How could God ask Abraham to kill his son?

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itullian

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What a terrible thing to put him through…

and didn’t God already know what Abraham would do?

wasn’t that an awful thing?

never understood that…
 
Have you ever considered it was a prefigurement? [BIBLEDRB]Gen 22:7 -8[/BIBLEDRB]
 
itullian said:
What a terrible thing to put him through…

and didn’t God already know what Abraham would do?

wasn’t that an awful thing?

never understood that…
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Remember that in the ancient world, child sacrifice was not uncommon. I think it’s more of God’s way of breaking through the then-universally accepted practice of child sacrifice, showing that literally offering up another human being is not the way to please Him.
 
itullian said:
What a terrible thing to put him through…

and didn’t God already know what Abraham would do?

wasn’t that an awful thing?

never understood that…
Click to expand...
Dear itullian,

Fear not! :angel1:God also knew beforehand just what He would do, (that He would stop the hand of Abraham). This is also a beautiful pre-figuration and foreshadowing of God’s sending His Only Begotten Son into the world, indeed, according to Revelation, “the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world…” and for all time. Abraham’s hand was stopped by our Merciful Father.
Here is a wonderful link:
vivacatholic.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/the-eucharist-eating-the-flesh-of-christ-and-drinking-his-blood/

The above link about the Sacrifice of the Mass will help explain both the foreshadowing of Christ in much of the Old Testament. Some call these wonderful passages in the OT which point to the coming of Christ as part of “The Scarlet Thread of Redemption,” because of God’s mercy in sending His Son into the world for us.
I hope this helps, and wish you a blessed Holy Week and joyful Easter time.
Peace,
Kathryn Ann:heaven:
 
patrick457 said:
Remember that in the ancient world, child sacrifice was not uncommon. I think it’s more of God’s way of breaking through the then-universally accepted practice of child sacrifice, showing that literally offering up another human being is not the way to please Him.
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then just tell Abraham that, don’t ask him to kill his son…

if my God ever asked me to kill a son, i’d doubt he him and say heck with him. maybe it’s Satan instead or something.
 
patrick457 said:
Remember that in the ancient world, child sacrifice was not uncommon. I think it’s more of God’s way of breaking through the then-universally accepted practice of child sacrifice, showing that literally offering up another human being is not the way to please Him.
Click to expand...
This is essentially what my priest said in a homily about this passage.
 
God set this story up for our benefit. We would read it and wonder.

Then, later on we would read how he sacraficed His only Son to allow us access to eternal life.

We can then more readily show appreciation for what He did for us. He died for us.
 
itullian said:
then just tell Abraham that, don’t ask him to kill his son…

if my God ever asked me to kill a son, i’d doubt he him and say heck with him. maybe it’s Satan instead or something.
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We have finite understanding. (limited). God is infinite, he has perfect attributes. He is infinitely merciful, just, loving, etc.

After all He did for us it should not be necessary for us to question his motives. He can be trusted and we should ask him to increase our faith and trust, and pray for humility.
 
So you seem to be peppering the forums with lots of doubts and confusion. I would suggest that perhaps this isn’t the place for you to be venting this. It doesn’t seem like you really want answers, you just want to complain. There is nothing wrong with being frustrated with God, but I don’t see how all this is helping you.

Seek out a priest and unload on him. You’ll feel much better.

~fermat
 
itullian said:
then just tell Abraham that, don’t ask him to kill his son…

if my God ever asked me to kill a son, i’d doubt he him and say heck with him. maybe it’s Satan instead or something.
Click to expand...
Consider a scenario like this:

All around Abraham were people worshiping gods that demanded sacrifice, human sacrifice. There’s an attitude of “if your god doesn’t believe in human sacrifice he’s a weak god.”

Abraham was a weak man like all of us, he could be fooled by Satan’s lies and he might have been buying into this one… His neighbors ravings about their gods has him thinking, “God hasn’t asked me to sacrifice a human, is my God weak?”

God keeps trying to say, “Hey I’m the real God, I’m different. Listen to me Abraham.”

But Abraham keeps thinking to himself, “Ya, my God does seem kind of weak… Maybe I’m wrong here…”

So finally God says, “Do you really believe that to be God, I have to tell you to sacrifice your son? Fine. Believe what you want…” But if you act on that belief of yours I’m going to stop you and show you I am greater and more worthy of worship than those false gods Satan has fooled your neighbors into believing…
 
There is a minority Jewish interpretation of the story of Abraham which suggests he FAILED the moral test by obeying G-d instead of arguing with Him, as he had actually done on behalf of the people of Sodom. Instead of protecting an innocent child, Abraham displayed blind obedience toward G-d, which is NOT what G-d wished him to do. As a result, G-d never spoke to Abraham directly thereafter but only communicated with him via an angel. Moreover, Abraham did not share his decision to obey G-d with his wife, Sara, who was Isaac’s mother. The moral lesson of this interpretation is that we should always question authority–even G-d Himself–when what we are told runs counter to the moral principles that the Law of G-d has revealed to us.
 
fermat said:
So you seem to be peppering the forums with lots of doubts and confusion. I would suggest that perhaps this isn’t the place for you to be venting this. It doesn’t seem like you really want answers, you just want to complain. There is nothing wrong with being frustrated with God, but I don’t see how all this is helping you.

