Hermeneutics Pt. 4: What is Typology?

Hermeneutics as the Art and Science of Biblical Interpretation

We've been studying hermeneutics. This is part four. We've been doing special hermeneutics. And there's light. And today we're going to review, remember, what is hermeneutics? It's the art and the science of interpretation.

Why is hermeneutics so important? Because the Bible is subject to distortion by the untrained and the untaught. And also to bridge the many gaps between our culture today and the ancient culture of Scripture.

And then we are keeping this quote by Ram, who's written one of the most important books on hermeneutics in this century. No prophet to us if God has spoken and we do not know what he has said. We need to know the correct method of biblical interpretation so that we do not confuse the voice of God with the voice of man.

The Basic Definition of Typology

So today we're going to start to study typology. And the first question that we should always ask is, what is typology? And just very basically, something in the Old Testament points to something in the New.

That's about as basic a definition as you can get. For example, Israel's 40 years in the wilderness. 1 Corinthians 10. This is just by way of example. For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food.

And we all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well pleased, for they were laid low in the wilderness.

Now these things happened to them as examples for us so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved. I highlighted or underlined examples because that word is significant, and just keep that in mind as we go forth tonight.

Do not be idolaters as some of them were as it is written. The people sat down to eat and drink and stood up to play. Nor let us act immorally as some of them did, and 23 ,000 fell in one day. Nor let us try the Lord as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents.

Nor grumbled as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example. There again is that word, and we'll pick up what that word really means. And they were written for our instruction upon whom the end of the ages have come.

Typology is pointing, taking some examples of, and we'll see exactly what that can entail, from the Old Testament and applying it to the new, showing the relationship of the two, and we'll get into that in a few minutes.

The Unity of the Old and New Testaments

Alright, what is the justification for us to talk about typology? Well first is the unity of the two testaments. One of the mistakes that a lot of theologians do today, especially in evangelical churches, is they make a distinct break between the Old and the New Covenant, and they miss the unity.

Certainly there is discontinuity between the Old and the New, but it's the unity of the two testaments. And the scripture tells us to look for Jesus in the Old Testament. Alright, Luke 24, everybody should be familiar with this.

This is on the Emmaus Road after the resurrection of Christ. He's walking with the disciples. Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, he explained to them the things concerning himself and all the scriptures.

Now remember we looked at this verse when we were introducing the whole, the general topic of hermeneutics, and we see that here's the justification for the hermeneutics itself. People need the scriptures to be explained to them.

If you're not interpreting it properly, you're not going to get the benefit of the scriptures. Also John 5, 30 -39, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. It is these that testify about me.

Alright, so we see that from Jesus' own lips, he's telling us we need to look at the Old Testament for him. Hebrews 9, verses 23 and 24, these are probably two extremely important verses when it comes to typology.

Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us.

Notice the words copies and a mere copy. Keep those in mind. We're going to come back to those in a little bit as well. Alright, so we've looked at the justification for it. How do we identify typology?

How to Identify Typology in Scripture

I'm going to give you a few words that will be helpful for you as you're going through the scriptures. How can we know if something is typology? Well, first look for the word copy. This word is frequently used talking about typology.

We just read it in Hebrews 9, 24. We see a copy. I'm going to be giving you the Greek words. I don't normally spend too much time going into the Greek in a teaching session like this, but since we're studying typology, the presumption is that you are people who are studying and would use some Greek helps, even if you don't speak Greek, but using concordances and things as that.

The Greek word translated is antitupos, which if transliteration would be antitype, and that's translated copy. So when you see the word copy, that would be an indication that it could possibly be a type.

Look for the word example. First Corinthians 10, 6. We just looked at this. Now, these things happened as examples. This Greek word is tupikos, which literally means type. Notice they don't always translate it as we would prefer, as type, but here the translator has translated it as an example, but the Greek word is tupikos.

Look for the word type. Romans 5, 14. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of him to come. Here again you see it's the same word.

Notice that the translators don't always translate the same Greek word the same way, and there are reasons for that, which I'm not going to get into because that gets very technical. As we know, translation is an art form, and there are reasons why they translate it as they do.

Look for the word anti-type. Peter uses Noah as an example. In verse 20 of chapter 3, he says, When the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water, corresponding to that baptism now saves you, not removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Here the word corresponding is the same word there, anti-tupas. So you see the pattern is building for us seeing these words. Look for the word shadow. Colossians 2, 16 -17. Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day, things which are mere shadow of what is to come.

Here's a different Greek word, but the shadow is still of the same, talking about copy or example. Look for the word example, 2 Peter 2, 6. And if you condemn the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example.

