Typology: A Description and Example

Typology is a kind of prophetic reality that interprets the Old Testament in light of the New Testament. The word typology comes from the Greek word "tupos" which means example, pattern, copy, image, form, type, and a wide variety of similar words. Tupos has the general idea of an image formed when a dye is stamped into wax or metal. The tupos is the image formed by the dye. The whole discussion of typology grows from New Testament passages where the word "tupos" appears. In these passages an image is seen in history. It is "stamped" into history by the spiritual realities that are operating behind the scenes. The New Testament passages mentioned most often in this regard are 1 Corinthians 10:11, Romans 5:13, 14, and Acts 7:44.

According to the New Testament, Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac functions as a "type" of Christ's death. The author of Hebrews commented on this Old Testament account in Hebrews 11:17-19. The author of Hebrews wrote, "By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac; he who had received the promises was offering up his unique son, about whom it had been said, In Isaac your seed will be called. He considered God to be able even to raise someone from the dead, from which he also got him back as an illustration." So Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac was a type. It was a picture in the Old Testament of Christ's death on a hill outside of Jerusalem, a death which would serve as a great sin-offering for His people. Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac was in a sense a prophecy lived out in history, even though nothing in the text itself claimed to be prophetic. This is what we mean when we speak of types in the Old Testament. A type is a picture of Christ or some other spiritual reality hidden behind the normal experiences of life.

This writer believes that because types are "hidden", the only way to recognize them is through divine inspiration. A present day prophet or apostle could recognize them; however, since there are none present today because of the sufficiency of the Word, this means that if there are more types in the Old Testament beyond what the New Testament identifies or points to, then they are indiscernible by the church today. This writer fears that if go beyond a "strict" view of typology, we'll see types on every page in the Old Testament. We just don't have the authority to see what isn't there.