Chapter I from the 6th edition
Chapter II from the 6th edition
Chapter V. The interpretation of particular types--specific principles and directions
By Patrick Fairbairn
Published by Smith & English, 1854
p. 167-190
CHAPTER SIXTH.
The loose and incorrect views which, have so long prevailed regarding the types, and which have latterly assumed a form, that tends at once to circumscribe their number and lessen their importance, have told so adversely on the subject, that little more than a nominal place has been assigned it in our more recent theological systems. For any real value to be attached to it in the order of God's revelations, or any light it is fitted to throw, when rightly understood, on the interpretation of Scripture, we search in vain amid the writings of our leading heraieneutieal and systematic divines. The treatment it has most commonly received at their hands is rather negative than positive. They appear greatly more concerned about the abuses to which it may be carried, than the advantages to which it may be applied. And were it not for the purpose of exploding errors, delivering cautions, and disowning unwarrantable conclusions, it is too plain the subject would scarcely have been deemed worthy of any separate and particular consideration.
If the discussion pursued through the preceding chapters has been conducted with any success, it must have tended to beget a quite different feeling upon the subject. Various points of moment connected with the purposes of God and the interpretation of Scripture must have suggested themselves to the reflective reader, as capable both of receiving fresh light, and acquiring new importance from a well-grounded system of Typology, One entire branch of the subject--its connection with the closely related field of prophecy--we have already, on account of its special importance, considered in a separate chapter. At present we shall look to some other points of a more general kind, which have, however, an essential bearing on the character of divine revelation, and which will enable us to bring out, in a variety of lights, the soundness and importance of the views we have been endeavouring to establish.
I. We mark, first, an analogy in God's methods of preparatory instruction, as adopted by him at different, but somewhat corresponding periods of the Churches history. In one brief period of its existence the Church of the New Testament might be said to stand in a very similar relation to the immediate future, that the Church of the Old Testament generally did to the more distant future, of gospel-times. It was the period of our Lord's earthly ministry, during which the materials were in preparation for the actual establishment of his kingdom, and his disciples were subjected to the training which was to fit them for taking part in its affairs. The process that had been proceeding for ages with the Church had, in their experience, to be virtually begun and completed in the short space of a few years. And we are justly warranted to expect, that the method adopted during this brief period of special preparation toward the first members of the New Testament Church, should present some leading features of resemblance to that pursued with the Old Testament Church as a whole, during her immensely more lengthened period of preparatory training.
Now, the main peculiarity, as we have seen, of God's method of instruction and discipline in respect to the Old Testament Church, consisted in the use of symbol and action. It was chiefly by means of historical transactions and symbolical rites that the ancient believers were taught what they knew of the truths and mysteries of grace. For the practical guidance and direction of their conduct they were furnished with means of information the most literal and express; but in regard to the spiritual concerns and objects of the Messiah's kingdom, all was couched under veil and figure. The instruction given addressed itself to the eye rather than to the ear. It came intermingled with the things they saw and handled; and while it necessarily made them familiar with, the elements of gospel-truth, it not less necessarily left them in comparative ignorance as to the particular events and operations in which the truth was to find its ultimate and proper realisation.
How entirely analogous was the course pursued by our Lord with his immediate disciples during the period of his earthly ministry! The direct instruction he imparted to them was, with few exceptions., confined to lessons of moral truth and duty--- freeing the law of God from the false glosses of a carnal and corrupt priesthood, which had entirely overlaid its meaning, and disclosing the pure and elevated principles on which his kingdom was to be founded. But in regard to what might be called the mysteries of the kingdom--the constitution of Christ's person, the peculiar character of his work for and in the souls of men, and the connection of all with a higher and future world--no direct instruction of any moment was imparted up to the very close of Christ's earthly ministry. On one or two occasions, when he sought to convey some definite information upon such points, the disciples either completely misunderstood his meaning, or shewed themselves incapable of profiting by his instructions (Matth. xvi. 21-23; Luke xviii. 34; John ii. 19-22, vi.) So that in the last discourse he held with them before his sufferings, he spoke of the many things he had yet to say to them, but which, as they still could not bear them, had to be reserved to the teaching of the Holy Spirit, who was afterwards to lead them into all the truth. Were they, therefore, left without instruction of any land respecting those higher truths and mysteries of the kingdom? By no means; for throughout the whole period of their connection with Christ, they were constantly receiving such instruction as could be conveyed through action and symbol; or more correctly, through action and allegory, which was here made to take the place of symbol, and served substantially the same design.