Here you see the Greek word here is hubedigma. All right, I'm just showing again, I don't want to get too far into the Greek, but you should be aware that it's different words. It's not always the same words.

The Essence of Typology: Shadow, Substance, and Archetype

So what's the essence of typology then? The old covenant is the mere shadow of the heavenly reality. In the new covenant, the heavenly reality breaks into history. All right, so we see that in the Old Testament, we find out that there are shadows, copies, or types, which are given from the heavenly reality, but reality breaks into history in the new covenant.

Let me, maybe this little chart hopefully helps you. In the Old Testament, we have a shadow, all right, certain shadows. I'm going to use just Canaan's rest. We know that Canaan, the land of Canaan as given, the promised land, was a symbol of God's rest, okay?

So that's what the promise is, that they would have rest from their labors and from their wilderness wanderings from the war once they reached the promised land. In the New Testament substance, we have the new covenant rest.

Christ says, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. So in the new covenant, we enjoy the rest of God even now, all right? But even this has the arch type, which is God's rest in heaven, in the eternal state where there will be perfect rest.

You see how it works. So you have the Old Testament shadow. The New Testament, God's rest breaks through from heaven into the reality here in time and in history, which is still a type of the arch type of God's rest.

Redemptive History and the Main Kinds of Types

What are the essential elements of typology? Typology has as its theme redemption and redemptive history, all right? Types of deliverance, judgment, propitiation, et cetera, but all having to do with redemption.

Typology has for its framework the two-way structure of redemptive history. We have the old covenant breaking into reality and the new covenant. So you see promise and fulfillment, old covenant, new covenant, old creation versus new creation.

You can see how here in old creation, new creation. Notice how if we don't understand the typology of what's the difference between old creation and new creation, you have people putting off the new creation into some future time when the new creation comes in the blood of Christ.

We are the new creation in his blood, okay? And so if you don't understand typology and the wording that's used, you're going to misinterpret what the scripture is saying. First Adam and second Adam, promise and fulfillment.

I think I repeated that, but that's all right. Old covenant and new covenant. Melchizedek and Christ, we've been studying. We see Melchizedek as a type of Christ. Typology has as its foundation symbolism.

Types must be symbols. The theme symbolized to the old covenant people is picked up and developed in the new covenant, all right? For example, the tabernacle symbolized God's presence with his people, okay?

Yet we're told that Jesus tabernacled among his people. If you read John 1, 14, and if you go back to the original Greek, the dwell among us is literally dwelled in tents among us. So you can see the relationship there.

Let me use the chart again. You have the Old Testament shadow, which is the tabernacle or the temple. What's the New Testament substance? Jesus tabernacled with his people. There's the type and the fulfillment of it.

But even that looks forward to the arch type, which is the completed church when the culmination of history, when the entire church is together, all right, for the first time the entire building, so to speak, is together forever in the presence of God.

Examples of Typology: Persons, Institutions, Things, and Events

So what are some of the examples of typology? We see persons. Adam is a type of Christ, Romans 5, 14. We read that earlier. Elijah is a type. Boaz in the Book of Ruth is a type. You can have institutions as types.

The old covenant sacrifices were types of the full sacrifice in Christ. The Passover certainly is a type of a new covenant reality. It can be offices, the offices of prophet, priest, and king. All of those offices foreshadowed who Christ was and is.

Things, the tabernacle we've already looked at. The brazen serpent, we're going to spend a little bit of time looking at the brazen serpent because it's such a good example. Events, the wilderness wanderings were a type.

Jonah in the fish was a type, the event. Jesus used that to teach just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish, three days, three nights, so shall the son of man be in the belly of the earth. Destruction of Babylon entire.

Here is where you see a lot of problems. People reading true historical events, and because they don't understand how typology is used and why those things are in there, what do they do? They take whole portions of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and they put it forward to some future age instead of understanding that these are types of judgment.

Interpreting Types Without Allegory

So what are the interpretive principles of typology? First and foremost, grammatical, historical exegesis must be used to determine the meaning of the type. Just because it's a symbol doesn't mean that you still don't use good sound hermeneutical principles.

Take, for example, the brazen serpent in Numbers 21. The type is consistent with the actual event. All right, what was happening with the brazen serpent? People were being bit and dying because of their transgression.

And what does Christ wind up using the brazen serpent? As an example of him being lifted up in John chapter 3. The type is a shadow of the anti-type. Example again of the brazen serpent. However, there is an essential difference.

