A strange story is told in Genesis 22: Abraham takes his son Isaac to Mount Moriah to sacrifice him at God’s command. At the last moment, God interrupts the event and provides Abraham with a sacrificial animal.
How can God command such a thing when He Himself has said: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed” (Genesis 9:6).
In Genesis 22, we read that Abraham trusted that he and his son would return: “Stay here with the donkey,” Abraham said to the two servants. “I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you” (Gen 22:5). The Letter to the Hebrews says: “Abraham considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead“ (Hebrews 11:19).
Jesus also went on his last journey in the firm conviction that he would be resurrected after three days.
Isaac experienced that someone else would die in his place. Jesus gives us the same message on the cross: He died in our place to free us from the consequences of sin. John says: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).
Messiah images in the Torah
- God seeks us – Adam where are you?
- The possibility of a choice – Two trees in the Garden of Eden
- Neediness instead divinity – A new view
- God’s master plan – Salvation through a human being
- A divine clothing – God acts
- A world upside down – Kai and Abel
- Living in the presence of God – Enoch
- God is calling – Noah
- A king-priest like Melchizedek
- God visits Abraham
- Life through a sacrifice – Isaac
- The ladder to heaven – Jacob
- New identity from Jacob to Israel
- Messiah Ben Joseph – Joseph the son of Jacob
- Shiloh, whom all nations will serve – Blessing on Judah
- Moses, the prototype of the Saviour
- References to Jesus in Moses
- The Passover Lamb
- The pillar of cloud and fire
- God wants to be with us – The tabernacle / The temple
- The snake on a pole – An image of a new beginning
- The rock in the desert – Faith is not a method
- A prophet greater than Moses
- A star from Jacob – Bileam