Episode 10 of “In The Light of The Cross” reviews Abraham’s promise and faith, emphasizing that righteousness is trusting God and that this theme continues through Israel and informs how believers respond to the cross. The episode focuses on Isaac’s miraculous birth as a potential “child of the promise,” his role as a type of Christ, and the Mount Moriah sacrifice story, highlighting substitution when God provides a ram and pointing to God’s willingness to sacrifice his own Son. It notes Isaac’s human failures, including repeating Abraham’s deception about his wife, showing human brokenness alongside God’s grace. The discussion then turns to Jacob’s deception, family dysfunction, and God’s faithfulness despite Jacob’s scheming, concluding with reflection on persistent grace, confession, and praying the Lord’s Prayer.

00:00 Welcome and Format

00:55 Abraham Promise Recap

02:32 Faith as Righteousness

03:57 Isaac's Miraculous Birth

05:11 Binding of Isaac

07:42 Substitution and Symbols

08:06 Isaac Repeats Failure

09:44 Jacob the Deceiver

11:59 Reflection and Confession

13:54 Lord's Prayer Closing

welcome back.

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This is episode 10 of In The

Light of The Cross, our podcast.

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Devoted to understanding God, the

Old Testament ourselves, our purpose,

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our suffering, and many other things.

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In light of what Jesus did is to look

at all reality and in particular, our

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life in light of this one singular

fact that Jesus came and that he died

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for us, and that he was resurrected

and that that changes everything.

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So let's begin as we do

every day with just a pause.

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And from here we'll move into a reflection

on scripture and we'll application,

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and then we'll end with the yielding.

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We're gonna start with review from

the last time because we wanna

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make sure we get the, the narrative

flow and structure of this.

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last time we began talking about

Abraham and how to understand his life

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and his place in light of the cross.

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So we were talking about how

God gave Abraham this promise

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that he would bless the nations.

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and this is almost like

a restart for readers.

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It's like, okay, is God gonna fulfill

his promise that he made to Adam and Eve?

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In Abraham that there would be

somebody, from their seed who would

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go and, crush the serpent's head.

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And we saw that, maybe that was

Noah and that God was going to

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begin a new humanity through Noah.

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Who's Adam and Eve's son's.

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S's great-great-great-great grandson

and that didn't work out so well.

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And then, you've got Abraham a number

of generations later, Abram and Sarah.

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I don't have any children at

this point in time, but we do

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know that they're faithful.

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And then ultimately God, honors this,

promise, and they have a son, Isaac.

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Right.

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that's where we'll pick up.

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And through this, you see a couple things.

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Again, as we talked about last time,

Abraham sometimes gets it right

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and sometimes there's a complete

lack of trust in God and puts even

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his wife and other people at risk.

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so it's that theme that you mentioned a

few days ago that the summary of the Old

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Testament is there's this tapestry of

human brokenness and failure and failure.

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Yeah.

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Yet at the same time you see

this, um, scarlet thread,

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so to speak, of God's grace.

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Exactly.

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Yeah.

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So in spite of all that, God does bring

about this child of the promise, and

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Isaac is born and, it's all by grace,

but a reminder, Abraham or later Abraham,

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the, the tone of this is set when

it says that he trusted God and God.

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credited that as his righteousness.

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In other words, God said, this is what

righteousness is for you, is to trust me.

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And that same theme, are

we gonna trust God or not?

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He's gonna carry it through to the

story of his sons and grandsons and

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the nation of Israel as a whole.

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And then that also comes into play

in how we respond to the cross.

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The most important thing about this

is not whether we get it right,

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but are we trusting God and what

he's done for us at the cross.

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Yeah.

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I think it's all kind of summarized

in Hebrews 11, six, which says

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that, uh, without faith it

is impossible to please God.

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Right.

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And this is of course,

before the law is given, so.

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There's not a written articulation

of what God wants Abraham to do

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and what he doesn't want him to do.

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It's all just faith.

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Yep.

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Walk before me and be blameless.

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God says, so the idea of simply

walking with God and being right in

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his eyes, but it all starts and the

foundation of this simple trust.

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Mm-hmm.

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Faith, faith and trust are the same word.

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Yeah.

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You can translate different

ways, but in the original

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languages, it's the same word.

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Yeah.

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So how do we see this story play out?

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And, uh, we know Isaac is born to

Abram and Sarah at a very old age.

