What is a Type of Christ? – Hebrews 1:3

And will you please turn now to Hebrews chapter seven, where we'll read together the first three verses,

Hebrews chapter seven. While you're turning there,

I'll just make one other announcement that I forgot to make during announcement time, and this concerns Scott Klusendorf in our conference. He is going to be preaching on October 20th, so he's gonna be here not only for Friday and Saturday, but he'll be teaching adult

Sunday school class, and the teens will be joining us that Sunday, and then he's going to be also preaching on October 20th as well.

All right, Hebrews chapter seven, verses one through three. For this Melchizedek, King of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met

Abraham as he was returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom also Abraham apportioned a tenth part of all the spoils, was first of all, by the translation of his name,

King of Righteousness, and then also King of Salem, which is King of Peace. Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the

Son of God, he remains a priest perpetually. Let's bow our heads. Our Lord, we ask that you would give us insight and understanding into your word and how it is to be interpreted.

We pray as we discuss some challenging and difficult things today, that we would have the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit on our behalf to help us to understand your intention in giving us scripture and the way that scripture is to be interpreted, and how we are to discern the truth that is in your word.

May you bless this time, and help me to be clear and articulate and concise, and may the result of our time here be clarity in our minds, and conviction and confirmation in our hearts, and glory for you, our great

God. We ask this in Christ's name, amen. Well, we have been looking at the similarities between Melchizedek and the

Lord Jesus Christ. Melchizedek, this seemingly insignificant character from Genesis chapter 14, mentioned only there and in Psalm 110, he ends up, as we look at the similarities between him and the

Lord Jesus Christ, he ends up being a rather profound character with a lot of striking similarities. And between Genesis 14 and Psalm 110, and now

Hebrews chapter seven, we're starting to see that there are a number of specifically mentioned parallels between the

Lord Jesus Christ and Melchizedek. Last week, we saw that Melchizedek was a king and a priest.

He held those two offices, and he ruled in Jerusalem. And that very fact that he held those two offices and where he ruled, and that it was characterized by righteousness and peace, those things end up becoming a prefigurement of sorts of the

Lord Jesus Christ and his ministry. As we see, the Lord Jesus Christ will hold both offices, king and priest.

He will rule in Jerusalem, and his life, his rule, and his character are marked by righteousness and peace and truth and justice, just as Melchizedek was.

So Melchizedek then ends up becoming, for the author of Hebrews, a prefigurement, a foreshadowing, a looking forward to the life and ministry of the

Lord Jesus Christ. And in the case of Melchizedek, it's not just what is said that is significant for the author of Hebrews.

And he details some of that in the first two verses, but it's what is not said about Melchizedek that is also significant to the author of Hebrews.

As you'll see in verse three, he notes some of those, that Melchizedek is without a father, without a mother, without a genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, he remains a priest perpetually.

And with that statement, in verse three, the author looks at what is not recorded concerning Melchizedek, and he draws some parallels to the life and ministry of the

Lord Jesus Christ. So we are gonna jump into verse three and look at some of those parallels. We were gonna do that today, but we need to stop for a moment and pause to consider some of the interpretive issues that come up when we look at what is called biblical typology.

And last week, I warned you or I foreshadowed that we were gonna cover that this week. That was a bit of a typology from last week, if you catch the gist there.

Here's what I was going to do today. I was going to take half of the message and deal with typology, how do we identify types and how do we interpret types in scripture?

Then I was gonna jump into verse three and show you how the author works that out, how the author does this with Melchizedek in verse three.

So I planned all of that out and wrote out all of that message, and then this morning I woke up and I'm like, okay, this is really two different messages because I can't deal with all of that in 20 minutes,

I can't deal with all of that in 20 minutes, so I should make this two different messages instead of one. So whatever

I had worked out as a conclusion for the message got pushed off till next week, so I have no idea how

I'm gonna land this bird today, and I'm just telling you that at the front end of this in case we're kind of cruising along at what you think is like a cruising altitude and suddenly you're like, oh, there we are on the ground,

I better get my stuff and gather and get ready to leave the cabin, because that might be what it is today, or we may just get to the end and I just nosedive this bad boy into terra firma and then we just call it a day.

But I'm telling you ahead of time, the ending of this could be rather rough, because I'm unable to plan really any kind of an introduction or a conclusion to this.

At least I have all week next week to sort of plan an introduction for next week's message, which was the second half of this week's message.

