Genesis 22

Genesis 22:1-26

Subdivision 5. (Genesis 22:1-24; Genesis 23:1-20; Genesis 24:1-67; Genesis 25:1-34; Genesis 26:1-33.) Isaac.Self-surrender, the responsibility of sonship; and the recompense of obedience. Isaac is the double type of the Son and of the sons of God; and in him the dispensational application is very prominent. No wonder, when the object of the Spirit is to take of the things that are Christ’s and show them unto us. In fact, the individual application, which is elsewhere generally the main thing, seems almost to fail us, just where the other acquires fullness of detail. This may be, of course, only due to our ignorance; for the types of life, involving as they do often the appeal to inward experience, become naturally harder to read as we go on.

1. The twenty-second chapter is a most striking picture of Christ in the fulfillment of the responsibility which He undertook for us. Here it pleased God for a moment almost to remove the vail from the sacrificial types, and to show the reality that lay under them. Man it is that must suffer and die, although not Isaac, who is saved by the substituted ram. Isaac is withdrawn, but we have the witness that God will provide Himself a Lamb for a burnt-offering. At the same time, the Father’s gift of the Son is no less brought before us than the Son’s obedience. The God who provides the Lamb is in the antitype the Father Himself; and to the cost to Him of that wondrous gift our attention is especially called. Our human hearts are arrested by this spectacle of a father’s trial, but to find in it all the heart of God declared. Isaac is only as “in a figure” received back from the dead (Hebrews 11:19); Christ in reality; and to Him thus the promises belong: it is Christ raised from the dead who is the source of blessing to all the families of the earth. The individual application is still in this chapter plain. The responsibility of a son is obedience to the father’s will, and according to it we are to present our bodies a “living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God.” (Romans 12:1-21.) Here, Isaac’s being in will and intent offered, and yet spared from death, becomes completely intelligible; while the substitution of the ram in death is divinely significant. It is with Christ we have died, He bearing the burden of it but we are taught also to reckon ourselves dead, while yet we live, and live in the power of His resurrection. Not only are we justified, but sanctified also (set apart to God), in the offering of Christ for us. So comes the blessing also through us to others: the dead men who live are the great means of blessing to the world.
2. In Sarah’s death it is not hard to read the passing away of the nation of whom after the flesh Christ came (Romans 9:5), and their committal to a stranger’s tomb, though in the faith of resurrection. Thus Israel makes way for the Church, the bride of the true Isaac. Although unable to see fully the individual application here, yet Machpelah seems a beautiful testimony. Purchased out of the hands of the sons of Heth (fear) with the silver money (of atonement), it becomes the portion of faith, -a sepulchre, indeed, but with a fruitful field attached, and right opposite Hebron; in view, that is, of “participation” (with Christ). For Christ has been in death, and through death annulled him who had the power of it, that He might deliver those who all their lifetime through fear of death were subject to bondage. (Hebrews 2:14-15.) Death thus becomes but conformity to His death. No wonder Jacob should desire to be buried in Machpelah! The name “Machpelah” means a “doubling,” or turning back upon itself, -a hint, as it would seem, of resurrection.
3. We have typified in the next section the mission of the Spirit to find among the family of faith (Abraham’s kindred) a bride for the risen Christ, the Father’s heir. The story is told at a length which shows how much God’s heart is occupied with it: first, the mission of Him who comes in servant-character. Striking lesson for those through whom the Spirit of God acts, the servant’s name is not made known to us: he is content to speak only of his master. His course is marked by dependence: he waits upon God in simplicity of faith, taking his stand by the spring of water, -the Word of God in its living power; and there Rebekah is found. Evidently it is not the call of sinners by the gospel, but of saints to a special relationship with Christ on high. This is what began at Pentecost, plainly, where the hundred and twenty gathered were already of the “kindred.” Rebekah has the well when the call is received to be Isaac’s bride in Canaan. Indeed, Isaac’s gifts are already upon her before she receives this: she is betrothed and endowed before she realizes or has received the message. So at Pentecost, and for years after, the Church, already begun, knew not yet the character of what had begun. It is only through Paul’s ministry that her place with Christ is at last made fully known. The ways of God leading up to this are also made known, and although she is really Isaac’s, her choice is pressed upon her. Then she must break through all hindrances, resist all temptations to delay, do but one thing, and go out to meet the Bridegroom, with the earnest of what is before her already on her. The individual application here I cannot give, though Rebekah should have some significance; but I prefer to omit what is conjectural.