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Yeah.

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So right there, if we're reading

this just from the beginning, we

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should be wondering, all right

now is Isaac gonna be the one.

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Is he gonna be the child of the

promise, the seed of the woman

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who accomplishes what Adam and

Eve could not after all, like Adam

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and Eve, he has this supernatural

birth from God himself, right?

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Mm-hmm.

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So the emphasis here is that

this was not a natural thing.

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This was a God initiated

birth that brought this forth.

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So maybe this guy's the one, it's

almost like he's a son of man and

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a son of God in a sense, almost.

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He's, he's brought about

obviously from man and woman.

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But also as part of God's,

uh, it, it's also miraculous.

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It is, it's an act of God because what

woman gives birth in her nineties, right?

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It's supernatural intervention

to bring about a birth.

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Uh, much like it was with Jesus.

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Of course.

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Yeah.

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Slightly different way.

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But the point is this

was not a natural birth.

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And uh, yeah.

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And in many ways, I exit then becomes.

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A type or a symbol of Christ.

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And you see that, especially as he was

willing to be sacrificed at the great test

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when God told, Abraham to go up to Mount

Mariah and offer his son as a sacrifice.

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Yeah.

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That's one of the weird

stories in scripture.

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It is.

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if we're not reading it in

light of the cross, it seems.

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Unimaginably cruel and weird, doesn't it?

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Yeah.

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So, so tell us, tell us that story.

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What, happens there?

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Why does he go up?

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Give us a little bit of a

framework for what's going on here.

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Well, it's an absolute paradox

in a sense, because God had

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promised this son for, decades.

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Finally, God answers it.

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They rejoice in this, and then sometime

later when Isaac, The words in Hebrew

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imply that the boy was probably at

least an adolescent, or at least a

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teenager, in other words, old enough

to fight back against his aged father.

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At some point, God tells Abraham

or Abraham, I want you to

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go to the son whom you love.

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So that's emphasized the son you love.

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Go to Mama Mariah and sacrifice him there.

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Mariah then is, is going to be associated,

Mount Mariah is gonna be the place where

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the temple is gonna be built, and that's

where Jesus himself will be offered.

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Mm.

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So two people going up a mountain

for some kind of sacrifice.

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Yeah.

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They're going up to the mountain, like

Christ went up to the mountain of Gha.

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In a sense.

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He wasn't crucified.

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At the Temple Mount, but he was

a tried and found guilty there.

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His sentence was put there, two

innocent ones going up to being

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willing to sacrifice their lives.

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Wow.

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Yeah.

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And of course, God did what Abraham was

willing to do, but God did not allow him.

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God actually sacrificed his son.

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So you see the heart, not only of the

one who was willing to be sacrificed.

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But also the one who lost his son.

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Hmm.

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In a way that seems rep punt

to human reasoning in a sense.

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Unless we see God's big picture there.

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So yeah.

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Reading the story of Isaac, we see

because of the cross, the heart of

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God as well as the heart of Jesus.

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Yeah.

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So Abraham goes up with his son, who I

I, I like you pointing out that he's old

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enough to be able to fight back his dad's.

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Over a hundred at this point, right?

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Well over a hundred, probably 110, 115.

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And, uh, gets ready to sacrifice his son.

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but you said God doesn't let him and

then God provides, uh, ram, whose horns

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are caught up in the, bushes there.

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Right?

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So there you have that

idea of substitution again,

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and, and God's provision.

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God is willing to.

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Yeah, provide the substitution.

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Yep.

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Yeah.

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It's a complex layer of analogies and, and

symbols there, but it points to the cross.

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And of course, the other thing that

is brought out through the story

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of Isaac, like his father, although

he points to Jesus, he points

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to the Messiah, the one to come.

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He can't be that person because he,

he still has his own human failures.

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So we remember last time.

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Abraham gave this half

truth about his wife.

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She's my sister.

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Please don't kill me.

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And we see his son do the

same thing with his wife.

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So Isaac repeats his father's failure.

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He, there's a failure to trust God.

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So even though in one sense he's

assembled the one to come and he can

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only be assembled because of his human

failure, and in the midst of that,

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God uses him to create this beautiful

picture of what the Messiah will do.

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That thread of the scarlet cord.

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Yeah.

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That's really beautiful thoughts and

I know that, um, there's all kinds of

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complexities to these old stories and all

kinds of moral questions about, you know,

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God asking Abraham to sacrifices his son.

