Where is the Lamb?
John Son
Genesis 22:1-14
Introduction
What we read today in Genesis 22 is one of the most dramatic and emotionally charged scenes in all of Scripture. And in many ways, this story begins where so many of our own stories begin — because some of the most surprising tests in our lives don’t come when everything is falling apart, but when things are actually going well.
You see, by the time we arrive at chapter 22, Abraham and Sarah have finally received what they had been waiting for. Isaac has been born. The long years of waiting are behind them. The promise has been fulfilled. And you would think that from here, life would begin to settle into something good and stable and peaceful.
But right when things seem to be going well, God speaks one of the most gut-wrenching commands. He says in v.2 - "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering."
Now, I want you to notice something about how God phrases this command. He doesn't just say "take your son." He says, "your son — your only son — whom you love." Each phrase narrows the circle a little more, until there is no room left for ambiguity. God is asking for the very thing Abraham cannot imagine giving up.
And I think most of us can relate to that in some way—not in the exact same way as Abraham, but we know what it is to love something so deeply that the thought of losing it fills us with dread. Something that has become so woven into who we are that you can barely imagine life without it.
And what makes it even harder is that it's not a bad thing. It may even be something God Himself gave you. And yet, when God seems to be asking you to release even that — the thing you love most, the thing that gives your life its deepest sense of meaning and joy — that is one of the hardest places a person of faith can find themselves.
And so as we hear what God asks of Abraham, the honest question that many of us feel is: why? Why would God give Abraham this son — through a miracle, after twenty-five years of painful waiting — and then ask for him back? What kind of God does this?
Now, this passage doesn't answer that question by explaining God's reasoning. Instead, it answers it by showing us what God does — and what He reveals about Himself — through the obedience of a father and the quiet submission of a son.
So this morning, as we walk through this passage together, I want us to follow two people very carefully — a father and his son — how the faith of the father and the obedience of the son reveal something so beautiful about God’s heart for us.
So let’s take a closer look at these movements, start with the Father’s Faith
Movement 1 — The Father’s Faith
When we pick up in our text, it opens with something very important yet easy to read past. Look at v.1- “After these things, God tested Abraham.”
The text tells us, the readers upfront —that this is a test. So we know that this is a test. But that wasn’t the case for Abraham. He receives this command with no explanation, no context, no guarantee of a happy ending. He just simply hears the voice of God, and God says: offer up your beloved child.
Now, The Hebrew word for “tested” is נָסָה (nā·sāh) —carries the idea of proving or trying something — the way you would test the strength of a rope before you trust your weight to it. And it is critical to understand that this word is never used in Scripture for temptation. The Bible is clear — God tempts no one (James 1:13). But God does test. And the difference matters — because:
Temptation comes from the enemy to bring you down — to expose a weakness and lead you into sin.
Testing comes from God to draw something out — to prove what is real, to deepen what is genuine, and to establish what cannot be shaken.
So God is not trying to break Abraham in this passage. He is testing Abraham in the sense of proving and refining him—like a refiner testing gold. And what is being exposed is whether Abraham’s faith is in the God of the promise or in the promise itself. Whether Abraham’s trust rests in the Giver — or in the gift.
Now, frankly, Isn’t that the deeper question behind our own Isaacs? Whether it’s someone or something that we dearly cherish, does our trust rest in that someone or something itself? Or the One who gave it to us?
And I’m not talking about obviously sinful things. I’m talking about good things. Gifts from God. Things that He gave you. And the question is: have they quietly become the place where your heart rests? Have they become so central to your sense of security and meaning that if God asked you to surrender it — even for a moment — you would find yourself not being able to?
Perhaps is a relationship that has become the emotional center of your world — so much so that God’s sovereignty over it feels almost unbearable to trust.
Or maybe its a child or grandchild whose future you carry so anxiously that giving them into God’s hands feels like losing control.
Perhaps it’s a calling, a ministry, a role that God has given you — and that you now hold more tightly than you hold the God who gave it.
Or maybe its a season of health, wealth, security, or blessing — and the thought of it coming to an end fills you with a fear that prayer doesn’t seem to touch.
My brothers and sisters, the test always comes to the thing we love most. Because the test is asking the thing that ‘only the thing we love most’ can answer: Is God enough for you if this is gone? Is He still worthy of your trust when the blessing is taken away?
And now watch how Abraham responds. V.3a - “So Abraham rose early in the morning...”
