The Grammar of Faith on the Mountain Text: Hebrews 11:17-19
Introduction: The Sharp Edge of Obedience
We come now in our survey of this great chapter of faith to the highest peak of all. We have seen faith obey a call to leave home, faith live as a stranger in a promised land, and faith receive strength to bear a child in old age. But here, we come to the sharpest edge of faith's obedience. We come to the test that silences all our petty excuses and our small-minded complaints about what God might ask of us. We come to Abraham, a knife, a fire, and his son.
The story of Abraham offering Isaac is one of those places in Scripture that our modern, sentimental age simply does not know what to do with. It is raw, it is terrifying, and it cuts straight across the grain of our therapeutic, self-centered notions of what God is like. We want a God who is a celestial butler, on call to meet our needs. We are presented here with a God who is a sovereign, and who tests His people, sometimes in breathtaking ways. We want a faith that is a comfortable cushion; the Bible presents a faith that is a sacrificial altar.
But we must not misunderstand what is happening here. This is not arbitrary cruelty. This is not God playing games with His servant. This is the final exam. This is the capstone of a life of faith, designed by God not to destroy Abraham, but to reveal the quality of the faith God Himself had given him. And in this ultimate test, we see not only the pinnacle of Abraham's faith, but also the clearest Old Testament picture of the gospel of Jesus Christ. What happened on Mount Moriah was a dress rehearsal for what would happen on Mount Calvary. God was teaching Abraham the grammar of the gospel, and the central lesson was substitutionary atonement. This story is not ultimately about Abraham's devotion to God; it is about God's devotion to us, prefigured in the most dramatic way imaginable.
The author of Hebrews brings us to this moment to show his readers, and to show us, what kind of faith perseveres. It is not a fair-weather faith. It is a faith that trusts God not just when He provides the ram, but when He commands the sacrifice. It is a faith that believes God's promises so thoroughly that it is willing to place the very fulfillment of that promise on the altar, trusting that God is able to raise the dead.
The Text
By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only son,
to whom it was said, “IN ISAAC YOUR SEED SHALL BE CALLED.”
He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he also received him back.
(Hebrews 11:17-19 LSB)
The Test of Contradiction (v. 17-18)
The first thing to notice is the nature of the test. It is a test of naked faith, a faith that must trust God against all circumstantial evidence.
"By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only son, to whom it was said, 'IN ISAAC YOUR SEED SHALL BE CALLED.'" (Hebrews 11:17-18)
The word for "tested" here is the same root used for temptation. God tests, the devil tempts. The difference is in the intent. The devil tempts in order to cause a man to fall. God tests in order to prove the quality of a man's faith, to strengthen it, and to display it for His glory. James tells us to count it all joy when we fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of our faith produces steadfastness (James 1:2-3). This was the mother of all such testings.
Notice the apparent contradiction God builds into the command. Abraham, "he who had received the promises," was told to offer up the very vessel of those promises. God had not just promised Abraham a son; He had specifically and repeatedly named Isaac as the one through whom the covenant would flow. "In Isaac your seed shall be called." This was not a vague hope; it was a direct, divine promise. And now, God gives a direct, divine command that seems to cancel the promise: "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love...and offer him there as a burnt offering" (Gen. 22:2).
This is crucial. Abraham was not being asked to choose between his son and God. He was being asked to choose between two words from God. One was a promise. The other was a command. From the outside, they were in flat contradiction. How could God keep His promise about Isaac if Isaac was dead? This is where faith lives. Faith is not the absence of questions; it is trusting God for the answers when you cannot see them. Abraham had to trust the Promiser over the promise. He had to believe that God was not a liar and that God was not a fool. Therefore, God must have a way to reconcile His own words, even if Abraham could not imagine what it was.
The text says he "offered up Isaac." This is in the past tense, a completed action. Though the knife never fell, in the determination of his heart and in the reckoning of God, the sacrifice was made. He went all the way. This was not a game of chicken. He built the altar, he laid the wood, he bound his son, and he raised the knife. His faith was not a feeling; it was an action. As James would later argue, using this very example, faith without works is dead (James 2:21-22). Abraham's faith was alive, and the proof was his willingness to obey.
