In Genesis 22 the Lord asks Abraham to offer Isaac to Him as a "burnt offering". In the original Hebrew, the word translated into English as "burnt offering" simply means "to ascend" or "to go up in smoke". The Lord is not asking Abraham to burn his son alive, as this is not how burnt offerings were done. A sacrificial animal would be killed instantly by a swift slice across the jugular using a specially designed sharp knife, then afterwards it would be placed on the altar to be burned. The symbolism of the burnt offering was a complete giving up of whatever was being offered to the Lord. Some types of offering allowed the bringer of it to retain most of the meat to take home and eat with his family, but in the burnt offering nothing could be held back. So symbolically the Lord is asking Abraham, "Will you trust Me with your one and only son, the son whom you love, the son whom you waited for all these long years, the son I miraculously gave to you? Are you willing to submit your life and everyone and everything in it to Me, holding nothing back?"
Abraham is willing, but it's important for us to understand that Abraham fully expects the Lord to bring Isaac back to life immediately afterward. We know this because of what the Apostle Paul tells us in Hebrews 11:17-19: "By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, 'It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.' Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.'"
The Lord promised Abraham descendants through his son Isaac. He promised that Isaac's descendants would become a great nation. How could the Lord keep His promise if Isaac died and remained dead? He couldn't, so Abraham "reasoned" that after he offered Isaac to the Lord, the Lord would raise him from the dead.
Was it difficult for Abraham to imagine the Lord resurrecting a dead body that had been burned to ashes? In his mind I think he "reasoned" that the God who enabled a man and a woman (one hundred years old and ninety years old, respectively) to conceive a child together is able also to raise the dead. Abraham believed what you and I believe: that God is going to raise us from the dead someday, no matter what condition our mortal bodies are in on the day He calls the dead to life. The prophet Isaiah foresaw the day in which Almighty God will call the dead from the graves and raise them to life anew, saying, "But Your dead will live, Lord; their bodies will rise---let those who dwell in the dust wake up and shout for joy." (Isaiah 19a) It's true that we were created from the dust and to the dust we shall return. (Genesis 3:19) But it's also true that the God who created us from the dust of the ground will raise us from the dead, just as He raised His own Son from the dead. Abraham believed in the resurrection of the dead---both an eternal resurrection at the end of days and a resurrection of his son to life after he had offered his son to the Lord. Isaac, like the other people raised from the dead in the Bible with the exception of the Lord Jesus, would have had to face a natural death someday. I don't think Abraham thought Isaac's return to life in Genesis 22 was going to be eternal, but he did believe the Lord was going to allow Isaac to live what was a normal lifespan in those days.
When Abraham goes up onto Mount Moriah with Isaac to carry out the Lord's instructions, he will say to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you." (Genesis 22:5) He means what he says. Abraham intends to offer his son to the Lord, but he also intends to return with his son alive and well. He can't allow his servants to accompany him to the place of sacrifice for fear they will think he has lost his mind and prevent him from carrying out the Lord's instructions, so he tells him to remain at a distance. He leaves with Isaac and has no doubt that he will be returning with Isaac. There is no other way this day can turn out, for the Lord has promised that Isaac will have more descendants than the grains of sand on the seashore, and the Lord keeps His promises.
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