The Ram in the Thicket
Ram in the Thicket
Genesis 22:1-19
After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 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.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.” And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together.
At first glance, this comment that Abraham makes to Isaac could just be a deflect, a way to avoid the conversation about what is really going on. But the statement might be more significant. Hebrews 11 identifies for us that Abraham was still looking for a way for God to deliver Isaac: namely, Abraham believed that God might resurrect Isaac from the dead for him.
Perhaps in this moment Abraham really is hoping that God will provide a substitute. Perhaps Abraham doesn’t really know what he’s saying. But God considered what Abraham said to be significant enough to preserve it for us in Scripture, above all the other things that Abraham and Isaac must have spoken on that journey of three days. “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”
If you think about that statement from Isaac’s perspective, it must have seemed very strange. Weren’t they going to make a sacrifice to God? The whole point of a sacrifice is that you’re giving up something that you own. It’s supposed to cost YOU something, not God. Yet Abraham says, “God will provide the sacrifice.”
When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”
Pause for a moment there. Do you see the fulfillment of this theme? Earlier, Abraham said, whether in concealment or whether in faith: “God will provide the lamb.” And indeed God does. In fact, God provides more than a lamb: He provides a Ram. And the fulfillment of this wish is not lost on Abraham. Abraham calls the name of that place, “The Lord will provide.”
And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven 16 and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.” So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beersheba. And Abraham lived at Beersheba.
And these last verses really tie up the theme that we are seeing here. We often read this story as an instruction about how to have faith. We read this story paying attention to Abraham’s heart, because Abraham teaches us how to practice faith. And that is a good way to read the story. But I want to look at it from a different angle today. Because if we’re looking at the events that happen in the story, those events have very little to do with Abraham’s choices, or Abraham’s ability to bring about a happy ending. They all have to do with God’s choices and God’s ability to bring a happy ending.
Remember what Abraham goes to Mt Moriah… what does he tell Isaac? “The Lord will provide a lamb for an offer.” And of course, that statement ends up being prophetic. When God stays Abraham’s hand, he reveals a sheep in the thicket to substitute for Isaac on the altar. But the sheep isn’t quite a lamb. It’s a ram: an adult male sheep. Why the difference?
Well, there is a practical aspect. The ram is caught in the thicket by it’s horns so that Abraham can catch it. Perhaps that’s all there is. Perhaps God provided a ram simply because it could be ensnared in that way.
But maybe there’s symbolism in it. God could have provided a lamb in accordance with Abraham’s prediction if he wanted; but he provided something more: an older animal: a larger animal: a more costly sacrifice: a ram. The ram would later become important in Levitical law, distinct from a lamb as a special sacrifice for two things: guilt offerings, offerings made to make restitution for sin; and once a year on the day of Atonement, to purify the temple and absolve the unintentional sins of the people.
And beyond that: it is not difficult to connect the dots and see Messianic typology in this. Think of this story. Abraham has an obligation to make a sacrifice before God: his heir, his own flesh and blood. But what happens? God spares Abraham that sacrifice. God provides a lamb.
How about our story? Don’t we also have an obligation to make a sacrifice before God? Isn’t our own flesh and blood, our very soul, that is destined for destruction because of our sin and our separation from God? But what happens? God spares us that sacrifice. God provides a lamb. The lamb of God. Our Messiah. Jesus Christ.
And Jesus Christ is the reason why we don’t have those sacrifices of rams anymore. God has abolished the guilt offerings, because Jesus Christ made all guilt offerings for us with His sacrifice once and for all. We don’t need to conduct the Day of Atonement year after year anymore, because Jesus Christ is the only atonement we ever need.
And so perhaps here the ram really does foreshadow Christ. On Mount Mariah, God provides Abraham not a young lamb, not a female: He provides an adult male lamb. Just as Jesus was an adult male when He was sacrificed on the cross. Jesus even wore a crown of thorns as he went to His sacrifice, not too unlike the ram caught by it’s horns in the thicket.
