ALONE WITH GOD     

Classes of Bible Symbols. - Clearness in thought requires that we distinguish between various classes of symbols and types. The Scriptures contain two main classes of symbols, (1) visional and (2) material. Visional symbols are such as never have had nor ever will have any real existence, but are merely presented to the mind of the seer, or are seen in a vision by him. Many such symbols are described in various parts of the Bible, and such books as Daniel and Ezekiel, and especially the Apocalpse, are largely given to them. Particular examples are the kine and ears of corn of Pharaoh's dream, the four great beasts of Daniel 7, and the great red dragon of Revelation 12.

Material symbols are as truly symbolic as are visional, and rest on the same basic principle as to their symbolic nature and interpretation. But these have a real material existance; and these, too, are divinely ordained as symbols. Examples of these are the tabernacle, the sacrifices, the Sabbath, and Melchisedec. They are found principally in the writings of Moses.

Two classes of material symbols, or types, are also to be distinguished, (1) ritual and (2) historical. Ritual types are those which have to do with the rites and ceremonies of the Mosaic worship, such as the tabernacle, sacrifices, priesthood, and feasts. The historical types are those persons, things, places, and events which are of a typical nature, as the brazen serpent, or the land of Canaan.

NATURE OF TYPES

A knowledge of the essential nature of types is important to our knowing what are types and what are not. Too often for lack of a clear definition of what constitutes a type things have been called types which are referred to by New Testament writers only as illustrations, or which are merely similar in some particular but yet not typical.

In defining types we are dealing with the subject of Old Testament types and not the Scriptural usage of the particular word, for, as we use the English word in a variety of meanings, so the Greek word tupos has various uses. A type may be described as a divinely appointed institution or action to represent a religious truth and to fore show, by resemblance, those facts in the work of Christ on which the truth symbolized rests.

A Type Resembles the Antitype. - The first great basic law of typology is the element of resemblance or analogy between type and antitype. Not only is there an analogy between the type and the truth prefigured, but also betwen the type and the truth symbolized to them to whom the type is given. A certain proper parallel is maintained between the type and that which is represented. Spiritual good things are represented by material good things and spiritual impure things by material impurity. So leprosy, a loathsome disease, is made to represent sin. Also leaven, a form of fermentation or decaying vegetable matter, is made a type of sin. Likewise the priest must wash his body clean with water before he can enter into the house of God, to signify the moral cleansing from sin needed to enter God's holy presence.

But identical similarity is not required in a type. In such a case the type would not be a type but the thing itself to be represented. There must be in a type, not only similitude, but also disparity in some phases. Types do not agree with their antitypes in every point. This brings us to another important fact of the nature of types - only institutions or actions, using the terms broadly, are types, never persons, or things as such. Not the lamb with the flock in the field, but the lamb bleeding on God's altar is a type of the "Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." The ram in fierce struggle with another of its kind does not typify Christ the sin-bearer, but it is when it is led to God's altar, the had of the offerer is laid upon it, and its life-blood flows out in sacrificial offering it becomes a type of the true sacrifice for sin. Melchisedec as a man of ancient Salem does not typify Christ, but he does as "priest of the most high God." The manna regarded as a natural phenomenon is not typical of Christ, the bread of life; but as a divinely provided means of feeding God's people it is a type.

We are aware that this principle excludes many persons and things, as such, that have been considered typical, but it is according to both Scriptures and reason. Many of these persons and things, however, because of their typical offices, actions, or uses are types in this connection.

A Type is Divinely Preordained as Such. - A second important element in the nature of a type is its divine appointment. It is not sufficient that some institution or action already past be taken to represent things yet future, but the type itself must be preordained to represent that truth in the more distant future. Marsh has well said: "To constitute one thing the type of another, something more is wanted than mere resemblance. The former must not only resemble the latter, but must have been designed to resemble the latter. It must have been so designed in its original institution. It must have been designed as something preparatory to the latter. The type as well as the antitpe must have been preordained; and they must have been preordained as constituent parts of the same general scheme of Divine Providence. It is this previous design and the preordained connection which constitutes the relation of type and antitype." Those who disregard this important point of divine preordination and make mere resemblance alone their criterion for determining what are types in the Old Testament will go far astray, as have gone certain interpreters of the past.

A Type Both Symbolizes and Predicts. - The third characteristic of types is that they both show and foreshow. They primarily symbolize religious truths of the dispensation in which they are given, but they secondarily predict important facts of the future on which the truths symbolized rest. Thus they possess a twofold character. The dying lamb at God's altar was symbolic of the great truth that the sin of the offerer could be forgiven only on the ground of vicarious suffering, and it typified or predicted the more glorious fact of Christ's vicarious suffering to atone for men's sins. A type, then, is first a symbol of a general religous truth already revealed, and secondly a prediction of that same truth as it is related to Christ's work of redemption. God first asks men to believe "the truth" and next to believe that same truth as it is "in Jesus."

Thus we find that those more elementary truths symbolized by the type must agree with and rest upon the facts of the antitype. This is what constitutes them types. The type was conformed to the antitype, not the antitype to the type. The devout, spiritual-minded Israelite who came to God's altar with a load of sin doubtless often recognized that the blood of the mere animal was insufficient to atone for his sins and would probably see dimly by faith the true offering for sin. However, of a type it must not be supposed that those to whom it was given should always recognize the predictive element. Probably it was enough thatsaw the general truth represented. Doubtless these things were written principally "for our learning," especially as to the predictive element.

