Editor’s Note: Before reading this article, it would be beneficial to read Brent Parker’s “The Differences Between Typology and Allegory,” first. Parker mentions a previous iteration of this article.
In part one, I argued that “figural” and “typological” are adjectives that describe the nature of God’s revelation, not a proper strategy for reading or interpreting the Scriptures. In a related Christ Over All article, I argued that interpretation is neither literal nor figurative. Because figural and typological are species of what is properly called figurative, it is improper to use these adjectives to describe interpretation.
In this article, I will argue that typological and figural are species of God’s revelation. Types are aspects of the organic development of biblical revelation, woven into the fabric of Scripture itself. God reveals himself and his mission in the unfolding drama of Scripture, liberally employing figures and types—persons, events, places, and institutions—as earthly shadows of heavenly realities, all prefiguring and typologically foreshadowing the climactic finale achieved in and by the Coming One, Christ Jesus, the Last Adam.
A Corrected Orientation on Typology: Types as Written Revelation
God’s revelatory story of redemption is the original mystery that all others imitate. The characters in this story lived within the unfolding drama of God’s promised redeemer. They saw only the episodes of their own lifetimes. We see their whole lives on a larger timeline in the entire biblical record. They recounted God’s faithfulness to his promises that preceded them while looking for the climactic fulfillment of those promises (Heb. 11). They were called to believe in the God who promises. Thus, Abraham believed, and God reckoned righteousness to him (Gen. 15:6). As the story unfolds through covenants, a hope that the promised Seed of the woman will bring salvation builds. On the way up the mountain, Isaac asks a question that reverberates throughout the Old Testament, “Where is the Lamb?” (Gen. 22:7). Expectation escalates and subsides with the births of male children who disappoint. Fulfillment awaits. The promised redeemer will come at the appointed time. Hope builds around God’s appointed earthly events, characters, settings, institutions, and conflicts, all suffused with representational heavenly significances as typological prefigurements, foreshadowing what is to come, enlivening and adding to the anticipation that intensifies toward the plotline’s climax.
So, when the time is fulfilled, and the Coming One emerges from the shadows, born in Bethlehem and reared in Nazareth, John the Baptist points to him and announces, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Throughout his ministry, Jesus sustains the Old Testament’s pattern of revelation by simultaneously revealing and concealing himself with parables, with signs and wonders, and with riddle-like teaching. All this angered the religious officials. They were seeking to be rid of him, and so they crucified him—failing to realize that this prophesied murderous act thrust the mystery of God’s plan toward its denouement. In the crucified Jesus, the typological annual slaughter of the Passover Lamb reaches its finale, as the Apostle John presents with his multiple Old Testament allusions—the eldest son, the hyssop, no bones broken (John 19:23–37)—all signifying that Jesus dies as the final Passover Lamb.
Continue reading Part 2 of “Typological Reading Versus Typological Writing” at Christ Over All.