WOULD A LOVING GOD TELL A FATHER TO KILL HIS SON?

Genesis 22 may be one of the most disturbing stories in the Bible. So let's not pretend it isn't.

There are Bible stories we learned as children that sound very different when we read them as adults.

Genesis 22 is one of them.

God tells Abraham:

“Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest... and offer him there for a burnt offering.”
— Genesis 22:2

Stop there for a moment.

Don't hurry to the ram caught in the thicket.

Don't immediately jump to Jesus.

Listen to what Abraham heard.

Take your son.

The son you love.

Offer him as a sacrifice.

If that troubles you, you are not necessarily rejecting the Bible.

You may simply be paying attention.

WHAT WOULD WE SAY IF SOMEONE SAID THAT TODAY?

Suppose a father told us:

“God told me to kill my son.”

Would we praise his faith?

Of course not.

We would try to protect the child.

We might call the police.

And if the father replied, “But God spoke to Abraham,” we would certainly not tell him to go ahead.

So the modern reader has a legitimate question:

HOW CAN A LOVING GOD COMMAND SOMETHING THAT WOULD BE HORRIBLE FOR A PERSON TO DO TODAY?

That question deserves more than:

“Well, God stopped him.”

God did stop him.

But Abraham didn't know that when he started up the mountain.

So let's read the story carefully.

WE KNOW SOMETHING ABRAHAM DIDN'T

Genesis begins the story by telling us:

“God did tempt Abraham.”
— Genesis 22:1

The word here has the sense of testing Abraham.

God was not tempting Abraham to sin.

And Genesis tells the reader from the beginning that this is a test.

As far as the story tells us, Abraham did not know that.

That distinction matters.

God wasn't hoping Abraham would kill Isaac and then suddenly changing His mind.

Isaac's death was never the purpose of the test.

But that still leaves us asking:

Why would God use such a terrible test?

THIS WAS A WORLD WHERE CHILD SACRIFICE WAS REAL

Abraham lived in an ancient world very different from ours.

Human sacrifice—and particularly the sacrifice of children—was not an unimaginable religious idea.

That makes what happens in Genesis 22 especially important.

When God later gave Israel His law, He explicitly prohibited the sacrifice of children.

Speaking about the nations surrounding Israel, God said:

“Their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.”
— Deuteronomy 12:31

Israel was specifically told:

Do not worship Me that way.

Jeremiah later described child sacrifice as something God:

“commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind.”
— Jeremiah 19:5

Whatever Genesis 22 means, therefore, the rest of Scripture will not allow us to conclude:

The God of the Bible approves of parents sacrificing their children.

He condemns it.

So what is happening with Abraham?

GOD HAD ALREADY MADE A PROMISE ABOUT ISAAC

This is one of the most important parts of the story.

Isaac wasn't simply Abraham's beloved son.

He was the son through whom God had promised to fulfill His covenant.

God had already said:

“In Isaac shall thy seed be called.”
— Genesis 21:12

Now think about Abraham's problem.

God had said:

Your descendants will come through Isaac.

Then God said:

Offer Isaac.

How could both statements possibly be true?

If Isaac died before having the promised descendants, what would happen to God's promise?

Abraham apparently came to an extraordinary conclusion.

ABRAHAM EXPECTED ISAAC TO COME BACK

Hebrews tells us something about Abraham's thinking that Genesis doesn't explain directly.

Abraham offered Isaac:

“Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead.”
— Hebrews 11:19

That changes the way we understand Abraham's obedience.

Abraham apparently did not conclude:

“God has canceled His promise concerning Isaac.”

He concluded:

“God will keep His promise concerning Isaac even if He has to raise him from the dead.”

Notice something Abraham told his servants before he and Isaac climbed the mountain:

“I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.”
— Genesis 22:5

We will come again.

Abraham expected Isaac to return.

He didn't know how.

But he trusted the promise.

BUT WHY SUCH A TERRIBLE TEST?

We still haven't answered the emotional question.

Why Isaac?

Why something so painful?

Abraham's entire life had been a lesson in trusting God.

God told him to leave his country.

Abraham went.

God promised him descendants when he had no son.

Abraham waited.

Sometimes Abraham trusted.

Sometimes Abraham tried to solve God's problems himself.

Finally Isaac was born.

The impossible promise had become a flesh-and-blood son whom Abraham loved.

