Christ as Our Substitute

Read Genesis 22:6
It is a good thing in passages to pay attention to repeated words, repetition is often a tool the authors would use to emphasise some particular fact. In this chapter you can see the words “burnt offering” repeated 6 times.

This was an offering that was to be consumed by fire, another way of translating it was “a sacrifice that is wholly consumed”. Meaning there is not a bit of it left. It is all gone, this sacrifice is purely to appease God, and for him alone.

There is another visual used for being completely consumed in judgement.

Psalm 75:8 (ESV)
⁸ For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.

We call this the cup of God’s wrath, here it speaks about the wicked drinking it down the dregs, the very last bits, they have fallen under the fall measure of God’s wrath and anger. This cup is also mentioned in Matthew 26, in the garden of Gethsemane.

Matthew 26:39 (ESV)
“My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”
Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath, every last bit of it, why? So that he could say to us.

Romans 8:1 (ESV)
⁸ There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Isaac was to be offered as a burn sacrifice to the Lord, to be wholly consumed, but instead the Lord provided a lamb. The lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world. If the cross wasn’t a strong enough visual of the kind of punishment our sins deserves, imagine being lit on fire, your skin being scorched and burnt until you were utterly consumed in flames.

That is the punishment that Jesus took in our place. He is the lamb who is sacrificed in our place, so that we might know forgiveness with God and the freedom of no condemnation before him.

Prayer:

“Father, where would I be if you had not sent your son? I would most certainly be in the pits of hell, utterly consumed by the flames of your righteous anger. But yet you made a way for me, you saved me from such a terrible fate. Continue to assure me of my salvation, that I have peace with you, that I am loved by you, because of Jesus and not because of what I have done. All glory be to the Son and the Father. In Jesus’ name, Amen.