Lay not thine hand— As by the command Abraham understood the nature of man's redemption, he must know also how the scenical representation was to end. Isaac was made the person, or representative of Christ dying for us. The Son of God, he knew, could not possibly lie under the dominion of the grave. Hence, he must needs conclude, either that God would stop his hand, when he came to give the sacrificing stroke; or that, if the revelation of this mystery was to be represented throughout in action, that then his son, sacrificed under the person of Christ, was soon to be restored to life: accounting, that God was able to raise him up even from the dead as the author of the epistle to the Hebrews assures us, ch. Genesis 11:19. The law of nature commands us to protect and cherish our offspring: would that law have been transgressed in giving a stroke, whose hurt was presently to be repaired? The law of nature, which is the law of God, forbids all injury to our fellow creature: and was he injured, who, by being thus highly honoured, in becoming the representative of the Son of God, was to share with his father in the rewards of his obedience? Thus it appears, that this command was an information by action: and when regarded in this view, all the arguments against God's giving it to Abraham are absolutely enervated and overthrown. This interpretation of the command concludes strongly against the Socinians for the real sacrifice of Christ, and the proper redemption of mankind. For if the command were an information by action, instead of words, the proof conveyed in it would be decisive, there being here no room for the evasion of its being a figurative expression, since the figurative action, the original of such expression, denotes either a real sacrifice, or nothing at all.
Now I know, &c.— God could not but know this before: therefore all that can be implied is, Thou hast now given the fullest and most satisfactory proof of thy faith, and of thy piety and regard to me, by this action.