Vayera - Is Anything too Hard for the Lord?

Vayera Gen 18:1-22:24

Is anything too hard for the Lord?

As we approach the next section of scripture, we arrive at a collection of interesting stories, and choosing one to focus on was difficult. We have the visitation of God and two ‘men’ to Abraham’s tent, the birth of Isaac, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the testing of Abraham with the sacrifice of Isaac. All these stories continue to unpack the promise made to Abraham. The visit brought hope to Abraham and Sarah as they were told the child would be born within a year, Lot was delivered because of his connection with Abraham (Gen 19:29), and then Abraham’s devotion to the Lord was tested. It is because of its depth and significance that I will be focusing on this last one.

Genesis 22 begins with an explanation that God was going to test Abraham at the point of the centre of the covenant promises: his son. Without Isaac, there’s no lineage, nation or possibility of blessing the world. The test was to determine Abraham’s loyalty to God. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure why God tests people’s devotion. But because He knows our hearts, it is quite possibly for our benefit more than His. Perhaps to remind us that we truly belong to Him (Js 1:12), or a way to manifest and bring to the surface the devotion that is already there and therefore personally refine us (Ps 66:10). Maybe, as with the case of Job, to silence the accusations of the enemy (Job 2:7). Or possibly all are true at the same time.

When God called to Abraham, his response demonstrated a significant level of loyalty when he said, “Here I am”, which is a phrase that says ‘I am ready to listen and obey.’ He doesn’t even know what he is going to be asked, and he has demonstrated a willingness to obey anyway.  Having spent time in the Army, I learned to be wary of volunteering for ‘mystery’ jobs as they are usually undesirable. But by the age of possibly 120, and however many years he had been walking with the Lord, Abraham had learned that God is a good God and whatever He asks would be for good. And then God tells Abraham to take Isaac and sacrifice him as a burnt offering to a ‘mountain He would show him.’ A burnt offering is significant because, as we will see when we get to Leviticus, it was a sacrifice that was made as a demonstration of complete loyalty and thankfulness in reciprocation to a great act of God. Ironically, Abraham was being asked to demonstrate his gratitude and ongoing faithfulness by sacrificing the thing he was blessed with.

His response, again, reveals a high level of devotion and trust. For starters, he was able to sleep, which considering the weight of what he was asked to do is a mystery in itself, then he wakes up early to go do it before travelling three days to do it. And three days is a lot of thinking time to reconsider and back out. But he made it there and as we know, he made it up the mountain, built an altar, bound Isaac and placed him on the altar, and was just about to slay Isaac when the angel of the Lord turned up and stopped him. And we see the same wording from verse one: “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He was attuned to God’s voice, for which Isaac was thankful I’m sure, and ready for new instructions.

It was then that the covenant promises were reaffirmed. Not that the covenant blessings required Abraham’s obedience, but rather the act of obedience demonstrated the genuineness of his participation in the covenant. By being in covenant and having his faith reckoned as righteousness, God empowered him to desire obedience to God; and this was the test. This is why afterwards God could say: “Now I know that you fear God” (Gen 22:12), which as James explains demonstrates Abraham's faith in God.

Not only does Paul say that we are justified by faith just as Abraham was, but also as followers of Christ, we are encouraged to have a faith like Abraham’s. It is by faith that we enter and live in the covenant. But what does this, and every other demonstration of faith by Abraham reveal about his faith. Yes, it was faith in God, but faith in God to do what? Faith in God’s ability to do what?

Abraham’s confidence in God is seen in his words to the two young men who followed them to the mountain: “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you” (Gen 22:5). He was confident that both he and Isaac would return, even though as far as he knew he was going to sacrifice his son. The author of Hebrews tells us that “he considered that God was able even to raise him [Isaac] from the dead” (Heb 11:19). I believe this is because Abraham knew that if Isaac could come from a dead womb, he could come back from the grave. He remembered the words God spoke to him and Sarah when he visited their tent: “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Gen 18:14). The obvious answer, is no. Abraham understood God to be a god who could make things that are not. He was the one who brought everything out of nothing, the one who brought pregnancy out of baroness, and brings life from death. And more significantly, he can declare as righteous those who are unrighteous. As Paul wrote to the Romans: “to the one who… believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Rom 4:5). In Matthew 19:25-26, Jesus repeats the words God spoke to Abraham in the tent. When asked, “who then can be saved?” Jesus said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”  And this is possible because of Jesus. Abraham told Isaac that God would provide the sacrifice, and indeed He did in the person of Jesus who shares many parallels with Isaac: the seed of Abraham (Gal 3:16) delivered through a miraculous birth as the result of a promise, who willingly surrendered to His father’s will in being sacrificed, and now in Him is the source of blessing for the whole world (Gen 22:18; Eph 1:3). This week’s portion is referred to as Vayera, which means ‘appeared’, and comes from the opening verse: ‘And the Lord appeared to him’ (18:1). And indeed, the Lord has appeared in the person of Jesus to deliver us from sin and death.

You may not be tested the way Abraham was. In fact, I doubt it considerably. But we will be tested. And when testing comes, and we find ourselves to be faithful, we can be assured that our faith is genuine. And that genuine faith means that we can be assured that not even forgiving our sin is too hard for the Lord.

Our section for next week is Genesis 23:1-25:18

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