The full meaning of the tradition is compressed in the Palestinian Targums commenting on the "night of vigil" on 15 Nisan (Exodus 12:42). 

We are told that four different nocturnal events happened or will occur on that date: the creation of the world, the birth and binding of Isaac, the escape from Egypt, and the coming of the Messiah.

"On the first night, the Word of the Lord was revealed upon the world and created it... 
On the second night, the Word of the Lord was revealed on Abraham...Abraham was one hundred years old and Sarah ninety years that the saying of Scripture might be fulfilled, ‘Abraham aged one hundred can beget, and Sarah aged ninety can bear. Was not Isaac our father thirty-seven years old when he was offered on the altar? The heavens were let down and descended and Isaac saw their perfection... God called this the second night. 
On the third night, the Word of the Lord was revealed upon the Egyptians in the middle of the night. His left hand slew the firstborn of the Egyptians, but his right hand spared the firstborn of the Israelites, to fulfil the saying of Scripture, ‘Israel is my firstborn son'. He called this the third night.
On the fourth night, the world shall reach its end to be delivered.  The bonds of wickedness shall be destroyed and the iron yokes broken. Moses shall come out of the wilderness and the king Messiah out of Rome. The one shall be led upon a cloud and the other shall be led upon a cloud, and the Word of the Lord shall lead between them and they shall go forward together. This is the night of the Passover before the Lord, to be observed and celebrated by Israel in their generations."

In my view, the oldest exegesis of the Aqedah makes Isaac the first redeemer of Israel and envisages the event as the prototype of messianic salvation. If true, this is a highly significant doctrine for both Jewish and Christian theology. 

To place this complex issue into perspective, let me introduce a personal ingredient into the story. I first advanced these ideas nearly half a century ago in Scripture and Tradition in Judaism (Brill, Leiden, 1961). They met with general sympathy in scholarly circles but, unavoidably, along came also dissenting voices (see P.R. Davies and B.D. Chilton, Catholic Biblical Quarterly. 40, 1978, pp. 514-546).