor tail of what God is doing. Is that not true?

Does your own experience not bear out, Lord I do not know what you are doing. Verse 3 has got to be one of the most remarkable verses. Notice Abraham's obedience and his faith. So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son, and he split the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God told him. And so Abraham's obedience is actually put in these incredibly stark terms that revolve simply around one thing, what he did.

Now if you're a parent you know what you're asking yourself what was he thinking? What was he feeling? But instead the way that the text reads it just focuses on these actions. You don't read, there was no debating, there was no bargaining, remember back in chapter 20 where Abraham is actually bargaining with God over the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. No debate, no bargaining, just a determined obedience.

Now Abraham has to go to sleep that night. The text doesn't say it but I'd be willing to bet, you know, being from Nevada and all, that Abraham did not sleep. The text tells us, he saddled, he took, he split, he arose, he went. This is rapid fire description of the events almost in sort of a clinical matter of fact kind of way and it leaves the reader to ponder what was going on in his mind and I will tell you that as a parent you know probably almost exactly what was going on in his mind. The Texan says in verse 4, on the third day.

Again the text just says it matter of factly, but three days, three days, three days journey. Step after step, mile after mile, and here's Abraham. What reflections must have been going on in his head? What agony, What questions, how many times did Abraham utter up to God unspoken prayers, but there's a sense of what resolve. Whatever was going on in here with Abraham, it did not stop him from putting one foot in front of the other and continuing on to Mount Moriah.

Verse 5, Abraham makes a profound statement of faith. He says to the young men, the servants that he brought with him, he says, stay here with the donkey and I and the lad will go over there no doubt pointing over to Moriah and we will worship and then notice his language and return to you. Abraham has been silent for these three days as far as we can tell from the text and here's Abraham and you know what you do or at least what you should do, when you're facing an incredible trial. You rehearse God's track record with you. You polish God's monuments.

You remember that even though you don't know exactly how this is going to turn out, God has been good to you all of your life, he's always been faithful, he's never failed you, and in my thinking I just have this thought that as Abraham is on this three day journey that he's thinking to himself I've seen God bring life out of a dead womb. I've seen God sustain me and Sarah with the word of his promise and I've seen God keep that promise. I have no doubt that it is that very sense of knowing God as a promise keeping God, as a faithful God, and as a God who brought life out of a dead womb that informs Abraham's statement, we, we will return to you. How different would the text be if he'd have just said, the lad and I are going over there, you wait here, I'll be back. Totally different.

And so the two head out, and again, Abraham must be rehearsing in his mind. By the way, this is what sustains us in trials is that when we bring to mind things that are true about God. You have to remind yourself of those things, you have to preach those things to yourself and in fact Here's what Abraham knew all the way back in Genesis 18, in verse 25, he said, will not the judge of all the earth do right? He already knew that about God. So you could well imagine that as Abraham is rehearsing in his mind all of the things that he knows to be true about God, He puts the wood of the sacrifice on Isaac to carry.

By the way, in all likelihood, Isaac is probably at least a mid to late teenager by this point. It's not like he's gonna load a cord of wood on the back of a three year old, right? You've been a teenager. By the way kids, don't miss Isaac's faith in this. The text isn't focusing on Isaac's faith but Isaac's faith is right there in the text.

Let's say you were 16-17 years old and your dad was a hundred. You think you could take them? Probably! So Isaac carries the wood for the sacrifice, Abraham reaches in, grabs the flint to start the fire and he grabs the knife and as they're walking Isaac asks this obvious question, my father, here I am my son And again just pausing and just thinking about this, don't you know that as they're walking, Abraham probably walking just in a stilled silence and the silence is broken by the voice of his own son, my father. And Even those words must have just penetrated Abraham's heart with the deepest of affection.

Here I am my son, where's the lamb? Where's the lamb? Brothers and sisters if we will return was a statement of faith, here too is a statement of faith. God will provide for himself the lamb. It's an interesting phrase.

