Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Ram and the Redeemer: Substitutionary Atonement on Mount Moriah (Genesis 22:9–14)

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The Ram and the Redeemer: Substitutionary Atonement on Mount Moriah (Genesis 22:9–14) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to reform thinking. Hello and welcome back to the
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  show. It is Sunday, February 1st,
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  2026, and I have to say I'm really looking forward to this
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  one. We have a well, a whole stack of
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  commentaries and sermons and some historical analysis in
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  front of us. The.
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  Big stack. It is a big stack.
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  And honestly, the text we're digging into today is one of
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  those sections of scripture that you know, everyone thinks they
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  know. You see it on flannel boards in
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  Sunday school, right? You hear it referenced all the
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  time. But when you actually stop and,
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  and just look at it, I mean really look at it, it's it's
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  terrifying. We're looking at Genesis chapter
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  22 verses 9 through 14. It is.
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  Good to be here. And you're so right about that.
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  The familiarity, it breeds a kind of, I wouldn't say
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  contempt, but maybe a false comfort.
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  A false comfort, yeah. We tend to file it away as a
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  nice story about a man who had great faith.
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  But when you really open up the text, you know, and you strip
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  away all the children's Bible illustrations, right, you
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  realize this isn't just a story. This is, well, I'd argue it's
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  the supreme crisis of Old Testament redemptive history.
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  Supreme crisis. OK, that's a big claim.
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  You're saying this is what the high watermark of tension for
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  the entire Old Testament? I am.
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  I really think. So just think about it for a
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  second. Everything God has been building
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  since Genesis 12, I mean, calling a people for himself,
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  making this incredible covenant, promising a future, all of it,
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  every single thread, it all gets brought to the very lip of the
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  abyss in these few verses. The lip of the Abyss.
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  OK, let's set that stage then, because we're talking about the
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  Binding of Isaac. But before we get to the ropes
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  and the wood, we need to understand the problem.
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  And I want to. I want to play the skeptic for a
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  minute. Here please do.
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  Because when I read this I don't just see a hard test, I mean I
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  see what looks like a flat out contradiction it.
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  Feels like 1, doesn't it? It really does.
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  It feels like a massive logical error on God's part.
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  I mean, God spends chapters 12 through 21 promising Abraham
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  over and over and over again. Isaac is the one, not Ishmael.
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  Isaac through Isaac, your offspring shall be named.
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  So the entire promise, the whole project, is completely dependent
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  on this one specific kid simply staying alive.
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  The whole thing hinges on him. And now in chapter 22 verse 2,
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  God says go sacrifice him. I mean, if I'm Abraham, I'm not
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  just sad. I'm profoundly confused.
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  I'm thinking, God, have you, have you lost your mind?
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  You're breaking your own contract.
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  Yeah, and you've just hit on the actual, the real tension of the
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  text. Most people, they think the test
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  is does Abraham love God more than Isaac?
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  Which is part of. It for sure part of it, yes,
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  that's the emotional test. But the intellectual test, the
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  theological test is so much harder.
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  The test is, is God a liar? Wow.
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  That is the stake. Is God a liar?
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  That's it. Because human logic are natural
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  fallen reason. It says Premise A Isaac must
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  live for the promise to be fulfilled, right?
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  Premise B God is commanding Isaac's death.
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  Conclusion God has contradicted himself.
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  He's broken his own word. So how does Abraham square that
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  circle? Does he just turn off his brain?
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  We hear people talk about blind faith all the time.
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  Is that what this is? Is Abraham just blindly
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  following orders like some kind of robot?
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  No. And this is where, you know, our
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  tradition, Reformed tradition. And specifically looking at how
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  the Westminster Confession frames faith is so helpful.
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  Faith is not about shutting off your brain.
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  It's about submitting your brain to a higher logic.
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  And the writer of Hebrews thankfully gives us a little
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  glimpse into Abraham's diary, so to speak.
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  Hebrews 11. It tells us that Abraham
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  reasoned, or he considered that God was able to raise Isaac from
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  the dead. OK, so he did have a solution in
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  his mind, he wasn't just walking into a dark room with no idea
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  what would happen. He had a theological solution.
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  He didn't think God is a liar. He thought God is faithful.