So we need to address typology for a couple of different reasons. First, because this is what we do, right?

We're going through a book of the Bible and we see weeds and we say, oh, we're gonna jump off into the weeds, even if just for a little bit. And you say,

I don't know if we do that, but Jim, you really do that, and that's true, that's exactly what I do, and so that's what I'm doing today. We're jumping off into the weeds of biblical typology.

And this is a necessary issue because, as Dave Rich pointed out to me today before the message, as I was telling him about this whole dilemma and not being able to land this thing, he said, it's good that you're dealing with typology because this gets to the heart, biblical typology and the interpretive issues around it get to the heart of the difference between how people in covenant theology and dispensationalists approach the

Old Testament. And that is true, and that is key. See, the question is this. Is the

New Testament our inspired guide as to how we interpret the Old Testament?

Or does the Old Testament stand by itself, alone, into which we make the

New Testament fit? In other words, do we read the New Testament through the eyes of the Old Testament, or do we read the

Old Testament through the eyes of the New Testament? And the issue with typology gets to that very issue, the difference between dispensationalists and covenantalists.

And I understand that going into this, that typology is not the most interesting thing, probably, for most of you.

If you were here last week, I told you that today we're gonna be talking about typology. So if this doesn't interest you and you showed up, you have no one to blame but yourself, it's a you problem, you were here.

If it's not of interest to you and you're like, oh yeah, I remember him now mentioning that, he warned us last week and you wanna get up and leave, now is the time.

Nobody will judge you, we'll all assume that you're going to the bathroom. Josh gets up and leaves, thank you. All right, so what is a type?

A cursory read of the New Testament reveals that all the way through the New Testament, there are all kinds of references, allusions, and quotations of the

Old Testament. And there are hundreds of these, and time would prohibit me even from listing them or referring to them, and they come in a number of ways.

Sometimes the New Testament directly quotes the Old Testament, we've seen that in the book of Hebrews. Chapter one is full of all of those quotations from the

Psalms, and as you work through Hebrews, it's difficult to not notice how often, how frequently, and how thoroughly the author of Hebrews quotes directly passages from the

Old Testament. And so there's those kinds of allusions to the Old Testament. Then there are references to Old Testament peoples and places and things.

Jesus references Noah and, yeah, Noah. Jonah, and in connection with his own resurrection,

Jonah being in the belly of the fish. Jesus mentioned Sodom and Gomorrah. There are all kinds of allusions in the

New Testament to the Old Testament. In fact, Jesus quotes from, alludes to, or directly cites almost every single book of the

Old Testament. Almost every single book of the Old Testament at some point. Now it's just the first four books of our

New Testament. And then outside of that, you have all of the references to the Old Testament in the book of Acts, and then in the

New Testament epistles, the authors of the epistles followed suit, followed the example of Jesus and quoted prolifically and cited prolifically the

Old Testament. It is impossible to read your New Testament without running across or being forced back into the

Old Testament. You cannot read your New Testament in isolation from your Old Testament. And if you're just, I'm a right -hand side of the book

Christian, and I never go back into the Old Testament, you are missing out on 2 3rds of God's revelation.

And so understanding that correctly and understanding the connection between these two testaments, these two covenants, and how they're to be read and understood, that is essential for any

Christian who wants to have a good handle on solid theology. So there are quotations, there are references, and then there are fulfillments.

There are things from the Old Testament that are said to be fulfilled in the New Testament. And between direct quotations and references and allusions and fulfillments, the

New Testament is prolifically an Old Testament book with New Testament theology, because of how it uses the

Old Testament, just in the way that the authors cite it. So for instance, we have in John 3, verse 14,

Jesus referring to Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness, do you remember that? In John 1, verse 29,

John the Baptist said that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. That's an Old Testament allusion to an

Old Testament sacrifice. 1 Corinthians 5, 7, Paul says Christ is our Passover. Hebrews chapter four refers to the

Sabbath rest of God. Hebrews chapter seven then delves into Melchizedek. We see it all the way through the New Testament.

There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of quotations, references, allusions, and fulfillments between these two halves of our

Bible. So what do we do with this and how are we to understand it? Some of the direct citations and references are what we call types from the

Old Testament, types. Now it's kind of a technical designation. It is not fair, it would be fair to say that typology and the study of types, which is in itself fascinating, is sort of a subset of what we call

Biblical hermeneutics or the art and science of Biblical interpretation. So when we talk about how do we interpret Scripture, one of the sort of subdivisions of that is what do we do with these types?