He doesn't just say God will provide the lamb. God will provide for himself the lamb. And so like the words in verse 5, Abraham obeys in light of the promise. Here's the thing, is he doesn't know how God's going to keep the promise. He doesn't know when God is gonna keep the promise, but what he knows beyond all shadow of a doubt is that the God he knows will in fact be the one to provide the sacrifice.

Abraham's faith is stunning at this point. He's been commanded to do the unthinkable and now after those that night and those three days of just mulling over who God is what he is like what he has said to me how he has sustained me he is convinced we will return and God himself will provide the lamb. Verses 19 through 14 we end up seeing the sacrifice of Isaac and the provision of God. So here's Abraham in verses 9 and 10 and he's preparing the sacrifice. Now I don't want you to think for a minute that somehow Abraham just says, hey well you know let go, let God, everything's gonna be cool, everything's gonna work out, no sweat, we're gonna build this altar, I'm gonna stick my son on the altar, I'm gonna take this knife, run it across his throat, bleed him out, burn him up, and everything's gonna be good.

I want you to know that there must have been trembling hands. As he arranges that wood to build the altar, he does so with trembling hands. And then, what ends up reflecting Isaac's unbelievable faith at this point too the trust he must have had in his father just a few terse words and he bound his son Isaac because that's what you did with the sacrifice, you tied it up, and Isaac doesn't resist. The text doesn't even tell us that he says, hey, what are you doing? Right?

He bound him. Isaac had to actually submit to that. And So he submits to the trembling hands of his father, he doesn't resist, and he realizes in that moment that he's gonna be the sacrifice, and he takes the knife. Now I remember certain, like, you know, Sunday school material where Abraham's got the knife up like this and he's about to plunge it in. Well, you know, that's not how you kill the sacrifice.

You didn't like take a knife and stab it in the heart. You took a knife And you cut the carotid arteries and it bled out. Have you ever had that experience where You're thinking to yourself, Lord, I know you do things in your time, but right now would be really good. Right now would be a really good time for you to do something. Abraham extends that knife.

He's about to slit the throat of his most precious son, the son whom he loves. And as he takes that knife to slit the throat, there is no doubt that there's no hesitation on Abraham's part. There's something woven into Abraham's soul at this point which is his confidence and his faith in the God who has promised, the God who has fulfilled, the God who is faithful, he could be trusted, the Lord of all the earth is going to do right, he's not going to wrong me. Oh brothers and sisters, you realize that that very statement, God is not going to wrong me. God is going to keep his word to me.

That's the kind of faith that sustains you in the darkest of times and as Abraham puts that knife up to his son's throat the angel of the Lord intervenes in verse 12. Now I take the angel of the Lord simply to be the pre-incarnate Christ. I think this is a Christophany. He appears and he calls out twice notice in verse 12 by the way, or verse 11 notice I have a feeling that as soon as Abraham heard, Abraham, Abraham! That must have been the sweetest sound he had heard in years.

And he said, just as he did back in verse one, Here I am. The angel of the Lord says, Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, do nothing to him, for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. And so, the angel of the Lord, get this picture, the angel of the Lord intervenes and stays the hand of Abraham before he is about to slay his son. And you have to just stand back with awe and wonder how magnificent that the one who ends up sparing Isaac would be the very son who would not be spared. On Calvary there was nobody that said to the father, father, father, do your son no harm.

He freely gave him up for us all. The text then says something interesting, he says, now I know, now I know, you fear God, by the way when the angel says, now I know, he's not saying, now I know something that I didn't know before. It's not as if God was like, I wonder what Abraham would do if I did this. He's the omniscient God. When he says, now I know, it really is in a sense a declaration of what has just been witnessed.

And what has just been witnessed? Well Abraham, by his obedience, has testified to his faith and the angel of the Lord has witnessed that act and declares to him, now we know you fear God. By the way, this is just a footnote, just free, okay? I think that at this very point, The way that Abraham testifies to his faith with his obedience is exactly the distinction that James makes in chapter 2 of the book of James. Whereas Paul may focus on Abraham's initial justifying faith, James focuses on Abraham's faith that has now been testified by his works, that is his obedience.

