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Scripture Reading: Gal. 4:29-31; 5:1; Heb. 11:17-19; James 2:20-24; Gen. 21:8-10; 22:1-5, 16-18
After Abraham realized that God is the Father through his intercession for the women in Abimelech's house, Sarah bore him a son at God's appointed time. Abraham called his son Isaac. When his son was born, he was a hundred years old (Gen. 21:5).
The day Isaac was weaned, God spoke a word through Sarah: "Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac" (v. 10). This was not Sarah's jealousy. Galatians 4:30 shows us that this was God's word through the mouth of Sarah: "For the son of the maidservant shall by no means inherit with the son of the free woman." This means that only one person could fulfill God's goal. This one was Isaac, not Ishmael. Ishmael was the first, not the second. Therefore, he represented Adam, not Christ. "But the spiritual is not first but the soulish, then the spiritual" (1 Cor. 15:46). Those who are of the flesh cannot inherit the kingdom of God; they cannot fulfill God's goal. The second one was Isaac. Therefore, Isaac represented that which is spiritual, he who can inherit God's inheritance and maintain God's testimony.
It is interesting to see that Ishmael was not cast out the day Isaac was born. He was cast out only after Isaac was weaned. Without Isaac, it was impossible to cast out Ishmael. Some brothers and sisters are full of fleshly works and a fleshly walk. When they hear about the flesh and what it means, they dare not do anything any longer, and they cease their work altogether. They do not have Isaac yet. Therefore, when they cast out Ishmael, they cannot do anything. Many Christians have been used to doing things by themselves and according to their fleshly strength. When they stop their fleshly work, they are left with no spiritual work. They did not have anything spiritual before; all they had were fleshly things. When the flesh is stopped, nothing spiritual remains. The principle is that Isaac must be weaned. This means that Ishmael can only be cast out when Isaac is strong enough to be the son and has gained the proper ground.
What does it mean to be cast out? Let us read Galatians 5:1. "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not be entangled with a yoke of slavery again." This means that the Lord Jesus has freed us; He is already living within us. The life we have received is a life of freedom; we have been freed. Therefore, we should not try to do anything to please God. Whenever we try to do anything, we become Ishmael. Whenever we stop trying, we are living in the freedom of the Son. The Christian life hinges on whether or not something has been done by us. Whenever we try to do something to please God, the self and the law of sin and of death come, and we fall back to Ishmael's position and become the sons of a maidservant. As a son of the free woman, there is no need for us to do anything by ourselves. We have a life within us, and this life will do everything in a spontaneous way. We are Christians; we do not need to act out our Christian life. We are children; we do not need to act like God's children. We live in what we are, not in what we do. Whenever we try to do something, we are "entangled with a yoke of slavery again" and become sons of the maidservant. If we stand on the ground of Isaac, the life we have will spontaneously be manifested through us.
After Abraham cast out Ishmael, even Abimelech, who had rebuked him once, came to him and said, "God is with thee in all that thou doest" (Gen. 21:22). The root of failure was removed from Abraham, and God was able to fully manifest His own work through Isaac.
Abraham had been tested twice concerning his son. The first test was in the begetting of Ishmael. The second test was in praying for the women of Abimelech's house. Now he was tested for the third time concerning his son. This third test was the offering up of his son Isaac on Mount Moriah.
Abraham had reached the proper ground. One can say that he had reached the peak, the pinnacle. After chapter twenty-two, the record turns to the story of his old age. Hence, chapter twenty-two marks the peak of Abraham's life. One can say that this was the high noon of his life.
Genesis 22:1-2 says, "And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." This demand had to do with the fulfillment of God's promise. Isaac was Abraham's only son, and he was his beloved. It was a great price for Abraham to offer up Isaac. But this is still not the main point. Hebrews 11 shows us something that Genesis 22 does not record. Hebrews 11:18 says, "In Isaac shall your seed be called." Hence, it was not just a matter of sacrificing Abraham's beloved son, but a matter of God's own promise, goal, and work. God did not give Abraham's son to him alone. His intention was to achieve His goal through Isaac. If Isaac died, what would happen? This was Abraham's test.
This test involved himself as an individual and himself as a vessel. Hebrews 11:18 shows us the aspect of the vessel. God promised to give Abraham a son. Yet He wanted this son to be offered up as a burnt offering! This is something that the flesh cannot stand. A burnt offering must be burned by fire. All of God's promises hinged on Isaac. If Isaac was burned up, would not God's promises be burned up? God's goal and His work were with Isaac. If he was burned up, would not God's promise, goal, and work be burned up as well? It was reasonable and right to cast out Ishmael because he was born of the flesh. But Isaac was born according to God's promise. Why should he be offered up as a burnt offering? Abraham had sought for satisfaction with Ishmael. But God Himself said, "No." It was God who repeatedly said that Sarah would have a son. Abraham did not insist on having this son; it was God who gave this son to him. Now God wanted him back, and not in an ordinary way, but as a burnt offering. This was beyond his comprehension. If Isaac should not have been born, God should have told him sooner. If it was right for Isaac to be born, Abraham should have been able to keep him. If God did not want Abraham to keep Isaac, He should not have given Isaac to him in the first place. If He did want Abraham to have Isaac, He should not have demanded that he be offered up as a burnt offering. What was the purpose of begetting a son and then offering him up? It was solely to bring Abraham into a deeper realization of God as the Father!