Now came perhaps the greatest question of Abraham's life:

Did Abraham trust God—or merely the gifts God gave him?

Could Abraham surrender even Isaac while continuing to believe God's promise about Isaac?

Genesis 22 answers:

Yes.

THEN ABRAHAM RAISED THE KNIFE

This is the moment we shouldn't sanitize.

Isaac was bound.

The wood was arranged.

Abraham took the knife.

Then:

“The angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven... Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him.”
— Genesis 22:11–12

STOP.

Isaac would not die.

Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught in a thicket.

Genesis then uses very important words:

Abraham “offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.”
— Genesis 22:13

Instead of Isaac.

Something else died.

Isaac lived.

GOD PROVIDED THE SACRIFICE

Earlier Isaac had asked the obvious question:

“Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”
— Genesis 22:7

Abraham answered:

“My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.”
— Genesis 22:8

Abraham may not have understood how profoundly those words would eventually be fulfilled.

But he had understood something important:

GOD WILL PROVIDE.

Abraham named the place:

“Jehovah-jireh.”
— Genesis 22:14

The LORD will provide.

IS GENESIS 22 ACTUALLY AGAINST HUMAN SACRIFICE?

Now go back to our original objection.

We began with what appears to be a God demanding the sacrifice of a man's beloved son.

But how does the story actually end?

God does not accept Isaac as a human sacrifice.

God stops Abraham.

God provides another sacrifice.

And later God explicitly forbids His people from sacrificing their children.

That doesn't make the command emotionally easy.

It isn't supposed to.

But Genesis 22 does not end by teaching:

“Give your children to God as sacrifices.”

It ends with:

“God provided the sacrifice instead.”

AND THEN THE STORY GETS BIGGER

If Genesis 22 ended there, it would already be remarkable.

But the Bible continues.

Centuries later another Father would give His beloved Son.

John writes:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son...”
— John 3:16

Paul says:

“He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all...”
— Romans 8:32

Notice the reversal.

Abraham was not finally required to give his son to God.

God gave His Son for Abraham—and for us.

BUT DOESN'T THAT CREATE THE SAME MORAL PROBLEM?

Someone may immediately object:

“Then Christianity is even worse. God didn't let Abraham kill Isaac, but He killed Jesus instead.”

That's another fair question.

But that isn't how the New Testament describes the cross.

Jesus wasn't an unwilling child dragged to an altar.

He said:

“I lay down my life... No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself.”
— John 10:17–18

Jesus willingly gave Himself.

And Christian teaching goes deeper still.

Jesus isn't simply somebody else's child whom God selected to suffer.

John begins his Gospel by telling us:

“The Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
— John 1:1

And then:

“The Word was made flesh.”
— John 1:14

At the cross, God isn't standing safely at a distance while demanding suffering from someone else.

God enters our suffering Himself.

THE BIBLE DOESN'T PRETEND DEATH ISN'T TERRIBLE

This may be where our modern objection sometimes starts in the wrong place.

We assume that if Christianity believes God is loving, the Bible should make suffering and death seem less terrible.

It doesn't.

Death is called an enemy.

“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”
— 1 Corinthians 15:26

Jesus Himself wept at Lazarus' tomb.

Christianity doesn't solve the problem of suffering by saying:

“Death isn't really so bad.”

It says death is so serious that God acted to defeat it.

SO WHAT DOES GENESIS 22 SHOW US?

It shows us a father facing an unimaginable test.

It shows us Abraham trusting God's promise even when he could not understand God's command.

It shows us God stopping the sacrifice of Isaac.

It shows us a substitute dying instead of the son.

It shows us God providing what was needed.

And when we read forward through Scripture, it points toward something Abraham could hardly have understood:

The God who did not ultimately require Abraham's beloved son would one day give His own beloved Son.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO PRETEND THE STORY IS EASY

Perhaps Genesis 22 still troubles you.

That's all right.

Don't pretend it doesn't.

Ask the difficult questions.

But also don't stop reading at verse 2.

Read the whole chapter.

Then read the rest of the Bible.

The God who says:

“Offer your son”

is also the God who says:

“Stop.”

The God who condemns human sacrifice.

The God who provides the substitute.

And ultimately—

the God who bears the cost Himself.

Before deciding that Genesis 22 proves the God of the Bible is cruel, perhaps we should allow Genesis 22 to finish telling us what kind of God He is.

TEXT B4 TRADITION

Read First. Conclude Later.

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