Verse 13, this amazing thing happens, Abraham raises his eyes and he looked and behold behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns And Abraham went and took the ram, offered him up for a burnt offering, and notice this little phrase, in the place of his son. Amazing providence of God. The kind, covenant-keeping God of Abraham provides the sacrifice, Just as Abraham knew he would. Now don't think for a minute that Abraham knew exactly how God would do it. There's a difference between knowing God will keep his promise and knowing how God will keep his promise.

Faith is just the confidence that God will keep his promise. Faith doesn't have anything to do with figuring out how God will keep his promise. Now you know, we actually are quite uneasy about that part. What we want to do is we want to become consultants to the Almighty, telling him the best ways that he can keep his promises. You know, Lord, you can keep your promise if you did this, if you did that.

Abraham didn't know what was going to happen, but boy, the moment that it happened, he knew. That's the life of faith. Now he looks and he sees a ram. When I think of a ram, I think, I'm from Nevada, we have bighorn sheep. They're awesome animals, just absolutely awesome.

To put in for a tag for bighorn sheep, that is a once in a lifetime tag, right? And to just see one stuck in the thicket is a hunter's dream. Anyway, The language of substitution is remarkable, right? In the place of his son. Abraham sees the ram caught in the thicket, realizes that that is now the sacrifice that God himself has provided.

And so with trembling hands, he takes the knife that he's gonna slay Isaac with, unbinds his son, and then takes that ram and offers it up as a whole burnt offering. Stunning. Verse 14, and Abraham called the name of that place the Lord will provide. As it is said to this day, in the mount of the Lord it will be provided. You know in the Bible there are times where God appears, God manifests certain attributes, characteristics, and then there is a name attributed to God, right?

And so if you've ever done a study on the names of God, it's absolutely marvelous, it's enlightening because those names reflect God's character. They tell us something true about God. So this morning I'm reading in Judges and the angel of the Lord appears to Gideon and Gideon builds an altar and he calls it Yahweh Shalom, the Lord is peace. All of those names actually say something that is true about God and here's the thing believer is that in your time of need, God is all for you but in particular he is exactly what you need at the moment when you need it. Abraham at this point needed the God who would provide, and he most certainly does.

We're used to saying Jehovah Jireh, and that's okay, but more accurately it's Yahweh, so God's covenant name, and then you have this Hebrew verb, Yah-rah-eh, which means the Lord will see to it. And so NAS, ESV, the Lord will provide, that's what we're used to. The verb is the idea of he'll see to it, he'll take care of it, which of course is perfectly legitimate to say he'll provide because that's the idea behind the word and then then Abraham turns around he says this most marvelous thing he says on the mount of the Lord he will provide verse 14 is absolutely stunning Verse 14 is absolutely stunning. Moses says this is what this mountain is called to this day. When our faith is tested, what we really believe about God comes to the surface.

You can say all kinds of things about God that you believe to be true. Trials will put those beliefs to the test. What you really believe about God surfaces in a trial. But a trial doesn't just bring what you really believe about God to the surface. A trial also then instructs us even more about the God that we know.

And so here is Abraham on this journey of faith, and he's learned things that are true about God. He gets to the greatest trial of his life, and all of those things come to bear, fuel his faith, feed his faith. He's confident in God, but Even in the midst of this trial, as God brings him out on the other side, he learns even something more about the God he loves and knows. As we look at this passage, this passage is really, it's all about the gospel. This passage points us to the gospel.

It points us to the God who provides a lamb for us in the gospel. And I wanna just show you, and there is nothing that is peculiarly insightful about any of this, let me just point out the obvious things to you. Number one, Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son points us to God who actually sacrificed his son. The Apostle Paul most certainly has this narrative in mind when he reminds us if God is for us who can be against us, Who will bring a charge against God's elect? Then Paul says this in verse 32 of Romans chapter 8, he says that if God did not spare his own son, if God did not spare his own son, but freely delivered him up for us all.