The public life of Jesus was full of action, and in that, to a large extent, consisted its fulness of instruction. Every miracle he performed was a type in history; for, on the outward and visible field of nature, it revealed the divine power he was going to manifest, and the work he came to achieve in the higher field of grace. In every act of healing men's bodily diseases, and supplying of men's bodily wants, there was an exhibition to the eye of sense at once of his purpose to bring salvation to their souls, and of the principles on which he should proceed in doing so. In like manner, when he resorted to the parabolic method of instruction, what was it but another employment of the familiar and sensible things of nature, under the form of allegory, to convey still further instruction respecting the spiritual and divine things of his kingdom? There was in the procedure something of judgment to his adversaries, who had failed to profit, as they ought, by his more simple and direct teaching (Matth. xiii. 11-15). But for his own disciples, it formed a cover, through which he could present to them a larger amount of spiritual truth, and give them a more correct idea of his kingdom, than it was possible, as yet, for them to obtain in any other way. Every parable contained an allegorical representation of some particular aspect of the kingdom, which, like the types of an earlier dispensation, only needed to be illuminated by the facts of Gospel history, to render it a clear and intelligible image of spiritual and divine realities. In all, the outward and earthly was made to present the form of the inward and heavenly.
Thus, the special training of our Lord's disciples very closely corresponded to the course of preparatory dispensations through which the church at large was conducted before the time of his appearing. Such an analogy, pursued in circumstances so altered, and through periods so widely different, bespeaks the consistent working and presiding agency of Him, "who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." It furnishes also a ready and effective answer to the Socinian argument against the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel, on account of the comparative silence maintained respecting them in the direct instructions of Christ. "Can such doctrines," they have sometimes asked, "enter so essentially, as is alleged, into the original plan of Christianity, when its divine author himself says so little about them? When in all he taught his disciples we look in vain for any explicit or systematic exhibition of them?" Look, we reply, to the analogy of God's dealings with his church, and let that supply the answer. Christ and the mysteries of his redemption were the end of all the earlier proceedings of God, and of the institutions of worship he gave to his church; and yet many centuries of preparatory instruction and discipline were permitted to elapse before the objects themselves were brought distinctly into view. Should it then be deemed strange or unaccountable that the persons immediately chosen by Christ to announce them, were made to undergo a brief but perfectly similar preparatory course, under the eye of their divine Master? The facts of Christianity are the basis of its doctrines; and until those facts had become matter of history, the doctrines could neither be explicitly taught, nor clearly understood They could only be obscurely represented to the mind through the medium of typical actions, symbolical rites, or parabolical narratives. And it results as much from the essential nature of things as from the choice of its divine author, that the mode of instruction, which was continued through the lengthened probation of the Old Testament church, should have found its parallel in "the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ."
II. But there is an analogy of faith and practice which is of still greater importance than any analogy that may appear in the methods of instruction. However important it may be to note resemblances in the mode of communicating divine truth, at one period as compared with another, it is more so to know that the truth, however communicated, has always been found one in its tendency and working; that the earlier and the later, the Old and the New Testament churches, though differing widely in light and privilege, yet breathed the same spirit, walked by the same rule, possessed and manifested the same elements of character. A correct acquaintance with the Typology of Scripture alone explains, how, with such palpable differences subsisting between them, there should still have been such essential uniformity in the result.
In the writings of the New Testament, especially in the epistles, it is very commonly the differences between the Old and the New, rather than the agreements, that are pressed on our notice. A necessity for this arose from the abuse to which the Jews had turned the handwriting of ordinances delivered to them by Moses, In the carnality of their minds, they mistook the means for the end, embraced the shadow for the substance, and so converted what had been set up for the express purpose of leading them to Christ, into a mighty stumbling-block to obstruct the way of their approach to him. On this account it became necessary to bring prominently out the differences between the preparatory and the ultimate schemes of God, and to shew that what was perfectly suited to the one was quite unsuited to the other. But there were, at the same time, many real agreements of a most essential nature between them, and these also are often referred to in New Testament Scripture. Moses and Christ, when closely examined and viewed as to the more fundamental parts of their respective systems, are found to teach in perfect harmony with each other. The law and the prophets of the Old Testament, and the Gospels and Epistles of the New, exhibit but different phases of the same wondrous scheme of grace. The light varies from time to time in its clearness and intensity, but never as to the elements of which it is composed. And the very differences, which so broadly distinguish the Gospel dispensation from all that went before it, when taken in connection with the entire plan and purpose of Grod, afford evidence of an internal harmony, and a profound agreement.
