6/20/2023 0 Comments Elucidate binding of isaacWas Abraham forgiven of his sin, and is he in heaven? Of course he is! The Bible makes that clear everywhere. Now was Abraham a sinner or was he perfectly sinless? No, he sinned in thought, word and deed just like all the rest of the children of Adam and Eve, because he came into the world with a sinful nature, disposition or heart. This interpretation presents us not with what Abraham believed, but only that he believed. Instead of holding fast to a God-centered approach to the Scriptures, this interpretation slips off into a man-centered one, and with it the message of the Bible is no longer what God did for Abraham and us in Christ but what Abraham did and what we ought to do. The problem with the popularly accepted interpretation is that the focus of Genesis 22 is shifted away from the grace of God to something Abraham did, which is then made the basis for moralistic applications to other believers. But is the Apostle Paul referring to the fact that Abraham had faith, or is he speaking of the facts Abraham believed in? After all, many say, he is called the father of those who have faith (Romans 4:16). And since Abraham passed the test he is made the supreme example for all other believers of what it means to have great faith. That is, did he really trust God or not? Did he love God more than anything else, including his son? Would Abraham trust God with his son, and was he willing to give up everything, including his son, for God? The presence or absence of faith, not the content of what he believed, is what most people think is being tested. The sacrifice of Isaac as recounted in Genesis 22 is generally taken to be a test of Abraham’s faith.
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