The Logic of Resurrection (v. 19)
The author of Hebrews then pulls back the curtain and shows us the internal logic of Abraham's faith. How did he resolve the contradiction? What was the reasoning that enabled him to obey?
"He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he also received him back." (Hebrews 11:19 LSB)
The word "considered" here is a term of accounting. It means he reasoned, he calculated, he reckoned. This was not a blind leap in the dark. It was a logical conclusion based on the premises of God's character and God's promise. The syllogism in Abraham's mind went something like this: Premise A: God has promised that Isaac will have descendants. Premise B: God has commanded me to kill Isaac. Premise C: God cannot lie or contradict Himself. Conclusion: Therefore, God must be planning to raise Isaac from the dead.
This is staggering. At this point in redemptive history, there was no record of anyone ever being resurrected from the dead. Abraham had no biblical case studies to consult. He had no systematic theology textbook with a chapter on eschatology. He had only the character of God and the Word of God. And for him, that was enough. He reasoned that the God who could create life in a dead womb (Sarah's) could certainly recreate life from a dead body. His faith was not irrational; it was hyper-rational, because it was anchored in the ultimate reality, which is the faithfulness of God.
This is the kind of faith that pleases God. It is a faith that takes God at His word and follows the logic all the way to its conclusion, no matter how impossible that conclusion seems to our limited experience. It is a faith that banks everything on the power and integrity of God.
And so, the author says, "figuratively speaking, he also received him back." The Greek word is parabole, from which we get "parable." In a parable, in a figure, Abraham experienced the resurrection. When the angel of the Lord stopped his hand and provided the ram, it was as though Isaac had passed through death and been given back to him on the other side. He went up the mountain with a son under a death sentence and came down the mountain with a son who was, for all intents and purposes, resurrected. This entire event was a living parable of the death and resurrection of the ultimate Son of promise.
The Gospel on the Mountain
We cannot leave this text without seeing its glorious fulfillment. This entire drama was a trailer for the main feature. It was a preview of the gospel, played out in flesh and blood on a mountain in the land of Moriah, the very same mountain range where Jerusalem would be built and where Christ would be crucified.
Consider the parallels. A father is called to offer his beloved, only son (John 3:16). The son carries the wood for his own sacrifice up the hill (John 19:17). The son submits willingly to the father's will. And on the third day, the father receives the son back from the dead (Gen. 22:4; 1 Cor. 15:4).
But there is a crucial difference. For Abraham, God provided a substitute. "Abraham called the name of that place, 'The LORD will provide'" (Gen. 22:14). A ram, caught in the thicket, took Isaac's place on the altar. But when the time came for the reality to which the shadow pointed, there was no substitute for the Son of God. On Calvary, the Father did not stay His hand. He did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all (Rom. 8:32). Jesus was both the Isaac, the beloved Son, and the ram, the substitute caught in the thicket of our sin.
Abraham's faith was counted to him as righteousness because he believed this gospel in advance. He saw Christ's day, and was glad (John 8:56). He understood, through this agonizing test, the heart of the Father in giving His Son for the life of the world. He learned that the foundation of our relationship with God is not what we offer to Him, but what He provides for us. Jehovah Jireh. The Lord will provide.
And so, the faith that is commended here is not simply Abraham's grit or his moral fortitude. The faith that is commended is his grasp of the gospel. He believed in a God who provides a substitute and a God who raises the dead. And that, brothers and sisters, is the very faith we are called to exercise. We are justified by faith alone when we stop trying to offer our own filthy works on the altar and instead trust in the Lamb God has provided. And we live by faith when we face our own tests, our own impossible contradictions, and we consider, we reckon, we calculate that the God who raised Jesus from the dead is able to see us through anything and everything. He is faithful. His promises are true. And He will provide.