The truth of what we say, if illustrated to its full extent, would require us to traverse almost the entire field of Scripture Typology. We shall, therefore, content ourselves here with selecting a single point, which, in its most obvious aspect, belongs rather to the differences than the arguments between the Old and the New dispensations. For in what do the two more apparently and widely differ from each other than in regard to the place occupied in them respectively by the doctrine of a future state? In the Scriptures of the New Testament the eternal world comes constantly into view; it meets us in every page, inspirits every religious character, mingles with every important truth and obligation, and gives an ethereal tone and an ennobling impress to the whole genius and framework of Christianity. Nothing of this, however, is to be found in the earlier portions of the Word of God. That these contain no reference of any land to a future state of rewards and punishments, we are far from believing, as will abundantly appear in the sequel. But still the doctrine of such a state is nowhere broadly announced, as an essential article of faith, in the revelations of Old Testament Scripture; it has no distinct and easily-recognized place either in the patriarchal or the Levitical dispensations; it is never set forth as a formal ground of action, and is implied, rather than distinctly affirmed, or avowedly acted on, excepting when it occasionally appears among the confessions of pious individuals, or in the later declarations of prophecy; so that, though itself one of the first principles of all true religion, there yet was maintained respecting it a studied caution and reserve in the revelations of God to men up to the time when He came who was to "bring life and immortality to light." [1]
This obvious difference between the Old and the New Testament revelations, in respect to a future state, has been deemed such a palpable incongruity, that sometimes the most forced interpretations have been resorted to with the view of getting rid of the fact, while, at other times, extravagant theories have been proposed to account for it. But we have no need to travel farther than to the typical character of God's earlier dispensations for a satisfactory explanation of the difficulty--and we shall find it in nothing else. For, leave this out of view--suppose that God's method of teaching and training the Old Testament Church was not necessarily formed on the plan of unfolding Gospel ideas and principles by means of earthly relations and fleshly symbols, then we see not how it could have consisted with divine wisdom to keep such a veil hanging for so many ages over the realities of a coming eternity. But let the typical element be duly taken into account, let it be understood that inferior and earthly things were systematically employed of old to image and represent those which are heavenly and divine; and then we can as little see how it could have consisted with divine wisdom to have disclosed the doctrine of a future state, otherwise than under the figures and shadows of what is seen and temporal. For this doctrine, in its naked form, stands inseparably connected with the facts of Christ's death and resurrection, on which it is entirely based as a ground of consolation and an object of hope to the believer. And if the one had been openly disclosed, while the other still remained under the veil of typical shadows, utter confusion must necessarily have been introduced into the dispensations of God; the old covenant, with ordinances suited only to an inferior and preparatory course of training, should have possessed a portion of the light properly belonging to a complete and finished revelation. The ancient Church, with her faith in that case professedly directed on the eternal world, must have lost her symbolical relation to the present; her experiences must have been as spiritual, her life as hidden, her conflict with temptation, and victory over the world, as inward as those of believers under the Gospel. But then the Church of the Old Testament, being without the clear knowledge of Christ and his salvation, still wanted the true foundation for so much of a spiritual, inward, and hidden nature; and it must have been next to impossible to prevent false confidences from mingling with her expectations of the future, since she had only the shadowy and carnal in worship with which to connect the real and eternal in blessing.
Is this not what actually happened in the case of the later Jews? In the course of that preparatory training through which they were conducted, an increasing degree of light was at length imparted, among other things, in respect to a future state of reward and punishment; the later Scriptures contained not a few quite explicit intimations on the subject (as in Hos. xiii. 14, Dan. xii. 2, Isaiah xxvi. 19); and by the time of Christ's appearing, the doctrine of a resurrection from the dead to a world of endless happiness or misery, formed nearly as distinct and prominent an article in the Jewish faith as it does now in the Christian. (Acts xxiii. 6; xxvi. 6-8; Matt. v. 29; x. 28, &c.) Now, this had been well, and should have only disposed the Jews to give to Jesus a more enlightened and hearty reception had they been careful to couple with the clearer view thus obtained, and the more direct introduction of a future world, the intimations that accompanied it of a higher and better dispensation--of the old things, under which they lived, being to be done away, that others of a nobler description might take their place. But this was what the later Jews, as a class, failed to do. Partial in their knowledge of Scripture, and confounding together the things that differed, they took the prospect of immortality as if it had been directly unfolded, and ostensibly provided for in the shadowy dispensation itself.
The result necessarily was, that that dispensation ceased in their view to be shadowy; it contained in itself, they imagined, the full apparatus required for sinful men, to redeem them from the curse of sin, and bring them to eternal life; and whatever purposes the Messiah might come to accomplish, that he should supplant its carnal observances by something of a higher nature, and more immediately bearing on the immortal interests of man, formed no part of their expectations concerning him. Thus, by coming to regard the doctrine of a future state of happiness and glory as, in its naked or direct form, an integral part of the revelations of the old covenant, they naturally fell into two most serious mistakes. They first overlooked the shadowy nature of their religion, and exalted it to an undue rank by looking to it for blessings which it was never intended, unless typically, to impart--and then, when the Messiah came, they entirely misapprehended the great object of his mission, and lost all inheritance in his kingdom.