And what is the difference? Physical salvation versus spiritual salvation. In the Old Covenant, what were they saved from? Saved from dying physically. What happens when we look to Christ? We're spiritually saved.

Also, focus on the broad typical themes, not the details. The details of the type will support the main theme. But if you start to make too many applications of what those details mean, you can go astray.

So you have to be careful. Example of the brazen serpent again. The type can be taken too far.

Here's what I mean.

The Israelites in the Old Covenant, they were dying. They weren't dead.

Right?

Sinners are spiritually dead and incapable of looking to Christ apart from regeneration. So the type wasn't given for the purpose of talking about how a person is saved, but just having the faith to look.

And that's why Christ used that as a type. You see the difference. The significance of the types also went further than the Old Covenant saints could see. We are given the benefit of the New Testament scriptures so we can see the relationship.

We have the explanation by the apostles and Jesus of what were types. The Old Testament saints, they probably had no clue that these things were types at that point because they were living in the reality before the anti-type.

Again, the example of the brazen serpent. They didn't see or fully understand all the spiritual implications of the brazen serpent. What did they see the brazen serpent as? A means of preserving their life.

But did they know at that point that it was a type of Christ? Probably not. Probably not. But that doesn't negate the significance of the type for us today because we have the full revelation in the word of God.

The type usually has one main meaning but may have many other applications. For example, the temple. We know the temple is a type. What was it a type of? God dwelling with his people. That was the symbol of the presence of God.

We know that's fulfilled. The anti-type is in Christ in John 1 .14. We're told that. But you can also apply it to the individual believers such as in 1 Corinthians 3 .16. Why? Because God dwells within the individual believer.

So we are like many temples. But it can also apply to the church as a whole because the church is the temple of God. And then just one other thing. Types don't justify sinful actions. Remember, a lot of things happened back in the old covenant that God used but were not meant to be normative.

For example, Jacob receiving the blessing by deception and lies. You can't say, well, Jacob did it. So, therefore, I'm going to use deception and lies to get what I want. That's not what typology is all about.

A typology is not allegory.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

And that's what we're going to see in our series in Hebrews where it talks about Christ entering the temple not made with hands. So what's the difference now between typology and allegory? I'm just going to very briefly go through typology.

The meaning proceeds directly out of the grammatical historical explanation. It highlights the purpose of God. A heightened application of the literal sense.

All right.

The brazen serpent had a literal meaning, but there's it's more than just that. Recognition and expansion of resident elements and themes. Again, we see that so clearly in the brazen serpent. It means the meaning of that was much more than what even the people alive could see.

And but it's built upon grammatical historical exegesis.

All right.

Allegory. Meaning arises alongside or independent from grammatical historical explanation. It arises from the imagination of the interpreter. And I don't mean imagination and necessarily in a negative way.

I don't mean it as a slam, but it's coming from his own mind. It ignores the literal sense of the passage and manufactures a new meaning.

What's that?

Well, as it would be interpreted by grammatical historical exegesis.

Yeah. Yeah.

Taken into account. That would be included under grammatical story. We want to interpret it as it was meant to be interpreted. So if it's poetry, you've got to interpret it as poetry. Not not a crass literalism as so many theologians do today.

Right.

It introduces foreign, hidden or peculiar elements and themes. Now, let me let me give you just two quick allegories that come from from history. Chrysostom interpreted Heron's slaughter of the two-year-old babies that Trinitarians will be saved, but not Binetarians or Unitarians.

Now, Chrysostom is somebody that we look to. I mean, we quote Chrysostom in many ways. But here this is a perfect example of allegory. He took the number two and saying there's significance. Everybody under two years old would died.

So you had to be three years old or Trinitarian.

All right.

That's kind of an example of allegory. Arthur Pink interpreted the three stories of Noah's Ark to represent the tripartite being of man, body, soul and spirit. Now, there's a couple of problems with that.

Number one, reformed theology in general teaches that we're only you know, we're not trichotomy, we're bichotomy.

All right.

Are you raising your hand or you just?

Yes. No.

No, but what they're doing is they're making them allegories. In other words, what Pink is saying is part of the purpose of the Ark. Having three stories is to show us that man will be saved, body, soul and spirit.

But in order to do that, wouldn't they have to suggest that those events did not happen because allegory is clearly figurative.

But you can make an allegory out of a real event.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Yes.

Isn't allegory also kind of fancy?

Yeah.

That's an allegory.

Yeah.

Pilgrim's Progress. It's not always bad, but we're talking about not confusing somebody's allegory with typology. There is a difference.