So what is a type? A type is an Old Testament person, practice, or ceremony that is fulfilled in the

New Testament. An Old Testament person, practice, or ceremony that is fulfilled in the

New Testament. Now it's more than just that, but that kind of introduces us to the idea. So the type is that which is in the

Old Testament that you look at and you say that's looking forward to something in the New Testament which is fulfilled or consummated in some way.

The New Testament corollary to that we call the antitype or that which answers the type.

So the type is the symbol, the antitype is the substance. The type is the thing in the Old Testament that foreshadows or looks forward to the fulfillment which we call the antitype.

So you have the type and the antitype, and those are two terms to keep in mind. The antitype is the fulfillment or the consummation of it.

It is that to which the type points, type and antitype. The Passover is the type of Christ.

Paul says this, Christ is our Passover. And then you look at the Old Testament Passover and you see there the general outlines of the sacrifice of an animal and the people of God being delivered out of their slavery.

And you can see the parallels very closely. That Christ is the one who fulfills the Passover sacrifice. And all of the elements of the

Passover sacrifice, they point forward to the fulfillment of that when one would be offered who would deliver his people from the bondage of sin and the blood of that sacrifice would cover all of those for whom it was intended to cover.

So that is how Christ fulfills that Christ being the antitype of the Passover which is the type.

Passover is a shadow and it points to Jesus and in the study of typology, here are the questions that we have to answer.

What constitutes a type? And you'll see why this is important in just a second. What constitutes a type?

Is it just merely the presence of similarities or is there something else that indicates that something is a type?

What constitutes a type and what are the consistent features of the types in scripture and how can we identify types?

And answering all those questions is what we call typology or the study of types. Not every

Bible interpreter handles types the same way and as with every aspect of biblical interpretation, there are ways and times in which typology can and has been abused.

And before I give examples of this, if you've ever taught this or fallen into this category, I'm not, I don't have anybody in mind in particular and I'm not pointing fingers at anybody specifically.

So if you didn't walk out earlier, don't walk out now because then people will think that I'm talking about you. So everybody stay seated until I get through with all of the offensive part of this and then you can feel free to leave.

So we're gonna put understanding of types on something of a spectrum because there are basically four different positions of how you handle types and here they are.

On the one hand, you have people who say there's no such thing as actual types in scripture. There are no types.

There are no Old Testament things that point forward to anything else. It's just those things are what they are and they don't see any connection at all to any kind of future

New Testament fulfillment or consummation at all. There are no types, that's one position. It's over here on this side, that's the extreme.

On the other extreme is the person who says, man, I see types all over the Old Testament and they see types, anytime they see two similarities or a similarity between two things, they would call that a type.

They see that this is similar to Jesus in some way, they say, well, therefore, that is a type of Christ. Let me give you some examples of this.

Samson is sometimes referred to as a type of Christ because he killed the lion. So what does it have to do with Jesus?

Well, because Jesus overcame Satan in the wilderness, right? So Samson would be Jesus, the lion would be

Satan. Jesus, resisting temptation and overcoming Satan in the wilderness would be just like Samson killing the lion in the wilderness.

Did you see that parallel, did you see that parallel? Now, some of you are looking at me mystified. I'm so thankful for that.

I'm so grateful that some of you are looking at me mystified and you're like, oh yeah, that sounds, that was profound and good because that's the opposite response that I want to get as I'm going through some of these, okay?

Here's another one. Israel crossing the Jordan is sometimes considered to be a type of a believer dying to themselves.

You go down into the waters, say a baptism, and you come out the other side into something of the promised land, and that's an example of a

Christian dying to themselves. That's a picture of dying to yourselves, giving that up and coming out the other side into victorious Christian life.

That's how that has sometimes been used. Sometimes that's been seen as a type, a symbol or a picture of foreshadowing of us actually dying physically and going into heaven.

As the Israelites go into the bottom of the Jordan River, come out the other side into the promised land, heaven is the promised land.

There's a hymn that we sing, and I don't know which one it is, but after today, nobody's gonna wanna sing this, where it talks about crossing

Jordan and going into Jordan's promised land. I don't know what the name of it is, but next time we sing it, you'll notice it.

The hinges on the door of the temple has sometimes been called a type of the two natures of Jesus Christ.

Now, how do they get that? Well, Jesus said, I am the door, and so if he is the door, and he is also the one who's in the temple, and he is our temple, and if he's the door, then the hinges on the door that you read about in the

Old Testament, hinge turns two ways, so that would be a type of the two natures of Jesus Christ. You didn't see that?