So much, then, for the palpable difference in this respect between the Old and the New. There was a necessity in the case, arising from the very nature of the divine plan. So long as the church was under symbolical ordinances and typical relations, the future world must fall into the background; the things concerning it could only appear imaged in the seen and present. But that they did appear so imaged--in this, with all the outward diversity that prevailed, there still lay an essential agreement between the Old dispensation and the New. The minds of believers under the former neither were nor could be an entire blank in regard to a future state of being. From the very first--as we shall see afterwards, when we come to trace out the elements of the primeval religion--there was in God's dealings and revelations toward them, what in a manner compelled them to look beyond a present world; it was so manifestly impossible to realise here, with any degree of completeness, the objects he seemed to have in view. And the under-current of thought and expectation thus silently awakened toward the future, was continually fed by everything being arranged and ordered in the present, so as to establish in their minds a profound conviction of a divine retribution. The things connected with their relation to a worldly sanctuary, and an earthly inheritance of blessing, were one continued illustration of the principle so firmly expressed by Abraham, "that the Judge of all the earth must do right;" and, consequently, that in the final issues of things, "it must be well with the righteous, and ill with the wicked." The bringing distinctly out of this present recompense in the divine administration, and with infinite variety of light and vividness of colouring, impressing it on the consciences of God's people, was the peculiar service rendered by the ancient economy in respect to a coming eternity; and the peculiar service which, as a preparatory economy, it required to render. For the belief of a present retribution must, to a large extent, form the basis of a well-grounded belief in a future one. And for the believing Israelite himself, who lived under the operation of such strong temporal sanctions, and who was habituated to contemplate the unseen in the seen, the future in the past, there was everything in the visible movements of Providence around him, both to confirm in him the expectation of a coming state of reward and punishment, and to form him to the dispositions and conduct which might best prepare him for meeting it. His position so far differed from that of believers now, that he was not formally called to direct his views to the coming world, and he had comparatively slender means of information concerning its realities. But it agreed in this, that he too was a child of faith, believing in the retributive character of God's administration; and in him, as well as in us, only in a more outward and sensible manner, this faith had its trials and dangers, its discouragements, its warrings with the flesh and the world, its times of weakness and of strength, its blessed satisfactions and triumphant victories. In short, his light, so far as it went, was the same with ours; it was the same also in the nature of its influence on his heart and conduct; and if he but faithfully did his part amid the scenes and objects around him, he was equally prepared at its close to take his place in the mansions of a better inheritance,--though he might have to go to them as one not knowing whither he went. [2]
Thus it appears, on careful examination, that all was in its proper place. A mutual adaptation and internal harmony binds together the Old and the New dispensations, even under the striking diversity that characterizes the two in respect to a future world. And the further the investigation is pursued, the more will such be found to be the case generally. It will be found that the connection of the Old with the New is something more than typical, in the sense of foreshadowing, or prefigurative of what was to come; it is also inward and organic. Amid the ostensible differences, there is a pervading unity and agreement--one faith, one life, one hope, one destiny. And while the Old Testament church, in its outward condition and earthly relations, typically shadowed forth the spiritual and heavenly things of the New, it was also, in so far as it realized and felt the truth of God presented to it, the living root out of which the New ultimately sprang. The real beginnings were there, of all that exists in comparative perfection now.
III. Another advantage resulting from a correct knowledge and appreciation of the Typology of ancient Scripture, is the increased value and importance with which it invests the earlier portions of Revelation. This has respect more especially to the historical parts of Old Testament Scripture; yet not to these exclusively. For, the whole of the Old Testament will be found to rise in our esteem, in proportion as we understand and enter into its typological bearing. But the point may be more easily and distinctly illustrated by a reference to its records of history.
Many ends, undoubtedly, had to be served by these; and we must beware of making so much account of one, as if it were the whole. Even the least interesting and instructive parts of the historical records, the genealogies, are not without their use; for they supply some valuable materials both for the general knowledge of antiquity, and for our acquaintance, in particular, with that chosen line of Adam's posterity, which was to have its culmination in Christ. But the narratives in which these genealogies are imbedded, which record the lives of so many individuals, pourtray the manners and customs of such different ages and nations, and relate the dealings of God's providence, and the communications of his mind with so many of the earliest characters and tribes in the world's history---these, in themselves, and apart altogether from any prospective reference they may have to gospel- times, are on many accounts interesting and instructive. Nor can they be attentively perused, as simple records of the past, without being found "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness."
Yet when viewed only in that light, one-half their worth is still not understood; nor shall we be able altogether to avoid some feeling of strangeness occasionally at the kind of notices embraced in the inspired narrative. For, whatever interest and instruction may be connected with it, how trifling often are the incidents it records! how limited the range to which it chiefly draws our attention! and how easy might it seem, at various points, to have selected other histories, which would have led the mind through scenes more obviously important in themselves, and less closely, perhaps, interwoven with evil! Infidels have often given to such thoughts as these an obnoxious form, and have endeavoured by means of them to bring sacred Scripture into discredit. But in doing so, they have only displayed their own partiality and ignorance; they have looked at this portion of the word of God in a contracted light, and away from its proper connection with the entire plan of revelation. Let the notices of Old Testament history be viewed in their subservience to the scheme of grace unfolded in the Gospel--let the field which it traverses, however limited in extent, and the transactions it describes, however unimportant in a political respect, be regarded as that field, and those transactions, through which, as on a lower and common stage, the Lord sought to familiarize the minds of his people with the truths and principles, which were ultimately to appear in the highest affairs of his kingdom--let the notices of Old Testament history be viewed in this light, which is the one Scripture itself would have us to take, and then what dignity and importance is seen to attach to every one of them! The smallest movements on the earth's surface acquire a sort of greatness, when connected with the law of gravitation; since then even the fall of an apple from the tree stands related to the revolution of the planets in their courses. And, in like manner, the relation which the historical facts of ancient Scripture bear to the glorious work and kingdom of Christ, gives to the least of them such a character of importance, that they are brought within the circle of God's highest purposes, and are perceived to be in reality "the connecting links of that golden chain which unites heaven and earth."
