Human Sacrifice in the Bible

In Genesis 22, God tests Abraham’s faithfulness by telling him to make the greatest sacrifice of all: He asks him to sacrifice his beloved and only son, Isaac. Abraham has complete faith in God. Abraham intends to do what has been commanded him; however, he is confident that he will not be asked to actually carry it through. This is made clear in verse five, where Abraham says to his servants “I and the boy [will] go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” Abraham has complete faith that God will provide a way out.
It might seem unreasonable for a good God to ask his servant to commit human sacrifice, but this good God is also a just God. Justice requires human sin to be atoned for with human life, but the loving God allows another sacrifice to be performed as a replacement for what is really necessary. God asks Abraham to perform this sacrifice for two main reasons: to show what a faithful servant looks like, and to prove that God will always provide a way out. Abraham learns what it really means to trust in God- to obey Him, even when it seems absurd. He also learns that in those cases when God’s command does seem absurd, there is always a purpose and a way out.
Because Abraham is willing to perform the sacrifice, a substitute sacrifice is provided. If Abraham hadn’t gone through with what he was commanded, God would not have been able to provide! By putting Abraham to the test, God showed Himself to be loving, compassionate, and kind. God Himself supplied a ram as a burnt offering, something that would later be required of the Israelites as atonement for sin.
The story in Genesis 22 does not support, but doesn’t necessarily “condemn” human sacrifice. On the contrary, it makes it clear that human sacrifice is completely necessary. If the purpose of human sacrifice is to atone for sin, then what good would anything but a human sacrifice do? It is human sin, so human blood needs to be spilled. In Genesis 22, God shows grace to Abraham and Isaac. Death is what is deserved, but God does not require it. Similarly according to Christianity, human death is required for salvation, but because God is a loving God he provided Jesus, the perfect and spotless “Lamb of God,” to be a once and for all God-Man sacrifice.
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a life for a life is the principle set forth in Exodus, and according to this, one human death would only atone for one human’s sin. If Isaac had been sacrificed, it would have accomplished essentially nothing. The sacrifice of a ram or a lamb is enough not forever, but only for a little while. The fact that God initially demanded human sacrifice proves that it is actually what is necessary. Throughout the Old Testament there are innumerable instances in which the relationship between God and different people, or God and Israel, is comparable to the story told in the Christian Bible’s New Testament.
Necessity of human sacrifice appears again in the books of Moses. In the account of the Exodus, in the tenth plague, God is going to kill all of the first born sons of both the Israelites and the Egyptians. Once again, a way out is provided. This time, it is a perfect and spotless lamb that must be sacrificed by each household, and this is sufficient to save the lives of Israel’s firstborns. As Abraham and Isaac are climbing the mountain to make the sacrifice, Abraham tells Isaac that “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering.” Not only is Abraham correct in this instance, but he is also correct in a much larger sense. When the Israelites are in Egypt and God strikes down the firstborns, the Israelite firstborns are saved because God provides a different offering. According to Christianity, all humans are destined to eternal death because of sin, but because of the sacrifice of the Son of God, salvation from that death is available.
As a Christian, I would hold that Isaac’s near-sacrifice experience was meant to be a picture of what would one day happen to Jesus, but for Jesus there was no substitute ram. Isaac was led to the slaughter by his own father, and he was even made to carry the wood for the sacrifice. By this time Abraham was a very old man, and Isaac was at his prime. Isaac didn’t have to obey his father; instead, he could have overpowered him at any moment, but he didn’t. Isaac obeyed and trusted his father, even as a knife was raised to kill him. Jesus, who was fully God and fully man, did not have to be crucified. He could have stopped it at any moment, but He allowed the beatings to continue, and He allowed His killers to force Him to carry the very wood that would become His cross. To me, these stories are inextricably linked. When the ram was provided, Isaac wasn’t completely saved. Salvation didn’t come until God committed the sacrifice himself.
God committed the sacrifice of His own firstborn Son so that Abraham wouldn’t have to. So, is human sacrificed condemned? Certainly not. On the contrary, human sacrifice is absolutely necessary. But is it condoned? By no means! It has already been done. For the Jew, animal sacrifice is salvation, at least for the time being. For the Christian, the ultimate sacrifice has been performed, by God Himself.