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  Therefore, therefore, if I kill Isaac, and God has already
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  promised that Isaac is the heir, then God must he absolutely must
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  be planning to bring him back to life.
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  He believed in resurrection. He believed in resurrection
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  before there was ever a resurrection to point to.
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  As an example. He trusted the character of the
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  Lawgiver more than his own understanding of the command.
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  That is a massive shift in perspective.
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  I mean, that takes the camera completely off of Abraham's
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  willpower, and it puts it squarely on God's character.
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  Exactly. The question isn't how strong is
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  Abraham, it's how faithful is the Lord.
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  OK, now before we even look at the knife or the boy, I want to
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  pause the camera on the ground itself.
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  The text says God told Abraham to go to the land of Moriah.
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  Now to the modern year. That just sounds like, you know,
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  some place in the Middle East. It's a random hill.
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  Yeah. Does it matter where this is
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  happening or is it just a convenient location?
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  Oh, in biblical narrative, geography is almost never
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  random. It's almost always theology.
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  You have to realize Abraham travels for three days to get
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  here. It's roughly a 45 mile hike. 45
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  miles. It's a long.
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  Walk. It's a long, silent, agonizing
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  walk. If God just wanted to sacrifice,
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  Abraham could have built an altar in his backyard in
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  Beersheba. But God says no.
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  You go to the place that I will show you.
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  So the location itself is part of the command.
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  It is, it's central to it. And here's where the light
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  should really turn on for the listener.
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  If you Fast forward about 1000 years in your Bible, you land in
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  two Chronicles, 3 verse one. OK, and we find out exactly what
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  this mountain range is. It is the site where Solomon
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  builds the temple. Wait, the temple?
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  You mean like the Holy of Holies, the priesthood, the
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  place of daily sacrifices for the atonement of sin?
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  The very same bedrock, the same piece of real estate.
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  Think about the continuity there, the very first time in
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  Scripture that the concept of substitutionary sacrifice, one
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  life given for another, is graphically enacted.
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  It happens on the exact same dirt where Israel would offer
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  animal sacrifices for centuries. That is.
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  That's wild. It's like the stage was being
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  set a Millennium in advance. It's even deeper than that.
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  This is very likely the same Ridge system, the same general
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  elevation as Calvary. So when we're reading Genesis
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  22, we aren't just looking at a dad and a kid on a hike.
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  We're standing at Ground Zero of the atonement.
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  The geography itself is preaching the gospel.
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  I mean for you listening, you need to realize you are standing
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  on the bedrock of atonement before the temple is ever even
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  built. That that sets the stage.
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  Perfect. OK, so let's move into the
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  narrative itself. We're looking at verses 9 and 10
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  and looking at the sources. They all point out something
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  really interesting about the pacing.
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  Up until now, the story has moved pretty quickly.
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  You know, he rose early, he settled the donkey, they went,
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  it's clip, clip, clip. But when they get to the top of
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  that hill, everything just slows down.
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  It does. It shifts into what 1
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  commentator called slow motion obedience.
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  The Holy Spirit speaking through Moses, just refuses to let us
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  rush past this moment. It's like the camera zooms in
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  to, you know, microscope levels. I have the list of verbs here
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  from the text. He built the altar, he arranged
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  the wood, he bound Isaac, he laid him on the wood.
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  It's just, it's one deliberate action after another.
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  Why do we need to know every single one of these moves?
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  Because these verbs show us that faith is not some theoretical
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  notion that's just floating around in the mind, It is
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  submission in the limbs. Submission in the limbs.
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  I like that. Abraham is just thinking good
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  thoughts about God. He is doing the hard, physical,
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  agonizing work of obeying God. I mean, think about the sensory
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  details here. The clink of the rocks being
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  piled up, the scratchy sound of the wood being arranged, the
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  heavy breathing of an old man doing hard labor.
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  This is it's excruciatingly deliberate.
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  And there's one word in there that just leaps off the page.
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  Bound. He bound his son.
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  The Hebrew word is aquad. And here's a little trivia
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  nugget for you to impress your friends at your next Bible
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  study. OK, I'm ready.
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  This word is a hapax legomenon A.
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  Hapax bless you. A hapax legomenon.
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  It's a Greek term that scholars use.
