Why would God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son? In Genesis 22, God gives Abraham the hardest command imaginable: offer your son Isaac as a sacrifice. Dr. Toby Holt walks through this famous test and the gospel it foreshadows.

Abraham obeys, traveling three days to Mount Moriah as Isaac carries the wood up the hill. At the last moment God stops him and provides a ram as a substitute. Abraham trusted God so fully that, Hebrews says, he believed God could raise Isaac from the dead. The scene foreshadows Christ — the beloved Son who carried His own wood up that same hill — except Isaac was spared, and Jesus was not.

Questions this study answers:

1. Was God really going to let Abraham kill Isaac? No. It was a test of Abraham's faith, and God provided a ram in Isaac's place. God never intended Isaac to die.

2. What did Abraham believe would happen? He trusted God to keep His promise — even if it meant raising Isaac from the dead. He told his servants they would both return.

3. How does this point to Christ? Isaac, the beloved son, carried the wood up Moriah, just as Jesus carried His cross. But where Isaac was spared, God did not spare His own Son.

"...now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me." — Genesis 22:12 (NKJV)

Dr. Toby Holt is President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio. Find more verse-by-verse Bible teaching at newgeneva.org; support this ministry at newgeneva.org/give.