What place did Abraham see? The same place of which it would be written, “the place which is called Calvary.”
We read in Genesis 22:4, “On the third day Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place afar off,” the place where he had been called to offer his son. Travelling north from his encampment at Beersheba, he would have taken the Ridge Road northeast to Hebron where he and Sarah would later be buried. Then it was on to Bethlehem, what would be a significant town in the days of his grandson Jacob, for there Benjamin was born and Jacob’s beloved Rachel died in childbirth. Buried by the roadside, the traditional site of her tomb is often visited today. In fact, the high ground on the southern hills that surround Jerusalem is still called Ramat Rahel, the Hill of Rachel. Just over its crown you will find a stone chair. Donated by the widow of famous British artist Holman Hunt, if you sit there you will have the same vantage point from which Abraham could see “the place afar off” (Gen 22:4), the farthest heights of Mount Moriah, the site of Calvary. But though you may never be there to see the place geographically, you can see the place spiritually, as Abraham also did. The Lord Jesus stated, “Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad” (Jn 8:56). There is no place like it when you see it with the eyes of faith. The “watershed of two eternities,” there the desperate need of man found its answer in the gift of God. There “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other” (Ps 85:10). Both the uncaused hatred of humanity and the causeless love of heaven met, and love won the day! There God “made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor 5:21). Sinner, come to Calvary. And, believer, never get very far away.