I never felt the depth of Abraham's sacrifice when he offered up Isaac until I read Genesis 12-22 in one sitting. The events leading up to Abraham raising his knife to strike his own child intensify the level of his pain to immeasurable levels, a pain that we cannot begin to see if we read chapter 22 in isolation.

Abraham waited for a son for twenty-five years (Gen 12:4; 21:5). Everything God promised Abraham from day 1 depended on Abraham having a son. At one point Abraham thought the promised child would come through a servant born in his house (Gen 15:2-3), and at another point Abraham took things in his own hands and tried to make God's promise work by sleeping with Hagar (Gen 17:18). But God would not be hurried. Abraham had to walk this earth for 100 years before he would lay eyes on his first son.

After waiting two and a half decades for a child, when Sarah finally gave birth to Isaac she was so full of joy she laughed out loud (Gen 21:6-7). Like a prisoner finally free, running through the fields screaming "freedom!" and laughing as he inhales the fresh air, Sarah's joy burst over like the Niagara Falls. To go childless in Sarah's day was akin to the stigma of a leper. A woman's children was her boast, her glory, her identity as a woman. After twenty-five years of shame and humiliation, she holds the joy of laughter in her arms.

That's chapter 21. Then comes chapter 22. "Abraham!" says God. "Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you" (Gen 22:1-2).

The human gut reaction is to look up and scream, "Is this some kind of cruel joke!?" But the text implies that Abraham did not say a word. He rises early the next morning and off he goes, to take the life of the son he waited 25 years for, the son who redeemed his wife's identity, the son upon whom every promise God gave him depended.

So what's going on in Abraham's head? Praise God for the divinely inspired commentator, also known as the author of Hebrews! Because of him we know exactly what Abraham was thinking as he trudged up Mt. Moriah: "He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead... " (Heb 11:19). With no precedent for the resurrection of a dead man, with no hint from God that He would save Abraham's son from this bloody end, Abraham believed that God would perform the impossible and rasie his son back to life.

How many of us dads would plunge a knife into the heart of our son at the command of God? As a father of two little dudes, my eyes well up just imagining. The only answer for Abraham's unbelievable obedience is faith. His faith in God gave him strength to do what would otherwise be impossible.

But how do we get this kind of faith? From where does it come? From the one whom Isaac's near-death experience typifies. The author of Hebrews tells us that Abraham received his son back "as a type" (Heb 11:19). A type is a foreshadow, a fore-picture of something greater to come.

Just as God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his only son, so God gave His only Son.

Just as God received His Son back through resurrection, so Abraham received his son back through God's command to halt.

Through God's Son, you have the strength to exercise faith even greater than Abraham's. Yes, even greater.