GENESIS 22
In chapter 22 we see Abraham called upon to offer up his son Isaac as a burnt offering. The Heir could only take up the inheritance, or become possessed of the bride, as having died and risen. And we see a character of faith in Abraham that was prepared to give up even Isaac in view of receiving him again in resurrection (Hebrews 11: 17 - 19). All the promises centred in the One of whom Isaac was a figure, and God’s covenant was with Him. Faith was indeed made to laugh by the perception of all that was blessed in Him as the Son of promise. And His coming in necessitated that man after the flesh should go out; the promises and blessing of God involved the complete setting aside of that man. Isaac had to be circumcised, which I take to be a figure of the cutting off of the flesh in the death of Christ; what the epistle to the Colossians speaks of as “the circumcision of the Christ”.
But there was much more in the death of Christ than that. He was “a burnt offering” in which there was the sweet savour of perfect affections devoted to God in death. This chapter gives us great expansion in our view of the burnt offering. We have seen its excellence typically in Abel’s offering; its cleanness — its moral purity — in Noah’s offering;
[p. 167] but what we get here is a most lovely and touching picture of the affections which were involved in it. It is a father and a son now, and it is the loved object of that father’s heart that is to be offered. Think of what Isaac was to Abraham! His son, his only one, his loved one! It goes beyond the mere type, for Abraham was called to enter, we might say, in sympathetic affections into something of what was before the heart of the blessed God. It is therefore a most touching scene. Who can tell what it was to God to give up His beloved Son to death? That death was indeed the full manifestation of the love of God. And, on the other hand, it was only in death that the full measure of the Son’s obedience and devotedness could be expressed. Think of what He was to the Father, the One who could say concerning His death, “That the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father has commanded me, thus I do”, John 14: 31! Think of what the saints were to Him and to the Father for whom He thus offered Himself! He cherished them in His heart according to all the Father’s thoughts in regard to them, and according to His own love, and He devoted Himself to them that all these precious thoughts might come into effect. And the Father cherished those affections which answered so perfectly to Him; they became surpassingly fragrant in that offering of Himself which provided a divine and holy basis on which all the purposes of eternal love could be brought to fruition. Saints often dwell on what He took away, but what He brought in is infinitely greater. He has brought in the will of God — the divine pleasure — in all its full extent, and He has brought in the love of God. And He has also fully disclosed in the offering [p. 168] of Himself the affections of sonship in manhood, and the fruit of that offering will be that ‘many sons’ will respond to God eternally in the affections proper to sonship. It is all this side of things which comes before us so blessedly in the Lord’s Supper.
The beloved Son being given to be a sweet savour to God in the place of death involves the bringing to light and the establishment of all that is in the heart of God. God brought out before highly-favoured men what that blessed One was to Him; they beheld His glory as of an only begotten with a Father. He was placed in view of men in that way that they might enter in measure into what it was to God to give Him up to death. Then the Son, in all the fragrance of the Son’s affections and obedience, devoted Himself to death that He might furnish the basis for the accomplishment of all the purposes of divine love. That is why the chapter ends by introducing Rebecca, and when Rebecca comes into view Sarah passes off the scene. Sarah represents Israel as having given birth to Christ on the line of promise, but Rebecca comes in a type of the assembly as brought to Christ risen and glorified in heaven. It is a risen and heavenly Christ who gets the bride.
“The wood for the burnt-offering” laid on Isaac surely speaks of the body prepared for that blessed One. It was essential to His offering up that He should “come in flesh”. It was by man that sin and death had entered into the world, it was man who had disobeyed and dishonoured God and been a cause of grief to Him; and it must be Man who should go in obedience and devotedness of love even to death, to glorify God there in the fullest way, and to bring [p. 169] in perfect delight for Him, a sweet fragrance which will abide eternally.
It was as coming in flesh that He could be tested by the holy fire, and found to be perfect in every way for the glory of God. No sin was in that holy humanity; He was “that holy Thing” begotten in the virgin by the Holy Spirit coming upon her, and the power of the Highest overshadowing her. So that in the Son of God we see a Man totally different morally from any other man, the Holy One of God, the righteous One, One who could be tested by all that God is — and that even as in the place, sacrificially, of sin and death — and found altogether perfect. How faith delights to recognise the unique and undefilable character of His humanity, and of that holy flesh in which He came to be offered up for the glory of God! And in recognising it the heart of the believer is filled with adoration. But while thus turned adoringly to Him, and to the Father who sent Him, with what holy abhorrence does the heart turn from the profane and blasphemous thoughts of those who are bold enough, while taking the Christian name, to throw doubt upon His virgin birth, and thus upon His deity and the sinless character of His humanity. The incarnation — the coming here in flesh of the Son of God — is the foundation and pillar of everything in the moral universe.
Then “he took the fire in his hand”. Fire speaks of what God is — “our God is a consuming fire” — as applied in the most searching and testing way to that which is presented before Him. There is a hint of it in “the flame of the flashing sword” which, after the fall, guarded the way to the tree of life; Genesis 3: 24. But the first direct allusion to fire is in the fact that Noah “offered up burnt offerings on the altar”, Genesis 8: 20. It is very blessed that it should be brought in first in such a connection, for it is an intimation that One would be found to whom the most searching divine test could be applied without the discovery of anything but perfection, or the bringing out of anything but ‘sweet odour’ God-ward. And it is in this connection that the fire appears in the chapter we are now considering.
