The Typology of Scripture

... viewed in connection with the whole series of the divine dispensations

PATRICK FAIRBAIRN, D.D.
PRINCIPAL, AND PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, GLASGOW
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1900

[Text adapted from scan at Internet Archive]

VOL. I

CHAPTER 2.

THE PROPER NATURE AND PROVINCE OF TYPOLOGY.-- 1. SCRIPTURAL USE OF THE WORD TYPE-- COMPARISON OF THIS WITH THE THEOLOGICAL DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF A TYPICAL RELATIONSHIP, VIEWED WITH RESPECT TO THE RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

THE language of Scripture being essentially popular, its use of particular terms naturally partakes of the freedom and variety which are wont to appear in the current speech of a people; and it rarely if ever happens that words are employed, in respect to topics requiring theological treatment, with such precision and uniformity as to enable us, from this source alone, to attain to proper accuracy and fulness. The word type (*****) forms no exception to this usage. Occurring once, at least, in the natural sense of mark or impress made by a hard substance on one of softer material (John xx. 25), it commonly bears the general import of model, pattern, or exemplar, but with such a wide diversity of application as to comprehend a material object of worship, or idol (Acts vii. 43), an external framework constructed for the service of God (Acts vii. 44; Heb. viii. 5), the form or copy of an epistle (Acts xxiii. 25), a method of doctrinal instruction delivered by the first heralds and teachers of the Gospel (Rom. vi. 17), a representative character, or, in certain respects, normal example (Rom. v. 14; 1 Cor. x. 11; Phil. iii. 17; 1 Thess. i. 7; 1 Pet. v. 3). Such in New Testament Scripture is the diversified use of the word type (disguised, however, under other terms in the authorized version). It is only in the last of the applications noticed, that it has any distinct bearing on the subject of our present inquiry; and this also comprises under it so much of diversity, that if we were to draw our definition of a type simply from the scriptural use of the term, we could give no more specific description of it than this a certain pattern or exemplar exhibited in the position and character of some individuals, to which others may or should be conformed. Adam stood, we are told, in the relation of a type to the coming Messiah, backsliding Israelites in their guilt and punishment to similar characters in Christian times, faithful pastors to their flocks, first converts to those who should afterwards believe, a manifestly varied relationship, closer in some than in others, yet in each implying a certain resemblance between the parties associated together; something in the one that admitted of being virtually reproduced in the other. Thus defined and understood, it will be observed that a type is no more peculiar to one dispensation than another. It is to be found now in the true pastor or the exemplary Christian as well as formerly in Adam or in Israel; and since believers generally are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ, he might, of course, be designated for all times emphatically and pre-eminently the type of the Church.

But presented in this loose and general form, there is nothing in the nature of a type that can be said to call for particular investigation, or that may occasion material difference of opinion. The subject involves only a few leading ideas, which are familiar to every intelligent reader of Scripture, and which can prove of small avail to the satisfactory explication of what is peculiar in the history of the divine dispensations. When, however, with reference more to the subject itself than to the mere employment of a particular word in connection with it, we pursue our researches into the testimony of Scripture, we presently find relations indicated between one class of things and another, which, while the same in kind, perhaps, with those just noticed, have yet distinctive features of their own, which call for thoughtful inquiry and discriminating treatment. These have already to some extent come into consideration in the historical and critical review that has been presented of past opinion. [1] It is enough to refer here to such passages as Heb. ix. 24 where the holy places of the earthly tabernacle are called the antitypes (*****) of the true or heavenly; the latter, of course, according to this somewhat peculiar phraseology, being viewed as the types of the other: Heb. viii. 5 where the whole structure of the tabernacle, with its appointed ritual of service, is designated an example and shadow (*** ***) of heavenly things: Ps. ex. 4; Heb. vi. 10-12, vii. where Melchizedek is exalted over the ministering priesthood of that tabernacle, as bearing in some important respects a still closer relationship to Christ than was given them to occupy: 1 Pet. iii. 21 where Christian baptism is denominated the antitype to the deluge, and by implication the deluge is made the type of baptism: Matt. ii. 15; Luke xxii. 16; 1 Cor. v. 7; John ii. 19, vi. 31-33; 1 Cor. x. 4 where Christ is in a manner identified with the corporate Israel, the passover, the temple, the manna, the water-giving rock. When reading these passages, and others of alike description, our minds instinctively inquire what is the nature of the connection indicated by them between the past and the present in God's economy? Is it such as subsists between things alike in principle, but diverse in form? between things on the same spiritual level, or things rising from a lower to a higher level? Is the connection strictly the same in all, or does it vary with the objects and parties compared? What light is thrown by the different elements entering into it upon the revealed character of God, and the progressive condition of His Church? Can we discover in them the lines of a divine harmony in the one respect, and of a human harmony in the other? Such are the questions which here naturally press on us for solution; and they are questions altogether occasioned by peculiarities in preceding dispensations as compared with that of the Gospel. The relation of the present to the still coming future which is that simply of the initial to the terminal processes of the salvation already accomplished is of a much less complicated and embarrassing kind, and can scarcely be said to give rise to questions of the class now specified.

