Months ago my small group from church and I had a discussion about the whole Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son, Isaac situation. Every one of us in the small group were parents of children. I was actually surprised to learn that they had just as much doubt and hesitation about those orders from God that I had. I had always assumed that the “stronger” christians, or more-christian-than-I, were a lot more unwavering about things in the bible. This is not to say that this was on them, in fact this was more on me, for assuming that others, who were more presumably well-versed in the Bible than I was, had similar doubts and hesitations than myself. It was actually an eye opener that maybe I’m not as alone in my doubts and crisis of faith as I thought.

Either way, we had concluded in small group that none of us would want to harm our child, as a parent it goes against every instinct we have. A lot of us had somewhat concluded that if asked, we would not be able to do what Abraham would have done. We would not be able to sacrifice our child, let alone if it were our only son. However, in the spirit of discussion, we also realized that Abraham had a direct command from God himself, that he had seen God, spoken with God, and was asked to do this. There was no “subject to interpretation”, there was no proxy of the command (Jesus, angels, burning bush, profits, priests, etc.), there was only the direct command from God himself. There was also the possibility of 2 way communication, Abraham could ask God questions, communicate back and forth with him, argue with him? Either way, we all reluctantly agreed that given those specific set of circumstances, ie a direct command from God himself, we may have considered sacrificing our child. With great hesitation and reluctance but we may have actually gone through with it.

The other day my family and I watched the movie “His only son” and it was basically a movie about those events, with Abraham and Sarah and Isaac, etc. I always liked that after Abraham had communicated with God, that he was left visibly shaken, and even physically affected. Like it had taken a lot out of him to do so, that it had taken a toll on his body or strength. And in one scene he even appeared to have what looked like sun burns or whatnot on his skin. I always thought that communicating directly with a being of such immense power would have its costs, that it’s not so easily done. Which is maybe why God tended to use proxies to relay his commands (Jesus, angels, burning bush, profits, priests, etc.) , maybe that was safest for us humans. This was even kind of reinforced in that movie Dogma, although it was purely ficticious and meant to be a little tongue-in-cheek and such, an angel did mention that when God spoke, the mortal’s mind couldn’t handle it and they’d die. They jokingly said they lost a few Adam’s that way. It did make me think that maybe I’m not the only one who had the idea that communicating directly with God himself did have a cost, some cost. And Abraham in that particular movie did seem to have been affected. But I digress.

Anyways, when Abraham spoke with God, ok more like God spoke to Abraham, and God asked him to sacrifice his only son Isaac, Abraham was shaken of course, but I was kind of surprised that Abraham didn’t argue with him. Maybe it’s folly to think you can argue with God, maybe in the presence of that much raw power you also realize the futility of it or just how not-possible the prospect of arguing with him really is, but still… I felt like if I were in the position I would have at least tried to put up a token argument. I thought I’d at least ask for, or humbly request, a reason why. He doesn’t have to give it to me, but maybe he would if I asked. If I managed to ask why, I may also be able to ask him about his covenant to provide me with descendants to inhabit the land he had given me. A covenant, an unbreakable promise, that stated I would have descendants of my own blood line. By sacrificing Isaac, my only son, I’d be in jeapordy of not being able to have those descendants to inhabit the land. Maybe I’d be able to bring this up to God, ask him if he intended to still fulfill his covenant that my descendants populate the land, and if so, how could that be possible if I sacrificed my only son Isaac? I would also have used the argument that sacrificing my child, a human being, could count as murder and that breaks the 1st commandment of ‘though shalt not kill’ but in Abraham’s time the 10 commandments didn’t exist. So that wouldn’t happen, only if God asked somebody today to do the same thing. Either way, if I’m questioning or arguing, with God directly I”d have to hope I don’t get smited for the trouble.

I mean, he’s a good God, by very definition God and everything he does is good, but he’s been shown to be vengeful in the old testament. I’d have to do it as respectfully and as I possibly could and accept anything he’d be willing or not willing to tell me. Either way, the point is moot, because Abraham in the movie did not argue with God, did not question it, he just looked very distraught and upset and accepted it. This kind of flew in the face of the discussion my small group and I had about the situation, where we thought we’d at least be able to have a 2 way conversation with God about it. It was more of God telling Abraham and Abraham just accepting it. But maybe that’s the way it has to be, way it was meant to be.