How will he not also with him freely give us all things? This passage of Genesis 22, Abraham's willingness to take his son, his only son, Isaac, whom he loved, and to offer him as a sacrifice actually gives us a picture forward to the God who would truly offer up his son for our sins. Brothers and sisters, don't ever minimize the beauty and the glory of John 3.16. For God loved the world in this way, that he gave his only begotten Son. Those words should stagger you no matter how long you've been a Christian.

Those words should stagger you no matter how much good teaching you've had. Those words should stagger you even if you've read Calvin and Bovink and Van Til and on and on, you get to the simplicity of John 3.16 God loved the world like this! He gave his only begotten Son so that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. I would remind us this morning that God did not send theological propositions into the world to save us, he sent his son, his only son, whom he loves Jesus to save us. The second thing that is obviously related connected to God's provision of the sacrifice on the Mount of Yahweh points us to his ultimate provision of the ultimate sacrifice Jesus Christ on Calvary that little phrase it's the end of verse 14 in the Mount of the Lord it will be provided here is Here is a place where Abraham spoke perhaps better than he knew.

There's a song we sing in our church, maybe you sing it too. Couldn't help but think of these words this morning on the mount of crucifixion. Fountains opened deep and wide. Through the floodgates of God's mercy flowed a vast and gracious tide. Grace and love like mighty rivers poured incessant from above in heaven's peace and perfect justice kissed a guilty world in love.

On that mount The Lamb of God would be sacrificed. Remember John the Baptist in John chapter one in verse 29. He sees Jesus behold the Lamb of God, the Lamb of God, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Peter would later tell his readers in 1 Peter 1, knowing that you are not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood as of a lamb unblemished and spotless the blood of Christ God did in fact provide for himself a lamb You do realize that there is one sense in which we can say absolutely, 100% Christ as the lamb of God died for us. What we mean by that is he died in our behalf.

We'll talk about that in a second. But there's another sense in which we can truly say, Christ died for God. Christ died for God. It was Christ himself who, as it were, in the great covenant of redemption, actually took upon himself the task of the redemption of God's elect. Father I'll be that lamb, I'll offer myself up, I will satisfy justice, Who's justice?

God's justice. I will propitiate that wrath. What wrath? God's wrath. Jesus Christ when he offers himself up for our sins, offers himself up to the very God who gave him.

Don't ever think that somehow the Father is really really mad at us and Jesus is like really really nice and tries to figure out how to make the Father not so mad at us, it is the Father who sins the Son and in a very real sense Christ himself offers himself up to the Father on our behalf. That burnt offering, that whole burnt offering, was to atone for our sin and it was totally consumed on Calvary because God himself provided the atoning sacrificial lamb. When the Lord Jesus Christ, at that noon hour, darkness covers the earth. You know in the book of Exodus, the ten plagues, darkness comes over the land of Egypt there's a little phrase in in Exodus it says was a darkness that could be felt. Brothers and sisters this is a reflection of the judgment of God was a darkness that could be felt and when that darkness in shrouded Calvary our Lord Jesus Christ cries out my God my God why have you forsaken me.

He uses the very words of Psalm 22 as his cry of abandonment, his cry of dereliction. Here's the most amazing thing of all, is that the Lord of Glory, the eternal son in a mysterious sense as the Godman crucified on Calvary suffers an abandonment from his father. What's heart breaking in a very real sense is in the Gospel of John Jesus says to his disciples you will all leave me but my father does not leave me my earthly friends my disciples are going to abandon me, but I have the Father and yet in that moment as Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God, he is abandoned, forsaken by the Father. And I would remind you of Isaiah 53, 10, it pleased the Lord to crush him, putting him to grief. The third thing that we see is Christ's sacrifice on Calvary was a substitutionary sacrifice.

