Abraham taking Isaac up onto the mount to sacrifice him presents the Bible’s most complete picture of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ in story form.

“But the more you study it, the weirder it gets; the more fascinating it gets,” said Jordan in a recent study examining this Genesis 22 account. “When I say weird, I mean, ‘Whoah, look at that!’ ”

The monumental chapter starts with God commanding Abraham, “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee.”

Jordan explains, “You remember how God ‘so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son?’ So, He’s going to go into the land of Moriah (which is the land of Israel) to a mountain. If you look down at verse 14, after all this stuff has happened, God called the name of the place Jehovah-jireh.

“God gave to Abe a prophetic name to name the mountain where He did this stuff and the name means, ‘Jehovah will provide.’ Two thousand years later, Jesus Christ was taken to one of the mountains of Moriah to be crucified in the same location!”

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Verse 3-4 reads, “And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.
[4] Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.”

Jordan says, “Isn’t it interesting it’s going to be on the third day? Abraham leaves and he goes for three days and what’s he thinking he’s going to do to his boy? In his mind, that boy’s been dead for three days! He’s going to go over there and kill his boy and he goes three days thinking, ‘My boy’s dead! My boy’s dead! My boy’s dead!’

“Did it ever seem to you in your life that God would contradict Himself? It must have to Abraham. God told Abraham, ‘You’re gonna have a seed and your seed’s gonna be like the multitude of the stars of heaven. Numerous as the sand of the sea.’

“And Abe and Sarah didn’t have a kid. Abraham says in Genesis 15, ‘Lord, I believe what you say, but I’m getting on up there! I’m not going to be able to help for very long. Is it going to be Eliazar?”

“God waited until Abraham was so old there wasn’t any chance in the world of him ever having a kid. Sarah is so old it refers to ‘the deadness of her womb.’ Then He comes to Abraham and says, ‘Okay, NOW you can have a kid.’

“When he went home and told this to Sarah, the Bible says she laughed. This was before the days of Viagra so she had plenty of reason to laugh, and yet they had the baby and Isaac became the joy of their heart.

“The boy grows up, he’s about 30 years old, and God says, ‘Go kill the seed.’ ‘What?! We waited all this time to have him and now you want me to kill him?!’ You see how contradictory that would be?

“But it says Abraham ‘staggered not through unbelief.’ He just trusted God to do what God said. I mean, I’m sure he thought if God can give me a kid when I’m 100, he can give me a kid when I’m 120.

“So he takes the boy, and for three days that boy is dead in his mind. If he’s dead in his mind for three days, does that remind you of something? He couldn’t have known about it, but you know somebody who’d been dead for three days.”

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Verse 5 reveals that “Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you,”

Jordan explains, “He’s going to go up there to kill the boy, but what does he tell these dudes down at the bottom of the hill? ‘The boy and I are gonna go up there and worship and we’re gonna come back.’ Well, what did Abraham have to know? He had to believe something about resurrection.”

Abraham knew God was able to raise Isaac up, as is revealed in Hebrews 11: “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.”

Genesis 22 continues in verses 6 and 7: “And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together.
[7] And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”

Jordan says, “That’s a great question, isn’t it? You know, that’s the question of the ages. Job asked it in Job 8. He said, ‘How shall a man be just before God?’ ‘Where’s the lamb that’s gonna do for us what that animal did for Adam--cover us before God?’

‘That’s always the issue. It’s never how much can you do to make yourself right, because you know the more you dig, the more you just dig the hole deeper. It’s, ‘Where’s the one who’s gonna make it right for me?’

“Job said, ‘Where’s the one who’s gonna come be my mediator? Where’s the one gonna pay the debt?’ That’s a great question and Abraham said, ‘Son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering.’ So they went both of them together.

“For all the little details that match, you got to go 2000 years before this stuff actually comes to pass, but when you read back in Genesis, whoever wrote this knew some things that were gonna happen in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John because the details match.”

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Another fascinating thing is Isaac doesn’t appear again in the text again until chapter 24 when the servant went and found a bride for him in his father’s land. He comes and receives his bride, which is a picture of the Second Coming.

“Revelation 21 calls the bride ‘the New Jerusalem’—the city receiving the kingdom,” confirms Jordan. “So, you actually have a picture of the crucifixion, resurrection, ascension of Christ gone away, and then His Second Coming.

“And in chapter 23, Sarah dies (a type of the fall of Israel), and bless his heart, Abraham got real rejuvenated because he had a bunch more kids. Again, the picture in prophecy of what’s happening with Israel during the tribulation and the remnant that was born.”