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  It just means a word that appears exactly one time in an
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  entire body of text. So in the whole Old Testament,
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  the specific verb for binding aquad is used here and nowhere
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  else. Why does that matter though?
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  I mean, surely there are other Hebrew words for tying someone
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  out? Oh, plenty.
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  You could bind A prisoner. You could bind a sheaf of wheat.
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  There are common words for that. But the Holy Spirit chooses a
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  unique word for a unique event. This isn't a kidnapping.
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  This isn't a police arrest. This is a a ritual binding, a
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  sacred act. It feels so deliberate, like you
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  said, it's like a highlighter being drawn over that word.
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  It's. Incredibly deliberate.
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  And then you have to ask who's being bound?
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  This brings up the whole question of Isaac's age.
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  We usually see those paintings, right?
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  Yeah, a scary old man with a long beard and a knife, and he's
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  looming over a terrified 5 year old.
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  Right, the toddler on the altar. That's the classic Sunday
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  school. Picture the picture we all have
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  in our heads. But the text doesn't support
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  that at all. Isaac carried the wood up the
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  mountain. Now that's enough wood to
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  completely consume a human body in a burnt offering That is a
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  heavy, heavy load. Most scholars estimate Isaac
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  could be anywhere from his late teens to, well, maybe even 30
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  years old. He's a young man in his prime.
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  Abraham is over 100. OK, so let's just play that out
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  physically for a second. If a 20 year old guy decides he
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  doesn't want to get tied up by a centenarian.
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  He's not getting tied. He's not getting tied up.
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  Yeah, he could have pushed the old man down the hill and run
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  back to the service at the bottom.
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  Yeah, the fact that he is bound implies very strongly that he
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  held out his hands to. Surrender.
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  He voluntarily laid down on the altar.
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  He did. So when we talk about the
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  Binding of Isaac, we aren't just talking about a father
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  overpowering his son. We were talking about a son who
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  trusts his father so completely that he is willing to die for
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  him. And if that doesn't sound like
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  the gospel to you, I don't know what will.
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  Wow. Yeah, he's completely reframes
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  the whole scene. It's not a tragedy, it's an act
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  of worship. And the sources, they ask a
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  really hard question about worship here, and it's this is
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  God worthy of obedience, even when that obedience threatens
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  the very gifts he gave you? That is the ultimate test, isn't
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  it? For all of us.
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  We love the gifts. We love our Isaacs, our careers,
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  our kids, our stability, our ministry.
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  But the text confronts what we could call the idol of control.
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  The idol of control. Yeah, Abraham refuses to protect
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  his future at the cost of disobeying God.
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  He is saying with his actions, God, you are the giver and you
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  are worth more than the gift. That brings us right to segment
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  3, the brink of death. We're in verse 10 that Abraham
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  stretched out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.
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  This is it. This is the edge the narrative
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  brings the reader. It brings all of us to the
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  absolute brink. And notice the silence.
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  Yeah, there's no more dialogue. There's no bargaining, there's
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  no God. Are you sure?
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  There are no philosophical lectures, just action.
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  And the knife, I mean, it is such a violent, visceral image.
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  What does it represent in this theological trauma?
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  The knife represents the unyielding, inflexible demand of
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  God's holiness and the law. A law demands death for sin.
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  It's non negotiable. The soul that sins shall die in
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  this moment, that curse, that sentence of death, It hangs
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  right over Isaac. The knife is a visual
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  representation that the covenant cannot be established on natural
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  affection or human merit. It requires blood.
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  And this is the place where you could say half obedience dies.
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  You can't fake this right? You can't pretend your way
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  through this moment. No, this is the absolute
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  rejection of superficial religion.
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  You know, we so often say we'll obey God, but we always keep a
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  backup plan in our pocket, Don't we always?
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  An exit strategy. We keep the knife in our pocket
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  or we just don't pick it up at all.
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  Abraham cannot rescue himself here.
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  He has gone past the point of no return.
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  There is no Plan B. It really clarifies who God is
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  in this relationship and I love the line from one of the sources
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  that said God is not a consultant.
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  That's such a vital distinction, isn't it?
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  A consultant gives you advice, maybe some options that you can
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  take or leave based on whether it fits your business plan.
