impleri

Recall the story of Abraham and Isaac (or Ishmael if you’re Muslim). God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son. Abraham takes Isaac to the mountain, sets up the altar, binds Isaac, and then right before killing Isaac, a ram appears and is used in Isaac’s place. God was pleased with Abraham.

In some ways, this was an imperfect act because Abraham did not fully sacrifice Isaac. Now, some theologians argue that the NT “completes” (and perfects) these OT actions. What would be the NT equivalent?

i think God and Jesus. Here, we have God bringing Jesus to the altar (the earth), binding him up (pouring humanity’s sins onto Jesus), and then fully sacrificing Jesus. Just like with the covenant with Abraham, God walks through the dead animals, but disallows us to do the same. The fear and trembling Abraham acquired here (and the allusion to Kierkegaard is intentional) is what we should acquire as well, but only more fully than Abraham ever did. Abraham isn’t just to be our exemplar of faith, but he is to be the minimum to which we measure our faith in fear and trembling.