The chariots mentioned in the Old Testament, well, those are a type of Christ as well, because chariots have two wheels, just like Jesus had two legs, and where, and Jesus came to do the will of God and to go where the

Father sent him, and chariots go exactly where their master sends them. Jonathan shooting an arrow, well, he's a type of an evangelist proclaiming the gospel to the lost world.

Saul throwing a spear at David is an example or a type of Satan shooting fiery darts at the believer.

Aaron's staff that budded is a type of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Sisera, this is a good one. Sisera killed in a tent with pegs.

Well, pegs nailed the Lord Jesus Christ to a cross, and the tent represents the church, and Christ died for the church, therefore

Sisera is a type of Christ because he died in the tent by pegs. You see, that's how it is abused.

It is sometimes used this way. You'll run across these kinds of types and typologies if you read, a lot of times in the early church, you read early church fathers, sometimes usually after around the year 300, 400, this became a very predominant way of interpreting scripture and dealing with the

Old Testament. It was as if people just forgot how to interpret and understand scripture in its own context, and so allegorizing came into the picture, and people began to see allegories all over the

Old Testament, an allegory being like the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe, where everything becomes a symbol of a higher reality, and so that's how they would read the

Old Testament, and wanting to allegorize it and see symbols and profound realities, they would just start calling everything, any similarity that they saw, they would begin to see it as a type, and you get this sometimes among some, not all, but some of the reformers, and people who would hold much of our theology, sometimes they get into the types.

I had to stop reading my commentary by A .W. Pink on the book of Hebrews, and there are large passages in John Owen that I have to pass over, because he sees almost everything as a type in the

Old Testament, and I would disagree with that. So sometimes Puritans and reformers and often well -meaning

Bible teachers who want to simply show the glories of God's word, they're well -meaning, but it is,

I have to say, an abuse of scripture to handle scripture in that way, as well -meaning as it might be.

I had a Bible professor who, for him, he saw types everywhere, and when I say everywhere,

I mean everywhere. First year Bible college student, he used to sit there in his class, and I would scribble out the notes, and he would say, we're going through Joshua, for instance, and he'd say, this is a type of this, and this is a type of that, and I was just writing down feverishly.

I thought, this will preach someday. This is good stuff, you know? Write this down, make these connections, and he would do this day after day after day after day, and finally, toward the end of the semester,

I just stopped writing, and I thought, something is wrong here. This can't be how scripture is to be handled in this way, because much of what he would say was a type of Christ came down to the imagination and the insight, quote -unquote, of the interpreter and the

Bible reader, and so then that becomes a question. How do we handle scripture? Do we take scripture with something like Melchizedek or Old Testament stories, and is the depth and profundity of those passages, does it hinge upon our ability to have these special insights into all of these symbols and parallels and similarities, or does it stand on its own in its own context?

It is an abuse of scripture. Now, those are the two. I don't hold to this position over here, this extreme where there are no types, because I've already indicated

Melchizedek is a type of Christ, and I certainly don't hold to this extreme over here, so are there any moderating positions, and there are two moderating positions in the middle, okay?

The moderating position here would say that something is a type if the

New Testament designates it as a type, period, full stop. Something is a type of Christ if the

New Testament designates it as a type of Christ. If it doesn't, the New Testament doesn't designate it as a type, it's not a type.

The people in the moderating position over here would say something is a type if the

New Testament designates it as a type, or if it is implicitly a type, meaning that the similarities have to be really, really striking.

They have to be so profound as to make you say, man, that is a type. Even though the New Testament might not designate it as a type,

I'll call it a type because the similarities are so striking. So for an example of that, oh, and by the way, the people in this camp here, they would say these people take it too far.

Those people who think the hinges are a type of the two natures of Jesus, they've just taken it too far. That's what they would say, and the people over here in this camp would say, well, you're not taking it far enough.

It's good that you understand that there are types and that you see that they're not just those explicitly designated in the New Testament as types, but you need to come over here in my direction a little bit further, brother.

You need to have the insight that I have in order to see that all these other things are also types. So this person would say they've taken it too far, and let me give you an example of some things that people in this camp would call types that are not, well, they would also be called types by those guys over there, but I would not regard them as types, but they would say that this is, though it's not, these people, though, are types, though not explicitly designated, so in the

New Testament, the similarities are really, really striking, and one that is often pointed to is Joseph in the Old Testament. Now, Joseph is an individual of whom nothing negative is said anywhere in the record of Scripture.