Whatever the imagery is, though, we can clearly see God operating the same way in both stories: God comes down from heaven to provide the atoning sacrifice, able to make right what human beings cannot.
A friend of mine was telling me that when they were younger, and they read this story, they thought of themselves in the place of Isaac. They put themselves in the place of Isaac’s uncertainty and fear. But as they got older, they read the story and they put themselves in the place of Abraham. They put themselves in the place of someone who was helpless to make proper restitution, to make things right, wanting desperately to provide a life for their son, but unable to set things in place to do so: dependent upon God to provide the lamb. And they told me that one day they realized that they would never be able to read that story and put themselves in the place of God: the only person in the story able to provide the lamb and set things right. In whatever situation of life we are in, we live in a world full of circumstances beyond our control. We control our own behavior; but we can’t control anything else. We can’t make everything right. And faith becomes a necessity in life when we realize that: when we realize that God is the only one who can make things right. We have to depend on Him. He is the only one with the knowledge and the wisdom and control to set everything back on its correct course.
And so, just as the Scriptures say that Abraham is the father of faith, we need to set our minds to this story and make it ours. We have to put ourselves in the shoes of Abraham and view ourselves as climbing a mountain to make a sacrifice that we have never been able to make correctly. God asked Abraham to make a sacrifice, and he asks us to make sacrifices: to crucify our fleshly man, to live for others above ourselves, to dedicate ourselves to the works of God. But at the end of the day, it’s not going to be our sacrifices that make things right. Only God can provide the lamb. And we have to walk in faith expecting that God will make things right for us.
Those exercises of faith can be big or small. What’s in common is looking to God for guidance. When I moved back to Montana thirteen years ago, that was a big leap of faith for me. I was moving to a city where I didn’t know a soul and attending a college campus I had never visited. I knew I wasn’t ready to handle life on my own in a strange place, and that I really didn’t know what was in store for me. On the drive up my old truck lost two cylinders, and I had no idea if I could make it the rest of the trip or fix my car when I got up there! But God put a lot of people in my life to help me out and made things work for me when I didn’t know how to make them work. And trusting God in that experience taught me that I could trust him in other things as well.
Faith should be a part of every little aspect of our life. But there’s one particular act of faith that’s pertinent to all of us, and to which the story of Abraham very clearly foreshadows: and that act of faith is how we view our life, our death, and whether we will be right with God when we stand before Him in heaven. We climb to the top of the mountain in life, and we one day come to our death… and we fear we might lose everything there. On one hand, we really shouldn’t fear… for 1 John 5 :13 says we can know we have eternal life.
But at the same time, the anxiety of standing before God can be real because we KNOW we don’t deserve it. And that guilt tends to stick with us. We know we are not worthy of the presence of God. Our fear of losing our souls must be much like Abraham’s fear of losing his son. I’ve talked to many of you who struggle with that fear, and I think it’s perfectly normal to have that fear. I’m young, and I still feel like I have a lot of life ahead of me: my death is not something that weighs heavily on my mind. And so I don’t really know if and what I’ll be afraid of when that time comes. I’d like to think that I will feel like Paul: “For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” But I won’t be surprised at all if I find I have that natural, human fear, conscious of my inadequacy before God, and fearful that I might not be deemed worthy to hear from my Father: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
This story speaks precisely to that fear. The whole point of this story is that Abraham had a sacrifice to make. Abraham had to prove his faith. Just as we do. That obligation is real. But at the end of all things, God has grace. God does not require the obligation of us. God requires us to have faith: but he knows that at the end of the day, we can’t make all things right. Only God can do that. And God is willing to do that.
And so when you encounter that situation in life that requires so much faith: when you can’t see the solution: when you know you’re inadequate for the task at hand: I want you to say what Abraham says: “God will provide a lamb.”
Because in our case God already HAS provided a lamb. How much more reason for faith do we have than Abraham did? We know the plan of salvation! These mysteries are made known to us! We’ve seen what kind of God we have, and by now, we should be able to trust that He will always take care of His people.