Ok, so Abraham accepts the direct command from God himself, and as you all may be aware of, they travel to where they need to go to do the sacrifice, Abraham goes up the mountain, creates the altar, and in the movie Abraham then admits to Isaac that he, Isaac, is to be the sacrifice, by God’s command. Admittedly I’m not completely read up on the bible and my memory isn’t the best either, but I did always wonder if Isaac knew he was to be the sacrifice at the final moments, or if Abraham was able to downplay and avoid it and Isaac wouldn’t be aware of it right up until he got stabbed by his dad. Ignorance is bliss? But in the movie, minutes before “the act”, Abraham did admit to Isaac about it and Isaac was upset about it, naturally, but even Isaac eventually accepted that if it was a command from God, then they must go through with it, and Isaac held out his hands so that his father could bind them up with rope, and Isaac climbed up onto the altar. I mean, talk about trust… Then at the very last second God stops Abraham with a command. But in the movie, only Abraham could hear God’s voice and command to stop. Isaac was completely obvlivious to the conversation God was having with his dad. That was a little frustrating, I mean, if I were about to be killed and I was going on pure faith in order to allow this to happen, and then suddenly the person about to kill me stops and says that he heard a voice from God telling him not to do it… I mean, wow. Talk about emotional roller coaster. While probably not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, it still would have been nice if Isaac could have heard those words from God as well Abraham. Either way, life goes on, a ram had got caught in some bushes and that ram was sacrificed, etc. Which does make me wonder if that ram was directly remote controlled by God in order to run into the bush and get stuck, or if God needed there to be a ram stuck in a bush nearby and nature/life/all-that-is-circumstance found a way to make it happen. But I digress.

Lastly, it occured to me that what if it was all a test. I mean, of course it was a test, but what if it was a different kind of test. What if God wanted to see how far man would go for him, if given a direct commandment, would man go against his own nature, for a parent to harm their only child? Or if a human would go against their own self-preservation instinct (Isaac’s) in allowing himself to be killed, simply because he was told it was what God commanded? I mean, Isaac didn’t even have direct proof or a direct command, etc. just the trust in his father and the trust of God instilled in him by his father. And lastly, would a human allow a convenant, an unbreakable promise, to be broken, without question if asked to? Surely he’d at least argue about the covenenant, or at least bring it up, if asked to do something that could potentially break it, right? But he didn’t. If this were the case, if this were a different kind of test from the lord God, a test to determine just how obediant a human would be given direct orders from him, maybe Abraham didn’t actually pass the test.

It occurs to me that God doesn’t want obedient little soldiers who will do things no questions asked, he already has that in the form of angels. He put mankind here and gave us free will, the one thing he promised he’d never do is take away our free will. We have the freedom to make our own decisions, to listen to him or not to listen to him, to love and follow him, or not. He wants us to love and follow him, of our own choice. Because we choose to love and follow him. So maybe God wanted to test how much of that “free will” exists when he directly orders somebody to do something. And while it seemed like Abraham had free will, he didn’t argue with God, he didn’t even hesitate, he just dragged his son, and a couple of servants, on a several day journey to a mountain, brought his son to the top of the mountain, and was about to do the deed, no questions asked. And of course, God stopped him. But maybe God learned that he really can’t, or shouldn’t, ask man to do things so directly, that it would potentially violate that man’s free will. Something God does not want to do.

It’s all hearsay and conjecture, it’s all just speculative; whatever God’s motives were is irrelevant, it’s beyond the scope of man to comprehend and all that. And I don’t mean to be blasphemous or disrespectful to God in any way. He is God, we are man. He is the creator, we are the created. He is all powerful and incorruptable, we are weak and easily corrupted. It is not ours to question him, but maybe he wants us to? Abraham, and even Isaac, may have shown him that man was not yet ready to hear commands from him directly, not if he still intended for us to keep our ability to choose.

Also, I know that the “His only son” was only a movie, created by man, based on man’s interpretation of the events as laid forth in the Bible. I know that it’s not reality, that while it “might” have happened that way or in a very similar way, it most likely did not happen exactly that way. I know that basing some of my random christian musings about why so and so didn’t do so and so, or say so and so, etc. is not completely fair. Because so and so may actually have done or said something different. But it’s still food for thought. I look at it this way, God wouldn’t have given me free will and a thinking mind, a questioning mind, if he didn’t want me to think or question things, even things in the Bible. I’m not a blind follower of God, I choose to follow him, of my own free will and with a thinking and questioning mind, and I think that makes the fact that I follow him that much better.

Filed under: Religious - @ 2023-07-13 3:32 pm

Tags: Abraham, God, Isaac