Dr. Peter Van Kleeck, Sr., Providence Baptist Church 6/4/23 As If Isaac had Risen from the Dead pt 2

TITLE: THE PARABLE OF ISAAC’S RESURRECTION
TEXT: HEBREWS 11:19
THEME: AMAZING FAITH
17. By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,
18. Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called:
19. Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.

1. Isaac was in no danger.
2. Luke 17:2, “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.”
3. Child mutilation/sexualization/drag shows/sexual perversion is called pride – this attack upon children is demonic – from the pit of hell.
4. Luke 17: 2 says that it would be better for those who would offend a child should be drowned before they did such things – better to be drowned than suffer for what is coming to them for their offense – hell awaits them.
5. Isaac was in no danger – the test was for his dad, Abraham.

“Accounting that God was able” -- ογισαμενος, reasoning, or concluding, after weighing all circumstances; that, notwithstanding the apparent contradiction in the divine revelations; God was able to raise him up.

Accounting is what we are to do with Scripture as we heed the teaching of the Holy Scripture. We are to reason and conclude, after weighing all the circumstances, based on what God has said. This is the foundation of biblical faith. Faith is not a willy nilly hoping but based on the unrealized promises of God as they apply to each circumstance of life.

Note: Just because God is able does not mean God will show His power. None of those saints, of whom the world was not worthy” at the end of the chapter had been promised that their only son was the son of promise, a precise promise made only to Abraham regarding his only son Isaac. No direct promise has been made to either you are me the way God promised Abraham. The promises in the Bible are made to all believers not individual saints. We can count on the coming realities of these promises for us all, but the personal decisions we make, to be effective, must be grounding in our Spirit-guided reasoning, weighing, and concluding as we apply the Scripture to our lives.

“Even from the dead” – Abraham trusted in the omnipotence of God, by virtue of which he was able, even in the actual sacrifice of Isaac, to realize the promises given to him.

Though, so far as we can learn, there never had been one single instance of a resurrection from the dead in the world. There was no prior precedent for Abraham’s faith. The first recorded reference to resurrection is in the con text of trusting that God has the power over death.

“From whence also he received him in a figure” – “Figure” refers to a parable or a story that sets an example. The parable is one of resurrection from the dead and Isaac being lifted off the altar is the lesson.

Bleek: “as accordingly he received him from thence in a figure or resemblance; so that Isaac was indeed not really delivered out of death, but yet his deliverance was a kind of restoration from the dead, since Abraham already regarded him as the prey of death.”

Barnes: “The obvious interpretation is that he then received him by his being raised up from the altar as if from the dead. He was to Abraham dead. He had given him up. He had prepared to offer him as a sacrifice. He lay there before him as one who was dead From that altar he was raised up by direct divine interposition, as if he was raised from the grave, and this was to Abraham a "figure" or a representation of the resurrection.

Because of Abraham’s commitment to believe and follow God’s word, Abraham left Mt. Moriah with the sense that Isaac had been raised from the dead. And in Isaac, we see a type of Jesus Christ. One who would bodily rise from the dead, having fulfilled the Father’s will.

11 June 2023