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  Right, you pay them for their opinion.
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  But the Lord is sovereign. The text completely dismantles
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  the idea that we only obey when we can see a guarantee of
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  safety. Abraham is obeying with no
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  visible guarantee of Isaac's survival other than his deep
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  seated belief in the power and goodness of God to resurrect.
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  He's submitting to the Sovereign Lord, not asking for a
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  consultation. So the knife is in the air, the
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  tension is at its absolute peak, and then heaven interrupts.
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  We're in verses 11 and 12. But the Angel of the Lord called
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  to him from heaven. And the timing, it's just
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  everything. God is never late.
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  He's never early. He brings the test to the
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  precise razor's edge so that the mercy will be unmistakably,
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  undeniably God's mercy. And who is this Angel?
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  The sources are pretty clear that this is likely a
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  Christophany. Yes, within Reformed theology,
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  whenever we see the Angel of the Lord and he speaks as God and
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  receives worship and uses the divine name, we identify this as
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  a pre Incarnate appearance of the Son, the second person of
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  the Trinity. Wait, hold on.
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  So Jesus stops Abraham from killing Isaac.
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  That is the beautiful and profound implication.
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  The irony is just stunning when you think about it.
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  The Son of God intervenes to stop the sacrifice of the son of
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  Abraham and the. Urgency in the voice.
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  Abraham. Abraham.
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  That double call, it's like a siren.
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  It stops the action instantly. And then comes the clear,
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  unmistakable prohibition. Do not lay your hand on the boy
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  or do anything to him. And this is a huge guardrail.
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  I really want to be clear about this because this is where
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  people get really confused and frankly disturbed by this text.
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  Does this text in any way support child sacrifice?
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  Absolutely not. It is the exact opposite.
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  This text explicitly forbids child sacrifice.
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  It draws a bright, thick, uncrossable line in the sand
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  between Yahweh and the demonic idols of the surrounding
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  nations, like Molech who actually demanded the burning of
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  human flesh. So God is setting himself apart.
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  He's saying in the clearest possible terms, I am not like
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  them. The divine restraint here shows
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  that God's holiness is not some savage, bloodthirsty
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  superstition. It is the holy freedom that
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  judges sin, but absolutely delights to show mercy.
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  OK, now we have to tackle a really tricky phrase because the
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  Angel says, for now I know that you fear God.
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  Now hold on. God knows everything.
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  He is omniscient. He's God.
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  Does he learn new information? Did he genuinely not know what
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  Abraham would do before we picked up the knife?
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  This is a classic theological hurdle, and we have to be very,
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  very clear here. Does God learn?
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  The answer is an emphatic no. The Westminster Confession is
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  crystal clear. God's knowledge is infinite,
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  infallible and independent. He doesn't depend on watching us
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  to learn things. We have to completely reject
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  what's called open theism, which is the heretical idea that God
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  discovers the future as it happens along with us.
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  So what does now I know mean if he already knew?
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  It means now it is manifest, now it is publicly proven.
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  Think of it like a chemistry teacher who's giving a final
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  exam. The teacher already knows.
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  The student knows the material. He's worked with him all
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  semester. He's seen the work.
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  But the exam demonstrates it. It puts it on paper.
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  It makes it an objective fact. The test wasn't for God to
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  gather information that he lacked.
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  The test was for demonstration. It brought Abraham's private
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  internal faith from the realm of theory into the realm of public,
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  external, historical fact. That makes so much more sense.
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  Yeah. It isn't God saying, oh wow, I
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  didn't see that coming. Is God saying now it is shown
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  for all to see? Precisely.
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  And what was shown? What was the subject of the
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  test? The fear of God.
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  Now define that for us, because fear can sound like I should be
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  hiding under the bed, terrified. And it's not that it's not
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  slavish panic. It isn't running away from God
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  in terror. It is a reverent awe that runs
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  to God, acknowledging him as supreme, as worthy of
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  everything. It's the posture of the heart
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  that holds every single treasure, even the most precious
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  ones, with an open hand. And the evidence of that fear
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  was that he didn't withhold his son.
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  You have not withheld your son, your only son.
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  The text keeps emphasizing the affection, the cost.
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  True fear of God means you love God more than the gift.