When sin appears before God to be dealt with according to the holiness of His nature, the fire necessarily takes the character of wrath, and it is thus seen when He rained fire out of heaven for the destruction of the guilty cities of the plain; Genesis 19: 24. It is also seen in this character, sacrificially and to secure blessing in righteousness for man the guilty sinner, in the typical burning without the camp of the bodies of those beasts whose blood was brought into the sanctuary for sin. Christ, the Holy One of God who knew no sin, was made sin for us. He was made sacrificially what we were actually and personally, and as in the place of sin He was forsaken by God, and had to drink the cup of God’s wrath. He came there in grace, and the fire — all that God was in holiness against sin — spent its force upon Him in a way which we can never fully know. In contemplation of it we can only adore. He endured the wrath, and, for all who believe on His Name, He has exhausted it.
But in connection with the burnt offering, what appears in the type is that the fire brings out all the perfection of the Victim in acceptable fragrance. Under the most intense searching and testing — even as in the place of sin and death, and as forsaken of God [p. 171] and drinking the cup, suffering all that was due to sin according to the righteous judgment and holiness of God — nothing but absolute perfection was found in Him. Perfection which under the action of the fire came out in a sweet savour which was delightful to God. Different words are used in the Hebrew for the burning of the sin offering outside the camp, and for the burning of the burnt offering. The latter really means “to burn as incense”. There was the total consumption of what was obnoxious to God as brought sacrificially before Him in the sin offering; but at the same time as the burnt offering the infinite perfections of the One who offered Himself to God were brought out under the testing of the holy fire.
Thus, as contemplating the cup which His Father gave Him — and from which He could not but shrink, knowing what it involved — He says, “Not my will, but thine be done”; “The cup which the Father has given me, shall I not drink it?” (Luke 22: 42; John 18: 11). As the forsaken One He justified God in forsaking Him, “Thou art holy, thou that dwellest amid the praises of Israel”, Psalm 22: 3. There was perfect obedience and devotedness to God’s glory in a Man, even as in the place of sin and death, and as bearing the full judgment of sin. He was tested by the fire of all that God was in holiness as against sin; nothing but perfection was found in Him. God was glorified in that blessed Man, His beloved Son. It is all this precious side of things which comes before us in the burnt-offering aspect of the sufferings and death of Christ. The intense searching and testing of the fire applied to Christ, the beloved Son, only disclosed all His inward perfections and devotedness, and [p. 172] brought the fragrance of it out in sweet savour and blessedness.
He came down from heaven to do the will of God, and to replace by the sacrifice of Himself all the shadows of “sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin ... offered according to the law” (Hebrews 10: 8), in which God took no pleasure. We can well understand the typical significance of those touching words, twice repeated, “they went both of them together”. The Father had sent the Son to accomplish His will, and the Son had come to do it, and they moved on together in that blessed path which is so clearly and fully presented to us in the Gospel of John. “My food is that I should do the will of him that has sent me, and that I should finish his work”, John 4: 34. “My Father worketh hitherto and I work”, John 5: 17. “The Son can do nothing of himself save whatever he sees the Father doing: for whatever things he does, these things also the Son does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all things which he himself does”, John 5: 19, 20. “I am not alone, but I and the Father who has sent me”, John 8: 16. “He that has sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, because I do always the things that are pleasing to him”, John 8: 29. “I am not alone, for the Father is with me”, John 16: 32. Indeed the whole Gospel may be read in the light of these words, “They went both of them together”.
“I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you”. There had been no suggestion previously in connection with any victim that it would be the subject of the action of resurrection power. This new feature is added in this type. Isaac would ‘come again’! It could not be otherwise for Abraham’s faith, considering who Isaac was, and the promises which were divinely bound up with him. And how certain it is of the true Isaac that “the pains of death” must be loosed, “inasmuch as it was not possible that he should be held by its power”, Acts 2: 24. The power of resurrection was inherent in Him; He was “the resurrection and the life”.
The ram was “caught in the thicket by its horns”. As the Lamb the Son of God was marked by unblemished and spotless perfection, and meekness in suffering; but the ram speaks of maturity and energy, and its horns are the symbol of strength. It has been truly said that Christ was held by the strength of His love to all the precious work that was needful for the glory of God and the gratification of the Father’s heart, so that ‘many sons’ might be brought in. On the ground of His being offered up for a burnt offering every thought and purpose of the blessed God can be brought into effect. Nothing will be wanting to fill the heart of God with perfect satisfaction.
“The God whom we have known,
Well known in Jesus’ love;
Rests in the blessing of His own,
Before Himself above”. (72:1)
Christ is the First-born among many brethren, who will be conformed to His image for the satisfaction of the love of God, and He gets the bride as the satisfaction of His own heart. Such are the wonderful results of His delivering “himself up for us, an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour”, Ephesians 5: 2.