In another respect, however, substantially the same questions arise-- namely, in connection with much that is indicated of the anticipated future of the Christian Church, pointing, as it does, even after Christian realities had come, to further developments of the forms and relations of earlier times. For in the prospective delineations which are given us in Scripture respecting the final issues of Christ's kingdom among men, while the foundation of all undoubtedly lies in the mediatorial work and offices of Christ Himself, it still is through the characters, ordinances, and events of the Old Covenant, not those of the New (with the exception just specified), that the things to come are shadowed forth to the eye of faith; the forms of things in the remote past have here also, it would seem, to find their proper complement and destined realization. Thus Israel still appears, among the prophetic glimpses in question, with his twelve tribes, his marvellous redemption, wilderness sojourn, and rescued inheritance; [2] and the tabernacle or temple, with its courts and sanctuaries, its ark of testimony and cherubim of glory, its altars and offerings; [3] and the ancient priesthood, with their linen robes and angel-like service; [4] Zion and Jerusalem, Babylon and Euphrates, Sodom and Egypt; [5] and more remote still, especially when the mystery of God in Christ is seen approaching its consummation, paradise with its tree of life and rivers of gladness, its perennial delights, and over all its heaven crowned Lord, with the spouse formed from Himself to share with Him in the glory, and yield Him faithful service in the kingdom. [6] No more, amid the anticipations of Christian faith and hope, are we permitted to lose sight of the personages and materials of the earlier dispensations, than in those which took shape under pre-Christian times.

Having respect, therefore, to the nature of the subject under consideration, and the more peculiar difficulties attending it, rather than to the infrequent and variable use of the word type in Scripture, theologians have been wont to distinguish between existing relationships (such as of a pastor to his people, or of Christ to the heirs of His glory) and those which connect together bygone with Christian times the things pertaining to the Old with those pertaining to the New Covenant. The former alone they have usually designated by the name of types, the latter by that of antitypes. This mode of distinguishing by theologians has been represented as an unwise departure from scriptural usage, and in itself necessarily fitted to mislead. [7] It admits, however, of a reasonable justification; and to treat the subject with any thing like scientific precision and fulness, without determining after such a method the respective provinces of type and antitype, would be found extremely inconvenient, if not impracticable. The testimony of Scripture itself, when fairly consulted, affords ground for the distinction indicated, in a great measure apart from and beyond the application of the specific terms. By adhering closely to its usage in respect to these, and disregarding other considerations, one might readily enough, indeed, present some popular illustrations, or throw off a few general outlines of the typical field; but to get at its more distinctive characteristics, and explicate with some degree of satisfaction the difficulties with which it invests, to our view, the evolution of God's plan and ways, is a different thing, and demands a greatly more exact and comprehensive line of investigation. The extravagance which has too often characterized the speculations of divines upon the subject has arisen, not from their devising a theological sense for the word type (which Scripture itself might be said to force on them), but from their failure to search out the fundamental principles involved in the whole representations of Scripture, and to make a judicious and discriminating application of the light thence arising to the different parts of the subject. [8]

Understanding the word type, then, in the theological sense, that is, conceiving its strictly proper and distinctive sphere to lie in the relations of the old to the new, or the earlier to the later, in God's dispensations, there are two things which, by general consent, are held to enter into the constitution of a type. It is held, first, that in the character, action, or institution which is denominated the type, there must be a resemblance in form or spirit to what answers to it under the Gospel; and secondly, that it must not be any character, action, or institution occurring in Old Testament Scripture, but such only as had their ordination of God, and were designed by Him to foreshadow and prepare for the better things of the Gospel. For, as Bishop Marsh has justly remarked, "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 antitype must have been pre-ordained; and they must have been pre-ordained as constituent parts of the same general scheme of Divine Providence. It is this previous design and this preordained connection [together, of course, with the resemblance], which constitute the relation of type and antitype." [9] We insert, together with the resemblance; for, while stress is justly laid on the previous design and pre-ordained connection, the resemblance also forms an indispensable element in this very connection, and is, in fact, the point that involves the more peculiar difficulties belonging to the subject, and calls for the closest investigation.

I. We begin, therefore, with the other point-- the previous design and pre-ordained connection necessarily entering into the relation between type and antitype. A relation so formed, and subsisting to any extent between Old and New Testament things, evidently presupposes and implies two important facts. It implies, first, that the realities of the Gospel, which constitute the antitypes, are the ultimate objects which were contemplated by the mind of God, when planning the economy of His successive dispensations. And it implies, secondly, that to prepare the way for the introduction of these ultimate objects, He placed the Church under a course of training, which included instruction by types, or designed and fitting resemblances of what was to come. Both of these facts are so distinctly stated in Scripture, and, indeed, so generally admitted, that it will be unnecessary to do more than present a brief outline of the proof on which they rest.

