What is Biblical typology?

The word rendered "examples" in the first of these scriptures is really "types," and that given in the second as "figures" is more exactly "antitypes." Attention to the teaching of each will readily enable us to understand the difference. The journey of the children of Israel through the wilderness, divinely sustained as they were by the manna from heaven and by the water which flowed out of the smitten rock, was typical of, and shadowed out, the Christian's passage through this world, which has become morally a wilderness to him, because his home is in the Father's house, where Christ has gone to prepare a place for him. A type therefore is a thing, an event, which is taken up by the Spirit of God to adumbrate something in the future. And there are typical personages, such as Isaac, Joseph, Benjamin, Moses, Aaron, David, and Solomon, who are selected to prefigure Christ in some special character or office. An "antitype," as in the second scripture, is a correspondence with something already existing. Thus the tabernacle, a figure (image) for the time then present, made after the pattern shown to. Moses in the mount, was a revelation of heavenly things. It was not intended so much to point to the future, although it be true that it is only in Christianity that the things revealed by the tabernacle can be understood and inherited, as to display what belonged to heaven. Hence the apostle says: "Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands" (that is, into the holy places of the tabernacle, where only the priests could enter), which are the figures (the antitypes) of the true, "but into heaven itself," etc.; for indeed it was "heaven itself," of which the "holy places" were the antitypes. A symbol again is different. For example, the sun, moon and stars, in Matt. 24, as also in Revelation, are used in a symbolic sense, as symbolizing governing authorities - the sun as supreme, the moon as derived (she receives her light from the sun), and the stars as subordinate, authority. So the new moon was, to borrow language, "the symbol of the reappearance of Israel in the sun's light, hailed with joy by the people, and connected with redemption in the thought of faith." Then also there are figures and illustrations. When, for instance, our blessed Lord says, "I am the door," He uses a figure to teach that it is through Him we enter into the possession and enjoyment of heavenly things. The spiritual mind, guided by the Holy Spirit, will have but little difficulty in comprehending these distinctions, and in seizing their significance, when studying the Scriptures.

1884 28 Of the numerous kinds of figures used in Scripture there are four most frequent, of which the characteristics should be remembered. The simile is any case where a resemblance is drawn between two objects; as "the righteous shall flourish like the palm tree." The metaphor is the putting of one thing, because of its analogy, to express another, as "Ephraim is a cake not turned." The symbol is the designed use of one object to represent some other object or thought to which it has an affinity, as baptism to represent death and resurrection. And the type is the same as the symbol, except that the type relates to some future thing (called the antitype), whereas the symbol relates to something past or present. There are about a dozen others figures: but I think most of them explain themselves, and the distinction between them (metonymy, synecdoche, and so forth) are chiefly of interest to grammarians and rhetoricians.

It will therefore be apparent that we have no right to call a thing a type or symbol, unless there be some evidence of a divine intention that it should be so regarded, since the design is what characterizes these two figures.

The word antitype does not occur in the A.V., but the Greek word ἀντίτυπον occurs in Heb. 9:24, translated 'figures,' and in 1 Peter 3:21, translated 'like figure.' It is that which answers to a type, as a wax impression answers to a seal: if the device is sunk, the impression will be raised, or vice versa. To take a simple but beautiful example, a lamb was offered up for a burnt offering both morning and evening under the law; and in the N.T. we read, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." It is plain that the morning and evening lamb in Israel were types and the death of the Lord Jesus was the antitype. In Heb. 9:23, the 'heavenly things' are the type, and 'holy places,' Heb. 9:24, the antitype, or what corresponded to the pattern. In 1 Peter 3:21, eight souls were saved through water, of which baptism is the figure, or what answers to it. Doubtless there are many other antitypes in the N.T., but every antitype must have a type to which it corresponds, though the correspondence may not lie on its surface. Where scripture is silent as to types and antitypes the teaching of the Holy Spirit is needed, or grievous error may result in associating two things together which have no spiritual connection, though names and words may seem to correspond.

That which is prefigured in a type is seen in the 'antitype,' ἀντίτυπον, translated 'like figure,' 1 Peter 3:21; and 'figure,' Heb. 9:24. If the tabernacle be taken as an illustration, the type or pattern was seen in the mount, that is, figuratively in heaven, and the tabernacle itself was the antitype. Heb. 9:24. Then again, the tabernacle may be taken as a type, and the saints now, as forming the house of God, the antitype. Christ is "Son over his own house, whose house are we." Heb. 3:6. Many things in the O.T. are typical of those in the N.T., as seen in 1 Cor. 10:11; but, as in all else, the teaching of the Holy Spirit is needed, or there is danger of adopting connections which are merely fanciful.

A few examples of types are here appended: the student of scripture will find it profitable to search out (in dependence upon the Holy Spirit) the numerous types of the O.T. with their antitypes in the N.T. They may be found in 1, persons; 2, places; 3, things; 4, events.

