Critics tend to read into the Bible what they want,
irrespective of both tradition and scholarship. And this is a subject that has
been brought up repeatedly with the same typical conclusions: God is a horrible
entity that clearly is bloodthirsty, unreasonable with a propensity to murder
the innocent.
Little will come of it here except to get it out
of your system. You ignore everything (ancient and modern) that’s been written
on it and your mind is made up.
Sacrifice is (and was during the time of Abraham)
a tradition that pointed the way to Christ’s atoning sacrifice. The sacrifice
of an animal would have no meaning to an all-powerful deity unless it was a
teaching device to benefit the children of men. The animals sacrificed had to
be perfect, without blemish, to represent the perfect nature of the Son of God.
And God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his only begotten son as a way of
pointing to the time when Christ would be offered up as a sacrifice for sin.
“God too
acted strangely!” you conclude. “No introduction of the subject with sufficient
reasons.” But how do you know this? We only have what was passed down. In other
accounts, Abraham reasons that God would either prevent him from sacrificing
his son or that He would resurrect Isaac in the event he had to go through with
it. Abraham knew that human sacrifice had been condemned by God, so he had good
reason to conclude this. Either way, the agony suffered by Abraham was what
Abraham had to wrestle with, and it teaches us that the Atonement of Christ
also was a huge matter with the Father, and one in which the
Father suffered greatly.
In one ancient document, we have this exchange between
the Father and the Messiah:
And He (the Father) heaved sighs over him, saying,
‘If I put breath into this [man], he must suffer many pains.’ And I said unto
My Father, ‘Put breath into him; I will be an advocate for him.’ And My Father
said unto Me, ‘If I put breath into him, My beloved Son, Thou wilt be obliged
to go down into the world, and to suffer many pains for him before Thou shalt
have redeemed him, and made him to come back to his primal state.’ And I said unto
My Father, ‘Put breath into him; I will be his advocate, and I will go down
into the world, and will fulfil Thy command.’”
There are souls that have been put away with thee
under My throne, and it is their sins which will bend thee down under a yoke of
iron and make thee like a calf whose eyes grow dim with suffering, and will
choke thy spirit as with a yoke; because of the sins of these souls thy tongue
will cleave to the roof of my mouth. Art thou willing to endure such things? … The
Messiah will say: Master of the universe, with joy in my soul and gladness in
my heart I take this suffering upon myself…. Such are the things I desire, and
for these I am ready to take upon myself [whatever Thou decreest]. (Discourse
on the Abbaton)
The question of why Jesus
had to die is another question altogether. When Jesus asked the Father to
remove the “bitter cup,” the Father inexplicably declined. Islam asks, if God is truly all
powerful, why could He not wave the requirement of blood for sin? This is a
more profound question than why he commanded the sacrifice of Isaac. We only
know that God’s power is predicated on laws and concepts of justice and mercy
that we don’t yet presently comprehend.