You get this language, in the place of his son, right? And so right there, and what's so wonderful about the Old Testament is that there's so many there's so many glorious gospel truths that are embedded in little phrases and verses and and and words and texts and you you see those things and then you make this connection over to the New Testament in the place of his son. It is a substitutionary sacrifice. And so 1 Peter 3.18, for Christ also died for sins once for all, the just in the place of the unjust so that he might bring us to God. The apostle celebrates this where he says God demonstrates his own love for us in this in that while we were yet sinners This listen this language Christ died for us that little preposition Hooper is in our place Christ died in our place the very wrath that we deserve Christ bore himself in our place he makes sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins by dying in our place he does what we could never ever do in 10, 000 lifetimes And he does it for us in our stead.

He made him, 2 Corinthians 5.21, he made him who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in him. This is what we call the great exchange. Our sins are placed upon the Lord Jesus Christ. He pays the full penalty of those sins in our stead. Child of God, every time, every time the devil throws your past sins up in your face and tells you, you see, you're really, you're really lousy.

You know what you should say? You don't know the half of it devil, I'm lousier than you think! And what of it? Jesus Christ put an end to all my sins. He bore every single one of them in my stead.

Ephesians 5 to walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us. An offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. This is what we call penal substitution. Jesus Christ punished for our sins in our place. Jesus Christ pained the penalty that we should have paid.

But I want to remind you, and of course you come from churches where you hear the word of God, the word of God is taught, and so this is a simple reminder, there is no gospel without penal substitution. Why do you need to say that Borgman? Well, because there are quite a few evangelicals that no longer like the idea of penal substitution. One British evangelical actually called it cosmic child abuse. Rubbish.

Without penal substitution there is no gospel. Without penal substitution there is no forgiveness of sins. Without penal substitution there is no such thing as justification. There is no such thing as being clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ apart from penal substitution. So one of the hymns, absolutely love this hymn, by Annie Cousin, she says, Jehovah bade his sword awake, oh Christ it woke against thee, thy blood the flaming blade must slake, thy heart its sheath must be, All for my sake, my peace to make, now sleeps that sword for me.

That's the best news you will ever hear. And so when you think of the cross, when you look at Calvary, when you ponder that great sacrifice of Jesus Christ and you are struggling with assurance, you're struggling, Does God really love me? When you look at the cross, you know you should be able to say to God the Father, now I know that you love me because you did not withhold your son, your only son whom you love, Jesus, but you gave him up in my place. By the way, there is no greater demonstration of the love of God for you than that. You may wake up tomorrow morning and circumstances may seem to say, you know what, God was trying to figure out how to make your day absolutely miserable turn your life upside down and your emotions may tell you you know what maybe God doesn't love me as much as as as he loves this guy or that gal and the fact is is that you know what you do?

You look past your circumstances, back to Calvary, and you say, I know you love me. I know you love me because you did not withhold your son, your only son, Jesus, whom you love. You gave him up as a sacrifice for my sins." The fourth thing that this text tells us, and we don't have time to develop this nearly as much as I'd like, is that Abraham and even Isaac's obedience point us to the obedience of Jesus Christ, especially in the laying down of his life. You see it's not just the death of Jesus that saves us, it's also the obedience of Jesus. Jesus fulfills the law.

Jesus' whole life was a life of obedience. By the way, a life, in the words of the writer to the Hebrews, he learned obedience through the things that he suffered. That doesn't mean that he was disobedient, but what it does mean is that every step of Jesus' life, there was another test of obedience which he passed so that the climax of his obedience was obedience to the point of death, even the death of the cross. And it is that obedience that is imputed to us as our righteousness. And so Isaac submits to his father, trusts his father, and is willing to yield up his life because the father willed it.

Don't you hear echoes of no one has taken it away from me, but I lay it down on my own initiative. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again. This is the commandment I received from my father. But even Abraham's obedience now secures the covenant blessings of the nations, that's what you see in verses 15 to 19 by the way, and so Abraham's obedience secures the covenant blessings, just as Jesus Christ's obedience secures our righteousness and all covenant blessings before God. Finally, When Abraham receives back Isaac, when the angel of the Lord stays his hand, it was as it were a resurrection from the dead.

