Abraham & Isaac as Similitudes of Heavenly Father & Christ

Abraham & Isaac as a Type of Heavenly Father and Christ!

By Jeffrey A. Bushman September 2016

This has been an imagery that has been taught over the years, and I just wanted to show how much in many details these prophets, Abraham and Isaac are a similitude of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ his son.

Abraham as a type of Heavenly Father

1) His name at first was Abram which means Exalted Father, and Heavenly Father is an exalted being who resides in heaven and is the Father of every person who dwells on the earth.

2) God changes Abram’s name to Abraham which means a “father of a multitude”.  Certainly it is easy to see that Heavenly Father is also a “father of a multitude”.

3) He married Sarah who’s names means “Princess” in Hebrew and “queen” in the Akkadian language. Heavenly Father’s wife is an exalted woman who now is also a queen. 

4)  Both Abraham and Heavenly Father are married forever, as Peter describes exalted married couples “as being heirs together of the grace of life.”  1 Peter 3:7

5)  Both had their righteous birthright sons’ mortal conception happen as a miracle.  Christ as the only begotten of the Father in the Flesh, begin born of Mary who was a virgin, and Isaac being conceived by a women well past the age of childbearing.  Both of their son’s births were prophesied before their mother’s pregnancy. 

6)  Both of their sons have lineage that has to be accepted as the path, in order for people on the earth to gain their exaltation.

7)  Both were willing to sacrifice their birthright son, and both knew that they could or would be raised from the dead to fulfill their mission on the earth. See Heb. 11

8)  Both are Fathers of many nations.

Abraham a similitude of Christ

1)  A sign of their births was to have a new star appear. (Bible & Jasher) and both had prophecies as being one to rule over many others. 

2) There was an effort by the ruling king to kill them as infants.

3)  Both are the ones we have to look to if you want to find our way back to the Lord.  We are to become the seed of Abraham and also the seed of Christ.

4)  As youths they both were up and doing their Heavenly Father’s work, in trying to bring souls back to the right path.

5)  Both were taught knowledge from heaven that allowed them to know more about the world and heavenly creations unknown to others of their time.

6)  Both are used as examples of who we should follow in this life.

 1 Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.

 2 Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.  (Isaiah 51)

Isaac as a Type of Jesus Christ

1) Both of their births were announced by messengers from God before their births.

2)  Both of their births were considered a miracle from God, as both required His help and assistance.  Their births were an example of the faith of their parents.

3)  Both were obedient to God, in all that we have recorded about them. 

4)  Both were the object of a sacrifice, required of their fathers.  The imagery of this sacrifice will be given later in this paper in number 6.

5) Both had the covenant of God’s gospel plan establish through them.

Genesis: Chapter 17

 15 ¶And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be.

 16 And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.  (Abraham and Sarah have not the power to conceive a child, Isaac would have to come from exercising faith in God.)

6)  Abraham’s Sacrifice of Isaac

Genesis: Chapter 22

 1 And it came to pass after these things,  that God did tempt (try, JST) Abraham, and said unto  him,   Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.

 2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, (there seems to be several sources that show that Isaac was a young man and not a child when this happened) and get thee into the land of Moriah;  (the land of Moriah is at Jerusalem where Christ’s great sacrifice would take place,) and offer him there for a burnt offering (much like the sacrifices that Moses was instructed that should be offered to teach the people to look forward to Christ’s sacrifice,) upon 

one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

 3 ¶And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, (the wood is prepared beforehand for the sacrifice) and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. (Both sacrifices were where God had before ordained they should take place.)

 4 Then on the third day (both events will take 3 days to be completed, also 3 is a number representing God and the Godhead,)  Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.

 5 And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you. (Christ takes 3 apostles while he suffered in agony in the garden and then they returned to the main group.)

 6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; (Christ like, Isaac would carry the wood, or tree that would be a part of his sacrifice that he would be bound to,)  and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they 

went both of them together.

 7 And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. 

And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?

 8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: (God did provide HIMSELF a lamb for the offering, we are all saved through the blood of the lamb,)  so they went both of them together.

 9 And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar (symbolic of the future place of sacrifice of the Savior)

 there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar 

upon the wood. (Christ’s blood was shed in Gethsemane and later he was fastened to the wood to complete his total sacrifice. Other sources tell of Isaac realizing that he was the sacrifice and asked his father to tie him to the wood so he would not flinch and ruin the sacrifice.  He was a willing participant and Isaac could have over powered Abraham if he had refused to be the lamb.)

 10 And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. (Again some sources said that when Abraham raised the knife that Isaac stretched forth his neck to receive the knife, again showing he was a willing participant.)

 11 And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.

 12 And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him:  

for now I know that thou  fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. (Isaac was spared and then quoting Hebrews 11:17-19)  17 By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; (like Heavenly Father), and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,

18 Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called;

19 Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received his in a figure. (Here we are told that Isaac and Abraham are symbolic and represent what was done by the God the Father and His Son.  Abraham also knew that if he killed Isaac that God would have to raise him from the dead for through his son all the nations of the earth would be blessed.)

Genesis 22: 14 And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.

 15 ¶And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time,

 16 And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, forbecause thou hast done this thing, and 

hast not withheld thy son, thine only son:

 17 That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as 

the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed 

shall possess the gate of his enemies; (Blessing given to Abraham and Isaac but it also applies to the seed of Christ.)

 18 And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast

obeyed my voice. (In the book of Abraham there are a couple of verses that summarize the promises made to Abraham for his great lesson of obedience to the Lord in all things that were required of him by the Lord.  As you read these blessings you will see that they apply not only to Abraham but also to those who follow Christ as they were just quoted in the Genesis verses above.)

 Abraham 2:10 And I will bless them through thy name; for as many as receive this Gospel shall be called after thy name, and shall be accounted thy seed, and shall rise up and bless thee, as their father;

 11 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee; and in thee (that is, in thy Priesthood) and in thy seed (that is, thy Priesthood), for I give unto thee a promise that this right shall continue in thee, and in thy seed after thee (that is to say, the literal seed, or the seed of the body) shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of life eternal.