1. In regard to the first of the two facts, we find the designation of "the ends of the world " applied in Scripture to the Gospel-age; [10] and that not so much in respect to its posteriority in point of time, as to its comparative maturity in regard to the things of salvation the higher and better things having now come, which had hitherto appeared only in prospect or existed but in embryo. On the same account the Gospel dispensation is called " the dispensation of the fulness of times;" [11] indicating that with it alone the great objects of faith and hope, which the Church was from the first destined to possess, were properly brought within her reach. Only with the entrance also of this dispensation does the great mystery of God, in connection with man's salvation, come to be disclosed, and the light of a new and more glorious era at last breaks upon the Church. "The dayspring from the height," in the expressive language of Zacharias, then appeared, and made manifest what had previously been wrapt in comparative obscurity, what had not even been distinctly conceived, far less satisfactorily enjoyed. [12] Here, therefore, in the sublime discoveries and abounding consolations of the Gospel, is the reality, in its depth and fulness, while in the earlier endowments and institutions of the Church there was no more than a shadowy exhibition and a partial experience; [13] and as a necessary consequence, the most eminent in spiritual light and privilege before, were still decidedly inferior even to the less distinguished members of the Messiah's kingdom. [14] In a word, the blessed Redeemer, whom the Gospel reveals, is Himself the beginning and the end of the scheme of God's dispensations; in Him is found alike the centre of Heaven's plan, and the one foundation of human confidence and hope. So that before His coming into the world, all things of necessity pointed toward Him; types and prophecies bore testimony to the things that concerned His work and kingdom; the children of blessing were blessed in anticipation of His promised redemption; and with His coming, the grand reality itself came, and the higher purposes of Heaven entered on their fulfilment. [15]

2. The other fact presupposed and implied in the relation between type and antitype, namely, that God subjected the Church to a course of preparatory training, including instruction by types, before He introduced the realities of His final dispensation, is written with equal distinctness in the page of inspiration. It is scarcely possible, indeed, to dissociate even in idea the one fact from the other; for, without such a course of preparation being perpetually in progress, the long delay which took place in the introduction of the Messiah's kingdom, would be quite inexplicable. Accordingly, the Church of the Old Testament is constantly represented as having been in a state of comparative childhood, supplied only with such means of instruction, and subjected to such methods of discipline as were suited to so imperfect and provisional a period of her being. Her law, in its higher aim and object, was a school-master to bring men to Christ; [16] and every thing in her condition-- what it wanted, as well as what it possessed, what was done-- for her, and what remained yet to be done concurred in pointing the way to Him who was to come with the better promises and the perfected salvation. [17] Such is the plain import of a great many scriptures bearing on the subject.

It is to be noted, however, in regard to this course of preparation, continued through so many ages, that every thing in the mode of instruction and discipline employed ought not to be regarded as employed simply for the sake of those who lived during its continuance. It was, no doubt, primarily introduced on their account, and must have been wisely adapted to their circumstances, as under preparation for better things to come. But, at the same time, it must also, like the early training of a well-educated youth, have been fitted to tell with beneficial effect on the spiritual life of the Church in her more advanced state of existence, after she had actually attained to those better things themselves. The man of mature age, when pursuing his way amid the perplexing cares and busy avocations of life, finds himself continually indebted to the lessons he was taught and the skill he has acquired during the period of his early culture. And, in like manner, it was undoubtedly God's intention that His method of procedure toward the Church in her state of minority, not only should minister what was needed for her immediate instruction and improvement, but should also furnish materials of edification and comfort for believers to the end of time. If the earlier could not be made perfect without the things belonging to the later Church, [18] so neither, on the other hand, can the later profitably or even safely dispense with the advantage she may derive from the more simple and rudimentary things that belonged to the earlier. The Church, considered as God's nursery for training souls to a meetness for immortal life and blessedness, is substantially the same through all periods of her existence; and the things which were appointed for the behoof of her members in one age, had in them also something of lasting benefit for those on whom the ends of the world are come. [19]

It is further to be noted, that in this work of preparation for the more perfect future, arrangements of a typical kind, being of a somewhat recondite nature, necessarily occupied a relative and subsidiary, rather than the primary and most essential place. The Church enjoyed from the first the benefit of direct and explicit instruction, imparted either immediately by the hand of God, or through the instrumentality of His accredited messengers. From this source she always derived her knowledge of the more fundamental truths of religion, and also her more definite expectations of the better things to come. The fact is of importance, both as determining the proper place of typical acts and institutions, and as indicating a kind of extraneous and qualifying element, that must not be overlooked in judging of the condition of believers under them. Yet they were not, on that account, rendered less valuable or necessary as constituent parts of a preparatory dispensation; for it was through them, as temporary expedients and by virtue of the resemblances they possessed to the higher things in prospect, that the realities of Christ's kingdom obtained a kind of present realization to the eye of faith. What, then, was the nature of these resemblances? Wherein precisely did the similarity which formed more especially the preparatory elements in the Old, as compared with the New, really lie? This is the point that mainly calls for elucidation.

II. It is the second point we were to investigate, as being that which would necessarily require the most lengthened and careful examination. And the general statement we submit respecting it is, that two things were here essentially necessary: there must have been in the Old the same great elements of truth as in the things they represented under the New; and then, in the Old, these must have been exhibited in a form more level to the comprehension, more easily and distinctly cognizable by the minds of men.

