Surprises in biblical typology

Surprises in biblical typology - Part two of two

Paul's epistles are to be understood against the background of the religious situation and moral needs of each particular audience. This counts especially for his letters to the Galatians and Corinthians.

Hans K. LaRondelle, Th.D., is professor emeritus of systematic theology at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan, United States.

An enormous tension with a potential for serious conflicts exists between the Old and the New Testaments. Historically this tension has resulted in different kinds of doctrinal systems. The first extreme decision was made by Marcion who, around A.D. 140, chose to omit the Old Testament (OT) from the canon and to limit the New Testament (NT) to only one Gospel (Luke) and ten epistles of Paul. He eliminated the rest of the NT because of its “judaizing” tendencies. Marcion thus cut the Christian faith off from its OT roots.

The second extreme solution to resolve the tension between the Testaments is represented by the influential Barnabas Letter, probably from a Gentile Christian of Alexandria in the early second century. He claimed to “impart perfect knowledge,” by means of a series of allegorical interpretations of OT passages, laws, and rituals (1:5; 5:1–8:7). This document represents a “christianizing” of the OT, reducing it to a collection of cryptic oracles, and changing the Christian faith into “a moralistic-dogmatic system.”1 Both radical solutions—elimination, allegorization—try to solve inherent tension between the Testaments by some unhistorical knowledge, some ideological program. Particularly in allegory, says Oscar Cullmann, “the salvation-historical meaning of Scripture is eliminated, making it merely a form for expressing some truth divorced from salvation history.”2Against such an abstract doctrinal approach, the NT stresses the harmony of the Scriptures in its developing salvation history. It recognizes in the appearance of Jesus of Nazareth the new events of God’s acting and speaking (Heb. 1:1, 2). These events reveal a pattern of parallel situations that are, however, consistently Christological and accompanied by “the principle of heightening and the notion of consummation.”3 E. Earle Ellis observes that such typological correspondences are not simply repetitions, but “always combined with a change of key in which some aspects of the type are not carried over and some are intensified.”4 This correlation of correspondence and contrast is particularly evident in Paul’s surprising typologies.

Paul’s theology of the Abrahamic covenant

In Romans, Paul applies Adam, rather than Moses, as a type of the promised Messiah (“a type of Him who was to come” [Rom. 5:14, NASB]). This innovative typology (Rom. 5:12–21) has been called Paul’s “creation” typology. In addition, Paul introduces an extensive covenant typology to serve his pastoral purposes. His epistles are to be understood against the background of the religious situation and moral needs of each particular audience. This counts especially for his letters to Galatians and Corinthians. Paul presents no systematic theological treatise on typology, yet occasionally he injects a typological perspective into his pastoral messages that serve to correct some misconceptions of God’s new covenant in Christ Jesus.

While it is characteristic of Paul to stress the essential continuity of his gospel message with God’s covenant with Abraham (Gal. 3 and Rom. 4), the apostle also recognizes specific changes in this process of continuity. In Galatians, Paul argues how believers in Christ enter into the Abrahamic covenant as legitimate heirs of the promised inheritance. The immediate occasion came from an acute crisis among Galatians, some of whom had become “bewitched” by a “different gospel” (Gal. 1:6–9; 3:1, 6, NASB; cf. Acts 15:1, 2). Paul reminds them of Abraham’s faith in the promises about his future offspring and their land, as described in Genesis 15:5–7. In God’s eyes Abraham was a genuine believer, and God responded by “crediting” Abraham’s faith “as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6; Gal. 3:6). For Paul, Abraham’s trusting faith stands as the prototype of saving faith that must be re-enacted presently by faith in God’s act of raising Jesus from the dead (Rom. 4:23, 24; 10:9). He concludes: “Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham” (Gal. 3:7, NIV). His theology allows “spiritual” offspring from Abraham; that is, any believer among Jews and Gentiles may enter by faith into the Abrahamic covenant, without the rite of circumcision (Gal. 5:6; 6:15). Paul also takes a further step. In the light of his Christian faith, he continues, “The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’ So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” (Gal. 3:8, 9, NIV; quoting Gen. 12:3). Rabbinic teaching had restricted Abraham’s “blessing” mainly to his belief in monotheism or his intercession for Gentiles,5 and explained Abraham’s faith as a meritorious act, so that he was really “justified” because of his work.6 Paul, however, asserts that “The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham” (Gal. 3:8). Paul’s interpretation stresses the essential unity of his gospel message with the Abrahamic covenant, which could be seen only in retrospect, in the light of the Christ event. Paul clarifies the salvation-historical perspective by interpreting the promised “seed” of Abraham as a Messianic promise fulfilled in Christ (Gal. 3:16). Thus his conclusion: “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:29, NIV). This astonishing implication lifts Christ and His people to the status of the Messianic age and Spirit, because in Him “the fullness of the time” of the Abrahamic promise is realized (Gal. 4:4, NASB; cf. 3:14).

