by Emily Wooten
God made a covenant for all humans through Abraham. His relationship with God positioned his family in God’s favor. God said of Abraham that he would not only do his commandments, but also teach his children.
Genesis 18:18 Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him. It was through Isaac, Abraham’s son, that God would send a savior, the chosen Messiah.
A man is known by the legacy he leaves behind. We see in Genesis 31:42 Jacob acknowledging God’s protection and intervention in his life. Jacob states that if it weren’t for “the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac,” Laban would have sent him away with nothing. Is it possible for Isaac to have been taught to reverence God, to do his commandments, but never intimately experience God?
We see where God warned Isaac not to go to Egypt in Genesis 26:2-3, but we have no record of God walking or talking with Isaac the way he did with Adam or Abraham. Jacob’s idea of his father’s relationship with God is that he was the fear of Isaac. Maybe the reason Isaac obeyed God was out of a reverential fear.
Is it possible that our laid-back culture has produced a generation of Christians who not only don’t know God in an intimate fellowship, but they don’t reverence him either?
God saw in Abraham a human who would teach his children to obey God. It isn’t clear if Isaac loved God. As a teenager, he had been tied to the altar as a sacrifice at God’s request. Isaac was likely familiar with animal sacrifices, and his question (Genesis 22:8), “Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” suggests he understood the purpose of their journey to Mount Moriah. When Abraham binds him and places him on the altar, Isaac would have realized he was to be the sacrifice. This realization for a young man must have been profound and potentially terrifying, yet he did not object. Perhaps he had been convinced that God was going to make a nation from him. At any rate, Abraham had taught his son to obey God.
Isaac was released at the last moment, and God did make a nation from his children. Because of the work of Jesus, the descendant of Isaac, we can have both an intimate relationship with God and reverence him. Through God’s word and the work of the Holy Spirit, we can experience God more profoundly than Isaac or Jacob. Fellowshipping with God is not just a privilege, it is a responsibility. Just do it!