The Binding of Isaac

Genesis 22 describes the event of God asking Abraham to offer up his only son Isaac as a burnt offering. This account not only is a demonstration of great faith and obedience on the part of Abraham, but is also a depiction and foreshadow of two sacrifices.


God told Abraham to go to the plain of Moriah to a mount He would show him. Abraham would go to the very spot where King Solomon would build the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. (2 Chron. 3.1). The temple represents the place of communion of God and man. It is a place of sacrifice and atonement.

On the third day of their journey there was an ascension: in the natural, Abraham was ascending to the mount in Moriah; in the spiritual, he was ascending to a place of faith and revelation: Faith in that Abraham believed God would keep his promise of fruitfulness through Isaac: Revelation in that “In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen” (Gen 22.14). On this third day Abraham prophesied, “I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you”.

Isaac was obedient and submissive to his father Abraham, and was a man with faith in God. He carried the wood for the offering on his back. He laid his life down on the altar so that Abraham, an old man by that time, could bind him. (“The binding of Isaac”). When Abraham took the knife to slay his son, the angel of the Lord called unto him, “Lay not thine hand upon the lad…”

Abraham lifted his eyes and there, a ram caught in a tree by his horns. God, out of love, had provided a ram to take the place of Isaac. Just as the ram in the tree took Isaac’s place of death, Jesus was caught by the power of love on a tree to take our place of death.

As Isaac willingly laid down his life, God calls us to prove our love for Him by laying down our life and becoming a living sacrifice.

Romans 12.1: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”

As Isaac carried the wood on his back for his sacrifice (Gen.22.6), we are to carry our cross for our sacrifice (Matt. 16:24-26).

God provided the ram to take Isaac’s place. As Abraham said, “God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering” and “In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.” Here the revelation of “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) is foreshadowed.

And here is Love displayed: God's blood sacrifice of the ram for Isaac; Isaac's living sacrifice of his life for God. Love, obedience, faith, and sacrifice. A beautiful picture of the perfect union.

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

God’s blood sacrifice; our living sacrifice.