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General Remarks about Prophetical Types

Fairbairn deals with the problematic idea of a “double sense,” which he rejects in his comments on the second, third, and fourth possibilities for relating prophecy and type. Basically, he treats it as an issue of the unity of the Old and New Testaments.

Problems with the Idea of a double sense

Fairbairn rejected the common theory of double sense for prophecies.¹ He warned that we can’t operate as if the double sense of prophecy were like the double sense of allegory, as if there were a sense proper to the Old Testament but yet another sense proper to the New Testament. He said accepting this idea would foreclose on our ability to understand any prophecy that we identified as having this double sense. Indeed, it would preclude our understanding of any prophecy—at least until the consummation, which would finally close off the options for any additional sense being added to a prophecy. He considered it better to talk of a single sense, which might be applied to more than one event (1.133). Here he noted that some prophecies are in fact more typical and specific:

There are prophecies which were not so much designed to foretell definite events, as to unfold great prospects and results, in respect to the manifestation of God’s purposes of grace and truth toward men. Such prophecies were of necessity general and comprehensive in their terms, and admitted of manifold fulfillment. (1.134)

In fact, he thought it impossible that there should be prophecies with a double sense, in the strictest sense of the word:

We dispute the fact on which it is founded, that there really are prophecies… predictive of similar though disparate series of events, strictly applicable to each, and in each finding their fulfillment…. The terms of several predictions are more to be put to torture, in order to get one of the two senses extracted from them. (1.134)

Actually, this notion of double sense arises from prophecies of such a general nature that they are obviously unlikely to be fulfilled exclusively in any particular example. All this double sense idea does is complicate the interpretation of prophecy and cast doubt on the proper understanding of any prophecy (1.135).

Relation between Predictive Prophecy and Typology

As a special consideration, we should look at how two forward-looking feature of Old Testament revelation relate to each other, how predictive prophecy and forward-looking typology overlap.

Not all notices that something in the New Testament happened to fulfill something in the Old Testament are referring to an Old Testament prediction.

Jesus Fulfilling the Law and the Prophets

We see that in various places, such as the repeated use of the fulfillment formulas in his birth narratives, the Gospel according to Matthew repeatedly notes that something happened in Jesus’s early life “to fulfill” (ἵνα πληρωθῇ/hina plērōthē) something that something the Old Testament spoke of. And later in the book, Matthew records Jesus’s own notice, “I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish (πληρόω/plēroō) their purpose (Matt 5:17). Although fulfilling the prophets might actually involve Jesus doing something that a prophet had predicted; certainly fulfilling the law wasn’t about that. And for that matter, fulfilling is set over against the false option of “abolishing” (καταλύω/katalyō), not over against a false prophet’s failed predictions. Matthew’s fulfillment formulas do indeed refer to things prophets had said; however, most lack any sense of earlier prediction and later performance. Instead, they participate in a typological pattern of foreshadowing and fulfillment.

Immanuel Promise

When Ahaz doubted God’s word, Isaiah announced, “For this reason the sovereign master himself will give you a confirming sign.² Look, this young woman³ is about to conceive and will give birth to a son. You, young woman, will name him Immanuel” (Isa 7:14, NET).⁴ This was a sign for Ahaz, to be fulfilled in his own lifetime, even before the baby got out of his youth. But Matthew construed this as a type of Jesus’s virgin birth as the ultimate sign-child (Matt 1:22–23; quoting Isa 7:14 LXX).

“Out of Egypt have I called my Son”

Jesus’s escape to Egypt until Herod’s death typologically fulfilled Israel’s escape from Egypt, which Hosea had recorded not as a prediction but as prophetic interpretation of the exodus, which was seven centuries in Hosea’s past (Matt 2:15; quoting Hos 11:1).

