You can count on it even when you cannot understand it that God always does what is right.
In the previous posts we have seen in Genesis 22 that God tested Abraham by commanding him to journey to a distant mountain and there sacrifice his son Isaac. Abraham obeyed God, to the point that he was moments away from slaying his son. At that moment God intervened and directed Abraham to a ram to sacrifice in Isaac’s place.
Most people are confused by God’s command to Abraham that he sacrifice his son Isaac (see Genesis 22), and that tells us something important. God will not command anyone now to do what he commanded Abraham then.
Although God was righteous in this command, he himself has irrevocably changed the human situation since Abraham’s time by giving written laws through Moses and other writers of the Bible. Abraham lived before the Bible. Today God will not command anyone to do what his Word prohibits. God commanded Israel, “There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering” (Deu. 18:10). So Abraham’s experience will never be repeated. God will never again command someone to sacrifice a child. In fact, he has forbidden it.
God’s heart
This prohibition perfectly reflects God’s heart. In the end, God did not let Abraham slay Isaac. What looks like a turnaround was not a change of heart. God never intended for Abraham to slay Isaac. His intention was only to test Abraham. By stopping the sacrifice God shows how he actually felt about it, and therefore when God later in Deuteronomy 18 prohibits parents from sacrificing their children he is entirely consistent. It was his command to slay Isaac that conflicted with the highest purposes of his heart. Although God’s command to Abraham reflected his divine prerogatives—the potter can do what he wants with the clay—it did not reflect his heart.
This is God’s glory. He has the Creator’s right to command as he did, and he has the Father’s heart to rescind the command. Jesus said, “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13. Jesus refers here to the Old Testament, Hosea 6:6. This reminds us that God does not change from Old Testament to New Testament. God was merciful and compassionate in the Old Testament, and he was the same in Jesus). In the Old Covenant God required sacrifices, yet he also said he desired mercy more than sacrifice. Therefore sacrifice is good, but mercy better.
You can be sure of this: God is infinitely more merciful, compassionate, and concerned about human life and justice than you.
God always does what is right
But we should honor him no less for his divine prerogatives. To do that we need a clear understanding of God’s righteousness in testing Abraham with this command. Proud people focus on their supposed rights and ignore God’s legitimate rights as Creator and Sustainer, Sovereign and Judge. Although God did not have the desire to let Abraham slay Isaac, he did have the right.
His command was righteous, and consequently Abraham would have been righteous in obeying it. James 1:13 says, “God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.” If God’s command had been unrighteous, and if Abraham’s obedience to it had been unrighteous, then God would have been tempting Abraham to do evil. According to James 1:13, God does not do that. Moreover, if God’s command had been evil, he would not have conceived it, because according to James 1:13 he cannot be tempted with evil.
Completely right
Therefore, what is it about being God that makes it right, even glorious, for him to give such a command? The answer is, everything.
His love makes it right because perfect love jealously desires wholehearted love in return. His goodness makes it right because Abraham’s highest good comes only by loving God above all, not Isaac.
What’s more, his justice makes it right because it is appointed to each fallen descendent of Adam eventually to die. His mercy makes it right because Isaac at death would depart this evil world and go to heavenly paradise.
Furthermore his wisdom makes it right because he alone knows everything from beginning to end and balancing innumerable factors knows how to work all things for Abraham’s and Isaac’s highest good and his highest glory. And his sovereignty makes it right because he cannot stop being sovereign any more than he can stop existing, and therefore he alone determines when and how a person’s death serves the best purposes (John 21:19; Psalm 139:16; Job 14:5).
His role as Creator makes it right because he owns and uses what he creates as a potter does clay. His infinite worth makes it right because anything devoted to him serves a great, eternal purpose.
Therefore God’s command to sacrifice Isaac does not hint at some sinister side to God; rather, it was gloriously right in every way.
More right
But he was more right to revoke the command. He was more true to everything that makes him God to cry out, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him.” This more fully expressed God’s compassion, purposes, promises, love, goodness, joy, blessedness, and more. The pitch-perfect revelation of God was to spare Isaac, just as it was to raise Jesus from the grave. From the beginning God intended for Isaac to live.
Continued next week
