The Fear of Isaac

three ways of looking at a difficult Old Testament passage

Photo by IV Horton

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Jacob, son of Isaac and father of the nation of Israel, refers to God more than once as “the fear of Isaac.”

I have a theory as to where this name comes from.

My last post described the life of Isaac—the beloved, waited-for son of Abraham—as one of uninterrupted blessedness. But this was a bit hyperbolic. No life on this earth is a life without problems, sorrow, or difficulty of some kind.

Isaac lost his mother at a young-ish age; plus he had a bit of drama in his family in his later years.

There is also that incident in Genesis 22, that story I prefer to skip when reading to my kids from the children's Bible.

It goes like this: after God has finally fulfilled his promise to Abraham and given him a son, he tells Abraham to take his son Isaac up to Mount Moriah and offer him as a burnt offering.

Abraham, with a heavy heart, obeys. He takes his son and trudges on for three days, telling Isaac “God will provide the lamb for the sacrifice.” On the third day, Abraham and Isaac ascend that weary height. Abraham builds the altar and places wood on it; he binds his son, lays him on the altar, and lifts his knife to slay his Child of Promise and—in that moment—the Angel of the Lord (who is believed by some scholars to be Christ himself!) speaks from heaven and stops Abraham. Abraham sees a ram caught in a thicket; he sacrifices the ram instead, and names the place “In the Mount of the Lord it shall Be Provided.”

This story troubled me deeply when I was in my twenties. I was in deconstruction mode back then, and, around that time, there was an Assembly of God woman from Texas who killed two of her children and seriously injured the third because she believed God told her to. Everyone in her community was completely shocked when she did this; no one suspected she was suffering from dark delusions of grandeur (she believed that she would, with another child-killer, be one of the two witnesses in the book of Revelation).

I was thinking, if no one recognizes such a person in your midst as mentally ill, perhaps there is something wrong with your theology.

I was angry. I was angry at the unquestioned practices and abuses in charismatic and Pentecostal spaces that make this stuff hard to detect.

Now, I feel that my anger was misplaced and unnecessarily judgmental. Later, I would know a person for fifteen years—thinking she was completely normal, just a little eccentric—before discovering that she heard voices and perceived things that weren't there. Sometimes people do a good job hiding their mental struggles.

A couple of years after the Texas killing I found myself sitting in a Seventh Day Adventist Church where a guest preacher was speaking. He got up in front of the congregation and told us to turn in our Bibles to Genesis 22. “Such a beautiful story,” he murmured, as he leafed through his Bible.

Beautiful story? How could anyone call this a beautiful story?

At some point during that sermon, I got up and left.

Actually, I am pretty sure I ran out, crying. I went to a little room somewhere in that church. The pastor and his wife—some of the most wonderful people I have ever met—found me, counseled me, and talked to me for a long time. They helped me understand where the preacher was coming from. They helped me understand where most of the congregation was coming from and why this message was helpful for them.

I don't know that they resolved the issue for me, but their presence and kindness were reassuring, and I will never cease to be grateful for them.

(I've had a crazy spiritual journey, but I have encountered many beautiful human beings along the way).

I don't claim to have the definitive meaning, interpretation, explanation, or application for this mysterious passage, but I am going to share some of the ideas I've encountered over the years.

1. The Sunday School Interpretation

As a child in Sunday school, I was taught more or less what the passage says: that God was testing Abraham, and that, in passing the test, Abraham proved that he loved God above all.

As a young adult, I struggled with this. I felt that I had to plunge the knife (so to speak) into anything I loved. This resulted in a depressing, frustrating beginning to my adulthood and a great fear of loving anyone or anything too much.

Now, in my Christian walk—through many dangers, toils, and snares--I have come to a peaceful, settled, continual relinquishment of myself and all things that pertain to my life to God. The safest place for my treasures is in God's hands. Whenever I find myself holding too tightly to something, I surrender, again. But it's a glad surrender, not a torturous one; it is a life-giving, lightening surrender.

Because I trust God.

Because I have tasted and seen that He is good, not evil.

2. The April 18^th Devotion by Oswald Chambers

In my late teens and early twenties, I made the mistake of reading Oswald Chambers's My Utmost for His Highest every morning. (Now, don't get me wrong: these days I love good ol' Ozzy. But back then I should've been reading Max Lucado or something. Or—oh--wouldn't it have been great and life-changing if I'd discovered The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life! Now there's a book that could've set me straight. Better yet: I could've saved myself quite a bit of misery by reading John's first epistle every day and night for about three years.

But I'm getting off-topic.)

Back to Oswald Chambers. I would pick up his book each morning and grumble something to myself like “this guy is going to tell me I need to give up everything I love and kill and maim and utterly annihilate my personality. Welp, here we go again...”

But his April 26^th devotion was an intriguing take on this Abraham-Isaac incident. He puts forth the idea that God's purpose in calling Abraham to sacrifice his son was in order to purify him of his “traditional belief,” i.e., his prior, erroneous concept of God as one who would require such a sacrifice. The only way Abraham can be freed from this belief, Ozzie suggests, is to go through the ordeal that God has designed for him.

Similarly, a few years later, I heard a college professor describe this incident—very matter-of-factly—as God's way of showing Abraham that, while many of the surrounding cultures and religions practiced child sacrifice, this was not something God required or wanted from his followers

After going through this ordeal—after hearing the voice of the angel, seeing the ram that God had provided— Abraham was healed of this false notion, this erroneous concept of God.

I would like to pause here and say that I, too, have heard the voices of (metaphorical) angels in my ordeals, and have experienced deep healing and great relief from my spiritual afflictions and confusions.

3) A Theological Understanding

A third understanding of this passage is that it is one of many of the signs and symbols in the experiences of the patriarchs that point to Christ. Abraham was not required to sacrifice his son, but God gave His son. Christ, the second person of the Trinity, offered himself up, voluntarily. He became the sacrifice to end all sacrifices; we no longer have to make atonement for our own sins. We don't have to earn God's love and forgiveness. These, He has already given, at great cost to Himself.

In sum, I don't have an answer. But I do have peace about it.

These are my takeaways:

Abraham didn't kill his son.

God does not require human sacrifices.

Christ willingly became the sacrifice to end all sacrifices.

All that is precious to me, I willingly relinquish and entrust to God—without fear--knowing that He is good.

I think it is pertinent to repeat here that, what God says to Isaac, many years after the Genesis 22 incident: “Do not fear.”