This, however, is not all. While a proper understanding of the Typology of Scripture imparts an air of grandeur and importance to its smallest incidents, and makes the little relatively great, it does more. It warrants us to proceed a step farther, and to assert, that such personal narratives and comparatively little incidents as fill up a large portion of the history, not only might, without impropriety, have been admitted into the sacred record, but that they must to some extent have been found there, in order to adapt it properly to the end which it was intended to serve. It was precisely the limited and homely character of many of the things related, which rendered them such natural and easy stepping-stones to the discoveries of a higher dispensation. It is one thing, that an arrangement exists in nature, which comprehends under the same law the falling of an apple to the ground, and the vast movements of the heavenly bodies; but it is another thing, and also true, that the perception of that law, as manifested in the motion of the small and terrestrial body--because manifested there on a scale which man could bring fully within the grasp of his comprehension--was what enabled him to mount upwards and scan the similar, though incomparably grander phenomena of the distant universe. In this case, there was not only a connection in nature between the little and the great, but also such a connection in the order of man's acquaintance with both, that it was the knowledge of the one that conducted him to the knowledge of the other. The connection is much the same that exists between the facts of Old Testament history, and the all- important revelations of the Gospel--with this difference, indeed, that the laws and principles developed amid the familiar objects and comparatively humble scenes of the one, were not so properly designed to fit man for discovering, as for receiving when discovered, the sublime mysteries of the other. But to do this, it was not less necessary here, than in the case above referred to, that the earlier developements should have been made in connection with things of a diminutive nature, such as the occurrences of individual history, or the transactions of a limited kingdom. A series of events considerably more grand and majestic could not have accomplished the object in view. They would have been too far removed from the common course of things; and would have been more fitted to gratify the curiosity and dazzle the imagination of those who witnessed or read of them, than to indoctrinate their minds with the fundamental truths and principles of God's spiritual economy. This result could be best produced by such a series of transactions as we find actually recorded in the Scriptures of the Old Testament--transactions infinitely varied, yet always capable of being quite easily grasped and understood. And thus, what to a superficial consideration appears strange or even objectionable in the structure of the inspired record, becomes, on a more comprehensive view, an evidence of wise adaptation to the wants of our nature, and of supernatural foresight in adjusting one portion of the divine plan to another.
It will be readily understood, that what we have said of the purpose of God with reference more immediately to those who lived in Old Testament times, applies, without any material difference, to such as are placed under the Christian dispensation. For what the transactions required to be for the accomplishment of God's purpose in regard to the one, the record of these transactions required to be for the accomplishment of his purpose in regard to the other. Whatever confirmation such things may lend to our faith in the mysteries of God--whatever force or clearness to our perceptions of the truth--whatever encouragement to our hopes or direction to our walk in the life of holiness and virtue, it may all be said to depend upon the history being composed of facts, so homely in their character and so circumscribed in their range, that the mind can without difficulty both realize their existence and enter into their spirit.
IV. Another service, the last we shall mention, which a truly scriptural typology is fitted to render to the cause of divine knowledge and practice, is the aid it furnishes to help out spiritual ideas, in our minds, and enable us to realize them with sufficient clearness and certainty. This follows very closely on the last-named benefit, and may be regarded rather as a further application of the truth contained in it, than the advancement of something altogether new. But we wish to draw attention to an important advantage., not yet distinctly noticed, connected with the typical element in Old Testament Scripture, and on which to a considerable extent the people of God are still dependent for the strength and liveliness of their faith.
It is true, they have now the privilege of a full revelation of the mind of God respecting the truths of salvation; and this elevates their condition as to spiritual things far above that of the Old Testament believers. But it does not thence follow., that they can in all respects so distinctly apprehend the truth in its naked spirituality, as to be totally independent of some outward exhibition of it. We are still in a state of imperfection, and are so much creatures of sense, that our ideas of abstract truth, even in natural science, often require to be aided by visible forms and representations. But things strictly spiritual and divine are yet more difficult to be brought distinctly within the reach and comprehension of the mind.--It was a relative advantage possessed by the Old Testament worshipper, in connection with his worldly sanctuary, and the more fleshly dispensation under which he lived, that spiritual and divine things, so far as they were revealed to him, acquired a sort of local habitation to his view, and assumed the appearance of a life-like freshness and reality. Hence chiefly arose that "impression of passionate individual attachment," as it has been called, which, in the authors of the Old Testament Scriptures, appears mingling with and vivifying their faith in the Invisible, and which breathes in them like a breath of supernatural life. What Hengstenberg has said in this respect of the Book of Psalms, may be extended to Old Testament Scripture generally: "It has contributed vast materials for developing the consciousness of mankind, and the Christian church is more dependent on it for its apprehensions of God than might at first sight be supposed. It presents God so clearly and vividly before men's eyes, that they see him, in a manner, with their bodily sight, and thus find the sting taken out of their pains. In this, too, lies one great element of its importance for the present times. What men now most of all need, is to have the blanched image of God again freshened up in them. And the more closely we connect ourselves with these sacred writings, the more will God cease to be to us a shadowy form, which can neither hear, nor help, nor judge us, and to which we can present no supplication." [3]
Besides, there are portions of revealed truth which relate to events still future, and do not at all come within the range of our present observation and experience, though very important as objects of faith and hope to the church. It might materially facilitate our conception of these, and strengthen our belief in the certainty of their coining existence, if we could look back to some corresponding exemplar of things, either in the symbolical handwriting of ordinances, or in the typical transactions of an earthly and temporal kingdom. But this also has been prepared to our hand by God in the Scriptures of the Old Testament. And to shew how much may be derived from a right acquaintance, both in this and in the other respect mentioned, with the typical matter of these Scriptures, we shall give here a twofold illustration of the subject--the one referring to truths affecting the present state and condition of believers, and the other to such as respect the still distant future.