Right, because the parables were allegories, but the chronicles or like the chronicle scriptures, those would be literal. Fundamental issue with both theologians here is that they're turning something into.

Yeah.

Symbolism.

What?

I said symbolism is not allegory.

Symbolism is a feature of allegory.

Okay. But it's not allegory. It's not allegory.

It's consistent symbolism.

What else?

What other definitions?

Touché. No.

But allegory is not allegory.

But allegory is not allegory.

It's just for us. It's just making it up.

We hardly ever agree.

That's not true.

No, no.

Allegory in this sense is like a, yes, it does consist of symbolism, but the symbolism is not relative description. Well, these are not actual symbols.

You're right. Right, right.

It's just that interpretation.

Yeah.

Allegory is also a this is this and a that is that. This represents that. It's a holy place where you have like, let's say, using the temple as a symbol. It's a person. It's a body, like a body of people.

It's the heavenly throne. It's the earth as originally created in terms of the garden, and then in terms of the new creation, you know, so.

So are you calling the temple an allegory?

No, I'm saying it's a symbol.

Okay, right.

Yeah, it's not an allegory.

Correct.

See, that's what I said, it's not allegory.

Yeah, but allegories have symbols.

Yes, they do.

Subtle difference, but an important one.

Okay.

Okay.

Counselor.

Yes, you do.

Can't get too confused with that.

No. No.

Again, this was a very shortened, you know, very basic. I didn't want to get too technical, but the whole point is that there are certain things in Scripture, especially in the Old Covenant, that are types, and I wanted to show you what the words, some of the words to look for, shite, type, shadow, copy, example, those type of things, because typology is extremely important for a full understanding of the.

Because there are so many types in Scripture that if you're not interpreting it properly, you're going to miss a lot of what's going on.

Typology, the Archetype, and Questions About Old Covenant Understanding

Yes.

You know how we say there are types and shadows of Christ?

Yes.

Basically, when we're saying types, is that referencing typology? But then shadows are also typology, right?

Yes, they are.

So is typology, is it specific to the Bible. In terms of, can you apply it to anything else besides the Bible?

Well, for biblical hermeneutics, it applies strictly to the Scriptures, because the theme, if you look at all of the typology in Scripture, it's always with the redemptive theme.

Why?

Because it's always going to wind up pointing to Christ, his work, judgment, deliverance, propitiation, those type of things. That's why Adam was a type of Christ.

Okay?

So basically, for typology, does it all point to the archetype?

Yeah, there's almost always an archetype in the heavenly. All right.

Yes, Dave. Would you agree that under the Old Covenant, even though the people didn't know how the typology was going to be fulfilled, they would still at least understand that it was a sign of God's presence amongst them, God's promises to them, God's blessings to them, even though they didn't know Jesus was coming in the days of Caesar Augustus, they knew that this was a promise when they offered up their sacrifices.

This was a promise that God would show them mercy if they repented of their sins, and they knew there had to be shedding of blood. This was a sign of sin leads to death, and we need God to be merciful to us.

So they would at least understand the significance of it, even though they didn't know that that was all going to be fulfilled in Christ.

I think, yeah, to a certain extent, sure, because we know when Jesus comes on the scene and he starts preaching, even when he taught in parables and whatnot, quite often they knew that he was talking about them, so they understood.

But they needed the fuller explanation, you know, because they only had the shadow and the type to look at. But they understood symbolism because God spoke and used symbols, you know, frequently. Lawrence, I think you did something on even the construction of the temple and the tabernacle and how they camped around.

There were certain tribes, north, east, south, and west. That was all significant. I think that they would understand those things.

Even what they were building, they would have understood. They would have had an understanding, like, oh, gold, silver, bronze, you know. They would have understood what all those things meant. It was built in a world that they understood, you know, like that triple-decker universe type of thing.

Paul talks about the third heaven and all that stuff. They would have had that understanding.

Yes, but they would not necessarily understand what the anti-type was. I know this gets a little technical, and typology is still hotly debated, you know, amongst theologians as to, you know, how far to take some of it and whatnot.

So it's a difficult topic, but you have to, if we're talking about hermeneutics, you can't talk about hermeneutics without getting into typology to some degree.

Improper Applications of Temple Typology

Yes?

When you were talking about the example of how oftentimes there's, like, one main meaning for, like, a type or a shadow, and you gave the example of the temple and how it can apply to, you know, multiple things.

It can apply to us because we're the temple for the Holy Spirit and so on and so forth. Somebody once told me that, you know, like when Jesus got angry because there was a lot of, like, gambling and all these other activities going on in the temple?

