And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. (Gen 22,12-13)
It is not written in the whole story with what heart Abraham walked those three days to Mount Moriah. Some see him as a broken man, crushed by the coming loss of his dearest offspring. But some (who do not like believers) may see him as a fanatic who regrets nothing if it pleases his god. Then he would indeed experience a loss, but on the other hand it would be compensated by a sense of elation, just as in the case of some parents who are able to take pride in their children's self-sacrifice in bombing the "infidels".
It's not written there - and yet it's the most important question for the whole story! For it is what determines whether Abraham stood the test.
When someone inwardly surrenders an issue to God, he usually experiences relief and deliverance. The ties that bound him to that thing are released. Was Abraham freed in this way, so that surrending Isaac did not burden him so much? We do not know from the text, and yet the answer is hidden there. The key is God's instruction to "take your only son whom you love". It is not true that Abraham acted out of blind bigotry or that his feelings were dulled. He had to fight his obedience internally and must have experienced great pain. However, once he came to the point where he would have actually done it, God halted him and gave him another scapegoat because he really didn't want a human sacrifice. But He wanted another thing.
God once created man in His image. But since the fall, man has alienated from that image, and what remains of it, if anything, is more or less just a broken mirror, fragments of what it once was. With a few bright exceptions, God had no longer seen his image anywhere on earth.
Until there appeared a man from Ur of the Chaldees. He who was willing to follow him, to trust his word and especially his character above all else. Who, for all his imperfections and faults, knew and loved God. And as he grew in this, he took on God´s character to such an extent that when God looked upon the earth during the three days of Abraham's journey to Mount Moriah - later Jerusalem - he saw in this man what he longed so much to see again: His own image of sacrificial love.
For it would be no one else than the beloved son of God whom God would give up centuries later to be sacrificed right here for the sins of man. But then no angel would come to stop this sacrifice. For God "so loved the world..."
