December 2016
Let me exhort you to take this seriously . It is not to be understood as mere Bible teaching to be stored away in the mind along with an inert mass of other doctrines . It is a marker on the road to greener pastures , a path chiseled against the steep sides of the mount of God . We dare not try to bypass it if we would follow on in this holy pursuit . We must ascend a step at a time . If we refuse one step we bring our progress to an end . As is frequently true , this New Testament principle of spiritual life finds its best illustration in the Old Testament . In the story of Abraham and Isaac we have a dramatic picture of the surrendered life as well as an excellent commentary on the first Beatitude .
Abraham was old when Isaac was born , old enough indeed to have been his grandfather , and the child became at once the delight and idol of his heart . From that moment when he first stooped to take the tiny form awkwardly in his arms he was an eager love-slave of his son . God went out of His way to comment on the strength of this affection . And it is not hard to understand . The baby represented everything sacred to his father ' s heart : the promises of God , the covenants , the hopes of the years and the long messianic dream . As he watched him grow from babyhood to young manhood the heart of the old man was knit closer and closer with the life of his son , till at last the relationship bordered upon the perilous . It was then that God stepped in to save both father and son from the consequences of an uncleansed love . “ Take your son ,” said God to Abraham , “ your only son Isaac , whom you love , and go to the land of Moriah , and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you ( Gene
22:2 ).”
The sacred writer spares us a close-up of the agony that night on the slopes near Beersheba when the aged man had it out with his God , but respectful imagination may view in awe the bent form and convulsive wrestling alone under the stars . Possibly not again until a Greater than Abraham wrestled in the Garden of Gethsemane did such mortal pain visit a human soul . If only the man himself might have been allowed to die . That would have been easier a thousand times , for he was old now , and to die would have been no great ordeal for one who had walked so long with God . Besides , it would have been a last sweet pleasure to let his dimming vision rest upon the figure of his stalwart son who would live to carry on the Abrahamic line and fulfill in himself , the promises of God made long before in Ur of the Chaldees . How should he slay the lad ! Even if he could get the consent of his wounded and protesting heart , how could he reconcile the act with the promise , “ In Isaac shall your seed be called ”? This was Abraham ' s trial by fire , and he did not fail in the crucible .
While the stars still shone like sharp white points above the tent where the sleeping Isaac lay , and long before the gray dawn had begun to lighten the east , the old saint had made up his mind . He would offer his son as God had directed him to do , and then trust God to raise him from the dead . This , says the writer to the Hebrews , was the solution his aching heart found sometime in the dark night , and he rose “ early in the morning ” to carry out the plan . It is beautiful to see that , while he erred as to God ' s method , he had correctly sensed the secret of His great heart . And the solution accords well with the New Testament Scripture , “ Whosoever will lose ... for my sake shall find ...” God let the suffering old man go through with it up to the point where He knew there would be no retreat , and then forbade him to lay a hand upon the boy . To the wondering patriarch He now says in effect , “ It ' s all right , Abraham . I never intended that you should actually slay the lad . I only wanted to remove him from the temple of your heart that I might reign unchallenged there . I wanted to
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