Bright Shadows of the Christ

I want you to love typology.

I recognize that statement may seem a little strange, so let me explain. I want you to love typology because typology exposes us to the glory of the Son of God incarnate. It reveals the grace of God found in Jesus Christ. It gives us a three-dimensional portrait of all that Christ achieves for us and in us.

I want you to love typology because I want you to love Jesus. Typology isn’t an end in itself; it’s a road that leads to grace, God’s unmerited favor toward us in Jesus.

One Christ, Many Types

Before you can love typology, you need to know what it is. Typology is the study of how certain persons, events, and institutions foreshadowed the person and work of Christ. Generations of saints prior to the Enlightenment were far more willing to recognize that Scripture is one cohesive story and that earlier parts anticipated that story’s climax in Jesus Christ. In the modern era, that idea is suspect, one that doesn’t seem to conform to the rules of grammatical-historical interpretation. So, many modern Christians consider the practice of typology as suspect too — something akin to a well-intentioned, Christianized reader-response hermeneutic that imposes Jesus on passages that have nothing to do with him.

Of course, if that’s typology, I’d share in the skepticism. But typology isn’t a reading strategy or an imposition on Scripture; it’s the product of exegesis. Typology is what you discover when you attend carefully to the intent of the Old Testament authors; it’s very often an essential part of the argument they’re crafting. In other words, we don’t read typologically. The biblical authors wrote typologically. They intended for you to recognize patterns that anticipate some messianic resolution.

The Shadows

Authors intend types in Scripture as early as Genesis 1. In these first chapters, Moses makes explicit that nearly every element of the created order is a prototype for patterns that follow in redemptive history. He narrates creation with language that resonates with Israel’s experience of the exodus and tabernacle worship, and then as the Torah unfolds, he describes the exodus and Israel’s worship in language that evokes the creation narrative. For instance, Moses describes Adam’s role in the garden with the same language he employs to describe priestly service in the tabernacle (Genesis 2:15; Numbers 3:7–8; 8:26; 18:5–6). The Sabbath is a pattern for Israel’s worship and anticipates eschatological rest (Genesis 2:1–3; Exodus 20:8–11). Even the separation of the dry land from water is a shadowy expectation of God’s work of new creation, deliverance from slavery, and judgment against his enemies (Genesis 1:9; 8:2–3; Exodus 14:21).

“I want you to love typology because I want you to love Jesus.”

The typological patterns only intensify from that point forward. Understood in context, the anticipation of a serpent-crushing seed of the woman is typological (Genesis 3:15). The seed will do what Adam should have done; the seed of the woman is a new Adam. Moses then traces a line of “seeds” that both develop and distort the typological pattern established by Adam and by Genesis 3:15.

Moses portrays Noah, for instance, as a new Adam — he’s given dominion over the world, rules over animals, and receives the same commission Adam himself received (Genesis 9:1–3). Further, Noah is a righteous priest-king who turns away God’s wrath, which serves as the foundation of a new creation (Genesis 8:20–22). Sound familiar? Moses intends for us to see Noah as one installment in a pattern that anticipates the second Adam, the true seed of the woman.

Or consider Joseph: a beloved son rejected by his brothers, placed in a grave, and then resurrected with power over the nations to give life to all who come to him. In Genesis 49:8, Moses states plainly that Joseph’s life is a type — an anticipation of the royal seed from the line of Judah. If Israel wanted to know what the coming king from the line of Judah would look like, he would look like Joseph.

The types continue from there. Moses indicates that his own life anticipates a prophet “like [him]” who will one day come (Deuteronomy 18:15). The entire sacrificial system anticipates a sacrifice to end all sacrifices (Hebrews 10:1–4). Joshua recounts the salvation of Rahab using the same vocabulary and imagery Moses used when describing the Passover (Joshua 2; cf. Exodus 12). Her salvation is a Passover-like salvation — this is the type of thing God does for sinners and the type of salvation he will deliver through the Messiah (1 Corinthians 5:7). David defeats a giant dressed like a snake by crushing his head (1 Samuel 17:5, 49). By evoking the promise of Genesis 3:15 in the conflict between David and Goliath, the author of 1 Samuel telegraphs that David’s victory is the type of thing God will do again.

Scripture is filled with types. We don’t have to impose Jesus on the Old Testament. The authors of the Old Testament filled their writings with what Jim Hamilton calls “promise-shaped patterns” that anticipate his coming.

The Light

If the above is true, Scripture doesn’t just contain good news; it is good news. The Holy Spirit didn’t simply sprinkle a few passages in the Gospels and Epistles that preach grace. Grace — messianic grace — is the heart of every biblical story. Every story reminds us that, at its core, Christianity is not about what we do for God but about what he has done for us in Jesus Christ.

And there’s more. The grace that pulsates in Scripture’s typologies points us both to past grace and future grace — grace found in Christ’s first coming and grace to be found when he comes again.

The Old Testament expected that the Messiah’s arrival would usher in the eschatological state. The old creation would end, and the new creation would take its place. That means that the Old Testament’s promises, prophecies, and patterns (types) have one eschatology in view. Yet one of the most shocking facets of the New Testament is that, though Christ ushered in the eschatological state, he didn’t end the old one. He inaugurated the new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), but he didn’t consummate it (Revelation 21:1). He began the age of resurrection, yet we await the fullness of that age at his second coming (1 Corinthians 15:23).

The typologies of the Old Testament, therefore, very often point us to some element of what Christ has accomplished in the past and what he will accomplish in the future. The flood, which pictures God’s eschatological wrath (Matthew 24:38–39), has already been swallowed by Christ at the cross — something we signify in our baptisms (1 Peter 3:20–21). And yet that same flood also anticipates the day God will fully rescue his people, when he consummates the new creation by flooding this world with fire, purifying it forever (2 Peter 3:5–7).

Or consider the typology of the tabernacle. The tabernacle points ultimately to Jesus of Nazareth, the one who tabernacles among us (John 1:14). At the same time, the tabernacle points to the final day when all creation becomes God’s cosmic Holy of Holies (Revelation 21:15–21).

Or consider skull-crushing typology in stories like David and Goliath. Christ conquered the serpent at the cross, forever taking away his greatest power — legitimate accusation. And yet the saints themselves will participate in crushing Satan’s skull under their feet on the final day (Romans 16:20).

Savor This Grace

The typologies of Scripture often point us not just to what Christ has accomplished but to what he will accomplish. Typology teaches us that Christians live between two great pillars of grace — the cross and the consummation. We are quite literally surrounded by grace. All of the imperatives of the Christian flow from this past grace and future grace. The Christian life is animated by faith in what Christ has done and hope in what Christ will do.

I want you to love typology because typology helps you see and savor this grace. Typology shows you that Scripture doesn’t just contain good news; it is good news. Typology shows us that God’s love is so glorious and so expansive it spills into and out of every part of Scripture. The Son of God is so majestic that God gave us not just four Gospels to testify to that reality but 66 books written over 1,500 years. However highly you may esteem God’s grace, I promise you Scripture’s view is higher — that grace resonates in every word.