Isaac was as good as dead because Abraham was determined to obey but but here's here's the the most remarkable thing is that is that when Abraham says in verse 5 we will go we will return there is something right there embedded in that text that says what Abraham finally concluded was if I drag this knife across my son's throat, God himself will raise him up from the dead. You know how I know that's true? The writer to the Hebrews tells us it's true. If you agree with the writer of the Hebrews you're on good ground, right? Hebrews 11, 17-19, by faith, when he was tested, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac and he who had received the promise was offering, listen to this language, his only begotten son.

You hear the echo, right? It was he to whom it was said, in Isaac your descendants shall be called. And so the writer to the Hebrews is actually really building up the tension of that promise and what God is Called and then this is what it says of Abraham He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead from which he also received him back as a type a Type is is is a pattern in the Old Testament that actually has a trajectory of fulfillment in the new. And so as Abraham is about to slide that knife right across his throat, he says to himself in his heart of hearts by genuine faith and confidence in God that even if I slay my son God must keep his promise God must be faithful you do realize you can say that right God you must keep your promise you must be faithful unfaithfulness on God's part to his people is never an option and if it means you have to raise his dead body that's what you will do so Abraham receives him back as a type, a type of the resurrection. And so as we look at this marvelous text, you know what you can say?

Abraham knew God. Abraham knew God. There's no way that Abraham could have obeyed unless he knew God You do understand that you can't obey a God that you don't know just as sure as you can't worship a God that you don't know. But his knowledge of God in this moment, in this test, his knowledge of God grows in leaps and bounds and so here's the reality for us as believers who actually have come to know God through the new covenant, know God by the Spirit, know God through the gospel, and know God by the offering up of Jesus for our sins is that the God that we know is the God that we continue to know. You do know God is infinite, right?

You do know that you're finite, right? Has your own finitude hit you yet? Okay, alright. Yeah, some of you are like, yeah, maybe. Young people, you're very finite.

You don't feel finite, but trust me. When your back hurts, when you wake up every morning, you're like, you know what, and when you gotta wear glasses to read and you got in your hair starts falling out your beard turns grey you start to realize wow finite. Here's the thing even in eternity we'll still be finite beings Infinity is characteristic that belongs uniquely to God. So God is always gonna be infinite, we're always gonna be finite. Here's the glorious thing, that even in heaven, even in the eternal state, we will spend all eternity learning more and more and more about the God who loves us and gave his son for us.

You'll never get bored. You'll always be learning and growing. It's not as if, by the way, when you die you go to heaven and all of a sudden you have a full complete comprehensive knowledge of God that's actually impossible what that means is that heaven itself will be the place of the eternal increase of joy because our knowledge of God will continue to grow. And so what does Abraham know about God in this moment? Well he knew God was faithful to his promise, even if it meant raising Isaac up from the dead.

He knew that God was a provider. God himself would provide the lamb. By the way, if God provided what you need most for the most important thing in your life Ie the forgiveness of your sins will he not also just provide all the other stuff that you need My God shall provide all of your needs according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus. This picture of Yahweh, Yahreh, Jehovah Jireh, God will provide, you should actually look at the cross and say, Lord, you've provided the biggest thing that I've ever needed for this life and the life to come. I know that you're going to provide for everything else.

In your way, in your time, according to your plan, according to your will, and so here's the bottom line, is that I just trust him. The God who provides the lamb in the midst of this anguishing narrative is the God who says trust me for everything. So Abraham saw through the eyes of faith that God's provision of the Lamb would one day be our salvation. Perhaps it was here, right here, In verses 13 and 14, more than any other time or place that Jesus had in mind when he said, Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad. Know this God, cling to this God, obey this God, He will never ever let you down.

Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for your great love for us. And Father, we thank you that this great test of Abraham's life is recorded for us in the inspired record of redemptive history. And Father, we thank you that it points us to you. Father, yes, there are things that are admirable about Abraham and Isaac, but Father, you're the hero of the story.

You're the God who provides. Thank you for providing Jesus for us. And we pray Father that we would never doubt that because in the mount of the Lord it has been provided that you will provide everything else for us. In Jesus' name, amen.