Abraham still had to learn one last lesson. This lesson was actually the lesson he had already learned. In order for God to be the God of Abraham, he had to know God as the Father. There was no question about Isaac; he was indeed given by God and indeed a son according to His promise. But what was Abraham's relationship with Isaac? The deep lesson that we have to learn before the Lord is that we cannot get ourselves directly involved with any of the things that God has given to us. God does not allow us to have a direct relationship with them. It is wrong to acquire something by the flesh, but it is equally wrong to hold on to what is acquired through the promise with fleshly hands. Indeed, Isaac was given by God, but what was Abraham's relationship with Isaac?
In begetting Isaac, Abraham learned that God is the Father. But he still had to learn one more thing. God was the Father before Isaac was born, but was He still the Father after Isaac was born? This is the condition that many Christians face today. Before their "Isaacs" are born, they realize that God is the Father. But after their "Isaacs" are born, their eyes turn to their "Isaacs." They think that their "Isaacs" will fulfill God's promises, accomplish God's goal, and bring in God's work. They think that they have to treasure their "Isaacs," care for their "Isaacs," and raise up their "Isaacs"! God is put aside after their "Isaacs" are born. All of their thoughts are on their "Isaacs," and God becomes nothing to them. However, we have to see that God is the Father. He will not allow our thoughts to be centered on our "Isaacs." God is the Father. He cannot be limited by time. Before Isaac was born, God was the Father. After Isaac was born, God was still the Father. Whether or not God's promises would be fulfilled depended on God, not on Isaac.
Isaac was a gift from God. Here lies our greatest danger before the Lord. Our hands are empty before we receive any gift; thus, we can fellowship and communicate with God. But after we receive the gift, our hands become full, and we do not fellowship or communicate with Him anymore. When our hands are empty, we fellowship with God with empty hands. But when our hands pick up the gift, we become satisfied with the gift in our hands, and we stop fellowshipping with God. God must teach us a lesson: We should put the gifts aside and live totally in God. Before man's flesh is dealt with, he always lives according to God's gift and neglects God Himself. However, this is something that God never endorses.
The begetting of Isaac was one experience that Abraham had. We can say that this was a very precious experience for Abraham. But God does not give us an experience so that we may sit on it for the rest of our lives. We have to realize that our source is God, not experiences. The begetting of Isaac was indeed an experience, but the experience itself was not the Father. It was an experience, but it was not the source. The problem is that once we acquire an experience concerning Christ, we hold on to that experience and treasure the experience, while at the same time, we forget that God is the Father. God will not allow this to happen. He has to show us that our experience can be dropped but He cannot be dropped. Isaac is dispensable, but we cannot be separated from the Father even for a moment.
This still has not touched the crux of the matter. Whether Isaac represents a gift or an experience, this application merely touches our fleshly life. There is another important thing: Isaac represents God's will, which God had spoken to Abraham. If Isaac died, would that not mean that the will of God that was spoken to Abraham would be unfulfilled? Because Abraham cared so much about God's will, he had to use all his energy to hold on to Isaac. This is the situation with many Christians. We have to realize that we are related to God Himself; we are not related to the things which God is about to do. We are not related to the will which He has spoken. We have to be brought to the point where our self no longer exists. We have to be delivered to the point where we want God only, not the things that He wants us to do. We often use fleshly hands to uphold the things that God wants us to do. We think that because God wants us to do a certain thing, we have to try our best to accomplish it. But the lesson that God is really teaching us is to give up our own will so that we will do what God wants us to do and not do what He does not want us to do.
Isaac also represents our spiritual work. God may call us to participate in some kind of spiritual work. However, we may not want to do it. We want our Ishmael, and we have our own work. One day God will speak to us, and after He speaks again and again, we will find that we can no longer escape, and we will say, "All right. I am willing to drop my work to take up Your work." But a second danger follows: We may drop one work only to find ourselves caught up by another. Before we have Isaac, we hold on to Ishmael. After Isaac comes, we hold on to Isaac. We are no longer directly related to God, but related to the work instead. We insist on working and do not give up. We replace God with spiritual works. Therefore, God allows our works to die. We may argue with God, saying, "You asked me to do this. Why have I ended up with such failure?" We have to realize that God allows our work to fail miserably because He does not want us to have any direct relationship with the work. If we see this, our self will go away.
Formerly, the flesh begot Ishmael and not Isaac. Now the flesh holds on to Isaac. Both are the flesh. God was testing Abraham. He wanted to see if Abraham was directly related to Isaac or directly related to God. This is the test which Abraham faced on Mount Moriah.