Paul’s interpretation presents a fundamental advancement of Christian faith over Judaism, enlarging Abraham’s offspring and inheritance to universal proportions. Christ determines who belongs to Abraham’s offspring: only people of faith (Gal. 3:9, 26–29). And the land of the Canaanites (defined in Gen. 15:18, 19; 17:8) becomes a prophetic type of the world (see Rom. 4:13; cf. in Matt. 5:5, “the earth”). Paul’s implicit typology expands the Abrahamic covenant to include all who exercise the trusting faith of Abraham in the new epoch of time (Gal. 3:9). To the Romans, Paul explains: “The words ‘it was credited to him’ were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead” (Rom. 4:23, 24, NIV). Paul’s theology represents both an intensification of Abraham’s faith and hope, and a change of ritual entrance requirement into the Abrahamic covenant. Belonging to Christ is demonstrated now by “baptism into Christ” as incorporation into Christ and thus to become legitimate “heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:26–29, NIV).

Paul’s exodus typology

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul uses an Exodus typology for the purpose of warning some undisciplined Corinthian believers that Israel’s God is also the Judge of Christians under the new covenant (1 Cor. 10:1–13). “Consider the people of Israel,” he urges, and sees a need to apply a specific “judgment typology” within the framework of his covenant theology.  Paul points to the faithless and idolatrous Israelites as a type of faithless and licentious Christians (1 Cor. 10:7–11; cf. Ps. 78). Further, God’s judgments on the Exodus generation “occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did” (1 Cor. 10:6, NIV). Then, after discussing claims of some in Corinth to have freedom to sexual permissiveness and to join idolatrous festivals (1 Cor. 6:12–20; 10:23–33),7he reminds them that God will judge the church just as He did “our forefathers” (1 Cor. 10:1, NIV). Those were “baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” and ate the same “spiritual food” and drank the same “spiritual drink” from the “spiritual rock” that accompanied them (vv. 2–4, NIV), which “rock was Christ” (v. 4, NIV). These are more than coincidental analogies; they are significant salvation-historical correspondences. God’s earlier judgment on the idolaters and sexually immoral ones in Israel has not become irrelevant now, but has increased its pertinence in the time of the end: “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come” (v. 11, NIV).

To summarize Paul’s exodus typology: (1) The church of Christ receives her spiritual identity from being “baptized into Christ.” (2) The church needs to view Israel’s covenant experiences as warning types for her own covenant faithfulness to Christ. (3) The new covenant intensifi es Israel’s redemptive and judgment typologies for the Messianic age.