ADAM as the first man, under whom all earthly created things were set — type of Christ, the last Adam, who is Head over all things, the second Man. Gen. 1:28; Rom. 5:14; Heb. 2:7.

304 It is impossible to go through the discussion of some childish and some useful, though perhaps imaginative, adaptations of scripture. But some points claim our attention. "It is admitted scripture has only one meaning." We have partly spoken of this; but there are new points connected with it here. We are not now to decide whether scripture is wise in having one or more, but whether it has. Now, in the use made of it here, the proposition — that it has only one meaning — is wholly false. Mystical and allegorical interpretations of the Fathers I throw overboard at once. Scripture is not answerable for them; but our friend Philo and the Alexandrians mainly. But prophecy and symbolism of the gospel in the law are referred to. Prophecy we have spoken of; but symbolism means types of the Old Testament applicable to things in the New. Now I affirm that Old and New Testament concur in stating this to be so. Moses was commanded to make the tabernacle according to the pattern he had seen in the mount; nay, if God made such a system, we ought to expect some meaning in it more than gowns, and dresses, and curtains. When I read through the scripture, I find the whole form of language framed on such a symbolical use, and the great facts of the New the plain counterpart to the symbols of the Old. You must crush the whole structure of scripture in its most vital essences, tear the warp out of it so that it ceases to be a texture, before you undo this. Altars, tabernacles, the dwelling-place of God, sacrifices, priesthood, the rock, the water, the anointing, the holy place, the mercy-seat, the blood-shedding — I should go through every element of what constitutes its whole texture of thought, before I had closed the list of symbolical facts and objects presented in the Old Testament and taken up in the New, and which have entered, and that according to scripture, into the whole conception and framework of our religious thought. It is not a way of interpreting scripture, it is scripture itself. Christ is the Lamb of God. He is a great High Priest entered into the holiest. And Paul goes farther; he tells us as to the history itself, "All these things happened unto them for types, and they are written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the world are come." 1 Cor. 10:11. One, and only one, true meaning therefore is not the fact in this case.

All must of course admit (who are not infidels) the figurative nature of the tabernacle and temple service. Priest, altar, sacrifice and sanctuary we must allow to have their inner meaning, for the New Testament so reads them all. But the New Testament finds such also in far other things: in the details of Israel's history, their Passover and Red Sea deliverance, the manna, the water from the rock. "All these things," says the apostle, "happened unto them for ensamples (literally, types), and are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world (or ages) are come" (1 Cor. 10:11). But this typical teaching is not even confined to Israel's history: we have similar explanations as to Adam and his wife (Rom. 5, Eph. 5), the flood and the ark (1 Peter Melchizedek (Heb. 7), Abraham's wives and sons (Gal 4), with more than a hint as to the offering up of Isaac (Gal. 3:16-17). Thus the history itself (while of course true and divine) is typical and prophetic also.

One of two things, could alone be supposed. There was either an unrecorded promise; or else he must have been given to see very plainly the typical character of things which we know were types of the very truths which the New Testament shows us he had received. Abraham's call to Canaan was the perfect symbol of our "heavenly calling," but how he could have understood it so, we may be at a loss to comprehend. Yet some things there were that might have aided greatly in this. Man had been shut out of Paradise two thousand years before, and Revelation ends with the picture of another Paradise, heavenly, not earthly, into which those that have "washed their robes" in the blood of the Lamb shall be admitted. No one doubts, save an infidel, that here again the first garden of God was a type of the other. Had the secret then been shut up those two thousand years, - absolutely shut up - that there was in it some such meaning? Our Suppositions in such a matter may not possess much value; but we are seeking to account in this way for a fact at least not to be denied, of Abraham's having a knowledge of that which certainly does not appear upon the face of the inspired record. And, our attention being turned to this, we cannot but notice how much the divine way was in those early days to teach by type and figure. Did Abel know nothing of the significance of that "more excellent sacrifice" which by faith he offered? And if the "seed of the Woman" spoke, as we know it did speak, of a deliverer to come, it spoke still in the language of type of the bruising of the serpent's head. In Abraham's vision it was a figure spoke, though with some interpretation (Gen. xv.). So Jacob's ladder; and still more the mysterious night wrestling, with its consequence of a halting thigh. Joseph's dreams still exemplify this way of the divine teaching: and so the dreams which he interprets. In these and similar instances we find not merely the use of type and figure, but of these as things whose significance was known to the people in whose time they happened. They show us that these were the language of the day, unintelligible, certainly not wholly, when first uttered, however much the full mystery waited for revelation, when the appointed time should be come. Still more would this be so as the word of God grew gradually to its full proportion, and the meaning of the law came to be unfolded by the prophets, partial though the unfolding were. And though the people were indeed blind and carnal, even this would not hinder the attainment of a certain body of truth as orthodoxy, while the point and power of it as bearing practically upon themselves might be denied. Such exactly was the later Pharisaism which carried with it the mass of the people. And such, in the history of the Christian church, was the Nicene orthodoxy. We may thus account then for a knowledge in Israel beyond the apparent measure of the revelation that had been made to them. We have only to suppose (what is otherwise indicated also) that the great system of types which their law embodied was not wholly unknown to them; and while the ministry of death and condemnation was allowed to have its full effect, and the consistency of purpose was maintained throughout, the light was allowed in another way to shine, even if dimly, through the wonderful imagery in the midst of which they moved. This was surely divine wisdom. But let us seek to realize a little how far beyond the usual thought of it, this typical character of the Old Testament books extends. All must of course admit (who are not infidels) the figurative nature of the tabernacle and temple service. Priest, altar, sacrifice and sanctuary we must allow to have their inner meaning, for the New Testament so reads them all. But the New Testament finds such also in far other things: in the details of Israel's history, their Passover and Red Sea deliverance, the manna, the water from the rock. "All these things," says the apostle, "happened unto them for ensamples (literally, types), and are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world (or ages) are come" (1 Cor. x. 11). But this typical teaching is not even confined to Israel's history: we have similar explanations as to Adam and his wife (Rom. v., Eph. v.), the flood and the ark (1 Pet, iii.), Melchisedek (Heb. vii.), Abraham's wives and sons (Gal. iv.), with more than a hint as to the offering upof Isaac (Gal. iii. 16, 17). Thus the history itself (while of course true and divine) is typical and prophetic also. Guided thus far by the word of God, are we to stop where the actual explanation stops, and view the rest of it as history simply; or are we to take this explanation rather as the establishment of a principle which is applicable all through the historical books?