Not only that, but Joseph was not believed by his brothers, and Joseph ended up going to Egypt, which ended up saving his life, and then

Joseph came up out of Egypt and ended up forgiving, while he was in Egypt, ended up forgiving all of his offenders, his persecutors.

Well, can't you see the similarities between that and Jesus? I mean, there's nothing evil or wicked said of Jesus because he knew no sin.

When he was a baby, he did go to Egypt in order to save his life, didn't he? And he came up out of Egypt, just like Joseph, and he wasn't believed on by his brothers, his family members, just like Joseph, and Jesus ended up saying,

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do, forgiving his tormentors. Can't you see the parallels? The parallels are striking, are they not, between Joseph and Jesus?

Now, the people in this camp would say, that constitutes a type, because the similarities are striking, so that, therefore, is a type.

People over here would say, but Joseph is not designated in the New Testament as a type.

Yes, the similarities are striking, but is striking similarities sufficient to constitute a type?

Let me give you another example. Remember the story of Abraham and Isaac, and Abraham took Isaac up on Mount Moriah to offer him as a sacrifice, and then there was a ram caught in the thicket that ended up taking the place of Isaac, and the ram was offered instead of Isaac.

People look at that, and they would say, see, Abraham, Abraham is a type of Christ. Why? Because like a good child of the father, he did exactly what the father sent him to do.

He was willing to do that, even a great sacrifice to himself, so therefore, there's a similarity there between Abraham and Christ, so Abraham is a type of Christ.

But hold on a second. Isn't Isaac the son of the father who was offered up on the altar? How come

Isaac wouldn't be a type of Christ? Oh, yeah, okay, well, Isaac would be a type of Christ, right? They put him on the altar, and Abraham is then a type of the father, the father was gonna sacrifice

Isaac and give up that, and Isaac then becomes a type of Christ, just like Christ gave up his life on Mount Moriah, so Isaac was gonna give up his life on Mount Moriah, and say, but hold on a second,

Isaac didn't really die. What about the ram? Isn't the ram a type of Christ? Because isn't it the ram that died in the stead of the elect child, the chosen child?

Didn't the ram give up his life instead of the chosen child? Isn't the ram a picture of Christ, a type of Christ?

Let me ask you, which one is a type of Christ? Abraham, Isaac, or the ram?

There are similarities between all of them. Which one is a type of Christ? The answer, none of them.

Are there similarities between Abraham and Jesus? Yeah, there are. Are there similarities between Isaac and Jesus?

Yes. Are there similarities between the ram and Jesus? Yes. But is the presence of similarities itself enough to constitute a type?

The answer to that is no. Because which one of them is a type? Since none of them are designated that in the

New Testament. And see, if you're gonna hold that one or two or all three of them are types of Christ, then the only basis you have for doing that is to say that in my imagination and in my insight and the way that I see it,

I see this as a type. But your imagination and your insight are not the guides for interpreting

Scripture. I hate to break that to you, but that's true. I would say that it is only the

New Testament designated types that are types. That is where we are safe, right?

If the New Testament says this is a type of Christ, I think we can stand on that ground and say, yeah.

Because the New Testament says this is a type of Christ, therefore this is a type of Christ.

And you say, well, aren't these other things types of Christ? No, those other things are not types of Christ. Are there similarities there?

There are all kinds of similarities between all kinds of things from the Old Testament. Lots of similarities, and this is what we should expect.

If God is working out one redemptive plan from eternity past to eternity future, and he does this in various time periods through various groups of people, and he is working out that plan doing the same thing, which is essentially redeeming a people for himself based upon the sacrifice of his son in time, and he has taken his chosen ones and redeeming them through all of human history based upon that one sacrifice and his goal in all of that is to dwell with his people and to live with them and to be glorified by them and to glorify them with him forevermore, if that is

God's plan, you would expect a lot of these people who are involved in that plan to look a lot alike, wouldn't you?

Wouldn't you expect that David would look in many ways a lot like Abraham and a lot like Isaac and a lot like Noah and a lot like Jesus and a lot like Daniel?

Wouldn't you expect that Jesus Christ, the one in whose image we are all being conformed, wouldn't you expect him to look a lot like all of these other figures in the

Old Testament? If God is working out one plan, you would expect a lot of overlap, a lot of similarities, but similarities itself alone do not constitute a type.