He rose early. Not reluctantly, not eventually, not or trying to negotiate another way… but early the next morning, he gets up and he just goes.
And I want to be clear — It’s not that Abraham was emotionally peaceful or numb about this. We are talking about a father who has waited twenty-five years for this son. Every promise, every prayer, every tear of waiting has been wrapped up in Isaac. There is no version of this moment that is easy. This is costing him everything. And yet, what the text shows us is not a man who feels nothing—but a man who obeys even while feeling everything. Despite his breaking heart, he is walking forward in obedience.
So how could this be? How could Abraham be walking forward in obedience in this situation?
Well, we see in v.5 the first glimpse of what’s happening inside Abraham. On the third day, as they approach the mountain, Abraham says something to his servants – v.5: “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.”
Did you catch that? “I and the boy will come again to you.” Not “I will come again to you.” We. Both of us. Abraham is telling his servants that both he and Isaac are coming back down that mountain.
Now, is this wishful thinking? Is this a father telling himself what he needs to believe to keep walking? Absolutely not!
See what it says about Abraham in the book of Hebrews:
17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, 18 of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 19 He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. (Hebrews 11:17–19)
Abraham’s reasoning went something like this: God made an unconditional promise that His covenant would continue through Isaac. God is asking me to lay Isaac down. These two things cannot both be true at the same time unless… God raises him back to life. And if God has to raise him from the dead to keep His promise, then that is exactly what God will do.
This is not naïve optimism. This is not Abraham closing his eyes to what is happening. This is Abraham doing the deep theological work of reasoning from the character of God — and concluding that God is more trustworthy than any circumstance that contradicts His promise.
My brothers and sisters — this is what mature tested faith looks like. It is not a faith that has all the answers… It is not a faith that never trembles... But It is a faith that says: I do not know how God will do this—but I know that He will. And so I walk.
And at that moment, Isaac asks the question that cuts to the very heart of the story — v.7b - “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” And upon that question, Abraham answers him with the most important words he speaks in this entire passage – V.8 - “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”
My brothers and sisters, this is the father’s faith! It’s not a faith that pretends the cost isn’t real. It’s not a faith that has been promised an easy ending. But it’s a faith that is anchored to the character of a God who faithfully provides — it’s a faith that moves toward God, even in the dark, trusting that the One who made the promise will not abandon us on the way to fulfilling it.
Movement 2 — The Son's Obedience and Trust
Now I want to turn our attention to the other track of this story. Because there is a figure in this narrative who has been quietly present throughout, and who we have not yet given the attention he deserves. And that person is Isaac.
Now, we tend to read this story almost entirely through Abraham's eyes. And understandably so — his faith is extraordinary and the text invites us to look at it closely. But if we only follow Abraham in this passage, we are going to miss something that I think is equally remarkable. Because Isaac is not a passive figure in this story. He is not a prop. He is not simply the object of what is happening between Abraham and God.
Isaac is a person. And what he does — and what he doesn't do — on this mountain deserves our full attention.
So let's slow down and enter this scene more carefully.
By the time we reach this moment in Genesis, Isaac is no longer a young child. He is old enough and strong enough to carry the wood for the burnt offering up the mountain on his own back. This is no small detail. We are talking about timber — enough wood to burn a sacrifice. And he carries it up a mountain. Abraham, on the other hand, is well over a hundred years old. So when you picture this scene, don't picture a small boy being led by the hand. Picture a young man, strong and able, walking alongside his aging father.
Which means something very important — that if Isaac had wanted to resist, he could have. If he had wanted to run, he could have. If he had wanted to overpower his elderly father and refuse to go any further — he almost certainly could have done that too. But he doesn't.
Now, the three-day journey to Mount Moriah is not described in detail in the text. It gives us almost nothing - No conversations. No explanations. No descriptions of what Abraham or Isaac were thinking.
But perhaps that silence is intentional. Because what do you think those three days felt like?
For Abraham, every step was carrying him closer to the moment he dreaded most. And every glance at Isaac was a reminder of what God had asked of him.
And what about Isaac? At first, perhaps he simply followed his father as he always had. But as the journey unfolded, questions must have begun to form.
- Why are we going alone?
- Why are the servants staying behind?
- Why does my father seem so burdened?
