The test of Abraham

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God cannot lie, but he told Abraham to kill Isaac saying it must be done, then revealed it was a test. Was this a lie? It couldn’t be but I don’t understand how it wasn’t. Aren’t tests just lies
 
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God only told Abraham to offer Issac as a sacrifice. This might seem like quibbling over words, but you’re the one who said that God lied, and if we look closely at the words we see that God did not say that Issac must die, but only that he be offered. Abraham obviously hoped that God would relent, as he told Issac that God would provide a sheep, and God did, so Abraham wasn’t lying either.
 
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The offering of Isaac by Abraham “had to be done” in order for Abraham to prove that he would align his will with the will of God

A test is not a lie, it is more an invitation from God for us to align our will with His will.
 
So there are two issues here. The first is God asking for the killing of the (presumably) innocent. The second is His encouraging Abraham to form the intent for something apparently sinful.

For the first it is clear in retrospect that God had no intention of letting Isaac die. God doesn’t change His mind in the sense that we understand it. He knew He would relent since before Adam and Eve were created. From the beginning He knew He would ‘relent.’

That leaves the second problem: that He deliberately caused Abraham to form the intent to sin. Except he didn’t. A big part of why murder is a sin is because it usurps God’s authority over life and judgement. The murderer puts himself above God. In the Binding of Isaac the authority comes from God. Abraham put himself under God and trusted in His judgement. Abraham might have committed a sin if he actually killed Isaac, since Isaac was still innocent, but no sin attaches for the intent to trust God.
 
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So there are two issues here.
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Nice analysis!

One other thought comes to mind: the story of Abraham in the Bible is kinda a “Frank Sinatra” story – you know, the “I did it my way” approach?

All throughout the narrative of the promises God is making, we see Abraham questioning, doubting, and trying to find his own alternative way to make the promises of God come to pass. At this point in the story, he has his heir. But now, God is asking “do you trust me enough that you’re willing to do things my way rather than your own?”

Abraham’s answer is “yes”, in a very dramatic way. This is a test in which Abraham learns that he’s willing to follow God, and not that God learns (as the literal text of the narrator claims).
 
No doubt Abraham and Isaac’s journey back was a little awkward! I suspect Abraham would’ve said something along the lines of “probably best not to mention this to your mother son”.
 
Beside what the others have said, to me God also wanted to show us a type of Christ in Isaac. Like Jesus, he carried his own wood to the altar of sacrifice in obedience to his father.
 
The imperative mood does not admit of truth and falsity. “Do this” can’t be true or false - it is not a claim about something.
 
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