4. After Rebekah -the Church, Keturah’s sons would seem to represent the millennial nations; and these, with Ishmael’s seed, the plain type of Israel, give us the rest of the family of Abraham, and the picture of the various blessing through him for the families of the earth. Isaac comes into this picture to show the relation to it of the heavenly saints, who live by the “well of” a higher “vision,” but in connection also with those blessed on earth. While Abraham’s death may have place here as showing how now faith passes into this higher state, as Abraham gives way to Isaac. Thus a very complete view is given.
5. We come now to a section in which the history of Isaac is linked with that of Jacob, just as Abraham’s before was linked with that of Isaac. The life of Jacob gives us as its lesson the story of that fruitful discipline by which the Spirit of God brings us from weakness to power, -from nature’s strength and strivings to that wholesome weakness in which alone is strength. But, for this, natural strength has to be crippled; and this is provided for in two ways: first, in allowing us to realize the power of another nature (Esau), which we cannot subdue in any strength of our own; and secondly, in the direct dealing of God with our souls. The germ of this history we find already in Isaac’s life, because discipline and the need of it grow out of sonship: “what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?” But the lesson is given us at full length presently: it is too important to be merely treated as a secondary theme; so that Jacob comes to the front in a little while, and then accompanies us, to some extent, (and we see for what reason,) practically to the end of the book. No wonder that this section, then, has stamped on it the number which reminds us of governmental ways, and also (as in the addition to Abram’s name) of the weakness of the creature in the presence of the almighty God! First, we learn here that Rebekah is as barren as Sarah, except for the power of God. No principle of truth, no inherent power of grace, suffices for us apart from the direct operation of God Himself. And this is the basis-truth for Jacob’s history. But Rebekah conceives, and then a struggle is felt within her, which is once more that internal struggle of contrary natures, realized all through our course here, beginning before it has become an outward manifest thing, and the true meaning of which God must teach us. Then we learn the meaning of the struggle, and that in God’s purpose and election lies the strength of the younger over the elder -for “that which is first is natural” still, -and that the elder is to serve the younger: strange mystery this, whereby the very evil in us is made to work for blessing to us. ‘‘But so it is; our senses are, by reason of use, exercised to discern both good and evil; and the wonder of God’s grace is known as else it could not be. Later, these tendencies come into open light, and get their names: Esau is red, and all over like a hairy garment, -unmistakably of the earth, but full of strong, wild life. Jacob is seen in this, from which he gets his name of “heel-catcher” -“supplanter” -that his hand lays hold of Esau’s heel. Here is seen the spirit that would by fleshly effort set aside the flesh. Therefore the power of the flesh is felt, and the power of God is not felt, or felt in opposition. Yet Jacob after all is the simple and homely spirit, kept by his affections, and living in tents, as customary with the men of faith. Esau is the free rover, bound but by his own will, pursuing his own objects, -the hunter, Nimrod-like, who can pursue indifferently beasts or men. Presently the manifestation comes. Esau is seen in despising his birthright to be profane; Jacob values it, but seeks it in crooked ways. Esau now is seen openly as Edom, -that is, Adam, only a little changed outwardly, and not in heart.
6. And now we have two sections which almost repeat the history of Abraham which we have considered. We are, as there, in the Philistines’ land where Isaac denies his wife as Abraham did, and is exposed and rebuked by Abimelech in like manner; while the strife for the wells is found here as there, ending in the covenant at the same place -Beersheba, which receives its name again from the similar oath of the covenant. The numbers of the sections are also the same. Isaac, however, does not lose Rebekah, even for a time, and grows very great during his stay in Gerar, so that they pray him to depart, as mightier than they. He digs again, and renames Abraham’s wells, but gives up well after well rather than contend with the Philistines, at last finding one for which they do not contend.
7. At Beersheba, God appears to him once more, and blesses him. The Philistines make here a covenant with him, owning that Jehovah (not merely God, as in Abraham’s case,) is with him in all he does. It is easy to see in all this blessing, so uniform and unbroken as it is, the recompense of the obedience with which Isaac’s life begins. There are no changes, no experiences such as we find in Jacob. He never leaves the land, and seems already almost in possession of it, Hagar’s well and the Philistines’ land are alike his own, as the children of grace now inherit the portion of the Jew and the legalist, -all the riches of God’s Word from the beginning, -finding every where a new fruitfulness, and the face of God revealed.