Verse 24. "Which things are an allegory," etc. The principle on which the apostle here allegorizes, or applies to other objects earlier historical facts, is very simple. The Scriptures are the Word of God. Their subject, therefore, first and last, is God in His varied relationships to man. The persons of Scripture are representative persons, each one exemplifying some doctrine or principle of good or evil, truth or falsehood, etc. Hence all Scripture is, in this sense, typical; and inasmuch as Christ is personally the truth, the whole of the Old Testament is to the believer a cyphered Gospel, to which the Spirit of wisdom and revelation offers him the key. The preservative from the danger of a misapplication on our parts of what was written aforetime is, first, a cautious abstinence from any attempt to originate, as an inspired writer has here done, any doctrinal argument from an earlier historical instance; and, secondly, to keep rigidly within the limits of declared apostolic teaching in our endeavours to evoke a Christian sense from the ancient Jewish Scriptures. Because these Scriptures are the "oracles of God," we are sure of finding Christ in them, if only we desire in a right spirit the sincere milk of the Word. But it should never be forgotten that an application of Scripture is not the same thing as its final interpretation; and that all the words of God are pure, and will have, at their appointed season, a strict and literal fulfilment. As himself, through grace, a "partaker of Christ," the believer has an interest, both immediate and remote, in the whole compass of those Scriptures which are now distinctively "the Word of Christ" (Col. 3:16).

"Now these things happened to them typically, and were written for our admonition, unto whom the ends of the ages have reached." There cannot be a more important canon for our intelligent and profitable reading of these Old Testament oracles. The facts happened to them, but they were divinely cast in systematical figures, or forms of truth, for admonishing us who find ourselves at so critical a juncture of the world's history. They contain therefore far more than moral lessons, however weighty. They do disclose man's heart, and let out God's mind and affections but they have the larger and deeper instruction of events which illustrate immense principles, such as sovereign grace, on the one hand, and pure law on the other, with a mingled system of government on legal ground, while mercy and goodness availed through a mediator, which came in when the people worshipped a calf at Horeb. There is thus an orderly, as well as prophetic, character in the mode these incidents are presented, which, when lit up with the light of Christ and His redemption and the truth now revealed, prove their inspiration in a self-evident way to him who has the teaching of the Holy Ghost. Israel only witnessed the facts, and the writer was enabled, by the Spirit of God, to record them in an order which was far beyond his own thoughts, or the intelligence of any before redemption; but now that this mighty work of God is accomplished, their figurative meaning stands out in the fulness of a wide system, and with a depth which reveals God, not man, as the true Author. Be it our happiness not only to know but to do the truth!

*A mystery in the Scriptures of the apostles and prophets after Pentecost (before that it does not occur), means that which is truth that was, or had been, hidden. So far as the Lord, or Paul, or John has solved the closed enigma, so far we are bound to receive the explanation as authoritative; where it has not been solved, there we have still to wait, as, for instance, as to the number of the beast, 666. Just so in types; that which the Holy Spirit says or refers to as a type, we must receive as scriptural instruction. [If I owed a hundred pounds, my creditor might accept gold dust, or silver in the ingot, to that value, if he pleased, but coin of the realm having the stamp (type) is by government authority, a legal tender, and he could not refuse it. Every similitude in Scripture is not a type].