Coincidence or a Plan?

First off, the exact location of Calvary is unknown! Calvary is where the blood of Jesus was spilled and his Spirit taken from a lifeless body to pay the fine for all sinners of all times! We know it's in Jerusalem, but the exact spot is contested. Let's look at three verses from scripture:

Genesis 22:2 (ESV) He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”

2 Chronicles 3:1 (ESV) Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to David his father, at the place that David had appointed, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

John 19:17 and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha.

What do these three verses have in common? It is believed that they are the same place! Like Calvary, Mt. Moriah's location is not known exactly, but early writers believe that Golgatha and Mt. Moriah are the same place because in Judaism the two locations are considered the same!

It appears that four things happened at the same place:

1. Abraham offered his only son Isaac as a sin sacrifice (burnt offering).
2. Solomon's Temple which God "inhabited" was built at the same place.
3. The Lord appeared to David there.
4. Jesus was crucified where the ultimate sin sacrifice was made for all mankind!

As I was driving one day it came to me! "The Mystery of Christ" was revealed to me, not by preaching nor teaching, but by divine inspiration. No one had ever preached this to me. God revealed it. It was on Calvary that Jesus (The Word) spoke to Abraham and who by faith obeyed the most gruesome command: offer your only son to God for the sins of mankind! Abraham was going to do just that when God saw his willingness and faith and was merciful. By grace It had been a test and Abraham because of faith, passed the test! 

The Word (who would be Jesus) provided a ram for the sacrifice. The ram took on the sins of man and was the sacrifice. This was a picture of Jesus, the Lamb of God, being the sacrifice for the sins of all mankind! It was to happen right here in this same place 2000 years later! What faith Abraham had!

Hebrews 11:17 (ESV) "By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, 18 of whom it was said, 'Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.' 19 He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back."

Paul makes it clear when he spoke to the Hebrew people. They knew Abraham. They knew of the sacrifice! Paul likened it to Jesus who was crucified and raised from the dead. What Paul didn't say was that Jesus was crucified on Mt. Moriah, the exact same place that Abraham 2000 years before was to do what God did do: sacrifice his only son!

When David talked to God it was the pre-incarnate Jesus to whom he spoke. It was on Calvary, called Mt. Moriah! Jesus spoke to Abraham in the very place he would die!  David's son Solomon, following The Word's instruction, built a temple there for The Word's abode. It was God's First Temple and where God ministered to mankind. It was through The Word which God ministered. Jesus was there all along telling the faithful all about his plan for salvation!

Abraham was tested by God. He passed the test. Abraham was saved by faith and Lazarus laid by his side in heaven. Abraham, because he not only knew about the Messiah, but spoke to Jesus before he was ever born, had the faith that by grace he received eternal life and now Abraham's faith is the great faith to which all men are measured!

2000 years later, there was another test! Will God fulfill his promise? Will Jesus die for all men as he told Abraham he would? It wasn't easy, but Jesus who knew of his death before he was ever born, in fact from the creation, carried his own tree to Mt. Moriah so he could fulfill what Isaac was about to be!

God kept his bargain. Jesus, who wrote his own autobiography (in advance) had one plan. It was "plan A" with no "plan B". It was intended all along that The Law was not for salvation, but to show love! "Plan A" all along was that God himself would make himself just like us and feel the sting of death just as we do.  The "Dispensation of Grace" was always. Abraham had the same grace that we have, but he had faith in what would happen, whereas our faith is in what did happen!

On Mt. Moriah there was one difference! God had yet to put on flesh. Before God could die for mankind he  must feel what men feel and be tempted by the same tempter which we face. Part of "Plan A" was that Jesus be born a man, be tempted, be ridiculed and judged and die unfairly in his innocence. The Plan had to be 100% complete before the "covenant of grace" could be consummated. The Abrahamic Covenant was the Covenant of Grace!

Part of the Plan was that Jesus die yet live. In a sense, Paul tells us, that figuratively Isaac died and was resurrected. Part of "Plan A" was that Jesus would indeed die, but would live on! Forever!

Paul tells us also that Isaac's seed would fulfill the Plan. Jesus was one of his seed. As the father of Jacob, who was renamed Israel, Isaac has eternal life. He was the ancestor of Jesus and by Jesus Isaac was resurrected and yet lives!

It's no coincidence that all these things happened on Mt. Moriah! When God has a plan, it's implemented. A person would be a fool to fail to understand the parallel between the story of Abraham and Isaac isn't the same as between The Father and Jesus, and on the same mountain! What a plan! What a promise... and it was there all along: "the mystery of Christ... "the mystery of the Messiah"!