The Story of Abraham and Promised Son

Transcript:

One day when the boy grew up, God called Abraham and said to him, “Take the son that you love and go to the mountain that I will show you and sacrifice him and present him to me as an offering.”

The day after, Abraham woke up early and took his donkey, wood, son, and servants and they went on their way. On the third day, he saw the mountain that God showed him, so he said to his servants, “Stay here while the boy and I go up to the mountain to worship and then return.”

As they were going up, his son asked, “Daddy, the wood is here, and the fire is here but where is the sheep that you will sacrifice to God?” Abraham answered him, “God will provide, my son.” When they got there Abraham prepared the wood, tied his son on the wood and took a knife to sacrifice him.

Suddenly he heard the voice of God speaking to him through an angel, calling him from the sky, “Abraham, Abraham, don’t harm him because I know now that you fear God and you wouldn’t withhold your son from me.” Abraham turned around and found a sheep stuck with his horns in a tree, so he took him and put him on the wood instead of his son and sacrificed him. And he called that place, “God provides.”

The angel called him again and said, “Because you obeyed me and didn’t withhold your son from me I will bless you and increase your descendants as many as the stars in the sky and grains of sand. Through your descendants I will bless all the nations of the world." Abraham and his son came down from the mountain and took the servants and the donkey and went back from where they came from.

God promised Abraham to increase his descendants through his son Isaac, so how could he, at the same time, ask him to sacrifice him? After God was sure of Abraham’s obedience, why was it still necessary to provide him with a sheep to sacrifice in place of his son? How did this experience affect Abraham’s faith and trust in God?