Consequently, Paul’s message is characterized by its salvation-historical-eschatological perspective.8 This typological perspective can be called a charismatic interpretation of the OT9 under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Paul read the Scriptures “with new eyes in the light of God’s revelation in Christ … [that produced] fresh and startling interpretations.”10

Christian typologies in Hebrews

Finally, we must turn to the Epistle to the Hebrews. This letter “offers the most elaborate Christian reading of the OT to be found in the NT.”11With peculiar force the author illuminates Christ and His work through striking typological applications that cover all of salvation history. Donald Hagner explains: “It is the Jesus Christ of history who stands as the goal, the achieved purpose of all God has said and done in the OT . . . . Christ, indeed, provides our author with a point of orientation from which he is able to read the OT with new understanding.”12 In other words, the inspired writer does not start with a historical exegesis of an OT passage, but chooses one that serves his purpose of illuminating the present salvation in Christ. Hebrews begins with the proclamation of Christ’s appearance as the “Son” of God, who has come as the ultimate Revealer of God’s glory and Mediator of His saving grace (1:1–3). To support this gospel truth he lists selected Messianic passages (Ps. 2; 2 Sam. 7; Pss. 45 and 110; Heb.1:5–13). Inasmuch as the Davidic kings, as imperfect types, presented a partial fulfillment of these royal psalms, Hebrews extends the story of the Davidic covenant by proclaiming its superior Messianic fulfillment in Christ Jesus.

Christ’s appearance has introduced the promised “last days” or Messianic age (Heb. 1:2). This progression in salvation history is the ground for the first pastoral exhortation: “Therefore we must pay greater attention to what we have heard,” because “how can we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?” (2:1–3, NRSV). This exhortation looks as well to the future judgment which is enlarged in 12:25–28. This salvation-historical continuity of past, present, and future, structures the letter “according to an ‘anticipation–consummation’ motif.”13 Its typological applications center on three aspects of Christ’s Messianic mission: His unique self-sacrifice, His heavenly priesthood, and His heirship to all things. The prologue affirms that God made His Son “heir to the whole universe . . . When he had brought about the purgation of sins, he took his seat at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (1:2, 3, NEB). The epistle then develops typologies as increasing realizations of God’s “eternal covenant” (13:20). He focuses particularly on the Messianic fulfillment of the old (“first”) covenant in the “new” (“better”) covenant (7:22; 8:6, 13; 9:1, 15). He stresses two inherent inadequacies of the first covenant: (1) The Mosaic sanctuary offered only limited access to God through Levitical high priests when they carried animal blood into the Most Holy Place (9:7). (2) Its “various ceremonial washings” were only “external regulations” that “cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper” (9:10, 13). In all these rituals the Levitical priests were serving “a copy and shadow of the heavenly things” (8:5, NASB), which is “ready to disappear” (8:13, NASB). The author introduces now a new kind of typology in God’s covenant relationship by adding a celestial dimension to the historical one. He briefly enumerates the provisions of the earthly sanctuary and their regulations for cultic worship (9:1–7). How does the author arrive at his Christian applications? He does not construct them by deductions from the earthly “shadows,” but rather reveals what “the Holy Spirit was showing” him in the light of the fulfi llment in Christ (9:8, NIV; “The Holy Spirit is signifying this” [NASB].). Christ’s sinless sacrifice and His superior ministry supplied the fundamental inadequacies of the old cultus—the limited access to God and the limited cleansing. The inspired writer compares first the entrance of the earthly high priests “once a year” into the Most Holy Place by means of animal blood, with the coming of Christ as our heavenly High Priest, who has entered “once for all [ephapax] into the Holy Place [eis ta hagia] . . . with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption” (9:12, NRSV).14 Note how 9:11, 12 strikingly parallels 9:7 where the ministry of the earthly high priest is described.

Then the apostle proceeds to the subsequent typological fulfillment in Christ. He now compares the external cleansing by means of animal blood with Christ’s superior ministry: “how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God!” (9:14, NRSV; cf. also 10:19–22; 7:25). Christ’s blood thus is infinitely more effective for the new-covenant believer. The benefits of direct access to God and of cleansing from a guilty conscience by the blood of Christ are so weighty to the apostle that he repeats them in 9:24–26, a passage universally recognized as pointing to particular ceremonies of the Day of Atonement. The apostle emphasizes their present gospel fulfillment: Christ has “entered” into heaven itself, “now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf”; “he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself” (9:24, 26, NRSV). “The apostle is telling us that we Christians are now like the earthly high priests who, alone, could come into the Most Holy Place. But whereas they had that privilege on but one day every year, we have it every day of the year.”15

The kind of benefits this privilege shall reveal in the lives of Christian believers is spelled out in the “better,” new-covenant promises (Heb. 8:6–13; quoting Jer. 31:31–34): (1) God’s promise to create new hearts in His covenant people, writing on them effectively His laws; (2) God’s gift of a redemptive knowledge of Him to each individual believer; (3) God’s assurance of His merciful blotting out of sins (cf. Isa. 45:23).

