This is the way of faith, when Isaac was demanded.¹² And the same overcoming faith we trace in the very next scene, the burial of Sarah. This was the same faith, the faith of a dead and risen man, the faith which had already _received_ Isaac, and _offered_ Isaac, now buries Sarah. Abraham believed in resurrection, and in God as the God of resurrection, the God who quickens the dead, and calls those things that be not as though they were. The cave of Machpelah tells us this. "Earth to earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes, _in sure and certain hope_," was the language of Abraham’s heart there. His purchase of that place, with all his care to make it his own, to have it as his _possession_, while beyond it he cared not for a single acre of the whole land, tells us of his faith in resurrection. His treaty for it with the children of Heth is like his words to his servants at the foot of mount Moriah, "Abide ye here with the ass, while I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you." Each of these things bespoke beforehand what he knew about his Isaac and his Sarah. He committed each of them into the hands of Him who, as he knew, quickens the dead. The corn of wheat dying, as he knew, was to live again. The handful of sacred dust, as he knew, was to be gathered again. Death itself was eyed in like victory of faith, as had already been eyed the fire, and the wood, and the beloved victim on the altar. xxiii. ¹² There are _mysteries_ as well as _illustrations of faith_ in these things; but I cannot follow them here. The offer of Isaac on Moriah, we none of us doubt, is a mystery. So, I surely know, is the action of Hagar and Ishmael in chapter xxi. It is the picture of the present _outcast_ but _preserved_ Jew--a homeless fugitive, destined, however, for future purposes of mercy. See Gal. iv. 25. But I follow not these things particularly here.