An Abrahamic sacrifice: obedience against inclination, the true test of character

Abraham’s trial of faith in being commanded to sacrifice Isaac is not that different – just in much greater degree to most, perhaps – to the sacrifice we are each commanded to make: subsuming our self-will, motivated by the natural mind, or ‘creaturely’ part of ourselves, to the will of God. Without this sacrifice we cannot please God, because we remain in bondage to our natural selves – to the will of the flesh – and in a state of rebellion against Him.

C. S. Lewis wrote wonderfully about this in The Problem of Pain. In the chapter, “Human Pain” (my favourite of the book), he reminds us that, “We are not merely creatures who must be improved; we are, as Newman said, rebels who must lay down our arms”. Our whole mortal lives are a process of learning to lay down our weapons and surrender to God. Our wills, in a sense, must be broken – because if they’re not, we will be left “angels to a devil”, as Jacob put it.

How does God do this? By allowing us to be in situations where what is most dear to us is on the line, or, at least, by letting our lives become uncomfortable – painful.

We tend to think that when things seem to be going well, that’s evidence of God’s blessings, and we can “rest contentedly”, not demanding much of ourselves, spiritually; going about our lives, taking care of the temporal things, and feeling good that we’re so blessed. (I don’t know; maybe people have lives, or periods of life, like this). We might even forget the core truth that you and I aren’t here to have nice, pleasant lives. We’re here to be tested, to see if we will turn our hearts and minds to God, and be moulded into the beings of light and glory we were created to be. A ‘nice life’ is such a low estimation of our purpose and potential.

C. S. Lewis explains that, since the work of our lives here is to offer as sacrifice the will that God first accorded us – not because we should have no choice/will, but that this will needs to be directed the right way, which is God’s way – He has to make it possible for us to do this. This is painful; as rebels, we claim this will as our own, and offering it back to our Creator isn’t easily done. We need a catalyst – and pain is a very good catalyst.

He submits that God uses pain in three ways:

1. To get through to us – “God whispers in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world”. This is how a man finds out that his actions aren’t what they should be; that there is something wrong.
2. To make clear that, without God, nothing is enough. Without Him, we are not enough. A “modest happiness” is not enough. “The creature’s illusion of self-sufficiency must, for the creature’s sake, be shattered.”
3. When the only reason to do something is obedience, because the action goes against what we want. This is where a person’s choice is genuinely their own – not because they like doing it, and not a “happy coincidence”, where what they’re doing happens to be what God wants them to. This is pure obedience – the sort that powered our Saviour’s suffering from Gethsemane to Calvary, which kept Him alive to endure all the pain necessary to completing His mission.

We cannot… know that we are acting at all, or primarily for God’s sake, unless the material of the action is contrary to our inclinations, or (in other words) painful, and what we cannot know that we are choosing, we cannot choose. The full acting out of the self’s surrender to God therefore demands pain: this action, to be perfect, must be done from the pure will to obey, in the absence, or in the teeth, of inclination.

This third means is the format used for Abraham and Isaac’s trial. It’s difficult to imagine anyone wanting more than Abraham to not offer his son as a sacrifice. Such a thing not only goes against every normal parent’s strongest instinct and deepest wishes, but seems to turn back on Abraham his earlier suffering at the hands of his father, and cancel the promises God had made to him about posterity and legacy. The only reason he or Isaac could go through with this command is obedience.

Why is that important? First, because anything God commands is good. He is our Creator, and omniscient, and therefore, He knows precisely what will lead to real happiness – now and eternally. This often needs to be taken on trust, because we are not, of course, ominscient, or wholly good, as He is. The second reason is as above: obedience in itself “is also intrinsically good, for, in obeying, a rational creature consciously enacts its creaturely role, reverses the act by which we fell, treads Adam’s dance backward, and returns.”

[T]he supreme cancelling of Adam’s fall, the movement ‘full speed astern’ by which we retrace our long journey from Paradise, the untying of the old, hard, knot, must be when the creature, with no desire to aid it, stripped naked to the bare willing of obedience, embraces what is contrary to its nature, and does that for which only one motive is possible.

Any other reason for acting according to God’s will cannot do the same. It might be because we had a good childhood, or are naturally kind, or find it easy to be patient, or have little else competing for our desires. It might be because His will aligns with our plans, or we want to please someone who matters to us in some way. The good done for these reasons is still good, and probably commendable; but it hasn’t changed the core of our being. It hasn’t made us “give up our arms”, so to speak. Only in extremity does it come down to our real choice, without anything else interfering.

When we act from ourselves alone – that is, from God in ourselves – we are collaborators in, or live instruments of, creation: and that is why such an act undoes with ‘backward mutters of dissevering power’ the uncreative spell which Adam laid upon his species.

Anything which seems to be pleasant on earth is imperfect; that’s fine, but if it keeps us from moving forward in the path of ‘life eternal’, then it’s unhelpful to us. It also ignores the central paradox of Christianity/reality: things must die in order to live. The plant dies to make seeds, and the seeds are buried in the soil in order to sprout and live as a new plant; Christ died so we could live eternally. What we think we have here is just a shadow, or reflection, of what will be. To mistake the first for the second is tragic, as it would keep us from the real goodness in store. That goodness will be ours – the real thing we actually want, for which the earthly thing stands as a substitute – forever, if we patiently and humbly give up its imitation for now, or at least give up holding it to ourselves so tightly we don’t take the steps needed for progress that will lead to the real thing. Its rebirth or renewal will be more wonderful than we can imagine now.

This seemingly terrible thing that Abraham was commanded to do is, at its heart, also what each person must come to: complete submission to our Father’s will. It looks, and might feel, like torture; if we can do it, it will be our great triumph.