And then, finally, as they begin the last stretch up the mountain, Isaac asks the question that has likely been growing in his mind the entire journey:
v. 7 - And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”
It is such a simple question. And yet it pierces the heart of the entire story. Everything is there for the sacrifice. The fire is there. The wood is there. But where is the lamb?
And Abraham responds, v.8a - "God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son."
Now, Abraham's answer is full of faith. But it is also quite vague. It doesn't really answer Isaac's question. It leaves so much unsaid.
But then what the text says next is something that’s so quietly powerful - V.8b - "So they went both of them together."
They went. Together. After that answer — an answer that doesn't fully explain anything, an answer that leaves the question essentially open — Isaac keeps walking. He doesn't stop. He doesn't turn back. He continues up the mountain, side by side with his father.
By this point in the story, Isaac is not naive about what is happening. He’s seen the fire. He’s seen the wood. He has asked the question. And he heard an answer that, if he thought about it carefully, would have told him that he might be the offering. And yet — he walks. Willingly. Quietly. Together with his father.
And then v.9 - 9 When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.
And yet the text records of no struggle. No cry for help. No attempt to break free. Isaac, a young man so much stronger than his old father, simply submits.
Isn’t this so remarkable? What we are seeing in Isaac is something the Bible wants us to understand about what it truly looks like to trust God in the darkest and most confusing moments of life.
Isaac did not have the full picture. He did not know how this story was going to end. He had his father's word — "God will provide" — and he had a lifetime of watching his father walk faithfully with God. And that was enough for him to keep placing one foot in front of the other, even up the side of a mountain he might not come back down from.
My brothers and sisters, I wonder how many of us are in a season right now where we also don't have the full picture. Where God seems to be leading us somewhere that doesn't make sense. Where the thing He is asking of us feels too costly, too confusing, too frightening to simply accept. And yet — what Isaac models for us in this passage is not a blind, unthinking compliance. It is a deeply rooted, quietly courageous trust. A trust that says: I don't understand what God is doing here. But I know my Father. And I know that He is good. And so I will keep walking.
That is22 not a small thing, my brothers and sisters! In fact, I would argue that Isaac's willingness to trust his father — and his Father's God — in this moment is one of the most profound acts of faith in this entire story.
And it raises a question worth sitting with this morning: Is that the kind of trust that marks your life? When God leads you somewhere that doesn't make immediate sense — when He asks something of you that you don't fully understand — do you keep walking? Or do you stop and demand a better explanation before you take the next step?
Isaac didn’t have any answers, and yet he entrusted himself to his father because his confidence was not in the circumstances — it was in the character of the God his father had followed his entire life. And that is the kind of trust God is always calling us toward. Not a trust that requires a clear view of the road ahead. But a trust that is anchored in who God has shown Himself to be.
And what happens next — what God does at the very top of that mountain — is what this whole story has been building toward.
Movement 3 – The God Who Provides
The altar has been built. The son has been bound. And v.10 tells us - "Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son."
But then heaven interrupts. Verse 11 says, "But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, 'Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, “Here I am.
The repetition here shows the urgency. "Abraham! Abraham!" And Abraham responds saying, "Here I am." - the very same words he spoke when God first called him at the beginning of the test.
Then the angel says, v.12 - " “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me."
The sacrifice is stopped. The son is spared. The test is complete.
And then Abraham lifts up his eyes and sees something he never expected. Verse 13 tells us, "And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns."
It was a substitute for his son, a sacrifice provided by God Himself. Praise the Lord!
And so, Abraham offers the ram upon the altar instead of Isaac. Everything Abraham had hoped for… Everything Isaac had trusted for… Everything they could not see while climbing the mountain - God had already provided.
And so Abraham names the place in Verse 14 - So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”
Now, I want you to notice that Abraham doesn’t name this place - "The LORD provided" - past tense. He names it, "The LORD will provide" - future tense, ongoing. It is as though Abraham understands that what happened on this mountain was not merely the resolution of his own story. This was not simply about God rescuing Isaac or preserving Abraham's family line. What happened here revealed something much bigger about who God is – that The God who provided a substitute for Isaac would continue to provide substitutes for sinners. And the God who made a way on this mountain would one day make a way for the whole world.
And this detail is not accidental – because Mount Moriah is the place where, centuries later, Solomon would build the temple — as we read in 2 Chronicles 3:1 - Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah… The very mountain where Abraham offered Isaac became the mountain where Israel would bring sacrifices for generations.
