We all know that the Old Testament is full of stories, people, and historical events. A type is a person, thing, or event in the Old Testament that foreshadows something in the New Testament. It is like a taste or a hint of something that will be fulfilled or realized. Types are like pictures that come alive in a new and exciting way when seen through the eyes of Christ’s revelation. Augustine said that “the Old Testament is the New concealed, but the New Testament is the Old revealed” (Catechizing of the Uninstructed 4:8).
The idea of typology is not new. Paul says that Adam was a type of the one who was to come—Christ (Rom 5:14). Early Christians understood that the Old Testament was full of types or pictures that were fulfilled or realized in the New Testament.
Here are a few more examples of biblical typology:
✭Peter uses Noah’s ark as a type of Christian baptism (1 Pt 3:18-22).
✭Paul explains that circumcision foreshadowed Christian baptism (Col 2:11-12).
✭Jesus uses the bronze serpent as a type of his Crucifixion (Jn 3:14; cf. Nm 21:8-9).
✭The Passover lamb prefigures the sacrifice of Christ (1 Cor 5:7).
✭Paul says that Abraham “considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead; hence, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back” (Heb 11:19).
ꜰᴏʟʟᴏᴡ ᴍᴇ❤