1. There must have been, first, the same great elements of truth, for the mind of God and the circumstances of the fallen creature are substantially the same at all times. What the spiritual necessities of men now are, they have been from the time that sin entered into the world. Hence the truth revealed by God to meet these necessities, however varying from time to time in the precise amount of its communications, and however differing also in the external form under which it might be presented, must have been, so far as disclosed, essentially one in every age. For, otherwise, what anomalous results would follow! If the principles unfolded in God's communications to men, and on which He regulates His dealings toward them, were materially different at one period from what they are at another, then either the wants and necessities of men's natural condition must have undergone a change, or these being the same, as they undoubtedly are the character of God must have altered. He can not be the immutable Jehovah. Besides, the very idea of a course of preparatory dispensations were, on the supposition in question, manifestly excluded; since that could have had no proper ground to rest on, unless there was a deep-rooted and fundamental agreement between what was merely provisional and what was final and ultimate in the matter. The primary and essential elements of truth, therefore, which are embodied in the facts of the Gospel, and on which its economy of grace is based, can not, in the nature of things, be of recent origin-- as if they were altogether peculiar to the New Testament dispensation, and had only begun with the entrance of it to obtain a place in the government of God. On the contrary, their existence must have formed the groundwork, and their varied manifestation the progress, of any preparatory dispensations that might be appointed. And whatever ulterior respect the typical characters, actions, or institutions of those earlier dispensations might carry to the coming realities of the Gospel, their more immediate intention and use must have consisted in the exhibition they gave of the vital and fundamental truths common alike to all dispensations.

2. If a clear and conclusive certainty attaches to this part of our statement, it does so in even an increased ratio to the other. Holding that the same great elements of truth must of necessity pervade both type and antitype, we must also assuredly believe that in the former they were more simply and palpably exhibited-- presented in some shape in which the human mind could more easily and distinctly apprehend them-- than in the latter. It would manifestly have been absurd to admit into a course of preparation for the realities of the Gospel certain temporary exhibitions of the same great elements of truth that were to pervade these, unless the preparatory had been of more obvious meaning, and of more easy comprehension than the ultimate and final. The transition from the one to the other must clearly have involved a rise in the mode of exhibiting the truth from a lower to a higher territory-- from a form of development more easily grasped, to a form which should put the faculties of the mind to a greater stretch. For thus only could it be wise or proper to set up preparatory dispensations at all. These, manifestly, had been better spared, if the realities themselves lay more, or even so much, within the reach and comprehension of the mind, as their temporary and imperfect representations.

Standing, then, on the foundation of these two principles, as necessarily forming the essential elements of the resemblance that subsisted between the Old and the New in God's dispensations, we may now proceed to consider how far they can legitimately carry us in explaining the subject in hand; or, in other words, to answer the question, how on such a basis the typical things of the past could properly serve as preparatory arrangements for the higher and better things of the future? We shall endeavor to answer this question, in the first instance, by making application of our principles to the symbolical institutions of the Mosaic dispensation, which are usually denominated the ritual or legal types. For, in respect to these we have the advantage of the most explicit assertion in Scripture of their typical character; and we are also furnished with certain general descriptions of their nature as typical, which may partly serve as lights to direct our inquiries, and partly provide a test by which to try the correctness of their results.

Now, viewing the institutions of the dispensation brought in by Moses as typical, we look at them in what may be called their secondary aspect; we consider them as prophetic symbols of the better things to come in the Gospel. But this evidently implies that in another and more immediate respect they were merely symbols, that is, outward and sensible representations of divine truth, in connection with an existing dispensation and a religious worship. It was only from their being this, in the one respect, that they could, in the other, be prophetic symbols, or types, of what was afterwards to appear under the Gospel; on the ground already stated, that the preparatory dispensation to which they belonged was necessarily inwrought with the same great elements of truth which were afterwards, in another form, to pervade the Christian. Had there not been the identity in the truths here supposed, assimilating, amid all outward diversities, the two dispensations in spirit to each other, the earlier would rather have blocked up than prepared and opened the way for the latter. A partial exhibition of a truth, or an embodiment of it in things comparatively little, easily grasped by the understanding, and but imperfectly satisfying the mind, may certainly make way for its exhibition in a manner more fully adapted to its proper nature:-- The mind thus familiarized to it in the little, may both have the desire created and the capacity formed for beholding its development in things of a far higher and nobler kind. But a partial or defective representation of an object, apart from any principles common to both, must rather tend to pre-occupy the mind, and either entirely prevent it from anticipating, or fill it with mistaken and prejudiced notions of the reality. If such a representation of the mere objects of the Gospel had been all that was aimed at in the symbolical institutions of the Old Testament-- if their direct, immediate, and only use had been to serve, as pictures, to prefigure and presentiate to the soul the future realities of the divine kingdom-- then who could wonder if these realities should have been wholly lost sight of before, or misbelieved and repudiated when they came? For, in that case, the preparatory dispensation must have been far more difficult for the worshipper than the ultimate one. The child must have had a much harder lesson to read, and a much higher task to accomplish, than the man of fullgrown and ripened intellect. And divine wisdom must have employed its resources, not to smooth the Church's path to an enlightened view and a believing reception of the realities of the Gospel, but rather to shroud them in the most profound and perplexing obscurities.

