Genesis 22--"The Sacrific of Isaac" or "Finding the Way Out"

Let me introduce you to a piece of Baptist biblical interpretation to which First Baptist Greenville is oddly and tangentially connected. Gwynne Henton Davies was a Welsh Baptist minister who became Principal of Regent’s Park College of Oxford University from 1958 to 1972, and he was President of the Baptist Union of Great Britain in 1971-72. Henton Davies is one of my intellectual “grandfathers” in Old Testament studies. He was the favorite teacher and mentor of my favorite teacher and mentor, John Durham. John Durham introduced me to Dr. Davies in the late 1970s on what turned out to be his last visit to the United States before his health began to fail him and he died in 1998. In 1969, G. Henton Davies published a commentary on the book of Genesis that appeared as volume one of the “Broadman Commentary.” “Broadman Press,” the publisher of Dr. Davies’ commentary, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Southern Baptist Convention. But the press is named for two famous former members of this congregation whose influence on Baptist life in the South in the 1800s was so great that when Baptists decided to name the Southern Baptist press in the 1930s, they named it after John A. Broadus, from whose last name comes the “broad” in Broadman, and Basil Manly, Jr., from whose name comes the “man” in Broadman. Broadus and Manly taught in the Theology Department or the seminary of Furman University, and they were active and influential members of this congregation until the seminary moved to Louisville, KY, after the Civil War.

When Dr. Davies’ commentary on Genesis was published in a commentary series named after two luminous former members of this congregation, a firestorm of controversy broke out, and it happened because of what Dr. Henton Davies wrote about Abraham in Genesis 22. The firestorm spread so fast and grew so hot that in 1970, the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting that year in Denver, Colorado, adopted a resolution that required Broadman Press to withdraw the volume. In other words, the convention banned the book. In the aftermath of the ban, no more copies were to be sold, the copies that existed were to be destroyed, and another Old Testament professor was enlisted to produce “revised” volume that to this day is sold as volume 1 of the Broadman commentary. When the controversy occurred, I was too young and far too Lutheran to be concerned with it at the time; but I have a copy of the original volume, thanks to Baxter Wynn who gave me this copy that Don Rose gave him when Don retired. It’s a famous piece of Baptist biblical interpretation, not the least of which because to this day, as far as I know, it is the only book by a Baptist ever banned on the floor of the Southern Baptist Convention.

In his treatment of Genesis 22, Dr. Davies acknowledged that there are people who interpret quite literally God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. But at the end of a careful examination of the variety of interpretations of the passage, Dr. Davies asked this question: “Did God make, would God in fact have made, such a demand upon Abraham or anybody else, except himself?” (p. 198). He asked, “what Christian or humane conscience could regard such a command as coming from God?” (ibid.). Rather than deriving from God, said Henton Davies, Abraham’s conviction that Isaac must be sacrificed “is the climax of the psychology of [Abraham’s] life,” not God’s. Abraham cannot imagine life without Isaac who is his long-awaited future, you see, and Abraham comes to believe that his own desperate clinging to his son who is his future has clouded his trust in God. He concludes that he must give up Isaac for the sake of his relationship with God. And so he prepares to offer him to God as a sacrifice. But according to Henton Daves, the ram in the thicket became “the solvent of [Abraham’s] own mistaken conviction” (p. 198). What happened on Mt. Moriah, then, was not that God provided Abraham with a way out of God’s evil design on Isaac’s life, but that God provided Abraham with a way out of Abraham’s own obsession, illness and mistaken conviction about God.

Now let me tell you why I think Henton Davies' reading of Genesis 22 is very important for us to consider. First, there are already far too many people in our world who are willing to sacrifice the lives of others—and sometimes their own lives as well—under the banner of a perverted vision of the will of God. Parents who victimize their own children. Ministers and priests who prey on children or other vulnerable persons in their flock. Suicide bombers who immolate themselves and others under the cry, “God is great.” Whether we are willing to admit it or not, the mistaken Abraham is all around us and among us and in us. And second, who among us, after all, is capable of being such a hero of faith and a champion of trust in God? I’m not. You know that. You’re not. I know that. The gospel story in Genesis 22 that you and I need to hear is not the one that says “God provides” for the heroes and the champions like Abraham as he is customarily preached: "Be like Abe, and God will provide!" No, the gospel word is that God provides not only for the heroes and champions like the famous Abraham, but also just as surely God provides for misguided, cowardly, sinful, sometimes even pathological failures like you and like me and like the infamous Abraham. The gospel word is that there is a ram in the thicket even for us if we will but stop what we are doing that is harming ourselves and harming others and look and listen and wait and act when the ram is provided. Finding the way out of whatever discouraged or depressed or diseased or dysfunctional or dangerous circumstance we are in does not depend on our heroism at all but on God’s amazing provision for us and grace given to us in spite of—perhaps because of—our failings.

Finding the way out that God provides takes its own kind of courage because it requires us to acknowledge to ourselves, to God, and to others how terribly mistaken we have been and how badly we have failed them. Abraham could have been so convinced of his plan that in his tunnel-vision he never saw the ram in the thicket, or he saw it and ignored it because he was so committed to his course of action that he could consider no other possibility. Coming to terms with ourselves, coming to terms with the worst of ourselves, and reaching out for the help that is available to us outside ourselves is seeing the ram in the thicket, and it is the first step toward the way out. The second step toward the way out is recognizing that what God provides for us is not always what we want but it is what we need. Sometimes the reason we don’t see the way out is that we are so desperately fixated on what we want that we can’t see what we need that God has provided for us.

Fred Goff was a member of this congregation for more than 30 years. Fred died late Thursday afternoon during surgery for an abdominal aneurism, a time bomb in his belly that he had been carrying around for the last four years or so. Thursday morning his surgeon advised him against having the surgery, but Fred insisted. Here was Fred’s thinking. If the surgery was a success, he would likely have another two or three good years to live. If, on the other hand, the surgery was a success, he would die a quiet and peaceful death under general anesthesia instead of a painful and terrifying death when the bomb in his belly went off. So he told the doctor to go for it. And as he was wheeled into surgery he told the nurse by his side that he was ready to die. For Fred, the surgery was a no-lose proposition. It was a win-win. Fred had no “death-wish” going into surgery, but he also understood that hanging on desperately to life was no way to live. To the doctor he said, “Go for it.” To his son Mike he said, “Kiss P.J. for me.” (P.J. is Fred’s dog.) To his daughter Jennifer he said, “Don’t take any wooden nickels.” To his wife Janelle, he said, “Don’t worry.” And he reached out for the ram in the thicket that God had provided for him.

I was reminded this week of something that Theron Price was fond of saying. For those of you who never met him, Price was another one of the legendary Baptist theologians who was once a member of this congregation. Price would say, “Work as though it all depends on you. Trust as though it all depends on God.” Another way to put it might be this: when you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on for all you are worth. And while you are hanging on for all you are worth, look around for the ram in the thicket.

1 Corinthians 10:13: "No testing has ever overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful and will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing God will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it" (NRSV, alt.; emphasis added).

This material is Copyrighted © 2006 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeffrogers110@bellsouth.net.