The Promised Lamb...

Gen. 17

...In you all the families of the earth will be blessed.

God gave Abraham a promise with the final component being the in him - Abraham - all the families of the earth will be blessed. God had promised old, childless Abraham an heir. A son.  Through that line, another Son would be born...One who would bless the entire world.


The promised child was finally born. Isaac.
Not too long after - now I'm not sure how old Isaac was, but since time flies as a parent anyways, I'm sure to Abraham it seemed only moments after the Promised Child was born - God asked Abraham to give Isaac back to Him as a burn offering.


My heart would break.
I would kick and scream. I would be totally confused and question God a million times - Are you sure, sure, suuuure this is what you want me to do?!?


Isaac asked aren't we forgetting something? where is the sacrifice?




God will provide for Himself a lamb, my son. 




Abraham obeyed, though - and so believed that promise of God to make him a great nation that he put his soul at rest by believing that God would just have to raise Isaac from the dead.  He was that certain of God's promise.

Isaac is a beautiful foreshadowing of Jesus in how he willingly laid himself on the altar.  He submitted to his father's command and didn't run when he totally could have.
Right when Abraham was about to low the knife to the body of his son - the son he waited 25 years for - the angel of the Lord decreed for him to STOP.

There, caught in the thicket, was the sacrifice. A ram.
A ram?
Hadn't Abraham said that God would provide a lamb?

The lamb would come at another time.
He, too, would be someone's precious baby.  A long waited for child.  And He would willingly lay Himself on the wood in submission to His Father's plan.
But no one would stop this lamb from being slain.

No, this lamb would be beated, bruised, whipped, and finally butchered to death.
His death would bring us life.
His sacrifice would atone for our sins.

This lamb...is Jesus.