Every serious and intelligent believer will shrink from this conclusion. But if he does so, he will soon find that there is only one way of effectually escaping from it, and that is, by regarding the symbolical institutions of the Old Covenant as not simply or directly representations of the realities of the Gospel, but in the first instance as parts of an existing dispensation, and, as such, expressive of certain great and fundamental truths, which could even then be distinctly understood and embraced. This was what might be called their more immediate and ostensible design. Their further and prospective reference to the higher objects of the Gospel, was of a more indirect and occult nature; and stood in the same essential truths being exhibited by means of present and visible, but inferior and comparatively inadequate objects. So that, in tracing out the connection from the one to the other, we must always begin with inquiring, What, per se, was the native import of each symbol? What truths did it symbolize merely as part of an existing religion? and from this proceed to unfold how it was fitted to serve as a guide and a stepping-stone to the glorious events and issues of Messiah's kingdom. This-- which it was the practice of the elder typological writers in great measure to overlook-- is really the foundation of the whole matter; and without it every typological system must either contract itself within very narrow bounds, or be in danger of diverging into superficial or fanciful analogies. The Mosaic ritual had at once a shell, and a kernel, its shell, the outward rites and observances it enjoined; its kernel, the spiritual relations which these indicated, and the spiritual truths which they embodied and expressed. Substantially these truths and relations were, and must have been, the same for the Old that they are for the New Testament worshippers, having in each the same wants and necessities to meet, and the same God condescending to meet them. There, therefore, in that fundamental agreement, that internal and pre-established harmony of principle, we are to find the bond of union between the symbolical institutions of Judaism and the permanent realities of Messiah's kingdom. One truth in both-- but that truth existing first in a lower, then in a higher stage of development; in the one case appearing as a precious bud embosomed and but partially seen amid the imperfect relations of flesh and time: in the other, expanding itself under the bright sunshine of heaven into all the beauty and fruitfulness of which it was susceptible.

To make our meaning perfectly understood, however, we must descend from the general to the particular, and apply what has been stated to a special case. In doing so, we shall go at once to what may justly be termed the very core of the religion of the Old Covenant-- the rite of expiatory sacrifice. That this was typically or prophetically symbolical of the death of Christ, is testified with much plainness and frequency in New Testament Scripture. Yet, independently of this connection with Christ's death, it had a meaning of its own, which it was possible for the ancient worshipper to understand, and, so understanding, to present through it an acceptable service to God, whether he might perceive or not the further respect it bore to a dying Saviour. It was in its own nature a symbolical transaction, embodying a threefold idea: first, that the worshipper, having been guilty of sin, had forfeited his life to God; then, that the life so forfeited must be surrendered to divine justice; and finally that being surrendered in the way appointed, it was given back to him again by God, or he became re-established, as a justified person, in the divine favor and fellowship. How far a transaction of this kind, done symbolically and not really by means of an irrational creature substituted in the sinner's room, and unconsciously devoted to lose its animal in lieu of his intelligent and rational life-- might commend itself as altogether satisfactory to his view; or how far he might see reason to regard it as but a provisional arrangement, proceeding on the contemplation of something more perfect yet to come;-- these are points which might justly be raised, and will indeed call for future discussion, but they are somewhat extraneous to the subject itself now under consideration. We are viewing the rite of expiatory sacrifice simply as a constituent part of ancient worship,-- a religious service which formally, and without notification from itself of any thing further being required, presented the sinner with the divinely appointed means of reconciliation and restored fellowship with God. In this respect it symbolically represented, as we have said, a threefold idea, which if properly understood and realized by the worshipper, he performed, in offering it, an acceptable service. And when we rise from the symbolical to the typical view of the transaction-- when we proceed to consider the rite of expiation as bearing a prospective reference to the redemption of Christ, we are not to be understood as ascribing to it some new sense or meaning; we merely express our belief that the complex capital idea which it so impressively symbolized, finds its only true, as from the first its destined, realization in the work of salvation by Jesus Christ. For in Him alone was there a real transference of man's guilt to one able and willing to bear it; in His death alone, the surrender of a life to God, such as could fitly stand in the room of that forfeited by the sinner; and in faith alone on that death, a full and conscious appropriation of the life of peace and blessing obtained by Him for the justified. So that here only it is we perceive the idea of a true, sufficient, and perfect sacrifice converted into a living reality such as the holy eye of God, and the troubled conscience of man, can alike repose in with unmingled satisfaction. And while there appear precisely the same elements of truth in the ever-recurring sacrifices of the Old Testament, and in the one perfect sacrifice of the New, it is seen, at the same time, that what the one symbolically represented, the other actually possessed; what the one could only exhibit as a kind of acted lesson for the present relief of guilty consciences, the other makes known to us, as a work finally and forever accomplished for all who believe in the propitiation of the cross.

