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Zion and Her Atoning King
Chapter 10, part 4 of The Blessings of Abraham:  Becoming a Zion People
By E. Douglas Clark

Most importantly, as the Apostle Paul emphasized, God’s promise to Abraham focused on that one particular Descendant who would bless all nations, even the Savior (Gal. 3:16) – as Abraham himself well knew, having previously seen in vision the Savior’s birth and ministry.

In fact, Abraham must now have recognized, if he hadn’t already, that his own intense trial had been a remarkably detailed foreshadowing of the great Atonement of Christ.

According to the Cave of Treasures, an early Christian work, when “Abraham took up his son as an offering … he at the same time foresaw in this act the crucifixion of Christ.” ^[1]

Nor would some of Abraham’s offspring miss the symbolism of this poignantly unique event as simply the clearest and most powerful type of the most important event ever to take place on this planet, the sacrifice of the Son of God. Hence when the Book of Mormon prophet Jacob chose from all of past history an event that would serve as a compelling “similitude of God and his Only Begotten Son,” it was the obedience of “Abraham in the wilderness … in offering up his son Isaac” (Jacob 4:5).

The same comparison is evident in the New Testament, where the Greek word used by James to describe Abraham’s faith being made “perfect” (teleioun) when he offered up Isaac (James 2:21-22), is the same word used in the gospel of John when Jesus prays that His disciples may be “perfect” in one (John 17:23), and yet again the same word used by John to describe the crucifixion of Jesus as bringing scripture to “complete fulfillment.” ^[2]

But already John had written that “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16), the one passage that best sums up the entire gospel of John. ^[3] The words carry a distinct and intentional echo of God’s ancient directive to Abraham to offer up his beloved son. ^[4]

Moreover, as the first occurrence of any form of the word love in the Old Testament is God’s mention of Abraham’s love for Isaac in Genesis 22, so the first occurrence of love in the New Testament is by a heavenly voice speaking of the love of a Father for His Son: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” ^[5]

And as Abraham had walked up the mountain to fulfill that directive, he had promised Isaac that God would provide a lamb. What God provided that day was a ram. So where was the lamb? The answer comes only later as recorded in the gospel of John when John the Baptist sees Jesus and announces, “Behold the Lamb of God” (John 1:29). This was the fulfillment of Abraham’s prophecy, uttered in the only conversation that Genesis records between Abraham and his posterity.

Hence, according to the second-century theologian and martyr Irenaeus, “Abraham … delivered up, as a sacrifice to God, his only-begotten and beloved son, in order that God also might be pleased to offer up for all his seed His own beloved and only-begotten Son, as a sacrifice for our redemption.” ^[6] Or, as portrayed in Armenian apocryphal sources, “Abraham is the type of God the Father, Isaac is Christ, the wood is the wood of the Cross, Abraham’s sacrifice is God’s sending of his Son.” ^[7]

Such redemption would take place very near the site of Abraham’s similitude, even as prophetically foretold by generations of ancient Israelites exclaiming, “In the mount will the Lord be seen.” ^[8] Ironically, only when Abraham had obediently relinquished the promise of being the Savior’s ancestor did he secure the guarantee of that promise.

This guarantee of God’s swearing an oath is unprecedented in Genesis, but not in the writings of Abraham’s forefathers. When Enoch had prayed for mercy for his posterity, the Lord had covenanted with Enoch and irrevocably sworn with an oath to preserve and protect his posterity – adding that “blessed is he through whose seed Messiah shall come; for he saith – I am Messiah, the King of Zion” (Moses 7:51-53).

The Messiah’s unnamed blessed ancestor could well be Abraham, who upon completing the similitude of the Messiah’s Atonement heard the Lord swear an oath guaranteeing that through Abraham’s seed would indeed come the Messiah, the King of Zion.

The word Zion is used throughout the Prophetic and Psalms literature and extensively in the rabbinic writings to designate that most important of all Jewish geographic locations, the Temple Mount. Curiously, Jewish and biblical scholars are at a loss to explain the origin of the name, ^[9] noting that from earliest times “it is transmitted as a proper name” and “undoubtedly comes from pre-Israelite times,” ^[10] having been “only secondarily transferred” to Jerusalem and its Temple Mount. ^[11]

And a key part of that inherited tradition “depict[s] the city of God in the light of complete happiness and prosperity.” ^[12] In short, the Zion tradition at Jerusalem is now recognized to be far older than Jerusalem itself, pointing back to an ancient golden age. Only with the loss of the Enoch texts did later generations forget the original, the order of Enoch that those at Jerusalem sought to reestablish on the very site dedicated by Abraham for that purpose.

Nor would the Jerusalem effort to reestablish Zion be the last, for as Brigham Young said, it is “the order of Enoch” that “God has established for his people in all ages of the world when he has had a kingdom upon the earth.” ^[13] It would thus be the order of the latter days, as Abraham also foresaw when he beheld in vision the temple as it would stand in the far-distant Messianic era.

It was all part of the original oath to Enoch about the latter-day return of his city of Zion, to meet the earthly Zion built by Abraham’s posterity – pursuant to the oath sworn to Abraham by God through his angel on Mount Moriah.

Who was that angel? Jubilees specifies that it was the very angel of the presence, ^[14] who, as seen before, is elsewhere identified as Enoch. Similarly in the Midrash ha-Gadol the angel who called out of heaven is specifically named as Metatron, ^[15] who is Enoch. ^[16] This source further tells that Metatron was chosen to relay the message because, as Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac, “Metatron arose before the Holy One … and said before him, ‘Lord of the Universe, let not the seed of Abraham perish from the world.'” The Lord then “indicated to Metatron to call him, as it is written ‘The angel of the Lord then called to him from heaven.'” ^[17]

Having once been God’s messenger to rescue Abraham from death on the altar in Ur, Enoch again serves as God’s messenger to rescue Abraham’s son of promise from another altar and to convey the oath encompassing the future building of Zion. In fact, a Turkish source seems to indicate that it was concern for the latter-day Zion that prompted the plea of the angels, who saw “from the Preserved Tablet that the Prophet of the End of Time will come from … [the] line” of the son about to sacrificed. ^[18] For Latter-day Saints, this End-Time prophet is none other than Joseph Smith.

Hence on Mount Moriah, Zion above had interceded for Zion below, and particularly for the benefit of latter-day Zion – but only after Abraham’s obedience had foreshadowed the price to be paid for Zion by her King, the Messiah, the Son of God and of Abraham.

Well did the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard title his treatment of Abraham’s sacrifice Fear and Trembling, for as a later philosopher, Jacques Derrida, would comment about Abraham’s sacrifice, “What is it that makes us tremble … ? It is the gift of infinite love.” ^[19]

To Him whose death was prefigured by the experience of Isaac, Moroni said: “Thou hast loved the world, even unto the laying down of thy life for the world” (Ether 12:33). It was this divine gift of love, freely given to Zion by her suffering King, that was foreshadowed in Abraham’s offering of his beloved son.