Accounting Λογισαμενος, reasoning, or concluding, after weighing all circumstances; that, notwithstanding the apparent contradiction in the divine revelations; God was able to raise him up
Although he should be burned to ashes; and would raise him even from the dead Though, so far as we can learn, there never had been one single instance of a resurrection from the dead in the world. From whence also he received him in a figure That is, Figuratively speaking, or in a figure or resemblance of the resurrection from the dead, as being hindered from slaying him. For Abraham having fully purposed to sacrifice him, and his intention and action being considered by God as a real offering of him up, he might with propriety be said to receive him from the dead when he was stopped from slaying him. This is a much more natural interpretation of the clause than to understand it, as many do, of his receiving him at his birth by a kind of miracle, as it were, from the dead bodies of those who, in a course of nature, had no hope of children; for this could with no propriety be termed a resurrection, or a receiving him from the dead, as he had had no prior existence. To this may be added, that the miraculous birth of Isaac was not so proper a type of a resurrection as his deliverance from death was; being rather an image of a creation than of a resurrection. It may not be improper to observe here, that the phrase εν παραβολη, which we render in a figure, and which is literally, in, or for a parable, is understood by Warburton to signify, that this whole transaction was parabolical, or typical, of the method God would take for the salvation of mankind, namely, in giving up his only-begotten Son to be a sacrifice for the expiation of human guilt. And certainly, when all the circumstances of this extraordinary fact are considered, Abraham's offering up Isaac will appear to be a most apt emblem of the sacrifice of the Son of God. “Isaac was Abraham's only-begotten. This only-begotten son he voluntarily gave unto death at the commandment of God: Isaac bare the wood on which he was to be burned as a sacrifice, and consented to be offered up; for he made no resistance when his father bound him, which shows that Abraham had made known to him the divine command. Three days having passed between God's order to sacrifice Isaac, and the revoking of that order, Isaac may be said to have been dead three days. Lastly, his deliverance, when on the point of being slain, was, as the apostle observes, equal to a resurrection. In all these respects, this transaction was a fit emblem of the death of the Son of God as a sacrifice, and of his resurrection on the third day. And it is probable that after Isaac was offered, when God confirmed his promises to Abraham by an oath, he showed him that his seed, in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed, was to die as a sacrifice for the sin of the world; and that he had commanded him to offer up Isaac to prefigure that great event, and to raise in mankind an expectation of it. How, otherwise, can we understand our Lord's words to the Jews, Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad? For Christ's day denotes the things done by Christ in his day, and especially his dying as a sacrifice for sin.” Macknight.