1. For our first illustration we shall select a topic, that will enable us, at the same time, to explain a commonly misunderstood passage of Scripture. The passage is 1 Pet. i. 2, where, speaking of the elevated condition of believers, the apostle describes them as "elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." The peculiar part of the description is the last--"sprinkling with the blood of Jesus Christ" --which, being represented along with obedience as the end, to which believers are both elected of the Father and sanctified of the Spirit, seenls at first sight to be out of its proper place. The application of the blood of Christ is usually thought of in reference to the pardon of sin, or its efficacy in the matter of the soul's justification before God; when, of course, its place stands between the election of the Father and the sanctification of the Spirit. Nor, in that most common reference to the effect of Christ's blood, is it of small advantage for the attainment of a clear and realizing faith, that we have in many of the Levitical services, and especially in those of the great day of yearly atonement, an outward form and pattern of tilings by which more distinctly to picture out the sublime spiritual reality.
It is plain, however, that the sprinkling of Christ's blood, mentioned by St Peter, is not that which has for its effect the sinner's pardon and acceptance (although Leighton and most commentators have so understood it); for it is not only coupled with a personal obedience, as being somewhat of the same nature, but the two together are set forth as the result of the electing and sanctifying grace of God upon the soul. The good here intended must be something inward and personal; something not wrought for us, but wrought upon us and in us; implying our justification, as a gift already received, but itself belonging to a higher and more advanced stage of our experience--to the very top and climax of our sanctification. What, then, is it? Nothing new, certainly, or of rare occurrence in the word of God, but often described in the most explicit terms; while yet the idea involved in it is so spiritual and elevated, that we greatly need the aid of the Old Testament types to give strength and vividness to our conceptions of it. "The blood of the yearly sacrifice," says Steiger on the passage, "was divided (as previously at the altar in the wilderness, Ex. xxiv. 6-8) into two parts, of which the first served for sprinkling the tabernacle before and behind the veil, and especially the mercy-seat; the other for afterwards sprinkling the people (Lev. xvi. 14-19). Now, if we represent to ourselves the whole work of redemption, in allusion to this rite, it will be as follows:--The expiation of one and of all sin, the propitiation, was accomplished when Christ offered his blood to God on the altar of the accursed tree. That done, he went with his blood into the most Holy Place. Whosoever looks in faith to His blood, has part in the atonement (Rom. iii. 25); that is, he is justified on account of it, receiving the full pardon of all his sins (Rom. v. 9). Thenceforth he can appear with the whole community of believers (1 John i. 7), full of boldness and confidence before the throne of grace (Heb. iv. 16), in order that he may be purified by Christ, as high-priest, from every evil lust." It is this personal purifying from every evil lust, which the apostle describes in ritual language as "the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ," and which is also described in the epistle to the Hebrews, with a similar reference to the blood of Christ, by having "the heart sprinkled from an evil conscience," and again, "by having the conscience purged from dead works to serve the living God." The sprinkling or purging spoken of in these several passages, is manifestly the cleansing of the soul from all internal defilement, so as to dispose and fit it for whatever is pure and good, and the purifying effect is produced by the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus, or its spiritual application to the conscience of believers, because the blessed result is attained through the holy and divine life, represented by that blood becoming truly and personally theirs.
