And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here am I, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together.
The Hebrew indicates that Abraham said that God will provide HIMSELF as the offering. Abraham prophetically saw God Incarnate as the sacrifice. Offering Isaac would not have been adequate. Only Christ would do. A relationship between humanity and divinity is only possible with Grace.
Islam reads this same story exactly opposite. Not only is Ishmael the sacrifice on the altar, but also it is the self-sacrifice that God is seeking. Islam means submission, and it seeks to replicate that self-killing to win God’s favor.
Self-sacrifice is not what God seeks because even a final self-sacrifice is not enough. Self-sacrifice is self-righteousness. And as we lob those pretty vegetables on the altar, we think that the sweat of our brow is what will please God. It can’t.
Paul pin-pointed that problem in Galatians. Promises fulfilled half-way through legal loopholes or human endeavor must be cast out. Living by the flesh is not living a life of carnality (that’s rarely a temptation for the religious among us). Living by the flesh is living quite lawfully and assuming that our self-sacrifice can be counted as righteousness.
Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written,
Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear;
break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor!
For the children of the desolate one will be more
than those of the one who has a husband.”Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.
We need to live freely. We need to relish the fact that our righteousness is not dependent on our legal self-sacrifice. We don’t need to put ourselves on that altar because Christ was already there. We need to live like the children of promise that God says we are.