Abstract
Twice in the biblical story, the purpose of God for the world depends decisively on the obedience of faith. When Abraham binds Isaac on Moriah's mountain and when Jesus prays, “Not my will, but yours” in Gethsemane's garden, something crucial happens for the course of God's way with the rest of us. The scriptural accounts, Gen 22:1-19 and Matt 26:36-46, are connected by the theme of “testing,” and each has a narrative location that is climactic and pivotal for its literary context. This exposition seeks to read each text in its own right, but to understand each theologically in connection with the other. The reading prompts a vision of God in whose divine reality human historical actuality has become profoundly present.
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