Intergenerational togetherness: Abraham and Isaac
So the two of them went together (Genesis 22:8).
I was asked recently to speak on the subject of intergenerational togetherness, based on the relationship between Abraham and Isaac. I must confess to initially finding the title, the topic and the characters challenging. I discovered that Abraham and Isaac are the first of many examples of intergenerational togetherness throughout the Bible. So what is this subject all about? It’s about the spiritual relationship between the people of God across different generations. Sometimes, like Abraham and Isaac, it’s about a father and son relationship, but this is not always the case. What it does involve is mutual love and respect, and spiritual harmony between older and younger people.
We see this harmony between Abraham and Isaac in one of the most powerful incidents in the whole of the Bible. Spiritual relationships begin with God. God says to Abraham, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you” (v. 2). Abraham had never been afraid of questioning God, and God had taught His friend to trust him completely. Abraham didn’t speak; he simply went in complete faith and obedience to Moriah. In doing so, he teaches us not only to have a living faith, but to share that faith with the next generation, in his case Isaac and the young servants. You might be thinking “But wasn’t God destroying the next generation”? But then you would be travelling too quickly in your thoughts.
When Abraham gets close to the place of sacrifice, he says to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you.” The man of God demonstrates his absolute faith in God by assuring the servants and Isaac he would return with his son. As they continue the last part of the journey, Isaac asks his father “Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” and Abraham gives the answer, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering” (vv. 6-8). And they went on together. When they arrived, Abraham built and prepared an altar and laid Isaac on it. It was difficult, if not impossible, naturally speaking, for Abraham, an old man, to force Isaac, a young man, to lie on the altar. The impression we are given is that Isaac did so willingly. When God intervenes, we understand that He is proving Abraham’s faith in circumstances which also stimulated the faith of Isaac. The father and son both trusted in the living God. And God provided a substitute, the ram. Thus, not only would they return, but God had provided a sacrifice.
I think that at Moriah, God, at the beginning of the Bible, was teaching us about something which would happen centuries later: when God the Father and God the Son would walk in harmony in this world, and when the Son would lay down His life as the great Substitute and Saviour of the world. God does not always take us to the place of sacrifice to actually make a sacrifice, but to show us His heart. The experiences of the journey of faith are experiences which He wants us to share with the next generation so that the faith of both are enriched and blessed. This living faith is expressed in a fellowship of life in which we should always value one another.