Seek out a priest and unload on him. You’ll feel much better.

~fermat
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yes, you’re right,unfortunately my priest was little help and had little time for me.

i thought a larger community could help with questions. i’m not venting,but i’m very logical and crave sensible answers. i’ve gotten some.

be patient with me. thanks
 
itullian said:
still seems awfully cruel to me.
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One of our attitudes about the Bible should be, may I suggest, that we should not judge God. The ‘binding of Isaac’ was a test of Abraham’s faith. That it was recorded for us to meditate on is surely to test our faith, as well. I mean, it does do that, doesn’t it?

And, we are told in the Psalms, the earth and everything in it belong to God. He can do with it what He wills, correct?

Recall in Revelation, that in heaven, the “things of old will be forgotten.” that covers a lot of territory, so to speak. We will have no “ax to grind” with God about anything that we had to suffer in this life.

We all need to launch into Christian spirituality and joy – we deserve it as God’s children and faithful ones, what He has promised to us.
 
the Hebrew word, for ‘only’ as in Abraham’s ‘only’ son, is equivalent to the Greek word for ‘only begotten’ as in God’s ‘only begotten’ Son.

So the real question is this, how can Isaiah the prophet say this about God offering up his Son: "It pleased the Lord to bruise him, He has put him to grief, when Thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin,? he shall see his children, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand."
 
itullian said:
What a terrible thing to put him through…

and didn’t God already know what Abraham would do?

wasn’t that an awful thing?

never understood that…
Click to expand...
I was told that this story is a foreshadowing of God the Father giving His Son to die as an offering for our sin. The mountain was thought to be the same place where Jesus later died. I also believe that Isaac agreed to be the sacrifice. An old man isn’t going to bind up a young man unless he lets him. Isaac offered himself willingly as Jesus would later do on a much grander scale. God didn’t need Isaac’s offering of himself because His plan for Jesus to do this, but this foreshadowing is part of what is laid out to show the Jews that Jesus was/is their Messiah.
 
I have a couple thoughts on the matter. First, I’m sure it was heart wrenching for Abraham because (we can only assume) he loved his son very much. However, he also loved God. Not only did he love God, he trusted Him. He trusted God even though he surely did not understand why God was asking Him to do this. He could not have known about all the “prefigurement” that we talk about today. He only knew that God had given Him a command and he must be obedient to it. Abraham is known as the father of our faith, but remember that faith is a gift from God. So God gave Abraham the faith to carry out this terrible task. The key is that Abraham embraced that gift of faith where many of us do not. Scripture says “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me”. This was as true in Abraham’s time as in our own. God may set a terrible task before us, but if we turn to Him, He will give us what we need to get though it. Abraham certainly benefitted from an enormous amount of grace with the accepting the terrible choice to obey God and sacrifice his son. As someone already mentioned, this probably was not a foreign idea to Abraham. God was simply using the cultural ideas of the time to accomplish His work.

Remember too that everything God had told Abraham would happen did happen–even when they thought it would be impossible that Abraham would even have a son in his old age. God had already told him that it was through Isaac would be the one through which the descendants would bear his name (Gen 21:12). So, Abraham might well have been going up on that mountain trusting God’s promises so much that he did not have the anguish that you might think. In other words, Abraham knew that Isaac was the child of the promise, but that he had not yet had any descendants. How was God’s promise for Isaac to be fulfilled if Isaac were dead? Perhaps Abraham thought that if he were to go through with the sacrifice that God would have raised Isaac from the dead so that the promise could be fulfilled. (Now that would have been a prefigurement!!!) I obviously don’t know what he was actually thinking, but it is not outside the realm of possibility that Abraham trusted God’s promise for Isaac so much that he knew in his heart Isaac would not die or at least would not remain dead.
 
Prayer Warrior,

You are re-iterating Heb.11:17-19:
17 By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered Isaac: and he that had received the promises, offered up his only begotten son; 18 (To whom it was said: In Isaac shall thy seed be called.) 19 Accounting that God is able to raise up even from the dead. Whereupon also he received him for a parable.

God’s peace.
 
itullian said:
What a terrible thing to put him through…

and didn’t God already know what Abraham would do?

wasn’t that an awful thing?

never understood that…
Click to expand...
It was a test of Abraham’s commitment to God. I don’t think the test was for God to know whether or not Abraham was capable – he had proved his commitment several times previously. Effectively, Abraham had already “sacrificed” his young son Ishmael, when God told him to obey Sarah and send Ishmael and Hagar into the desert. Now, would he go as far as to kill his only son left?

Perhaps, the test was for Abraham, and particularly Isaac, so that they would know that they are capable of high commitment to God, and he won’t back out of his promises if they strive to commit to him as much as possible. That is to say, it is never impossible to do God’s will.
 
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