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  It's an X-ray, really. It exposes the anatomy of
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  idolatry. If there's something you will
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  not give up for God, that thing is your idol.
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  And there is a massive New Testament echo right there.
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  Your only son? Romans 8.32 He who did not spare
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  his own son, but gave him up for us all.
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  The Hebrew word here, yachid, which means only our beloved
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  son, is the cord that connects these two mountain peaks.
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  Abraham was willing to not spare his son, but God the Father
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  actually did not spare his own son.
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  Man that that just hits hard. So Abraham puts the knife down.
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  He passes the test, but the fundamental problem remains
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  right. There is still an altar, there's
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  still arranged wood. There is still a need for a
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  sacrifice. That is the crucial point.
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  Worship isn't cancelled. The holiness of God still
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  demands an offering. The bill, so to speak, hasn't
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  been paid yet. And that leads us directly to
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  segment 5, the Ram verse 13. And Abraham lifted up his eyes
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  and looked. The sight he looks up and behold
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  behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his horns.
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  Now just stop and think about the Providence of God here.
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  The RAM was already there, it wasn't an afterthought.
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  It was already there. It didn't poof into existence
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  like some magic trick. While Abraham was climbing that
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  mountain in agony for three days, God was guiding that ram
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  up the other side. While Abraham was building the
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  altar and arranging the wood, the thicket was binding the ram.
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  This is what we call provenient grace.
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  God prepared the solution before Abraham even fully understood
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  the problem. I love the detail about the
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  thicket, it's so mundane. I mean, even the bushes are
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  working for God. Even the tangled shrubbery is an
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  instrument of God. It shows us that Providence
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  rules over the small things, the seemingly random things.
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  It's not just the big miraculous voice from heaven, it's also the
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  animal that gets caught in the brush at just the right moment.
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  And then Abraham takes the ram, Yeah.
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  And he offers it up. And the text gives us this
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  critical phrase. He offered it instead of his
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  son. That phrase, instead of I mean
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  that is the theological center of the entire gospel.
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  It is the grammar of sacrifice. One life is given so that
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  another can be spared. This is substitution.
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  And specifically, it's penal substitution.
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  The ram absorbs the specific judgment, the knife, the
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  burning, the death that was intended for Isaac, and Isaac
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  goes free. And why does he go free?
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  Not because his dad was a really good guy, but because a death
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  occurred in his place. And the lesson here seems to be
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  that God preserves his promise, the promise that Isaac would
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  live and have descendants, not by ignoring the demand for
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  death, but by providing A victim himself.
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  Yes, that's it. He upholds his perfect holiness.
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  Sin must be punished, and he upholds his gracious promise.
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  Isaac must live simultaneously. Through his own provision, he
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  solves the dilemma he created. And notice what Abraham did.
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  The text says he took the ram. He didn't argue.
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  He didn't say no. Thanks God I'll find something
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  better. Or hey, let me just pay you some
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  cash instead. That is the difference between
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  active and passive obedience when it comes to receiving
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  grace. He passively received the
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  provision. He didn't insist on his own
• 19:14
  solution. He didn't try to be the hero who
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  saves himself. He let God be the provider.
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  And that leads perfectly to the name of the place Abraham names
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  it, verse 14, Jehovah Jireh, or more accurately, Yahweh Yura.
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  The Lord will provide, but literally in the Hebrew the root
• 19:28
  of that word yura. It means the Lord will see.
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  The Lord will see. That's interesting.
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  How do we get from C to provide? In the Hebrew mindset, for God
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  to see a need is for him to address it.
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  His seeing is not a passive observation.
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  To see is to a point in the remedy.
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  He doesn't just spectate our problems, He sees to it.
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  You know, like when we say don't worry, I'll see to it, it means
• 19:51
  I'll take care of it. So naming the place isn't just
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  sentimental like putting up a little plaque, it is an act of
• 19:57
  theological interpretation. It is theology turned into
• 20:01
  memory. He is anchoring this entire
• 20:03
  event in a single, powerful confession.
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  The future rests in the Lord who sees.
• 20:10
  It's a complete rejection of the anxiety that tells us we have to
• 20:13
  control every outcome. And then it becomes a proverb on
• 20:17
  the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.
• 20:18
  And this is so important. Notice the future tense.