Now, this great truth is certainly taught with the utmost plainness in many passages of Scripture. As, when it is written of believers, that "their hearts are purified by faith;" that they "purify themselves even as Christ is pure." Or, when it is said, that "Christ lives in them," that "their life is hid with him in God," that "they are in him that is true, and cannot sin because their seed (the seed of that new, spiritual nature, to which they have been quickened by fellowship with the life of Jesus) remains in them;" and, in short, in every passage which connects with the pure and spotless life-blood of Jesus an impartation of life-giving grace and holiness to his people. I can understand the truth, even when thus spiritually, and, if I may so say, nakedly expressed. But I feel that I can obtain a more clear and comforting impression of it, when I keep my eye upon the simple and striking exhibition given of it in the visible type. For, with what effect was the blood of atonement sprinkled upon the true worshippers of the old covenant? With the effect of making whatever sacredness, whatever virtue (symbolically) was in that blood, pass over upon them; the life, which in it had flowed out in holy offering to God, was given to be theirs, and to be by them laid out in all pure and faithful ministrations of righteousness. Such precisely is the effect of Christ's blood sprinkled on the soul; it is to have his life made our life, or to become one with him in the stainless purity and perfection which expressed itself in his sacrifice of sweet-smelling savour to the Father. What a sublime and elevating thought! It is much, assuredly, for me to know, that, by faith in his blood, the crimson guilt of my sins is blotted out, heaven itself reconciled, and the way into the holiest of all laid freely open for my approach. But it is much more still to know, that by faith in the same blood, realized and experienced through the power of the Holy Spirit, I am made a partaker of its sanctifying virtue; the very holiness of the Holy One of Israel passes into me; his life-blood becomes in my soul the well-spring of a new and deathless existence. So that to be sealed up to this fountain of life, is to be raised above the defilement of nature, to dwell in the light of God, and sit as in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. And, amid the imperfections of our personal experience, and the clouds ever and anon raised in the soul by remaining sin, it should unquestionably be to us a matter of unfeigned thankfulness, that we can repair to such a lively image of the truth as is presented in the Old Testament service, in which, as in a mirror, we can see how high in this respect is the hope of our calling, and how much it is God's purpose we should enter into the blessing.
2. There are revelations in the Gospel, however, which point to events still future in the Messiah's kingdom; and in respect to these, also, the typical arrangements of former times are capable of rendering important service. A service, too, which is the more needed, as the things indicated, in regard to these future developements of the kingdom, are not only remote from present observation, but also in many respects different from what the ordinary course of events might lead us to expect. We do not refer to the last issues of the Gospel dispensation, when the concerns of time shall have become finally merged in the unalterable results of eternity; but to events, of which this earth itself is still to be the theatre, in the closing periods of Messiah's reign. This prospective ground is in many points overlaid with controversy, and much concerning it must be regarded as matter of doubtful disputation, Yet, there are certain great landmarks, which intelligent and sober-minded Christians can scarcely fail to consider as fixed. It is not, for example, a more certain mark of the Messiah, who was to come, that he should be a despised and rejected man, should pass through the deepest humiliation, and, after a mighty struggle with evil, attain to the seat of empire, than it is of the Messiah, who has thus personally fought and conquered, that he shall totally subdue all the adversaries of his church and kingdom, make his church co-extensive with the boundaries of the habitable globe, and exalt her members to the highest position of honour and blessing. For my own part, I should as soon doubt that the first series of events were the just object of expectation before, as the other have become since, the personal appearing of Christ; and for breadth and prominence of place in the prophetical portions, especially of New Testament Scripture, this has all that could be desired in its behalf. But how far still is the object from being realized? How unlikely, even, that it should ever be so, if we had nothing more to found upon than calculations of reason, and the common agencies of providence?
That the progress of society in knowledge and virtue should gradually lead, at however distant a period, to the extirpation of idolatry, the abolition of the grosser forms of superstition, and a general refinement and civilization of manners, requires no great stretch of faith to believe. Such a result evidently lies within the bounds of natural probability, if only sufficient time were given to accomplish it. But, suppose it already done, how much would still remain to be achieved, ere the glorious King of Zion should have his promised ascendant in the affairs of men, and the spiritual ends for which he especially reigns should be adequately secured! This happy consummation might still be found at an unapproachable distance, even when the other had passed into a reality; nor are there wanting signs in the present condition of the world to awaken our fears, lest such may actually be the case. For in those countries, where the light of divine truth and the arts of civilization have become more widely diffused, we see many things prevailing that are utterly at variance with the purity and peace of the Gospel--numberless heresies in doctrine, disorders that seem to admit of no healing, and practical corruptions which set at defiance all authority and rule. In the very presence of the light of heaven, and amid the full play of Christian influences, the god of this world still holds possession of by far the larger portion of mankind; and innumerable obstacles present themselves on every side against the universal diffusion and the complete ascendancy of the pure principles of the Gospel of Christ. When such things are taken into account, how hopeless seems the prospect of a triumphant church, and a regenerated world! of a Saviour holding the undivided empire of all lands! of a kingdom, in which there is no longer any thing to offend, and all shall be replenished with life and blessing! The partial triumphs which Christianity is still gaining in single individuals and particular districts, can go but a little way to assure us of so magnificent a result. And it may well seem as if other influences, than such as are now in operation, would require to be put forth before the expected good can be realized.