Hebrews 9 concludes with the assurance that Christ “will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (9:28, NRSV). This future “appearance” of Christ suggests an allusion to Israel’s eagerly awaited appearance of the high priest, when he officiated his cleansing rites inside the sanctuary on the Day of Atonement, but finally “came out” dressed again in the splendor of his priestly robes (Lev. 16:17, 23, 24).

Christ’s second appearance will far exceed this high-priestly type, because Christ shall bring the “full enjoyment of their inheritance. The parousia is thus the key event in the realization of salvation.”16Of this Christian hope, Abraham serves again as the prototype of believers: “he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (11:10, NIV; cf. vv. 13–16, 39, 40; 13:14). The apostle closely unites past, present, and future in his Christian view of salvation history (see 13:8). Through his Christian typologies he confirms the spiritual unity and continuity of God’s eternal covenant. Indeed, Hebrews stands out as the most elaborate typological interpretation of the OT in the New.

 

This article is part two of a two-part series:


1. See L. Goppelt, TYPOS (Darmstadt: Wissensch Buchges., 1969), 245–48 (C. “Conclusion”). Also
J. R. Michaels, in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 4 vols., rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1979), 1:206.
2. Oscar Cullmann, Salvation in History (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 133.
3. Ibid.
4. E. E. Ellis, Prophecy and Hermeneutic in Early Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1978), 169.
5. See Strack-Billerbeck , Kommentar zum NT (München: C.H. Beck, 1926), 3:538–41.
6. See Ibid., 3:188, 189.
7. For a comprehensive view of Gnostic influence in Corinth, see W. Schmithals, Gnosticism in Corinth (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1971). Also R. Bultmann, Theology of the NT (New York: Scribner, 1951), 1:168–72, and his article, “Ginôskô,” in Theological Dictionary of the NT, 1:709–11, regarding “knowledge” without love in 1 Cor. 8:1–13.
8. See N. Ridderbos, Paul. An Outline of His Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997), 39.
9. G. von Rad, OT Theology, 2 vols. (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 2:409.
10. R. B. Hays, in The New Interpreter’s Bible, 12 vols. (Nashville: Abingdon,) 11:279.
11. F. B. Craddock, in The New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon, 1998), 12:4.
12. D. A. Hagner, “Interpreting the Epistle to the Hebrews,” in The Literature and Meaning of Scripture, M. A. Inch and C. H. Bullock, eds. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1981), 225.
13. R. Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1975), 175.
14. The NKJV and NIV add the word “Most” to “Holy Place” [eis ta hagia] in Heb. 9:12, 25; 10:19 (or state: “Holiest”) to indicate their understanding of the intended meaning.
15. W. G. Johnsson, Hebrews (Boise, ID: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1994), 172. Adventist scholars acknowledge that Hebrews does not deal with Christ’s “two-phased mediatorial ministry in the heavenly sanctuary, which the letter to the Hebrews neither teaches nor denies” (Doctrine of the Sanctuary, Daniel and Revelation Committee Series 5, F. B. Holbrook, ed. [Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1989], 219). “For a complete picture of the nature and timing of the fulfillment of sanctuary typology” the apocalyptic
books of Daniel and Revelation “must be consulted” (R. M. Davidson, in Issues in the Book of Hebrews, F. B. Holbrook, ed. [Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1989], 185).
16. William L. Lane, Hebrews 9-13. Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word Books, 1991) 47B: 251.

 

 


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Hans K. LaRondelle, Th.D., is professor emeritus of systematic theology at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan, United States.

September 2007

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