Genesis 22:1-19 (Part 2)

In Genesis 22:1-19 God tests Abraham by telling him to sacrifice his own son as a burnt offering. When the Angel of the LORD stops Abraham at the last moment, the story does not end. Abraham then sees a ram caught in a thicket and recognizes that God has provided a substitute for his son. The ram as a substitute for Isaac provides a fundamental principle for atonement, namely, that it is substitutionary. This is the same thing that we see with the fulfillment of that to which the binding of Isaac points: the death of Christ.