I had a Bible professor one time used to say that biblical history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes a lot.

Biblical history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes a lot. So as you read through the Old Testament and you read through the

New Testament, you're gonna see kings, yes, you're gonna see priests, yes, you're gonna see prophets, yes, and all of them, kings and priests and prophets, are all part of this plan that God is working out which is intended to consummate and culminate in one king, priest, and prophet who rules over his people.

It's gonna be all kinds of similarities and overlapping and rhyming in biblical history, but that does not constitute a type.

I hate to break it to you, but Abraham is not a type, Isaac is not a type, the ram is not a type,

Joseph is not a type, Noah is not a type, except with the ark.

Is the ark a type? I don't mean archetype, I mean is the ark a type of Christ?

That is indicated in the New Testament, isn't it, in the book of Peter? That is a picture that is valid.

So what is the guiding parameter? Does the New Testament indicate that this is a type? If it does, you say it's a type of Christ.

If it doesn't, where are you coming up with that from? See, the only difference between the people in this camp who thinks that it's explicit plus implicit, in other words, explicitly stated in the

New Testament plus things that I can see and connections that I can make, the only difference between this person and the person over here is just the degree of imagination.

See that? It's the only difference. There is no parameter, there is no barrier, no principle, no outwardly objective framework that would keep a person who is here and says

Joseph is a type from stepping over one and saying the hinges on the door to the temple are a type. If all that constitutes a type is a similarity coupled with my imagination of what

I can connect it to, if that's all that constitutes type, then there is no substantive difference between the person who sees implicit types and the person who sees everything as a type, and that's all that they look for.

There's no substantive difference between the two. So what is my position? My position is that it must be designated as a type in the

New Testament, and if it's not designated as a type in the New Testament, we are not qualified, we are not free to say it is a type of Christ.

Because when we are stepping outside of what God himself has said regarding how those things are to be interpreted and dealt with.

And I'll illustrate this as I go through six features of a type. So if you look at all the things in the

New Testament that are said to be types, there are six things that all of them have in common, and I will show you using

Melchizedek as an example how Melchizedek matches each of these six things. First, there must be a resemblance, a resemblance, and not stretched.

Hinges on the temple, the two natures of Christ, right? Chariots with the wheels and the legs of Jesus going where they want.

We laugh at that stuff, why? Because we see that those are stretched resemblances, and rightly we would criticize those.

So there must be a resemblance that is there between the type and the anti -type. The resemblance is significant.

You see this with Melchizedek in the book of Hebrews because the author says he was a king, he was a priest, he was righteous, and he ruled in Jerusalem and a kingdom of peace.

Those are striking similarities. But not just that, but he received tithes as a priest, and he ruled as a king, and not just that, but his genealogy is not mentioned, his mother is not mentioned, his father is not mentioned.

He just comes onto the scene, and he goes as if he had no beginning, and as if he had no end. You see the similarities there with the

Lord Jesus Christ, not just in what is written, but what also is not written. And the author of Hebrews, under inspiration of the

Holy Spirit, is able to take those similarities and to say, this therefore, Melchizedek, is a type of Christ. The second feature, it has to have a historical reality.

It can't be something that you invent out of history. It has to have a historical reality. We can't say, in spite of how often preachers will do this, we can't say,

Superman, he's really a type of Christ. Superman. Superman has no connection to historical reality, does he?

No, he doesn't. You know this, right? We know that he does not. He's not a historical figure, he's not a biblical figure, he's not an actual historical person, therefore he cannot be, in any sense, a type.

In spite of the fact that you will get an entire sermon series based upon how Jesus is just like Superman and Iron Man and Batman and Spider -Man and Aquaman and Wonder Woman and all of the other garbage.

Has to be historical reality. Something that exists in the Old Testament, something that actually was, that bears a resemblance.

So there's two things, resemblance, historical reality, the third mark of a type, the feature of a type, is a prefiguring element, a prefiguring.

There must be something predictive in the type, anticipating and looking forward to some ultimate fulfillment.

And you see this with Melchizedek. Melchizedek was a real historical figure. There is a striking resemblance there between the two.

And the presence of Melchizedek and his function looks forward to and anticipates a fulfillment.

And you get this in the Old Testament, in Psalm 110, where David says that the Messiah, whom God will give to him and sit upon David's throne, he says, the father says to that son, you are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.

