260 It was the very same mountain hlh Abraham was a symbol of God the Father; Isaac, his only begotten son, was a symbol of God’s only begotten son. God says to Abraham, “Take now thy son, thine only son whom thou lovest and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.”
It was not enough that Isaac should be offered on just any mountain. God would lead Abraham to the mountain, but, it had to be a particular mountain—one mountain—in the land of Moriah. He would have to walk for three days to get to that mountain. Later on that mountain was called Mount Moriah.
It was on that same mountain, a thousand years later, that David offered a sacrifice, and Jerusalem was spared (2 Sam. 24:18-25). The destroying angel was going through the land. Seventy thousand people had already died. The angel had his hand stretched out over the city of Jerusalem, which was itself a symbol of the people of God. They were under the sentence of death.
David, the son of Jesse was here a clear symbol of the Greater David, the Son of God. He offered a sacrifice, and because those sacrificial animals died, the people of Jerusalem lived. The entire matter was a clear figure of the sacrificial death of Christ on behalf of his people. All the elements of the figure fit in place.
Because Christ died in our room and stead we were delivered from the sentence of death. David would not accept the offer of Araunah (Ornan) to give him the animals to sacrifice; he insisted on paying for the full price (vs. 24). The purchase price that was paid for our redemption was the most expensive transaction the world has ever known; the Lord Jesus paid that price, by the offering of himself. The city was delivered by the offering of that sacrifice, but God had already determined to deliver the city before the offering was made (vs 16).
That is a figure of God’s determining before the foundation of the world that he would save his people by the offering of his son. All the different parts of the figure fit; it all took place on the same mountain on which Isaac was offered; and it is all a figure of what God would do on behalf of his people—on this very mountain.
Bear in mind that Solomon’s Temple was built at Jerusalem (on Mount Moriah at the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite, 2 Chr. 3:1) . The Lord was crucified at Jerusalem, on a little hill called Calvary, just outside the wall of the city of Jerusalem. The offering of Isaac, and David’s sacrifice at the threshing floor of Ornan, were both figures of the offering of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary, and Abraham walked for three days in order to arrive at the very place where, two thousand years later, the Lord would suffer and die.
The Bible does not say that Abraham set up his altar on the very spot where the cross was set up, but it is hard for me to imagine that God required Abraham to walk three days to arrive at this place, and only had him to build the altar somewhere on the mountain. I believe he built the altar on the very spot where—two thousand years later —the cross would be set up.
The offering of Isaac was a figure of the greatest transaction of time and eternity, and God caused Abraham to walk for three days in order to act out this figure at the very place where the transaction would take place. The solemnity of all that took place there—over a period of two thousand years—is awesome beyond expression.