This concept is born of the ancient Jewish tradition of the Day of Atonement. Jesus allowed himself to be sacrificed for the sake of others. As Isaac was spared, and compassion shown for the sake of his father’s love, Jesus took upon himself that sacrifice that was removed from Isaac and his father Abraham. This appears to be the act of a jealous God, rather than a God of love, of generosity.Ĭhristian scholars have likened this story as a foretelling of the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus.

But does God truly wish to see this son slaughtered? God wants to know the Love Abraham holds for God is greater than that which he holds for his own son. On the face of it, this is a story of God testing the faith of his beloved servant.

Now he is left with one son, Isaac, the son on whom all the hopes of an elderly father and mother have pinned their future and the future of all they have worked for during their lives. God commands Abraham to accede to Sarah’s wishes, and he then does so. His wife, Sarah’s, jealously of this child and his mother, has been cause for strife in the household and she has demanded he be sent away. He has just sent his son, Ishmael, into the desert with Hagar, presumably to die. The story of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac in the Bible comes as the culmination of a series of tests from God of Abraham’s faith. A talk given at the Muslim Khoja Shia Ithna’ Ashari community event ‘The Momentous Sacrifice’ on Saturday the 26th of January 2013

Binding of isaac holy light