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And all of these things that

emerge as things that go against

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our modern sensibilities.

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. We're not really gonna dive into

answering those kinds of questions.

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Our point here is just trying to see

how these stories shed light on what

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Christ ultimately does in fulfilling the

sacrifice that is needed on behalf of.

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Uh, on our behalf in order

to restore us as a father.

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Right?

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We're trying to understand

these in light of the cross.

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So without the cross, the story

does seem cruel and weird.

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In light of the cross, we see that

there's a beautiful symbolism at play.

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Yeah, yeah.

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And carrying forward that story with his

sons Jacob and Esau, and especially Jacob,

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who will be the heir to the promise.

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We see that story of

human failure, magnify.

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'cause Jacob was a rascal.

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Mm-hmm.

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There's no getting around it.

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read the story and his very name means

deceiver, and that's what he does.

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He deceives his brother

out of the birthright.

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Instead of trusting that his

needs will, will be met by God.

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And then when his brother wants to

take revenge, he deceives his father,

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which in the ancient world, I mean,

you don't get much worse than that

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deceiving or dishonoring your own father.

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And yet that's what he does.

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and he does that, the

prompting of his mother.

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So there's some family dysfunction here.

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And then, he heads on a dodge 'cause

he's afraid of his brother spends time

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back in what we would call Iraq today.

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And he himself keeps trying to

deceive schemes his way, into Iraq

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and tries to scheme his way out of it.

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But he is hoodwinked.

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He's deceived by his father-in-law, so

he gets a taste of his own medicine.

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But on his way he utters this phrase,

which I think really encapsulates his

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whole story, where Leban confronts him.

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Why have you done this?

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And Jacob goes off on this, uh, kind

of a tirade, you've done this to me.

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you've changed my wage seven

times and you've, you've

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robbed me of all this stuff.

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And if God had not been looking

out for me and helped me.

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I would've left you penniless.

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But God is the one who has overseen this,

and that's really the story of Jacob.

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He thinks it's gonna be

all about his own wiles.

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He's competent in his own, ability to get

ahead by scheming, and he does get ahead.

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But it's only, but God's grace, his

scheming only gets him in trouble.

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But God's gonna be faithful

because God's gonna use him.

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And so again, you have that same theme.

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Jacob is now the grandson of Abraham

and Sarah, he's a the son of Isaac.

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It looks like there's this new

beginning with Abraham's family, but

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the family's starting to fall apart.

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In the midst of this, God is

still faithful to bless them.

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And Jacob recognizes it.

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He does.

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Which is beautiful.

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Yeah.

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So you see that, um, a human response to

God's grace and mercy in his own life.

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And then from there he has 12 sons.

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Yeah, and I think by way of

application or reflection here,

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a good thing to think about.

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It's not only God's persistent grace

and perseverance to his good intention

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for mankind that you see, but also.

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How he does this in spite of our trying to

get ahead by our own efforts and smarts.

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We know the verse, Proverbs three,

five and six, trust in the Lord

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with all your heart and don't

lean on your own understanding.

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And the idea being that God is the

one who has coveted with us to,

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to bless us because of his love.

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And when we're trusting in our

own wisdom to make our life

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what we think we want it to be.

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We're just getting in the way of that.

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Mm-hmm.

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We won't stop it, but we will

deprive ourselves of some peace

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and some blessing like Jacob did.

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So maybe a good thought of reflection

as we go into that time is just to

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thank God for his persistent grace, and

then also ask him to show us ways that

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we're trying to trust in our own wisdom,

our own power, our own understanding.

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In order to get the blessings

that we think that we need or want

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instead of trusting him and then just

bringing those to God in confession.

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Yeah, so let's Spend some time thanking

God and bringing the ways that Daniel

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just explain, spending a minute thanking

God, and then also bringing before him

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the things that we need to confess.

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Well, let's wrap this up by yielding the

remainder of our day and even our lives

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to the Lord by praying with the church.

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This ancient prayer that Jesus taught

us, the Lord's Prayer in Matthew six,

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Begins with his disciples, asking him

how to pray, and he responds like this.

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Pray with the snap.

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Our Father in heaven, hallow it.

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Be your name.

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Your kingdom come, your will be

done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Give us today our daily bread

and forgive us our debts as we

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also have forgiven our debtors.

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And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one.

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Amen.

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confess.