To the ancient Israelites the symbolic element in the type was of primary importance, but to us the predictive element has more especial value. In this respect a type is a prophetic similitude, or an acted prophecy. It is as truly prophetic as is a word-prophecy, and had equal value with word-prophecy, in directing the faith of the Old Testament saints to the coming salvation, and has also as a means of instruction and as Christian evidence for us today. In the one class a word is made to describe a future idea or fact, and in the other an institute or an act in some respect analogous to that future idea or fact is used to foreshow it. Of the two classes the acted prophecy is probably more forceful and represents more details, especially to those who behold it, than does the word-prophecy. In the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah is given a word-prophecy vividly portraying the vicarious suffering of Christ. At the altar of God's house the same great truths were daily predicted both morning and evening in the harmless, innocent lamb, its substitutionary death for another, and the sprinkling of its blood before God.

INTERPRETATION OF TYPES

As we have described the characteristics of types heretofore for the purpose of aiding in determining what institutes and acts are types, so now our object is to call attention to those principles which will enable us properly to interpret those things found to be typical; for error in interpreting is probably as common as is the mistake of ascribing typical character to those things which are not types.

It is well to remember, however, in our consideration of principles of typology, that we are by no means dependent upon the principles we may describe. These are needed only where the Bible is silent or not explicit either as to the fact or the interpretation of a particular type. God has been pleased in his infinite wisdom to give us by his inspired penmen definite information that certain things are types and of what they are typical. The tabernacle and all its rites are described in a single verse (Heb. 8:5) as being typical. It is from these examples of interpretation of types by the Divine Spirit that we get our principles of typology.

The Difficulties of Typology. - In endeavoring to interpret Old Testament types we are not unaware of the abuses of the subject and extremes to which typical interpretation has been carried in the past. This immoderation of the past is probably the cause of the present neglect of the subject among Christians. There is a general skepticism concerning types. Much of what is written on the subject consists of warnings against improper interpretations. The dangers of error have been allowed to eclipse almost entirely the fact that these constitute an important part of God's Holy Word and are given for our instruction. We might also be skeptical about the interpretations of other portions of the Bible, because there has been error in a greater or lesser measure in interpreting all phases of it in the past. Is it not better that instead of saying with the agnostics, "We do not know and it cannot be known," that we do as with other portions of the Bible - learn by the errors of our predecessors, avoid their extremes, and learn what is knowable about the subject even if we cannot understand everything about it?

The antenicene Greek church fathers were much given to finding a typical meaning in every part of the Bible. This was especially true of the learned Origen. He held a plain or literal sense of all Scripture and also an allegorical, typical, or spiritual interpretation. He held at least a two-fold, and some have supposed a fourfold, meaning of all parts of the Bible. This method of interpreting the Bible was so destructive to certain knowledge of truth that it led to a revolt from that method by Luther and other reformers who always strongly held for a single plain sense.

But subsequent to the Reformation a prominent school of typical interpretation arose under Cocceius which without regard for sound principles of interpretation endeavored to find types wherever they found a mere superficial resemblance between things in the Old Testament and the New. This tendency became widespread. As is too often the case, this extreme led to an opposite one by Bishop Marsh's school, which denies typical significance in things of the Old Testament unless they are expressly declared or obviously implied to be types by the New Testament. Marsh's rule has had wide acceptance, doubtless due to the prevalence of the other extreme.

As the Cocceian method violates sound principles of interpretation to which we have already called attention, so Marsh's view on the other hand is too narrow and excludes many real types. Doubtless we should look to the Scriptures for the a correct knowledge of the nature of types, but we should not expect to find in the New Testament a formal or systematic interpretation of every Old Testament type. Those that are interpreted there are done so only incidentally, as occasion required. Bible truth is not revealed scientifically but historically, and it is an error to view the Scriptures as a scientific or systematic treatment of theology. Nor do we think of applying so rigid a rule to the interpretation of word-prophecies or parables. Examples are given in the Bible of the interpretation of prophecy and parables, and from these we derive the general principles for interpreting the others not there explained. Likewise we deal with the symbolic predictions of Daniel and the Apocalypse. When we read in Revelation 1 that the seven candlesticks are the seven churches, in the seventeenth chapter that the ten horns are ten kings, and other similar examples, we get the idea that these are symbols analogous to certain facts. May we not be as reasonable in our study of Bible types?

Principles of Interpretation. - The following specific rules for interpreting types are intended, not to dispel every ambiguity, but rather to set forth the more prominent principles bearing upon the subject.

1. A proper analogy must be sustained between type and antitype or that predicted as there is also between the type and that symbolized. Only the most precious materials in the construction of the tabernacle were fit to represent the true tabernacle, God's church.

2. The antitype, though analogous to the type, yet is essentially different in nature from it. The type is material, the antitype is spiritual. Aaron, the priest, does not typify the Christian minister but something essentially different - the meditorial office of Christ.

3. The antitype is higher and more glorious than the type. The thing signified is more valuable than the sign, and eternal spiritual realities are more precious than temporal material things. Christ "is the mediator of a better covenant" (Heb. 8:6) than was Moses.

4. The antitype must contain, and furnish the basis for, the same element of truth as the type symbolizes. If the brazen serpent, as a type of Christ, was a symbol of salvation from death, then Christ's being lifted up must be for a similar purpose.

5. (This and the following rules are especially applicable to the ritual types.) An understanding of the name of a type is important to its interpretation; for, as in the "sin-offering," the name is given with direct reference to the idea represented.

6. A clear understanding of the outward constitution of the type is important to the correct interpretation of the antitype. To attempt to know the antitype without first knowing the type is like trying to reach an end without using the means.