The view now given of the symbolical institutions of the Old Testament, as prophetic symbols of the realities of the Gospel, is in perfect accordance with the general descriptions we nave of their nature in Scripture itself. These are of two classes. In the one they are declared to have been shadows of the better things of the Gospel; as in Heb. x. 1, where the law is said to have had " a shadow, and not the very image of good things to come; " in ch. viii. 5, where the priests are described as "serving unto the example (copy) and shadow of heavenly things;" and again in Col. ii. 16, where the fleshly ordinances in one mass are denominated "shadows of good things to come," while it is added, "the body is of Christ." Now, that the tabernacle, with the ordinances of every kind belonging to it, were shadows of Christ and the blessings of His kingdom, can only mean that they were obscure and imperfect resemblances of these; or that they embodied the same elements of divine truth, but wanted what was necessary to give them proper form and consistence as parts of a final and abiding dispensation of God. And when we go to inquire wherein did the obscurity and imperfection consist, we are always referred to the carnal and earthly nature of the Old as compared with the New. The tabernacle itself was a material fabric, constructed of such things as this present world could supply, and hence called "a worldly sanctuary"; while its counterpart under the Gospel is the eternal region of God's presence and glory, neither discernible by fleshly eye, nor made by mortal hands. In like manner, the ordinances of worship connected with the tabernacle were all ostensibly directed to the preservation of men's present existence, or the advancement of their well-being as related to an outward sanctuary and a terrestrial commonwealth; while in the Gospel it is the soul's relation to the sanctuary above, and its possession of an immortal life of blessedness and glory, which all is directly intended to provide for. In these differences between the Old and the New, which bespeak so much of inferiority on the part of the former, we perceive the darkness and imperfection which hung around the things of the ancient dispensation, and rendered them shadows only of those which were to come. But still shadows are resemblances. Though unlike in one respect, they must be like in another. And as the unlikeness stood in the dissimilar nature of the things immediately handled and perceived in the different materiel, so to speak, of the two dispensations, wherein should the resemblance be found but in the common truths and relations alike pervading both? By means of an earthly tabernacle, with its appropriate services, God manifested toward His people the same principles of government, and required from them substantially the same disposition and character, that He does now under the higher dispensation of the Gospel. For, look beyond the mere outward diversities, and what o you see? You see in both alike a pure and holy God, enshrined in the recesses of a glorious sanctuary, unapproachable by sinful flesh but through a medium of powerful intercession and cleansing efficacy; yet, when so approached, ever ready to receive and bless with the richest tokens of His favor and loving-kindness as many as come in the exercise of genuine contrition for sin, and longing for restored fellowship with Him whom they have offended. The same description applies equally to the service of both dispensations; for in both the same impressions are conveyed of God's character respecting sin and holiness, and the same gracious feelings necessarily awakened by them in the bosom of sincere worshippers. But, then, as to the means of accomplishing this, there was only, in the one case, a shadowy exhibition of spiritual things through earthly materials and temporary expedients; while in the other the naked realities appear in the one perfect sacrifice of Christ, the rich endowments of the Spirit of grace, and the glories of an everlasting kingdom.

The other general description given in New Testament scripture of the prophetic symbols or types of the Old dispensation does not materially differ from the one now considered, and, when rightly understood, leads to the same result. According to it, the religious institutions of earlier times contained the rudiments or elementary principles of the world's religious truth and life. Thus, in Col. ii. 20, the now antiquated ordinances of Judaism are called "the rudiments of the world"; and in Gal. iv. 3, the Church, while under these ordinances, is said to have been " in bondage under the elements (or rudiments) of the world." The expression, also, which is found in ch. iii. 24 of this Epistle to the Galatians, " the law was our pedagogue to bring us to Christ," conveys much the same idea; since it was the special business of the ancient pedagogue to train the youth to proper habits, and, without himself imparting more than the merest elements of learning, to conduct him to those who were qualified to give it. The law did this for such as were placed under it, by means of its symbolical institutions and ordinances, which at once conveyed to the understanding a measure of instruction, and trained and disciplined the will. It was from its very nature imperfect, and pointed to something higher and better. Believers were kept by it in a kind of bondage, but one which, by its formative and elevating character, was ever ripening its subjects for a state in which it should no more be needed. It was only necessary that the light so imparted should be received, and the mode of life enjoined be sincerely followed, in order that the disciple of Moses might pass with intelligence and delight from his rudimental tutelage, under the shadows of good things, into the free use and enjoyment of the things themselves.