God was not choosing a random location. He was establishing a place where the pattern of provision —that begun with Abraham and Isaac— would continue to be proclaimed generation after generation.
And for centuries, every sacrifice offered on Mount Moriah pointed beyond itself. Every lamb that was slain reminded God's people that sin required a sacrifice, but none of those sacrifices could truly take sin away. They were shadows pointing to something greater. They were signposts pointing to Someone greater.
Jesus the better Isaac
Then, nearly two thousand years later, another Father sent His beloved Son into that same region…not far from Mount Moriah…not far from the temple. And when John the Baptist saw that Son approaching, he declared, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29)
And at that moment, the question that Isaac asked so many years earlier– Where is the Lamb?— was finally answered. In Christ Jesus, the Lamb Isaac was asking for, the Lamb that Abraham so desperately needed, the Lamb that every temple sacrifice pointed toward has finally been provided by God.
And the parallels are impossible to miss.
- Isaac was Abraham's beloved son; Jesus is the Father's beloved Son.
- Isaac carried the wood for his own sacrifice up the mountain; Jesus carried the wooden cross to Calvary.
- Isaac willingly submitted himself to his father's will; Jesus willingly submitted Himself to the will of His Father.
- Isaac was laid upon the altar; Jesus was nailed to the cross.
But here is where the stories diverge - at the last moment, Isaac was spared. But Jesus was not. There was no voice from heaven that cried out, "Stop." There was no substitute that appeared in His place. Why? Because Jesus himself came to be the substitute.
- The ram in the thicket died so that Isaac could live. But Jesus died so that we could live.
- Isaac walked down the mountain with his father because another took his place. But we walk free from sin, guilt, and judgment because Christ took our place.
This amazing story of Abraham’s faith and Isaac’s obedience ultimately points us beyond itself to the greatest sacrifice of all—the Heavenly Father giving His own Son for us.
What Abraham was asked to do, God actually did himself. Romans 8:32 says, "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all..." God give up His Son, His only son, whom He loves — so that sinners like us might be forgiven, reconciled, and brought into His family.
My brothers and sisters, this is the gospel! The heart of Christianity is not our sacrifice for God, but God's sacrifice for us. The heart of the gospel is not that we climb the mountain to reach God, but that God Himself has provided the Lamb. Everything we need for salvation has been given to us in Jesus Christ.
And so the question before us today is not merely whether we admire Abraham's faith or Isaac's obedience. The question is: What will we do with the Lamb God has provided?
Will we trust Him? Will we surrender our lives to Him? Will we place our hope in Him alone?
My brothers and sisters, perhaps you came today carrying an Isaac of your own—something precious that you are struggling to entrust to God. But this story reminds us that we can trust the God who provides.
If God did not spare His own Son, then He can be trusted with every Isaac in our lives. We can trust Him with our future when we cannot see the way forward. We can trust Him with our families when we cannot control the outcome. We can trust Him with our fears when anxiety threatens to overwhelm us. We can trust Him with our unanswered questions when His purposes remain hidden.
Jesus, the beloved Son who willingly went to the altar, not to be spared, but to be sacrificed, so that we who deserved judgment might receive his grace. He is the Lamb that God has provided. He is the sacrifice that ended all sacrifices. He is the Savior who takes away the sin of the world.
So may we be a people who share the faith of Abraham, trusting God's promises even when His commands are difficult and His purposes are beyond our understanding.
May we be a people who follow the example of Isaac, walking in obedience and trust, surrendering ourselves to God even when we cannot see how the story will end.
And may we be a people who rest in the finished work of Christ, knowing that the God who provided the Lamb for our salvation will also provide everything we need to live a life of overflow, rooted in his provision and sustained by his faithfulness.
Reflection and Response
At this time, let’s take a moment to reflect and respond to the message.
As we think about the message, let us ask ourselves:
What is your Isaac? What good thing has God given you that has quietly become the source of your security rather than the evidence of His grace? What would it look like to open your hands before Him today?
Abraham rose early and walked before he had answers. Where are you waiting for clarity before you take the next step of obedience? What does it mean for you to trust God’s character when you cannot see His plan?
Isaac walked willingly. Is there a surrender God is calling you to make that you have been resisting? What would it look like to say, as Jesus did: “Not my will, but yours.”
Have you received the Lamb that God has provided for you? The question is not whether the sacrifice has been made. It has. The question is whether you have come to receive it.