See, Old Testament saints who expected a king priest to sit on his throne and rule in Jerusalem had every reason to expect somebody to come who would do exactly what

Melchizedek did. Melchizedek obviously has a forward -looking anticipatory, anticipatory, yeah,

I don't know, I don't know, sometimes, well, a forward -looking anticipation of a fulfillment of what he was and what he prefigured.

There's a prefiguring aspect to it, almost a prophetic picture, as it were. It is almost as if, in the

Old Testament, we see these outlines, like you might look and see a shadow on the ground. That shadow is being cast by a real figure as the light shines from that, and it is only in looking at the real figure that you can understand fully what the shadow is.

You ever seen a shadow that was kind of deceptive in its shape? You wonder, what's casting the shadow? And you look and you say, okay,

I understand, I can see now there's a one -to -one correspondence, resemblance between the shadow and what's casting the shadow.

It's the same thing with types. It has to be resemblance, it has to be historical reality, it has to be a prefiguring, a pointing forward, a looking forward and anticipating something.

The Passover was, the feasts, the festivals were, Colossians says this. These things are shadows, Christ is the substance.

All the things of the Old Testament that the New Testament says are types or pictures of Christ, those things look forward to an ultimate fulfillment.

The priest going into the temple and the tabernacle once a year and offering that sacrifice, and again, and again, and again, every year for 1 ,500 years.

At the end of that, you would say there has to be something that fulfills this, that completes this. This is never done.

Something has to come to complete and consummate and to fill this, to fulfill it, so that it's total, it's complete.

Something has to come that is, and this is the fourth aspect of a type, something that is greater.

There has to be a heightening to the type, to the anti -type from the type, something that is greater.

In other words, all of the anti -types are greater than the types. Who's greater, Jesus or Melchizedek?

Melchizedek is a type of Christ who's greater than him. Jesus is, so there is a heightening.

That which comes to fulfill the type is greater than the type itself. And number five, a divine design.

It has to be the intention of God to picture the anti -type with the type. A good question would be, was it

God's intention in telling us about the hinges on the door in the temple, was it God's intention to there give us a picture of the two natures of Jesus Christ?

Was that the intention of the Spirit of God in recording that detail? I hope you don't think that it is, because it wasn't.

It was not God's intention in that. Do you think that Moses mentioned chariots because he thought someday the

Messiah's going to come, who's going to be just like these chariots I'm describing. Do you think that that was God's intention in that?

Do you think that anybody in the Old Testament read the story of Samson killing the lion and thought to themselves, one day the

Messiah's gonna defeat Satan in the wilderness. Anybody thought that? Nobody would ever think that. But people did read about Melchizedek and think, someday someone is gonna come who is a king and a priest and he will rule in righteousness, truth and peace and fulfill this office.

They did think that. How do I know that they thought that? Because David said in Psalm 110, the Lord has sworn and he will not change his mind, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

And every Jew had every reason to anticipate and look forward to that one who would come who was greater and who would fulfill it.

And it was the divine intention of God in giving that detail to give a picture, a foreshadowing, looking forward to, to the anti -type.

And then there must be a sixth thing because you could look at a lot of the goofy stuff that I gave over here and say, well, these guys over here who think that Joseph is a type and Abraham and Isaac and the ram, all in the same story, bizarre as that is, and those people who are in that camp and those people who make a type out of everything, they would probably agree with most of those five things and those five things would all describe most of those things that those people would consider to be types.

But there must be something else. There's something else that every type designated as a type in the New Testament has in common.

And it's the sixth thing. Are you ready for it? It's designated as a type in the New Testament. That's what all types in the

New Testament have in common. They are designated as a type in the New Testament. That is what keeps you from falling off into goofy -ville on one side and from denying the obvious on the other side because there are clearly things that are designated as types in the

New Testament. And as long as you can point to something that is designated as a type in the New Testament, you're on safe ground.

You can say this was divinely designed by God. It is a resemblance that is intentional.

It is a historical reality. It looks forward to and anticipates something that is going to come that is greater.

And the New Testament authors, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, have the insight and the authority to say this is a type.

And if they don't say it is a type, neither should we. Because really what you're saying, when you say that Joseph is a type and the

New Testament doesn't say he's a type, when you say that, you're saying, I know what the mind of God was in giving us these details concerning this.

Do you understand how dangerous that is to speak for God? You know who understands what the mind of God is in those

Old Testament stories? You know who understands that? God understands it. And if he wanted us to regard it as a type, he would have told us it is a type.

