Abraham, on Mount Moriah

John Owen:

The peculiar specifical nature of faith, whereby it is differenced from all other powers, acts, and graces in the mind, lies in this, that it makes a life on things invisible.

Genesis 22:1

Some time later God tested Abraham.

This is the foreboding, the waiting, the long gap between promise and consummation. Here the victory lies, here the sight of things invisible is made known, and what man is made of, his heart's treasure, exposed and made known to him.

O Lord, with what surfeit of emotion do I tremble before you! This is spoken by an old man, a man of age and wisdom, familiar with waiting, with deferring, with putting off the hope of the years, not that it makes the promises dim for me, for in some mysterious way the waiting has made them brighter. Or perhaps it is my eyes that are sharpened, for the years have made me more yours, more set apart from those amidst I wander, even in the failings of my flesh my heart has been brought forth more fixed, more steady, more ready to suffer for what will be gained, that future thing, seen in its outline but not yet discernible.

Not that the fixedness of my heart has evened out my emotions, nor made the arc of them less extreme. It seems this changeableness, this mutability is a mark of my nature, and the waiting does not destroy it. I am sometimes high in the joy of your presence, happy with the surpassing happiness of a grasped possession, for in such moments what is mine in fact becomes so real that I taste and feel and see it. This is the exquisite joy of my belief, to be presented with invisible things, a spiritual joy that sustains. For I fall too, dark times of terrible doubt, when the sand and dust are all that is real, when the flame of my joy runs low, a dim light amidst the darkness of the idolatry of the land. But here in these darknesses there is a persistent presence, God's voice recalled, his promises known and seen, and though my emotional experience of them varies, yet they are there, real, objective, a rock in the river of my affections, or to alter the metaphor, like the ark amidst the floodwaters, a refuge in the storm. It is there, it is real, and as I wait, it only grows more real.

Then also, those great confirmations, the speaking times when I heard his voice! His presence with me in my victories, as I rescued Lot and defeated the kings, when he represented himself to me as the priest-king (this man, a real man, make no mistake, but his presence like a glimpse of the promise, and I in shadow gave him the tenth, for it was his), when he destroyed the cities as he said he would, then finally, the birth, the bringing forth, the new life I held, Isaac, my son, my dear son whom I love, my flesh, the great sign of God's power and love and mercy and promise.

O God, you who knit together necessary things with your great gift, love that uniting force, that binding thing that makes all interaction a joy for those who possess his favor, who breaks us in our actings of love, bringing to humility joy, to lowliness a surpassing exaltation, who gave the promises through your love, making its fulfillment the very son whom I love, do you ask too much from me?

O heart be still, be still. Lord, you made love that the joy of all may increase, for love is joy amongst diversity, the joy of difference and other, and my love for my son is a love indeed, true in its actings, though imperfect as the heart from which it flows is imperfect. Lord, I love him.

Reason with me, God, speak with me now, for my mind and heart tremble and shake. I was told that I would have a son. Yes, God, you spoke this to me, and I believed it, for the speaking voice would not be denied, and you overpowered all that would resist, from reason on downward, or rather, that a higher reason was gifted to me in your voice, for to be aware of your power is no unreasonable thing. I believed it, though my body was as good as dead, and Sarah's womb long since dead, a hope that we had left behind some thirty years previous. This was a hope against hope, though a rational hope nonetheless, and you who cannot be resisted brought the fulfillment. It was a tree of life in our household, Isaac the joy of his mother, the pride and great delight of his father, a long deferred hope at last fulfilled, and YOU proven, you shown in your power, your goodness, your great love.

But Lord, it is more than that, is it not, this son of mine? Is he not part of the greater hope and motions of the promises, the motivating idea of my fathers, all the way back to Adam himself? Is it not the continuation of your work from the beginning, him on who the trustworthiness of God is pinned, the one from whom you are to bring forth a seed who will crush the serpent's head? We know this promise too, though upon it (not a new promise, but a fuller picture of the old) we have placed the renewal of it which I received, meaning that connected to the crushing is the blessing of every nation, a family from me that will be blessed, meaning if anything, that good will be done to them, the highest good, the reversal of all evil which is the hope of every generation. Newness! Life! An end to the groaning of the earth! Yes, in Isaac is bound more than the small joys of our happy family. Lord, here is where your glory is hung! Here your Word speaks and what is brought forth we all hope in, we all surrender too!

O Lord, but it is my agony too, in the midst of all this. It is my love which cries forth in my heart when I consider it. To take and kill my own son! What cruelty is it to ask such a thing? Lord, you have never shown yourself false to me, and so I break down such thoughts in the fire of your Spirit's work, but nonetheless, what I see is death, breaking, love destroyed and burnt out, an end to all hope, and my flesh's return to dust. This is Isaac's death, for me as the shadow, a father's love crushed as all those who hope also, past and future, must be crushed in truth.

So it seems to me. O Lord, forgive my poor sight. I am no God, no maker, no Lord of men, none but a servant, a wanderer, one resolved to wait, to fix the disciplined heart on the lowly paths. God is God. I am a man. This alone is enough for me, for though I cannot see those invisible things, I can act upon the word of them, I can make my life upon them, for in his words they become real things, though my eyes and mind know them not. Do you trust the Lord? It seems the question comes down to this. Do I trust that he will not break his promise to me? Do I trust that he is good, even in the crushing and killing of all that my heart loves? Do I see his power beyond my understanding?

I believe that God can raise the dead.

O Lord, I believe it, I do, my heart does, though I know my hand will tremble and shrink back once the knife is in it! For O, I still see so imperfectly, my trust is still so fragile. I will act, I will, O Lord, I will do as you say, but God be merciful to me! Take me, take me, take me, that I may act in obedience, that the heart may act against itself and in this way be cleansed.

O God, command me, instruct me. I am resolved to obedience. This has been my path since you first spoke, the long days of waiting filled with the joy that obedience brings. I know, I feel the faint stirrings, I sense in the invisible realities, that this obedience will bring joy, for each moment of obedience is a worship, worship that draws me nearer to him, nearer to the one for whom all this waiting is designed, and though a certain burning brings pain to it, it will make sweeter everything. Isaac, I will not possess him in disobedience, for then I possess him not to love but to control. God must have him, I must love him as I must love all things, for God to take and give as he will, as he has done. Lord, this is the discipline of my heart, to love according to your decree, to give and receive according to your hand, to enjoy to the fullest what is your gift, to hate and turn from all that opposes you. Isaac, I love him. He is yours, for my love is sweet when it is mine, and I will not see it changed. Take him Lord, through the giving you requested, a sacrifice of the promised one, a shadow, a hope, a love made pure. These are yours, as are all things.

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Genesis 22
Romans 4
Hebrews 11
Galatians 3

The John Own excerpt is from his commentary on Hebrews.