Today we have to ask ourselves the same question. God has called us to the work and to serve Him. In the beginning we were unwilling, but later we became willing, and we engaged ourselves in His work. Do we love this work? Are we reluctant to let go of it? Are we holding on to this work with our own hands? If we are, God will come in to deal with us. God wants us to realize that we can sacrifice Isaac but we cannot sacrifice God, because only God is the Father! Yet many Christians only know that they need spiritual works. They do not know that they need God. May the Lord be gracious to us so that we would not be directly related to spiritual works, but directly related to God, because only God is our Father!
By this time Abraham had reached maturity. When he heard that God wanted him to offer up Isaac, he did not feel that this was a difficult thing to do. He told his servant, "Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you" (Gen. 22:5). He did not even mention the word sacrifice. To him this was a worship! Nothing was more precious than God Himself, not even the most important work that He had assigned. Whenever God wanted him to drop something, he willingly dropped it. Everything was for God, and he did not argue with God.
Hebrews 11:19 shows us that at the time Abraham offered up Isaac, he knew that God is the God of resurrection. He obeyed God's command to offer up Isaac, "from which he also received him back in figure." It is true that he did not kill Isaac and that Isaac did not die, but Hebrews 11:19 says that "from which [that is, death] he also received him back in figure." He considered God not only to be the God of creation, but also the God of resurrection. He believed that even if his son died, God would resurrect him. He knew God as the Father, the Initiator of everything, who calls things not being as being and gives life to the dead. He knew that God is the Father, and he believed in God and looked to Him. In Genesis 15 Abraham was justified by faith. God justified him once more because of this act of faith in Genesis 22. James 2:21-23 speaks about this matter. At this point everything with Abraham was directly related to God; he was not related to Isaac in any direct way.
Before the Lord, we have to realize that even the commission we have received, the work we are doing, and the will of God that we know, must be dropped. There is a big difference between what is natural and what is of resurrection. Everything that we do not want to let go of is natural. Everything that comes from resurrection is preserved by God, and we cannot hold on to it with our fleshly hands. We have to learn to thank the Lord for calling us to His work and also learn to thank Him for calling us to not work. We are not directly related to God's work, but to God Himself. Everything should pass through death and resurrection. What is resurrection? Resurrection is anything that we cannot put our hands on, that we cannot hold on to. This is resurrection. Natural things are the things that we can grasp hold of, while we cannot grasp hold of the things in resurrection. We have to see that everything we have is of God and that anything that is of God cannot become our own private possession. We must put it in God's hand. God gave Isaac to Abraham, but Isaac still belonged to God. He did not belong to Abraham. When Abraham reached this point, he became a completed vessel.
When Abraham reached this point, God said, "By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice" (Gen. 22:16-18). The ultimate goal for which Abraham was called at the beginning was fulfilled. God had called Abraham for three purposes. First, He wanted to give the land of Canaan to Abraham and his descendants. Second, He wanted to make him and his descendants a people of God. Third, He wanted to bless all the nations of the earth through him. Abraham was tested concerning Canaan and concerning his descendant. He became God's vessel, and God was able to say, "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." God's goal was now fulfilled.
Gifts do not constitute God's vessels and ministers. God's vessels and ministers must be those who are before the Lord, who have passed through His dealings, and who have much experience. The greatest misunderstanding we have in our service to God is to think that God's workers are built upon the foundation of knowledge and gifts or even natural cleverness. If a man is naturally clever and has a good memory, others will say that he is quite good and promising in God's service. They will say that he is useful in spiritual matters. Man thinks a vessel is "useful to the Master" as long as he is clever, quick, and eloquent in his natural constitution, as long as he acquires more teachings, theologies, and Bible knowledge, and as long as he has some amount of spiritual gift and eloquence. But we have to say an honest word. The first vessel that God called did not become one because of these things. He was brought through one way. God repeatedly showed him his weaknesses and uselessness and that his fleshly energy was not pleasing to Him. God dealt with him step by step until he truly knew God as the Father. Finally, he offered Isaac to God. By that time, he had become a vessel, and God was able to say, "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed."
It is true that there are different levels in our service to God, and we can serve Him wherever we are. But the real question is, "What kind of service should we have in order to satisfy Him?" Those who satisfy God know the cross on the negative side and know God as the Father on the positive side. If our service does not have this knowledge, it lacks spiritual value. May the Lord be gracious to us to show us that everything God did with Abraham was to reveal Himself as the Father and the Initiator of everything. Because Abraham knew God as the Father, he is the only one in the whole Bible who is called "father." Only those who know God as the Father can be a father. What we know of God determines what kind of vessel we are before Him. The God that we know determines the kind of vessel that we are. May the Lord deliver us from dead doctrines and knowledge. We can only be God's vessels and ministers according to our knowledge of Him. God's vessels and ministers are those who know God.