The general descriptions, then, given of the symbolical institutions and services of the Old Testament, in their relation to the Gospel, perfectly accord with the principles we have advanced. And viewed in the light now presented, we at once see the essential unity that subsists between the Old and the New dispensations, and the nature of that progression in the divine plan which rendered the one a fitting preparation and stepping-stone to the other. In its fundamental elements the religion of both covenants is thus found to be identical. Only it appears under the Old Covenant as on a lower platform, disclosing its ideas and imparting its blessings through the imperfect instrumentalities of fleshly relations and temporal concerns; while under the New every thing rises heavenwards, and eternal realities come distinctly and prominently into view. But as ideas and relations are more palpable to the mind, and lie more within the grasp of its comprehension, when exhibited on a small scale, in corporeal forms, amid familiar and present objects, than on a scale of large dimensions, which stretches into the unseen, and embraces alike the divine and human, time and eternity; so the economy of outward symbolical institutions was in itself simpler than the Gospel, and, as a lower exhibition of divine truth, prepared the way for a higher. But they did this, let it be observed, in their character merely as symbolical institutions, or parts of a dispensation then existing, not as typically foreshadowing the things belonging to a higher and more spiritual dispensation yet to come. It was comparatively an easy thing for the Jewish worshipper to understand how, from time to time, he stood related to a visible sanctuary and an earthly inheritance, or to go through the process of an appointed purification by means of water and the blood of slain victims applied externally to his body, much more easy than for the Christian to apprehend distinctly his relation to a heavenly sanctuary, and realize the cleansing of his conscience from all guilt by the inward application of the sacrifice of Christ and the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit. But for the Jewish worshipper to do both his own and the Christian's part, both to read the meaning of the symbol as expressive of what was already laid open to his view, and to descry its concealed reference to the yet undiscovered realities of a better dispensation, would have required a reach of discernment and a strength of faith far beyond what is now needed in the Christian. For this had been, not like him to discern the heavenly, when the heavenly had come, but to do it amid the obscurities and imperfections of the earthly; not simply to look with open eye into the deeper mysteries of God's kingdom, when these mysteries are fully disclosed, but to do so while they were still buried amid the thick folds of a cumbrous and overshadowing drapery.

Yet let us not be mistaken. We speak merely of what was strictly required, and what might ordinarily be expected of the ancient worshipper, in connection with the institutions and services of his symbolical religion, taken simply by themselves. We do not say that there never was, much less that there could not be, any proper insight obtained by the children of the Old Covenant into the future mysteries of the Gospel. There were special gifts of grace then, as well as now, occasionally imparted to the more spiritual members of the covenant, which enabled them to rise to unusual degrees of knowledge; and it is a distinctive property of the spiritual mind generally to be dissatisfied with the imperfect, to seek and long for the perfect. Even now, when the comparatively perfect has come, what spiritual mind is not often conscious to itself of a feeling akin to melancholy, when it thinks of the yet abiding darkness and disorders of the present, or does not fondly cling to every hopeful indication of a brighter future? But even the best things of the Old Covenant bore on them the stamp of imperfection. The temple itself, which was the peculiar glory and ornament of Israel, still in a very partial and defective manner realized its own grand idea of a people dwelling with God, and God dwelling with them; and hence, because of that inherent imperfection, it was distinctly intimated, a higher and better mode of accomplishing the object should one day take its place. [20] So, too, the palpable disproportion already noticed in the rite of expiatory sacrifice between the rational life forfeited through sin, and the merely animal life substituted in its room, seemed to proclaim the necessity of a more adequate atonement for human guilt, and could not but dispose intelligent worshippers to give more earnest heed to the announcements of prophecy regarding the coming purposes of Heaven. But yet, when we have admitted all this, it by no means follows that the people of God generally, under the Old Covenant, could attain to very definite views of the realities of the Gospel; nor does it furnish us with any reason for asserting that such views must ever of necessity have mingled with the service of an acceptable worshipper. For his was the worship of a preparatory dispensation. It must, therefore, have been simpler and easier than what was ultimately to supplant it And this, we again repeat, it could only be by being viewed in its more obvious and formal aspect, as the worship of an existing religion, which provided for the time then present a fitting medium of access to God, and hallowed intercourse with heaven. The man who humbly availed himself of what was thus provided to meet his soul's necessities, stood in faith, and served God with acceptance, though still with such imperfections in the present, and such promises for the future, that the more always he reflected, he would become the more a child of desire and hope. [21]