And if we say that it is a type and the New Testament doesn't say it's a type, then we're putting words in God's mouth and we're claiming to know something, an interpretation or an insight of the

Old Testament that the Holy Spirit in the New Testament has not revealed. That's dangerous territory.

And so that's the sixth thing. Those are the six elements of the type. That makes the list very small, much smaller than a lot of people want it to be.

But it is a small list, but it's also a safe list. And it means that the types are significant for they are divinely designed and divinely intended, and the

Holy Spirit in the New Testament is sufficient and has given us adequate information to know what is a type and what is not a type.

Now, this whole study of typology tells us three things. And this is where we determine, are we just nosediving this into the ground or are we bringing this in for a smooth landing or a rough landing?

What's it gonna be, Jim? Okay, here it is. Here it is. It was starting off rough already. Okay, here are three things that this study and understanding of typology helps us to understand or to know something about.

Number one, God is the author behind all of these events. You look at the Old Testament and the New Testament, there is no human author who could have orchestrated that.

No single human author was able to orchestrate the connection between types and antitypes because no single author existed back when all of those types were given and the antitype was fulfilled.

No human author could have written, no human author could write as Moses did and then write as the author of Hebrews did because there are hundreds of years between them.

There is an author behind the authors who is orchestrating all of history. He has planned all of it. He is writing all of it out.

And he has planned the redemption of his people and all of the things that foreshadow that and all of the things that his people did in times past that look forward to and anticipated that.

And he has planned out the fulfillment of that. And when we see it outlined in scripture, you see the Passover and how

Jesus fulfills that. And you see the cities of refuge and how those things are illustrations and symbols of things that are to come.

And you see the ark as a type of Christ in the Old Testament and then the fulfillment of that in the New Testament and Jesus being the

Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and all of those parallels between the Old Testament and the New Testament and the anticipation of the

Old Testament, the fulfillment of the new and Melchizedek and Jesus, you see all of that and you have to say, there's an author behind the authors of scripture.

Nobody could have orchestrated this magnificent book. Nobody could have done that. But God stands behind it all.

It's a supernatural character of scripture. The second thing, it tells us something about scripture itself, the authority of scripture.

Now see, as Protestants, we believe that scripture is its own best interpreter. This is called the analogy of scripture.

You know what tells me how to interpret the Old Testament? The New Testament tells me how to interpret the Old Testament. The scripture interprets itself and this is why we stand and say, we're not gonna do what

Roman Catholics have done and see pictures and types and allegories and metaphors and spiritualize and symbolize all of these things and come up with all of these goofy ideas out here.

We're not gonna do that. Instead, we're gonna stand firmly in this camp that says, the New Testament designates it as a type, we'll accept it as a type.

But if the New Testament doesn't say it's a type, we're not gonna regard it as a type. Doesn't mean it's not inspired, just means it's not, doesn't fit into the category of a type.

Scripture is its own interpreter. And so scripture then is the authority for how we handle the

Old Testament and for the New Testament. And we look to scripture to have it interpreted, not to our own insight or our own imagination or our own ability to connect dots as we see them in the passages of scripture.

So types tells us a third thing and that is something about our approach to scripture. Scripture is our guide, scripture is our authority, we trust in the one who is the author behind all of scripture to tell us how to interpret scripture and we submit ourselves to the authority of scripture.

And rather than saying, I can tell you what the mind of God is in giving us types, I see all of these similarities and therefore all of these are types of Christ.

Instead of doing that, we say, we will let scripture interpret itself. We will rest firmly in this camp which says scripture, which says that something is only a type if scripture designates it as a type.

And does scripture designate Melchizedek as a type? It does, in the way that it handles Melchizedek and the parallels that it brings between Melchizedek and Jesus.

And we'll save a look at that in verse three for next week. See, that was somewhat smooth, right? All right, let's pray.

Father, we are grateful for your word and all of the glorious details that we find in it.

We know that you are the one who has sovereignly by your grace orchestrated all of human history and all of redemptive history for this purpose of bringing glory to yourself and redeeming a people.

And we thank you that we can be counted among those who are redeemed by your son. We thank you that you have opened our eyes to understand your word and our need for a savior and that you have brought us a savior who is perfect and sufficient and able to save all who come to him, not just now, but forever.

We thank you that we can stand in his righteousness and for what we've seen in your word, we pray that you would help us to think clearly about these things and to conform our hearts to what is revealed in scripture.