Hebrews 11:17 Commentary and Bible Study

Abraham was tried and proved to demonstrate his obedience to God. Faith is always obedient, and obedience proves the presence of true faith. Faith makes Christ is so real; it makes God, the word of God, heaven and eternity so real to us. We cannot disobey him and go our own way. Faith inspires obedience, because faith sees invisible things. When we become disobedient, as believers it is because faith has failed, the eyes of faith are shut, and we are not appreciating things as we ought to. Now this is the most severe trial imaginable, but it is not so much a trial as a proving, since there was never any doubt that Abraham would come forth from the trial victorious.Abraham had heard the unmistakable voice of God; we do not hear the voice of God. The Scripture is complete, God does not reveal himself any longer by audible voices or by dreams. We have the perfect, all sufficient word of God. If God were to reveal himself throughout history by that means, that would be quite a dangerous matter, since all sorts of people might well imagine they have special messages from God. Indeed all sorts of people do imagine this that God has authoritatively told them something, something new, something which isn't in the Bible, something which is personal to them, but that is foolish. Abraham heard God speaking to him, outwardly and inwardly, and he had not the slightest doubt about what God was commanding to do. There was no question of his being deluded or misunderstanding what he was to do. God had said, take him into the land of Moriah, take him to a place that I will show you of and offer him up for a burnt offering, harrowing terrifying words. In spite of the fact that he had never heard of God commanding anyone to do such a thing before, and it seemed to go against all that God required of a father’s towards for his son, Abraham obeyed, and with alacrity. Look at the way holy Scripture puts it, ‘and he that had received the promises.’ Potential stumbling block number one: in Isaac, his seed, his descendants were going to come; through Isaac the promised Saviour ultimately would come. How long after first receiving the promise he had been required to wait for Isaac to be born! Now Isaac was a young adult. What will happen to the promises if Isaac is executed? But furthermore he was being told to offer up ‘his only begotten son’. I won’t try at length to communicate the heartache and the confusion and the turmoil that Abraham must be in – I rather think one can overdo that, because we do not know precisely when his faith began to solve the problem – but nevertheless it was always a very difficult experience for him. God did not tempt him to evil of course; we can clear that out of the way at the beginning. There was a morally sufficient reason for God giving the commandment, and the Lord knew there would be no destruction of Isaac. God who gave life can take life at any time – our lives are in his hands. And what Abraham was held back from doing, God himself did do when he caused his only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to be offered up on Calvary. Part of the reason why this test took place was to give Abraham an insight into what it would cost God the Father to give his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. If it was evil for Abraham to carry out this commandment, then it was also evil for him to contemplate doing so. But it can never be evil for us to be willing to obey the unmistakable commandment of God.