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  It's forward-looking. This proverb creates an
• 20:23
  expectation. It is prophetic theology.
• 20:26
  The faithful reader of the Old Testament for the next 1000
• 20:28
  years looks at this and says, OK, God provided a ram here.
• 20:32
  That's amazing. But the proverb says it shall be
• 20:35
  provided. What is the ultimate provision
• 20:37
  that this is pointing to? It sets us on a trajectory.
• 20:39
  We're now looking for something bigger than a ram caught in the
• 20:42
  Bush. We are looking for a definitive
• 20:44
  final sacrifice that will answer the problem raised here once and
• 20:47
  for all. Now, before we get to that
• 20:49
  definitive sacrifice, I want to synthesize something really
• 20:51
  quick. We talk a lot about
• 20:53
  justification and sanctification and Reformed theology.
• 20:57
  How does this story fit? Because, you know, James chapter
• 21:00
  2 says Abraham was justified by works when he offered Isaac.
• 21:03
  But Paul in Romans 4 says he was justified by faith way back in
• 21:07
  Genesis 15. This is where we need to be
• 21:09
  really precise with our terms. Abraham was justified, meaning
• 21:13
  he was declared righteous before God in Genesis 15 verse six
• 21:17
  years and years before this event, and it was simply by
• 21:20
  believing the promise that is the root of his salvation.
• 21:23
  OK. So that's justification.
• 21:24
  Genesis 22. This event on Mariah is the
• 21:27
  fruit of that faith. When James says he was justified
• 21:30
  by works, he's using the word justified in a sense of
• 21:32
  vindicated or shown to be genuine.
• 21:35
  His actions on the mountain prove that the faith he
• 21:37
  professed in Genesis 15 was real.
• 21:39
  So guardrail #2 here is a soteriological one.
• 21:43
  In other words, Abraham did not earn his salvation by being
• 21:46
  willing to kill his son. Absolutely not, and that's
• 21:48
  critical. The emphasis of the whole story
• 21:51
  is on God's provision, not Abraham's heroism.
• 21:54
  If Abraham had earned his righteousness through this act,
• 21:57
  he wouldn't have needed a ram. The very presence of the
• 21:59
  substitute proves that Abraham was still a Sinner who needed
• 22:03
  grace. OK, so let's make that final
• 22:05
  leap. Let's go from the shadow to the
• 22:07
  substance. Segment 7, the Gospel
• 22:09
  fulfillment. We have the pattern, the type.
• 22:12
  And the pattern is just crystal clear, isn't it?
• 22:14
  A father, a beloved son, The wood for the sacrifice carried
• 22:18
  by the son, a journey to a mountain and willing submission.
• 22:21
  It's all there. But then there's the contrast,
• 22:24
  the anti type where the pattern breaks.
• 22:27
  And this is the heart of the gospel on Moriah.
• 22:29
  The knife has stayed. The Angel cries out.
• 22:31
  Stop at Calvary. The knife falls.
• 22:33
  That's the sentence from the commentaries.
• 22:34
  It always gets me. God spared Abraham's son.
• 22:37
  He did not spare his own son. That is the great switch.
• 22:40
  The substitute is no longer a ram caught in a thicket.
• 22:43
  The substitute is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of
• 22:46
  the world. In Genesis, the animal dies so
• 22:49
  that the Son of promise can live.
• 22:51
  In the Gospel, the Son of God dies so that we, the enemies of
• 22:54
  God, can become sons and daughters and live forever.
• 22:57
  It resolves the tension completely.
• 22:59
  Isaac lives because a substitute dies.
• 23:02
  Believers lives because the ultimate son dies in our place.
• 23:05
  It is the final, complete fulfillment of the name Jehovah
• 23:09
  Jarrah on the Mount of the Lord Calvary.
• 23:11
  It was provided once and for all.
• 23:13
  So what does this all mean for us sitting here today?
• 23:16
  Let's apply this head, heart and hands.
• 23:18
  Let's start with the head, the doctrine.
• 23:20
  I think the first doctrine that jumps out is exclusivity.
