Genesis 22 is Messianic Typology

Establish the need: Does Genesis 22 point us towards Christ?

Purpose: We will consider how Genesis 22 anticipates the Messiah is Jesus.

• The threat to the Messianic line teaches us to have faith in God’s promises
• There are messianic typologies
• To appreciate how this chapter is a type pointing to Christ

The threat to the Messianic line teaches us to have faith in God’s promises

Isaac is important for Messianic expectation

1. For Abraham, Issac was everything. Genesis 22:2 shows God saying to Abraham about Issac as “your son, your only son, whom you love, Issac.”
2. In Genesis 21 we see God delivering His promise of a son to be born to Abraham and Sara who was old in Age.
   1. According to Genesis 21:5, Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born!
   2. Isaac was the object of Sarah’s laughter (21:6-7) and celebration (21:8).
3. Yet God commands Abraham to give him up
   1. Abraham was to go to Moriah at a mountain (2)
   2. He was to offer up Isaac as a burnt offering (2)

Abraham obeyed God

1. Abraham arose early instead of procrastinating: “So Abraham got up early in the morning and saddled his donkey” (3a)
2. Abraham took Isaac and two servants with him for the trip to Moriah: “and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac” (3b)=It would have been tempting for Abraham to have these young men who are his servants be the substitute for Isaac, which was something Abraham have done before with Hagar for Sarah; but Abraham now knows better not to do that and take God’s Word literally.
3. Despite having two men, Abraham split the woods himself: “and he split wood for the burnt offering” (3c)
   1. Since, Isaac was old enough to talk, and Isaac was born when Abraham was over a 100 year old, this must have been quite a labor for Abraham since he was old
   2. It must have been hard for him to work and prepare for his son’s death, with each whack of the ax
4. Abraham faithfully travel on a three day’s journey to Moriah (4a)
5. What must have gone through his mind as he raises his eyes to see the place? (4b)
6. Abraham goes alone with him and his son (5)
7. Unusually he said “We will worship and return”, in the first person plural in the Hebrew (5)
8. Abraham placed the wood and laid it on His Son (6)
9. He took in his hand the fire and the knife (6)=This very knife was going to kill his son!
10. Isaac’s word “My father!” (7) Abraham’s response of “My son” (v.7)=We get a glimpse of their love even at this moment
11. Isaac’s agonizing question: “Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” (7)

Abraham displays his faith

1. Abraham said “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering” (8)= But they had no burnt offering that they brought themselves. So either Abraham was either lying or he had true faith in God.
2. It is a display of Abraham’s faith: His faith was one of action when they continued walking together (8)
3. Then we get to four rapid succession of verbs of what Abraham did in verse 9: Arriving to the location, (1) built an altar, (2) arranged the woods, (3) bounded Isaac and (4) laid him on the altar.
4. What is now going to happen? Whatever is going to happen Abraham have faith in God’s promises with the Messianic promise through Isaac.

There are messianic typologies

1. We pause here before going back to Genesis 22 to say that this extraordinary event is a type pointing towards Christ.
2. What are types? “We can define a type as a “prophetic symbol” because all types are representations of something yet future. More specifically, a type in Scripture is a person or thing in the Old Testament that foreshadows a person or thing in the New Testament.”[1]
3. The New Testament teaches that types exists in the Old Testament:
   1. “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the violation committed by Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.” (Romans 5:14)
   2. “it was he to whom it was said, “Through Isaac your descendants shall be named.” 19 He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.” (Hebrews 4:18-19)
      1. This is significant since this passage specifically is talking about Genesis 22 as a type!
      2. This verse also tells us how Abraham believed God will resurrect Isaac!

To appreciate how this chapter is a type pointing to Christ

Actual moment of faith: Abraham raises the knife to kill his son (v.10)

1. It leaves us hanging, but as we pause for what happen our mind races many thoughts: How can God do such a thing? Isn’t this evil what God is demanding? How can God be so harsh to have demanded Abraham to give up his one and only son???? Why did God torture him, does God knows what its like to go through what Abraham must have went through?
2. And the actual answer to the last question is Yes, God knows what it was like for Abraham to go through what he went through if we think about God the Father sending His Son to die for our sins!

Here in verse 11-12 God stopped Abraham from killing His son: “But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am. 12 He said, “Do not reach out your hand against the boy, and do not do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”””

In verse 13 for the second time in this text we see God raises up his eyes. Was he looking down from exhaustion? From seeing his own son still alive? Whatever it was, when he raised his eyes up, he sees and a ram that is offered instead.

The interesting thing is that the offering is for God, yet it was God that provided the offering (v.13)

This leads Abraham to dedicate this mountain as a place where the Lord will provide (v.14)

This area was later to be Jerusalem, and the mountain itself the location of the Temple of God; see 2 Chronicles 3:1.

When we look at the text again, one cannot help but to see the Parallel of this even to Jesus

1. Just as Isaac was valuable to Abraham so is Jesus to the Father (compare 2)
2. Jesus offering His life in Jerusalem (compare 2)
3. Jesus carrying wood to His death (compare 6)
4. “Issac’s agonizing question: Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” (7)= See John 1:29 who the Lamb is!
5. The Father sacrificing His Only Son whom He Love.
6. Unlike with Abraham in the case with God the Father and God the Son, when the knife was in God’s Hands, no one stopped Him, nothing forstalled the upcoming death of Jesus His Son, nothing was holding Him back to save Him for the lethal blows of His father’s knife….yet why DID GOD DO THIS TO HIS ONLY SON??? WHY? Let us READ JOHN 3:16 and never be calloused at those words again: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

CLOSING: So often it is easy for us to see the death of Jesus and say, “Well, God was going to raise him back to life any ways” and we miss the anguish and the agony that the Father must have gone through to show us His love to save us.  May Genesis 22 remind us and may God enable us to appreciate the love that the Father has shown us in the death of HIS SON.

[1] Source: https://www.gotquestions.org/typology-Biblical.html