After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 2 He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”

 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Ge 22:1–2)

The question: Why did God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son? As parents, we might read Genesis 22 and imagine ourselves in Abraham’s situation. What would we do? Indeed, none of us would happily obey that request. The divine request seems immoral at first glance. We might ask ourselves, “Isn’t God moral? Why would God request such a cruel thing?” Our initial reaction to reading Genesis 22 is seemingly always shock. The shock is purposeful. The story is like a bowman’s arrow, drawn and waiting for his prey, aimed at the reader’s heart. 

I will try to answer the question in two parts.

  1. Why would God test a man?
  2. How do God’s actions here reveal His goodness? 

First, “Why would God test a man”? Isn’t God All-knowing? If God is Omniscient and cannot learn anything from “testing” a man, why did God “test” Abraham? God is unique, holy, and unlike His creatures, who make judgments based on what they experience in time. For example, when a coach puts an athlete to the test, he seeks to know what his athlete is capable of. However, when God puts a man like Abraham to the test, He already knows what that man is capable of. Indeed, God knows beyond the hypothetical idea of what Abraham might be capable of, and He infallibly knows what Abraham will actually do. This understanding of God’s knowledge is essential to answering this heartwrenching question. 

1  O Lord, you have searched me and known me! 

2  You know when I sit down and when I rise up; 

you discern my thoughts from afar. 

3  You search out my path and my lying down 

and are acquainted with all my ways. 

4  Even before a word is on my tongue, 

behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. 

 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Ps 139:1–4)

Psalm 139 is an excellent example of the Biblical teaching about the topic of God’s knowledge. Because God is All-knowing, we must deny learning to God. Yet, learning is the natural consequence of “testing” in our typical use of the term “test.” Therefore, if God isn’t learning anything through testing Abraham, then who is learning? You and I, the readers, are learning through Abraham’s test. Reading Genesis 22 we learn that Abraham trusts God so entirely that he obeys in a way that is unfathomable to us. Furthermore, we learn that God did not truly desire the death of that boy but to provide a sacrifice in place of that boy to save both father and son. 

Second, How did God’s actions reveal His goodness? The Old Testament is not merely a collection of ancient religious books. The Old Testament books are the divinely inspired books before the advent of Christ. The primary aim of these divinely inspired books is to point forward to Christ and foreshadow His work. When God asks Abraham to sacrifice his dearly beloved son as an offering of worship, that request was meant to prepare us to understand better the incredible sacrificial offering of God’s only begotten Son upon the cross. When Isaac asked his father, “Where is the lamb?” and God later provided that sacrificial lamb to take Isaac’s place, that dramatic scene was meant to point us toward the self-giving sacrifice of Christ dying in our place. So our God revealed His goodness by testing Abraham because He knew what Abraham would do. God tested Abraham’s unyielding faith in order for us to see Abraham illustrate the act of a Father willing to sacrifice his son, and then provided Abraham with a way of salvation by providing a prepared “lamb” to take the place of Abraham’s boy. This test clearly revealed God’s goodness, but the riddle is only made clear through the looking glass of Jesus Christ.