Something, no doubt, may be done to reassure the mind, by looking back on the past history of Christianity, and contrasting its present condition with the point from which it started. The small mustard-seed has certainly sprung into a lofty tree, stretching its luxuriant branches over many of the best regions of the earth. See Christianity as it appeared in its divine Author, when he wandered about as a despised and helpless individual, attended only by a little band of followers as despised and helpless as himself,--or again, when he was hanging on a malefactor's cross, his very friends ashamed or terrified to avow their connection with him,--or even at another and more advanced stage of its earthly history, when its still small, and now resolute company of adherents, unfurled the banner of salvation, with the fearful odds everywhere against them of hostile kings and rulers, an ignorant and debased populace, a powerful and interested priesthood, and a mighty host of superstitions, which had struck their roots through the entire framework of society, and had become venerable, as well as strong, by their antiquity. See Christianity as it appeared then, and see it now standing erect upon the ruins of the hierarchies and superstitions which once threatened to extinguish it--planted with honour in the regions, where for a time it was scarcely suffered to exist--the recognized religion of the most enlightened nations of the earth, the delight and solace of the good, the study of the wise and learned, at once the source and the bulwark of all that is most pure, generous, free, and happy in modern civilization. Comparing thus the present with the past--looking down from the altitude that has been reached upon the low and unpromising condition out of which Christianity at first arose, we are not without considerable materials in the history of the Gospel itself for confirming our faith in the prospects which still wait for their fulfilment. On this ground alone it may scarcely seem more, that Christianity should proceed from the elevation it has already won to the greatly more commanding attitude it is yet destined to attain, than to have risen from such small beginnings, and in the face of obstacles so many and so powerful, to its present influential and honourable position.
But why not revert to a still earlier period in the Church's history? Why withhold from our wavering hearts the benefit which they might derive from the form and pattern of divine things, formerly exhibited in the parallel affairs of a typical and earthly kingdom? It was the divine appointment concerning Christ, that he should sit upon the throne of David, to order and to establish it. In the higher sphere of God's administration, and for the world at large, he was to do what had been done through David in the lower, and on the limited territory of an earthly kingdom. The history of the one, therefore, may justly be regarded as the shadow of the other. But it is still only the earlier part of the history of David's kingdom which has found its counterpart in the events of gospel-times. The Shepherd of Israel has been anointed king over the heritage of the Lord, and the impious efforts of his adversaries to disannul the appointment have entirely miscarried. The formidable train of evils which obstructed his way to the throne of government, and which were directed with the profoundest cunning and malice by him, who on account of sin, had been permitted to become the prince of this world, have been all met and overcome--with, no other effect than to render manifest the Son's indefeasible right to hold the sceptre of universal empire over the affairs of men. Now, therefore, He reigns in the midst of his enemies; but He must also reign till these enemies themselves are put down--till the inheritance has been redeemed from all evil, and universal peace, order, and blessing, have been established.
Is not this also what the subsequent history of the earthly kingdom fully warrants us to expect? It was long after David's appointment to the throne, before his divine right to reign was generally acknowledged; and still longer before tlie overthrow of the last combination of adversaries and the termination of the last train of evils, admitted of the kingdom entering on its ultimate stage of settled peace and glory. The affairs of David himself never wore a more discouraging and desperate aspect, than immediately before his great adversary received the mortal blow which laid him in the dust. After this, years had to elapse before the adverse parties in Israel were even externally subdued, and brought to render a formal acknowledgment to the Lord's anointed. When this point again had been reached, what internal evils festered in the kingdom, and what smouldering fires of enmity still burned! Notwithstanding the vigorous efforts made to subdue these, we see them at last bursting forth in the dreadful and unnatural outbreak of Absalom's rebellion, which threatened for a time to involve all in hopeless ruin and confusion. And with these internal evils and insurrections, how many hostile encounters had to be met from without! some of which were so terrible, that the very earth was felt, in a manner, to shake under the stroke (Ps. lx.). Yet all at length yielded; and partly by the prowess of faith, partly by the remarkable turns given to events in providence, the kingdom did reach a position of unexampled prosperity, peace and blessing. But in all this we have the developement of a typical dispensation, bringing the assurance, that the same position shall in due time be reached in the higher sphere and nobler concerns of Messiah's kingdom. The same determinate counsel and foreknowledge, the same living energy, the same overruling providence, is equally competent now, as it is alike pledged, to secure a corresponding result. And if the people of God have but discernment to read aright the history of the past, and faith and patience to fulfil their appointed task, they will find that they have no need to despair of a successful issue, but every reason to hope that judgment shall at length be brought forth into victory.
This one illustration may meanwhile be sufficient to show, (others will afterwards present themselves), how valuable an handmaid to the unfulfilled prophecies of Scripture may be found in a correct acquaintance with its Typology. Its province does not, indeed, consist in definitely marking out beforehand the particular agents and transactions that are to fill up the page of the eventful future. It fulfils the whole that in this respect it is fitted to accomplish, when it enables us to obtain some insight--not into the what, or the when, or the instruments by which--but rather into the how and the wherefore of the future:--when it instructs us respecting the nature of the principles that must prevail, and the general lines of dealing that shall be adopted, in conducting the affairs of Messiah's kingdom to its destined results. The future here is mirrored in the past; and the thing that hath been, is, in all its essential features, the same that shall be.
1. A clear proof in a single instance of what is here said of the Old Testament in respect to an eternal world, may be found in what is written of Enoch, "He was not, for God took him," and this because he had walked with God. A causal connection plainly existed between his walk on earth and his removal to God's presence; and yet this is so indicated as clearly to shew that it was the divine purpose to spread a veil of secrecy over the future world, as if the distinct knowledge of it depended on conditions that could not then be formally brought out.
2. See Appendix C.
3. Supplem. Treatises on Psalms, § vii.