A NEW GENERATION
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Isaac would have grown up with the stories of God’s relationship with his father, Abraham, and God’s promises to his parents, of which he was part of the fulfillment. Now, as Isaac found his own way in the world, God introduced Himself to him as his father’s God and urged him to live with courage and expectation. To Isaac, He made the same promises He had made to Abraham. This would have been an important moment for Isaac.
The relationship that had guided his father’s life would now be part of his life. The God of Abraham was now the God of Isaac. But there is another element of this generational dynamic that is pointed out in Hebrews 11. Yes, Abraham had a dynamic and growing relationship with God. Yes, he had received the miracle of the birth of a promised son much later in life than he expected. But the ultimate promises remained unfulfilled in Abraham’s lifetime. Abraham, along with many others of the patriarchs, “did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.” Abraham was “still living by faith when . . . [he] died” (Hebrews 11:13). Now Isaac was being invited into this same unfulfilled promise, with the recognition that this might not be completed in his lifetime either. He might have wondered whether this was the wisest choice to organize his life around. But to accept God’s promises as his own was also to enter into a relationship with this same God and to live by this same faith. So God said to Isaac, as He had said to Abraham, “Do not be afraid, for I am with you.”
