Then He said, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering...” (Gen 22,2)

The test Abraham faced was not just whether he would be willing to return to God the greatest gift he had received from Him. That is, whether Isaac belonged entirely to him, Abraham, or whether he belonged to God and Abraham was merely an administrator of his. For most people, such a relationship with the most precious things and people is hard to imagine, but it is truly something that God introduces His people into. The joy of living in such liberated relationships is not diminished, quite the opposite. But this is only fully understood by those who experience it.

Abraham's son Isaac has long since ceased to be just one who represented God's promise, His answer and gift, the continuation of the lineage, the plan for the world. Abraham now didn't have to process just the theological side of things - how was it that God would ask of him the only descendant through whom the nation he had repeatedly promised would come? Why something like this, had God changed his will regarding the future? This had never happened to him before; rather, he had recognized earlier that God stood by His word even when Abraham doubted. Processing these questions was not easy, but it was far from the hardest part. "Take your only son whom you love..."

We know that God "is love" (1Jn.4:16). He is love from the beginning of creation, yet this is now the first place the word "to love" is explicitly used in the Bible. Not that love did not exist in the world before then, such as between God and man or between man and woman. But it is noteworthy that the first time Scripture speaks of someone loving someone, it is the father (Abraham) of a son (Isaac).

When Abraham once clung to Ishmael, he was very distressed when he then had to send him away. But it was nothing compared to what he was now experiencing in his relationship with Isaac. The deepest essence of the Mount Moriah´s trial is something different than a struggle for faith. 

It is the question whether a man would lose his beloved son for God.