“He will be called a Nazarene”

Jesus’s home in Nazareth fulfilled an Old Testament expectancy that “he will be called a Nazarene.” This cites not Old Testament text at all but rather “the substance of more than one OT passage.”⁵ Some suggest wordplay linking Nazareth (Ναζαρέτ/Nazaret) and Nazarene (Ναζαραῖος/Nazaraios) with the totally unrelated Hebrew term נֵזֶר/nēzer, whether the term for the Nazirite vow of consecration and abstention⁶ or for the “branch,” standing for a remnant of the nation or the surviving representative of the Davidic line.⁷ Note that the second of these suggestions works only in Hebrew and that the Gospel according to Matthew is written in Greek.⁸  Perhaps Daniel Harrington’s note is as good as we’ll get on this:

The alleged quotation is neither a direct quotation nor adaptation of any known OT text. The term “Nazorean” has three principle derivations: from the place-name Nazareth, from nāzir as one devoted to God (see Judg 13:5, 7), and from nētser meaning “branch” and used with reference to the Messiah (see Isa 11:1). It is likely that the readers were expected to keep all three connotations in mind rather than one alone. The latter two would qualify the expression as a biblical quotation, and the first would tie them into the place in which Jesus lived.⁹

And the connection to Nazareth would have had to do with its obscurity, which Josephus didn’t even list as a town in Galilee, a fact that the New Testament rhetoric reflects (John 1:45–46; see also 7:41, 52.¹⁰ And so it went with most of the fulfillment formulas in Matthew, Mark, and John; most adopted a typological approach to fulfillment of Old Testament language from the prophets messages and from the psalmist’s life.¹¹

Predictions can be related to typological patterns rather than a single conclusive fulfillment.

Sometimes predictions establish further typological patterns.

Daniel’s Antiochus Epiphanes

Daniel’s prophecy of an arrogant ruler (Dan 8:9–14, 23–25) was initially fulfilled in the deeds of Antiochus Epiphanes.¹² But Antiochus became a symbols (S) of the arrogant royal office-holder who attempts to usurp divine prerogatives (T¹), which finds further fulfillments in the “many antichrists” (T^2…) and some kind of final fulfillment in the Antichrist (Tⁿ). This (T) has its background in Adam disobeying and grasping the divine prerogative of determinative knowledge of good and evil,¹³ the throne usurping king of Babylon,¹⁴ and the prince of Tyre, the last of which Ezekiel actually describes with a backward glance at the usurper’s spirit manifested in Adam’s disobedience.¹⁵ And Jesus echoes some of the associated imagery in what I take to be a prediction of AD 70.¹⁶

Ahaz’s Immanuel

God promised Ahaz a sign-child born to an עַלְמָה/ʿalmâ.¹⁷ This sign-child (S) would signify that God was with his people, so people would call him “Immanuel.”¹⁸ In the context of this prophecy, Isaiah says, “I and the children the LORD has given me serve as signs and warnings to Israel from the LORD of Heaven’s Armies who dwells in his Temple on Mount Zion” (Isa 8:18), so perhaps this was the prophet’s own sign-child named “Mahar-shalal-hashbaz” (Isa 8:3). The other option would be a royal son born into Ahaz’s royal household, which would have been Hezekiah. But whatever the case, this prophecy must have been fulfilled at one level during Ahaz’s immediate future, or Isaiah would have been prophesying Ahaz and sign he would never see (Isa 7:10–25, esp. vv. 16–18). Whoever that child was, he served as a symbol (S) of the “Immanuel” principle (T¹), which found its ultimate fulfillment when Jesus was born of the virgin Mary and was indeed “God with us” (Tⁿ), not bearing it as a symbolic title but as eternal ontological identity (Matt 1:23).

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Typology as a Scriptural Pattern of
Inner-Canonical Interpretation

The previous blog discussed biblical terms that sometimes signal a typological relationship between a person, event, or institution in the Old Testament and its fulfillment in the New Testament. But even though New Testament typological use of the Old abounds, the terminology we discussed is sparse. So we must tune our ear to the Bible’s implicit typological methodology of advancing revelation throughout redemptive history.

