Study the following Scriptures that refer to types and try to define what biblical typology is: Rom. 5:14, 1 Cor. 10:1–13, Heb. 8:5, and Heb. 9:23.
These biblical passages use the term “type” (Greek typos) or “antitype” (Greek antitypos) to refer to the way the New Testament writer defined the relationship between an Old Testament text or event and its meaning in his own time or in the future.
Typology is a specific interpretation of persons, events, or institutions that prefigure Jesus or other realities contained in the gospel. The type corresponds to the antitype as a mold or a hollow form that reflects the original form, even if the latter, the antitype, more fully fulfills the purpose of the type. Thus, the biblical type was shaped according to a divine design that had existed concretely, or conceptually, in the mind of God, and it serves to shape future copies (antitypes).
It is crucial to understand that the writers of the New Testament did not randomly attribute a typological meaning to some Old Testament texts in order to make a point. An Old Testament type is always validated in the prophetic writings before it acquires an antitypical fulfillment in the New Testament.
Look at how David appears in the Old Testament and then how he is prefigured in the New. What lessons can we learn about how typology works from this example?
a. David (Ps. 22:1, 14–18):
b. The new David (Jer. 23:5; Isa. 9:5, 6; Isa. 11:1–5):
c. The antitypical David (John 19:24):
By looking at these texts, we discover that the Old Testament itself provides the key for identifying and applying types in the Scriptures. That is, New Testament writers, whose Scripture was the Old Testament, were inspired by the Holy Spirit to use the Old Testament types to reveal “present truth” (2 Pet. 1:12), especially about Jesus and His ministry.
Supplemental EGW Notes
In fulfilling “all righteousness,” Christ did not bring all righteousness to an end. He fulfilled all the requirements of God in repentance, faith, and baptism, the steps in grace in genuine conversion. In His humanity Christ filled up the measure of the law’s requirements. He was the head of humanity, its substitute and surety. Human beings, by uniting their weakness to the divine nature of Christ, may become partakers of His character.
Christ came to give an example of the perfect conformity to the law of God required of Adam, the first man, down to the last person that shall live on the earth. He declares that His mission is not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it in perfect and entire obedience.
In this way He magnified the law and made it honorable. In His life He revealed its spiritual nature. He revealed to heavenly beings, to worlds unfallen, to a disobedient, unthankful, unholy world, that He fulfilled the far-reaching principles of the law. He came to demonstrate the fact that humanity, allied by living faith to divinity, can keep all God’s commandments.
The typical offerings pointed to Christ, and when the perfect sacrifice was made the sacrificial offerings were no longer acceptable to God. Type met antitype in the death of the only begotten Son of God. He came to make plain the immutable character of the law, to declare that disobedience and transgression could never be rewarded by God with eternal life. He came as a man to humanity, that humanity might touch humanity.
But in no case did He come to lessen the obligations of mortals to be perfectly obedient. He did not destroy the validity of the Old Testament Scriptures. He fulfilled that which was predicted by God Himself. He did not come to set human beings free from the law: He came to open a way by which they might obey that law and teach others to do the same.—To Be Like Jesus, p. 362.
When Christ on the cross cried out, “It is finished,” the veil of the temple was rent in twain. This veil was significant to the Jewish nation. It was of most costly material, of purple and gold, and was of great length and breadth. At the moment when Christ breathed His last, there were witnesses in the temple who beheld the strong, heavy material rent by unseen hands from top to bottom. This act signified to the heavenly universe, and to a world corrupted by sin, that a new and living way had been opened to the fallen race, that all sacrificial offerings terminated in the one great offering of the Son of God.
Type . . . met antitype in the death of God’s Son. . . . The way into the holiest is laid open. A new and living way is prepared for all. No longer need sinful, sorrowing humanity await the coming of the high priest. Henceforth the Saviour was to officiate as priest and advocate in the heaven of heavens. . . . There is now an end to all sacrifices and offerings for sin. The Son of God is come according to His word, “Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.” “By his own blood” He entereth “in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” Hebrews 10:7; 9:12.—The Faith I Live By, p. 201.
The above quotations are taken from Ellen G. White Notes for the Sabbath School Lessons, published by Pacific Press Publishing Association. Used by permission.