We have spoken as yet only of the symbolical institutions and services of the Old Testament; and of these quite generally, as one great whole. For it is carefully to be noted, that the scriptural designations of rudiments and shadows, which we have shown to be the same as typical when properly understood, are applied to the entire mass of the ancient ordinances in their prospective reference to Gospel realities. And yet, while New Testament Scripture speaks thus of the whole, it deals very sparingly in particular examples; and if it furnishes, in its language and allusions, many valuable hints to direct inquiry, it still contains remarkably few detailed illustrations. It nowhere tells us, for example, what was either immediately symbolized or prophetically shadowed forth, by the Holy Place in the tabernacle, or the shew-bread, or the golden candlestick, or the ark of the covenant, or, indeed, by any thing connected with the tabernacle, excepting its more prominent offices and ministrations. Even the Epistle to the Hebrews, which enters with such comparative fulness into the connection between the Old and the New, and which is most express in ascribing a typical value to all that belonged to the tabernacle, can yet scarcely be said to give any detailed explanation of its furniture and services beyond the rite of expiatory sacrifice, and the action of the high priest in presenting it, more particularly on the great day of atonement. So that those who insist on an explicit warrant and direction from Scripture in regard to each particular type, will find their principle conducts them but a short way even through that department, which, they are obliged to admit, possesses throughout a typical character. A general admission of this sort can be of little use, if one is restrained on principle from touching most of the particulars; one might as well maintain that these stood entirely disconnected from any typical property. So, indeed, Bishop Marsh has substantially done; for, "that such explanations," he says, referring to particular types, "are in various instances given in the New Testament, no one can deny. And if it was deemed necessary to explain one type, where could be the expediency or moral fitness of withholding the explanation of others? Must not, therefore, the silence of the New Testament in the case of any supposed type, be an argument against the existence of that type?" [22] Undoubtedly, we reply, if the Scriptures of the New Testament professed to illustrate the whole field of typical matter in God's ancient dispensations; but by no means if, as is really the case, they only take it up in detached portions, by way of occasional example; and still less, if the effect would be practically to exclude from the character of types many of the very institutions and services which are declared to have been all "shadows of good things to come, whereof the body is Christ." How we ought to proceed in applying the general views that have been unfolded to the interpretation of such parts of the Old Testament symbols as have not been explained in New Testament Scripture, will no doubt require careful consideration. But that we are both warranted and bound to give them a Christian interpretation, is manifest from the general character that is ascribed to them. And the fact that so much of what was given to Moses as "a testimony (or evidence) of those things which were to be spoken after" in Christ, remains without any particular explanation in Scripture, sufficiently justifies us in expecting that there may also be much that is typical, though not expressly declared to be such, in the other, the historical department of the subject, which we now proceed to investigate.

Notes

1. See at p. 22 sq.

2. Matt iix. 28; Rev. vii 4-17, xii. 14, xv. 3.

3. 2 Thess. ii. 4; Rev. iv. 7, 8, viii. 3, xi 1, 2, xv. 6-8, xxi 3.

4. Rev. iv. 4, xv. 6.

5. Heb. xii. 22; Rev. xi. 8, xiv. 1-8, xvi. 12, xxi. 2.

6. Rev. ii. 7, vii. 17, xix. 7, xxi. 9.

7. "We do not know what right divines have to construct a system of theological types, instead of a system of Scripture types. We are sure that had they kept to the Scripture use of the term, instead of devising a theological sense, they would have been saved from much extravagance, and evolved much truth." M' Cosh, in Typical Forms, p. 523.

8. The question, whether the things of creation should be formally treated as typical, will be considered in Ch. IV.

9. Marsh's Lectures, p. 371.

10. 1 Cor. x. 11; Heb. xL 40.

11. Eph. i. 10.

12. Luke i 78; 1 John ii. 8; Horn. xvi. 25, 26; Col. i. 27; 1 Cor. ii. 7, 10.

13. Col ii. 17; Heb. viii. 5.

14. Matt. xi. 11, where it is said respecting John the Baptist, "notwithstanding he that is least (6 ptxporepos) in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." The older English versions retained the comparative, and rendered, "he that is less in the kingdom of heaven" (Wickliffe, Tyndale, Oranmer, the Geneva); and so also Meyer in his Comm., "he who occupies a proportionately lower place in the kingdom of heaven." Lightfoot, Hengstenberg, and many others, approve of this milder sense, as it may be called, but Alford adheres still to the stronger, " the least "; and so does Stier in his Reden Jesu, who, in illustrating the thought, goes so far as to say, "A mere child that knows the catechism, and can say the Lord's prayer, both knows and possesses more than the Old Testament can give, and so far stands higher and nearer to God than John the Baptist." One can not but feel that this is putting an undue strain on our Lord's declaration.

15. Rev. i. 8; Luke ii. 25; Acts x. 43, iv. 12; Bom. iii. 25; 1 Pet i. 10-12, 20.

16. Gal. iii. 24.

17. Heb. vii, viii., ix.

18. Heb. xi 40.

19. 1 Cor. x. 6, 11.

20. Jer. iii. 16, 17.

21. If any one will take the trouble to look into the elder writers, who formally examined the typical character of the ancient symbolical institutions, he will find them entirely silent in regard to the points chiefly dwelt upon in the above discussion. Lowman, for example, On the Rational of the Hebrew Worship, and Outram, de Sac., lib. i. c. 18, where he comes to consider the nature and force of a type, gave no proper or satisfactory explanation of the questions, wherein precisely did the resemblance stand between the type and the antitype, or how should the one have prepared the way for the other. We are told frequently enough that the " Hebrew ritual contained a plan, or sketch, or pattern, or shadow of Gospel things"; that "the type adumbrated the antitype by something of the same sort with that which is found in the antitype," or "by a symbol of it," or "by a slender and shadowy image of it," or "by something that may somehow be compared with it," etc. But we look in vain for any thing more specific. Townley, in his Reasons of the Laws of Moses, still advances no further in the dissertation he devotes to the Typical Character of the Mosaic Institutions. Even Olshausen, in the treatise formerly noticed (Ein Wort fiber tiefern Schriftsinn), when he comes to unfold what he calls his deeper exposition, confines himself to a brief illustration ot the lew general statements formerly mentioned. See p. 35.

22. Lectures, p. 398.