And so, you know, flips over tables and basically, like, stops it all. And so this person said to me, Oh, well, that can be applied to us as the temple in talking about demonic oppression and how in terms of, like, people say that if you have the Holy Spirit, you cannot be demonically possessed.

But this person was saying how, oh, but a demon can be in the outer courts of a Christian. And basically they took that from, oh, well, there were sinful activities and, like, you know, evil things going on that made Jesus angry, but they were going on inside of the temple.

Is that an improper application of that?

Yeah, I mean, there I think you're getting pretty fanciful with how you go. And you have to be very careful because, again, if you look at the design of the temple with basically three layers of the temple, the Holy of Holies, the Holy Place, and then the outer court, again, you could fall into Arthur Pink's thing and say, Well, see, there's three parts to a human, you know, so you've got to be careful what you do with your outer court.

You've got to be careful. Don't take the Scripture further than what it was intended. What's the purpose of saying, of relating the temple to us, the church? It's God's dwelling place. He dwells in his church where two or three are gathered together, meaning the witnesses.

This is the place where God is present. Now, of course, even that is a symbol because we know that God is everywhere, but it's the symbol of his presence in a special way. That was the same thing with the tabernacle, with the temple, and then Christ's tabernacle among his people.

The Difference Between Typology and Trichotomy

Yeah?

You're taking it really far going, Oh, it's not all from Scripture. You need to go very far in terms of what it represents in terms of a person, like an individual. The way it's pictured is like an individual laying down.

Because we know, because we have like Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the man standing with the gold, silver, and bronze, you know, and the iron and clay feet and all that other stuff. So that's a vertical temple.

That's a picture of a vertical temple. You can lay that down. You have the holy polies. You have the holy place. You have the outer court and the mountain and everything else.

It's on.

So it's a picture of a person laying down. So what's the holy polies? You know, head, et cetera. You go through the Scriptures and figure out what things are in that manner and then make applications from there.

Again, you can't just make stuff up.

No, no.

So fast.

Yes.

So we're made up of two?

Well, there's two parts, body and soul. Soul and spirit are interchangeable depending upon the usage in the Scripture at the time.

Yes, Mark.

I have a question for that. What about 2 Timothy 3 .16? 2 Timothy 3 .16, it says, The word of God is from the Bible. Shabbatim.

Yeah, that's showing the power of the word of God. That's not intended to talk about the makeup of the human. Basically, the idea is that it separates inseparables.

It's like heart, soul, mind, and spirit.

Yeah.

Those are different aspects of our inner being. Exactly. There's just one inner being. There are always different dynamics of our inner being.

Yeah, and the way you interpret that is you have to look at all the teaching upon who we are as humans. God breathed into Adam, and he became a living soul.

All right?

So he's body and soul. It doesn't say he became a living soul and a living spirit, but a living soul. And if you look at all of Scripture and you take it apart, you find out that there's two people, the outer man and the inner man.

Yes.

The kingdom. Did you say the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God, they're interchangeable too?

Yes, the same thing.

I'm talking about how they bring up how there's the body, like the tri.

Trichotomy.

Trichotomy. So the body, soul, spirit. When they're talking about that, when I think of spirit, I think of the Holy Spirit. But then is there like a spirit? You know like how Satan oftentimes, he kind of like parallels in his own way like the Trinity.

So like there's Satan, there's the antichrist.

Well, but that has nothing to do with the trichotomy of a person. The trichotomy of a person is not biblical. There's a dichotomy, two parts. And depending on, you know, the two words, it's psuche and pneuma, and they're used sometimes interchangeably, and it's usually just emphasizing one particular aspect.

But it's not two different parts of the person. And to show you how far afield that can go, the trichotomy is used for the non-biblical practice of secular psychology.

Go ahead.

Yeah, just go to Genesis. There was God made his body from the dirt and made three of them, so that's it.

Right.

Yeah.

I was just wondering in terms of could they be referencing the Holy Spirit, which would like or, you know, which wouldn't be that person. Like that's not them.

Well, who are you talking about when you say they?

Okay.

No, the people who hold a view, and the reason I know this is because I came out of that.

All right.

They're talking about that there was three parts to the person, body, soul, and spirit.

All right.

And then what they do is they go on to say that if you're sick, physically sick, who do you go? You go to an expert. Who's that? The medical doctor. If your spirit is a problem, you know, who do you go to?

You go to the expert, the elders of the church. But if your soul, which is just your mind, will, and emotions, if that's sick, who do you go to? You go to the expert, the psychologist, which is patently non-biblical.

Okay. Yeah.

Okay.

Any other questions?