“It was by faith that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice when God was testing him. Abraham, who had received God’s promises, was ready to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, even though God had told him, ‘Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted.’ Abraham reasoned that if Isaac died, God was able to bring him back to life again. And in a sense, Abraham did receive his son back from the dead.
“It was by faith that Isaac promised blessings for the future to his sons, Jacob and Esau.
“It was by faith that Jacob, when he was old and dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons and bowed in worship as he leaned on his staff.
“It was by faith that Joseph, when he was about to die, said confidently that the people of Israel would leave Egypt. He even commanded them to take his bones with them when they left.”
In Genesis 22 we read a disturbing story about a father tying up his son on an altar, preparing to burn him as a sacrifice. That may sound horrific to our modern ears, but in ancient cultures child sacrifice to gods was a relatively common practice. In Abraham’s case, however, there were a few differences. First of all, Abraham didn’t worship “gods,” he worshiped one God: Yahweh. And it just so happened that Yahweh never wanted child sacrifices. The other problem was that Yahweh had promised him a son through which a nation would rise up. He had waited well past his prime and was over 100 years old when this son had been born. So why would God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac?
As it turns out, this command was a test: how well do you know your Yahweh? Would he really make you go through with killing your own son? It wasn’t just a test of Abraham’s faith, it was a foreshadowing of God the Father sacrificing Jesus on the cross. According to today’s passage, Abraham had confidence in God’s power to resurrect his son. He passed the test and Isaac lived. The story continues with Isaac’s sons, Jacob and Esau, and then on to Jacob’s son Joseph.
Throughout the history of Israel, God has been consistent. He has been there for his people, maintained the same standards the whole way along, and has provided deliverance on more than one occasion. This retelling of history is not just a lesson in what happened. The Jewish readers of Hebrews already knew these stories well. This examination of faith throughout history is building to Israel’s new challenge: having faith in Jesus as the Messiah. The author is using God’s well-known consistency to make the argument that Jesus is the real deal. We’ll learn more as we keep reading.