Even within the Old Testament itself, we can see a pattern of inner-biblical exegesis where later writers employ a typological understanding of earlier events. In turn, the New Testament authors employ pervasive typology in their use of the Old.¹

For example, Paul treats Israel’s wilderness history as an example (τυπικῶς/typikōs) written for us (1 Cor 10:11). More importantly, the typological approach is the only method that can do justice to how Jesus and Paul teach us to read the Old Testament. Jesus rebuked his disciples and instructed them in the Emmaus encounters:

Then Jesus said to them, “You foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures. Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?” Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
…
Then he said, “When I was with you before, I told you that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And he said, “Yes, it was written long ago that the Messiah would suffer and die and rise from the dead on the third day. It was also written that this message would be proclaimed in the authority of his name to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem: ‘There is forgiveness of sins for all who repent.'” (Luke 24:25–27, 44–47, NLT)

Jesus mentions no particular Old Testament predictions about the crucifixion and resurrection; rather, he points to the entirety of the Old Testament as a witness to himself. He speaks of “all the Scriptures.” First, he uses a twofold label, “the writings of Moses and all the prophets”; then he uses a threefold label, “the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms.” This same method enabled Paul to say, “all Scripture”—that is, the entire Old Testament—is not only “inspired by God” and thus authoritative revelation for its original audience, but also “useful” for Christian preaching, teaching, and discipleship (2 Tim 3:16).

With or without using specific technical vocabulary, Scripture frequently displays a typological relationship between things “alike in principle but diverse in form.”²

• A priesthood “in the order of Melchizedek,” who didn’t inherit the priesthood, typifies Jesus Christ’s eternal priesthood.³
• Old Testament priests served in a sanctuary that was “only a copy, a shadow of the real one in heaven” (Heb 8:5); however, “Christ did not enter into a holy place made with human hands, which was only a copy of the true one in heaven. He entered into heaven itself” (Heb 9:24).
• Christian baptism corresponds to Noah’s salvation through the flood (1 Pet 3:21).
• Jesus Christ is the ultimate fulfillment of various aspects of Israel’s cultic and corporate life: he fulfills what was symbolized by their prophets (Deut 18), priests (Heb 7), kings (2 Sam 7; 1 Chr 17), Passover (1 Cor 5:7); exodus (Matt 2:15; quoting Hos 11:1), wilderness food and water (John 6:31–33; 1 Cor 10:4), and temple (John 2:19; Heb 7).

Even within the Old Testament itself we can see signs of a typological understanding:

• The promised land is a veritable new Eden that flows with milk and honey; in turn, eschatological blessing picks up those same motifs.⁴
• The tabernacle and temple can be depicted with Edenic imagery; in turn, the eschatological paradise proves to be a supersized temple-paradise.⁵
• Isaiah foretells the return from Babylonian exile using the motif of a second exodus (Isa 11:11–12, 16).
• The future Messiah is not only “David’s branch,”⁶ but even a second “David.”⁷

I conclude that typological interpretation and reapplication is the biblical mode of integrating biblical theology within the Old Testament itself, and then between the Old and New Testaments when that stage arrives in progressive revelation.

Proper Constitution of a Type

Fairbairn says, “The realities of the Gospel are the ultimate objects which were contemplated by the mind of God when planning the economy of successive dispensations.”⁸ In other words, God himself established the typological relationships; they are not just something we ourselves establish as a reading strategy.

Even though the Old Testament types were inferior to the form of their New Testament fulfillment, they could “prepare the way for the introduction of these ultimate objects.” This preparatory instruction taught the Old Testament people of God first. But it prefigured truth that God revealed for our benefit too. So Fairbairn describes a key qualification for anything in the Old Testament to be considered a type:

[It] ought not to be regarded as employed simply for the sake of those who lived during its continuance…. [It must] have been fitted to tell with beneficial effect on the spiritual state of the Church in her more advanced state of existence, after she had actually attained to those better things in themselves.⁹

For example, Paul insisted that the Old Testament legislation and events were recorded for our instruction:¹⁰ “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right” (2 Tim 3:16, NLT).

About now, some of you readers are perhaps getting a little doubtful about my focus on typology as the method of inner-biblical exegesis. And the more aware you are of the history of so-called typology, the more guarded you will become about anything called “typology.” The next few blogs will survey the history of typology and its disreputable cousin “allegorization.”

Questions & Reflections

1. Can you think of inner-biblical “exodus” typology, places in the Old and New Testaments that reflect typologically on the exodus as a pattern for God’s subsequent redemptive works?
2. Can you think of other Old Testament events or institutions that the Bible itself treats typologically later in redemptive history?