By Doug Redford
“The Lord Will Provide” is the name that Abraham gave to the sacred place where the Lord provided a ram so that the aged patriarch did not have to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac. The Hebrew name is Jehovah-jireh, which means, “The Lord will see” or “The Lord will see to it,” which gives the idea of providing. In fact, the English word provide literally means “to see ahead” (the vide part of the word means to see, as in the word video). And Abraham did indeed “see ahead” to what God would do, though he could not have imagined just how his words would come to pass. When Isaac inquired as to where the lamb for a burnt offering was, his father told him, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son” (Genesis 22:8). Abraham “reasoned” that if he did sacrifice Isaac, God would raise him from the dead. And, “in a manner of speaking,” that is what happened (Hebrews 11:19).
Abraham’s words to Isaac were also prophetic in another way: God provided another lamb, the one to whom John the Baptist called attention when he saw Jesus approaching and declared, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Just as God provided a substitute so that Abraham’s son Isaac did not have to be sacrificed, he provided a substitute in his Son Jesus so that people would not have to die in their sins.
Consider that while Abraham’s son was spared, God’s Son was not. There was no voice from Heaven to stop the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross as there was to prevent Abraham from slaying his son. God did not send an angel to say, “Stop! Do not lay a hand on my Son!” Of course, he could have; Jesus said that his Father could have provided “more than twelve legions of angels” (72,000) to rescue him if he asked for their assistance (Matthew 26:53). But Jesus was on a rescue mission—to rescue us. And God’s Son did come back from the dead, not in a figurative sense but in a literal bodily resurrection.
At Communion we remember that what both Abraham and John the Baptist anticipated has indeed come to pass. Many Communion tables are etched with Jesus’ words, “Do this in remembrance of me.” But they could also display the words, “The Lord Will Provide.”
Doug Redford has served in the preaching ministry, as an editor of adult Sunday school curriculum, and as a Bible college professor. Now retired, he continues to write and speak as opportunities come.
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