Pattern & Fulfillment
The Bible's redemptive storyline is full of patterns which develop over time and finally come to their ultimate fulfillment later on. This pattern and fulfillment aspect is known as typology. We come to recognize the contours and shape of these repeated themes the more familiar we become with the Bible as a whole. We begin to hear the refrains played over and over and see how God is building layer upon layer over time. Because the Bible is about Christ's redemptive work in the gospel, types often if not always, find their fulfillment in Christ or in his opponents. The Bible must develop the link between the type and its fulfillment. We are not to search for hidden types, but ones the Bible clearly reveals.
The following definitions, marks, and examples of types will help us better understand this subject:
Definitions
"A type is a real person, event, or thing that God has ordained as a predictive pattern or resemblance of Jesus' person and work."—David Murray
"Typology can be defined as the study of analogical correspondences between persons, events, institutions, and other things within the historical framework of God’s special revelation, which, from a retrospective view, are of a prophetic nature."—G.K. Beale
5 Marks of Biblical Types*
1. Analogical Correspondence
There are very strong points of parallel between a type and its fulfillment so we closely associate the two. Jesus is not a literal lamb but fulfills "the lamb of God" pattern.
2. Historical
Each type is rooted in a historical person, place, thing, or event. Adam, the temple, the priesthood, the sacrificial system, and King David all really existed in history and all are types.
3. Points Forward
Each type foreshadows the greater future reality in a prophetic way.
4. Escalation
As God's revelation is progressively revealed over time, the elements of correspondence between the type and its fulfillment escalate in significance as well as clarity. Jesus is a "greater" temple than Jerusalem's (Matt 12:6), a "greater" prophet than Jonah (Matt 12:41), and a "greater" king than Solomon (Matt 12:42).
5. Retrospective
From any point along the historical timeline of the Bible, even before Christ's incarnation, death, and resurrection, we can look back and see the motif of a type developing. In the OT, the garden of Eden is the first place where God meets with man, then the Tent of Meeting, the Tabernacle, and Solomon's temple. Christ came and "tabernacled" among us (John 1:14) and will bring his people to the New Heaven and New Earth where "the dwelling place [literally tabernacle] of God is with man. He will dwell [tabernacle] with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God (Rev 21:3)."
Examples
1. Adam
Adam is a type of Christ: "Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come” (Rom 5:14).
2. The Tabernacle
The earthly holy of holies in the tabernacle was a type patterned after the greater heavenly one: "For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Heb 9:24).
3. David’s Enemies
David's enemies are a type of the even greater fulfillment in Christ's enemies: "For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet—I can count all my bones—they stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots” (Ps 22:16-18).
Finally, typology is not in conflict with a literal, historical, grammatical method of interpretation. The above examples alone should show us that the Bible's types are able to be interpreted literally in their historical context without twisting grammar or reading a foreign idea back into an author. We do not need to read Christ back into the Old Testament. The Old Testament, in its context, was clearly pointing forward to Christ's fulfillment of its central themes (types).
* These marks of Biblical Types are borrowed from G.K. Beale and are explained in further depth in his work, Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament.
