V. 19.— Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.We have seen that the commandment to offer Isaac was express; he was not only to be slain, but reduced to ashes; and there was but one way in which the express commandment and the positive promise could be reconciled, viz., by God raising him from the dead; but, considering his almighty power, what was incredible in this? Acts 26:8. Here we see Abraham’ s faith. He had never seen a person raised from the dead; he had never seen the ashes of a body, which had been consumed and dissipated in smoke, reorganized and reanimated; but, when he reflected on the power of the Creator, who spoke, and it was done; who commanded, and all things stood fast; who called into existence and harmony all the various parts of this fair creation; all difficulty was at an end. He knew not how Isaac’ s bones had grown in the womb of Sarah. Ecclesiastes 11:5. Yet so it had been, and he was convinced that with God nothing was impossible; and he was no less fully convinced of the Divine faithfulness. He knew that it was impossible for God to lie, that He was faithful. We may make promises, and something may occur which may prevent our fulfilling them. We may, although our inclination be the same, have lost the power of doing what we intended and said; but with God there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. He sees the end from the beginning. All is under His absolute control; and, in the faith of this, Abraham hesitated not to make the required sacrifice. The commandment to offer Isaac is called a temptation or a trial. James 1:13. His faith was triumphant; and he experienced that, in keeping God’ s commandment, there was an exceeding great reward. This was the greatest trial of the patriarch's faith, and he did not lose his reward. It had been promised that all the families of the earth should be blessed in his seed; and his obedience to the commandment to offer his son, in whom his seed was to be called, was the means of making known to him how the promise was to be fulfilled, namely, by the death and resurrection of Christ. There is a remarkable correspondence in the circumstances of Abraham’ s offering up Isaac, and the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Abraham was required to offer up his son. He obeyed, and proceeded to the land of Moriah. Moriah was the name of the mountain on which the temple was built. It was adjacent to Calvary, and it may be that Calvary was the scene of this transaction. On the third day Abraham saw the place afar off, so that during three days Isaac was under sentence of death, the exact period of our Lord’ s being free among the dead. Again, Abraham leaving his servants, laid the wood for the burnt-offering upon Isaac, as the cross was laid upon Jesus. Again, Isaac must have submitted without resistance. We know not his age; but Abraham was far advanced, and probably incapable of struggling with a youth who had been able to walk so far, and afterwards to carry the wood for the burnt- offering. These circumstances coincide with what took place at the death of Jesus; and the Apostle appears to put it beyond a doubt that the whole of the transaction was figurative, from our being taught that Abraham received his son from the dead in a parable. Hence it appears that, in Abraham giving up his son, and voluntarily offering him up as a burnt sacrifice, is represented the love of God in not sparing His Son, but giving Him up for all His redeemed. The narrative is indeed, as the Apostle had previously said of the law, not an image, but a shadow of the death of Jesus; but there seems no doubt that, in this parable, Abraham obtained a more distinct view of the manner in which all the families of the earth were to be blessed in his seed; and it has been supposed with great probability that the Lord especially refers to this transaction when He says, “Abraham saw my day afar off, and was glad;” and probably this transaction was the means not only of comforting and instructing Abraham, but also many of his children in their generations.