The sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22 is one of the most well known stories in the Bible. Abraham exercises extraordinary faith by not sparing his only son as a sacrifice to God. Abraham demonstrates his willingness to obey whatever the Lord asks him to do, up until the point when God intervenes to stop Abraham going through with the actual sacrifice. Why, though, does God ask Abraham to make this kind of sacrifice? Why does God test (Gen. 22:1) Abraham in this way? Furthermore, what should we learn from this story to understand how God works in our own lives?

Certainly, God does not ask Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice because God needs something. Indeed, God does not need the blood of the animal sacrifices he demands (Ps. 50:12–15), and God is in no way “served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25). It is not God who needs this sacrifice, then, but Abraham. Over the course of Abraham’s walk with the Lord, we have seen him trust and obey for the most part. Nevertheless, there are a few cases where Abraham has chosen to obey his fears regarding famine (Gen. 12:10–20), infertility (Gen. 16), and his own safety (Gen. 20) rather than trusting and obeying God. Therefore, for as much as the Lord has accomplished in Abraham, God recognizes that Abraham still needs more sanctification. Along these lines, the Lord gives Abraham a test—not to trick Abraham, but to heal the deep wounds of sin in his soul. By this test, God will heal the wounds that sin has inflicted on Abraham’s soul. In Genesis 22, then, we learn that God heals our innermost injuries by calling us to sacrifice our most precious possessions.