Anyone who reads the Bible from cover to cover will encounter passages that deeply disturb — anyone, at least, who’s paying attention. And the more seriously one takes the Bible, the more disturbing these passages can be.

I was reminded of this recently when an earnest believer, a mother of young children, shared something with me that had been troubling her for some time. Recalling the Genesis 22 account of God commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, she was haunted by this unsettling question: If God could command Abraham to do such a shocking, brutal thing in order to test his faith, couldn’t God command me to do the same?

It’s a good question, especially from a Christian who takes the Bible seriously as God’s inspired, inerrant word. Of course, this mother is far from the first to be troubled by God’s command to Abraham, even if most don’t voice it for fear of sounding crazy. But it’s not a crazy question. Since God once commanded a parent to take his child’s life with his own hand, why should we assume he wouldn’t do that again? That question deserves an answer.

So, for the sake of others who have been similarly troubled, and to help us all consider carefully how to approach disturbing accounts in Scripture, I’ll share with you the three reasons I gave to this concerned mother for why the Abraham-Isaac event was unique and unrepeatable.

Historical-Cultural Uniqueness

Looking at the whole of Scripture, it’s important to notice that when God communicates to humans, he does so within their historical-cultural context, their recognizable frame of reference. This is true even when he communicates things they don’t yet understand. So in that light, let’s try to consider God’s command to Abraham within Abraham’s recognizable historical-cultural frame of reference:

After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” (Genesis 22:1–2)

Foreign Frame of Reference

To our twenty-first-century ears, this sounds horribly strange. Of course it does! Unlike Abraham, our beliefs and values, the frames of reference we tend to take for granted, haven’t been forged in the Bronze Age cultures of the ancient Near East.

What’s crucial to remember is that when God called Abraham in Mesopotamia, the only religious framework he would have known was shaped by the prevailing Near Eastern pagan beliefs and rituals. Nearly everyone in this region believed their gods sometimes required human sacrifices to prove worshipers’ devotion or to grant some great request. They took this for granted just as we take for granted that human sacrifice is morally abhorrent. If you and I lived back then, we likely would have assumed human sacrifice was sometimes necessary.

Now, I’m not advocating moral relativism. I’m not saying the human sacrifices of Abraham’s day weren’t truly abhorrent (they were). Nor am I saying that God’s command to Abraham implies that God condoned such sacrifices back then (he didn’t — and I’ll explain why in a moment). I’m saying that when Abraham heard God’s command, he heard it through historical-cultural filters very different from ours. Up to this point, Abraham likely took for granted, as everyone around him did, that the Deity he worshiped might require a human sacrifice.

When Everything Changed

So, in faith that “the Judge of all the earth [would] do what is just” (Genesis 18:25), that God would not break his covenant promise regarding Isaac, even if it meant raising his slain, lamblike son from the dead (Hebrews 11:17–19), Abraham made the agonizing journey to Mount Moriah and, in obedience to God’s dreadful command, took hold of the knife. Then he received the most blessed shock of his blessed life:

The angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. (Genesis 22:11–13)

That was the moment when everything changed. God intervened to stop a human sacrifice and provided a substitutionary sacrifice instead. This inaugurated such a massive paradigm shift that the Hebrew tribes became unique among their Near Eastern neighbors in not engaging in human sacrifice — except during periods when pagan syncretism infected and defiled their worship, which God abhorred and repeatedly condemned (2 Kings 16:1–3; Psalm 106:35–38; Jeremiah 19:4–6).

So, viewing the event on Mount Moriah through a historical-cultural lens, we can see why it was unique and not to be repeated. Through God’s disturbing command to Abraham — one Abraham would have culturally recognized — God was orchestrating an abrupt and dramatic sacrificial paradigm change: the God of the Hebrews doesn’t require his worshipers to sacrifice their children but provides for them substitutionary sacrifices acceptable to him. This paradigm change was so revolutionary that now, four thousand years later, most people around the world view human sacrifice as morally abhorrent.

Typological Uniqueness

Another crucial thing to notice from Scripture is that after the Abraham-Isaac event, God never again made such a demand — not of Abraham or any of his biological or spiritual descendants. Two significant reasons for this also highlight the event’s historical uniqueness.

“Jesus was the sacrifice to end all sacrifices.”

First, as the person God chose to be the founder of this new faith, Abraham was called to embody and exemplify the type of faith that pleases God: a faith in God’s faithfulness to keep his covenant promises despite circumstances that appear contrary (see Romans 4; Galatians 3; Hebrews 11:8–10).

Second, when God provided a substitute sacrifice for Isaac, he intended it to be a typological foreshadowing of God’s salvific plan in Christ: God himself would provide the ultimate and consummate sacrifice of his only Son “once for all” (see Hebrews 7–10). Abraham appears to have prophetically spoken beyond his understanding when, in reply to Isaac’s question about the sacrifice, he said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son” (Genesis 22:8).

Theological Uniqueness

This brings us to the third reason the Abraham-Isaac event was unique, the ultimate reason we need not fear God demanding of us a ritual sacrifice of any kind, human or animal: Jesus was the sacrifice to end all sacrifices. As “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), Jesus was the ultimate and final sacrifice God provided. And unlike Isaac, Jesus was sacrificed voluntarily. He said,

I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father. (John 10:17–18)

Since now “we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10), God neither demands nor desires any further ritual sacrifices (Hebrews 10:5–6).

That’s the theological significance of why, in God’s providence, he ultimately removed the Jerusalem temple in AD 70, ending its sacrificial system, and has since made it essentially impossible to reinstate because of the mosque on the Mount. And that’s why, as the influence of Christianity has spread around the globe, the vast majority of people have come to view ritual human sacrifice as morally abhorrent — and even animal sacrifice is increasingly rare.

Think and Pray Together

The Bible contains plenty of disturbing content. It demands a lot of hard thinking from its serious readers.

But none of us is so wise and educated that we can figure it all out on our own. Each of us is too limited and too weak and has too many blind spots. That’s why God gave the Bible to his church. He wants us to think hard and wrestle together — which is why I’m grateful for the dear saint who was willing to ask me this difficult, tender question, allowing me to share a few insights, most of which I have gleaned from others who in turn have gleaned from others.

The Abraham-Isaac event in Genesis 22 is understandably disturbing, especially to twenty-first-century Western readers so far removed from the time and culture in which it occurred. It can seem like God put a man through an unnecessarily cruel ordeal just to test his faith. It can also leave us wondering if he might do the same to us.

But seeing that there’s so much more to this story than first meets the modern eye has encouraged me to beware of presuming too much when reading other unsettling biblical accounts that appear to cast a suspicious light on God’s character. It reminds me that the path to understanding often involves prayerfully questioning my own assumptions, prayerfully putting in the hard work of thinking, and prayerfully seeking help from other saints, past and present, who have done the same.