• 23:23
  There was only 1 RAM as it couldn't be saved by a goat he
• 23:26
  found later, or by his own good looks, or by his Father's
• 23:29
  morality. There is no salvation without a
• 23:31
  divinely appointed substitute. Which means we have to reject
• 23:34
  pluralism. We have to This text shows that
• 23:37
  God provides the way, not a way. There is only one name given
• 23:40
  under heaven by which we must be saved.
• 23:42
  And 2nd, the doctrine of Providence.
• 23:45
  Providence, right? We have to believe that God
• 23:47
  sovereignly orders, means, and ends the Westminster Confession,
• 23:51
  Chapter 5. God isn't just watching from a
• 23:53
  distance. He is governing the thickets and
• 23:56
  the tangled messes of our lives. OK, let's move to the heart, our
• 24:01
  affections. This is where it gets personal.
• 24:03
  This is where we have to confront our Isaacs.
• 24:07
  And we all have them. The Isaac in your life is the
• 24:10
  good thing that you love too much, the gift you started to
• 24:13
  worship more than the giver. It might be your career, it
• 24:16
  could be your ministry, could even be your family.
• 24:18
  And the test is a scary one. Would you obey if God touched
• 24:22
  your Isaac? That's the question that sits
• 24:24
  with you after reading this, isn't it?
• 24:25
  If God asked you to let go of the very thing you think is your
• 24:28
  promise, the thing your whole future depends on, would you do
• 24:30
  it? So what's the cure?
• 24:32
  The cure for that kind of idolatry is loving the giver
• 24:35
  more than the gift. It's coming to the deep
• 24:38
  realization that your ultimate security isn't in the Isaac, it
• 24:42
  is in the God who gave you the Isaac in the first place.
• 24:44
  And finally, hands the practice. What do we do with this?
• 24:49
  Well, for the unbeliever who might be listening, this story
• 24:52
  is a direct summons to repentance.
• 24:54
  You are Isaac, you are bound on the altar of God's perfect
• 24:58
  judgement. The knife, the law is raised
• 25:00
  against you. You cannot untie yourself.
• 25:02
  You need to lift up your eyes and look to the Ram.
• 25:05
  Look to Christ, the substitute God has provided.
• 25:08
  And for the believer, for those of us who have looked to the
• 25:11
  round. Act of obedience born out of
• 25:13
  gratitude, what we call the third use of the law.
• 25:16
  Because God has provided the Lamb for us, we now joyfully
• 25:19
  offer ourselves as living sacrifices.
• 25:22
  And practically, it completely changes how we deal with trials.
• 25:26
  When we suffer. When we're in a hard place, we
• 25:28
  shouldn't automatically interpret it as God abandoning
• 25:30
  us. We should learn to interpret it
• 25:32
  as a potential Mariah moment, a place where God is preparing to
• 25:35
  reveal His provision in a new and deeper way we haven't seen
• 25:38
  before. That is such a helpful reframe.
• 25:41
  Suffering isn't necessarily abandonment, it can be the
• 25:44
  preparation for provision. It can be because the Lord will
• 25:47
  see to it. Well, we have covered a lot of
• 25:49
  ground today. I mean from the slow, agonizing
• 25:51
  walk up the mountain to the thicket and all the way to the
• 25:54
  cross. And if we were to summarize it
• 25:56
  all, I think the central lesson is this.
• 25:59
  Salvation from beginning to end is by divine provision alone.
• 26:04
  The knife was raised, the demand of justice was real, but the
• 26:07
  voice of mercy spoke and the ram was given.
• 26:11
  And I want to leave our listeners with this one closing
• 26:13
  thought. In Genesis 22, verse 7, Isaac
• 26:16
  asks his father that heartbreaking question.
• 26:19
  Where is the Lamb for the burnt offering?
• 26:22
  By the end of the chapter, God provides a ram.
• 26:24
  But centuries later, John the Baptist stands on the banks of
• 26:27
  the Jordan, and he answers the question definitively.
• 26:30
  Behold the Lamb of God. So the question for everyone
• 26:33
  listening is no longer where is the lamb?
• 26:35
  The question today, right now, is what will you do with the
• 26:38
  lamb who has been provided? Rest your soul on that
• 26:41
  substitute. Thank you so much for joining us
• 26:43
  on this deep dive. It has been a real privilege.
• 26:45
  We will see you next time on reformed thinking.