12/15/2001
12/15/2001
The Types of Scripture (2)*
George Ophoff was Professor of Old Testament Studies in the Protestant Reformed Seminary in its early days. Reprinted here, in edited form, are articles which Ophoff wrote at that time for the Standard Bearer.
In our previous article on this subject we dealt with the typological views of the fathers of the early church. We saw that the Greek fathers were wont to allegorize the historical events of Scripture. We warned against this mode of interpretation. The Latin church, so we saw, cannot be charged with going into the extremes of their contemporaries in the east. Their expositions were more sober. They were given to typical rather than allegorical explanations of the Word.
For several centuries, the theologians of the church continued to deal with Scripture as did the early fathers, though they avoided their extravagance. No attempt was yet made to discover the guiding principles of this department of theological science. For that, we pass on to the divines of the Reformation.
In this remarkable era a new method of interpretation was inaugurated. The sacred text as such began to be made an object of careful study. Expositors began to honor the natural and obvious meaning of words and phrases of Scripture. The allegorical interpretations of the fathers were denounced by Luther as “trifling and foolish fables, into which the Scriptures were rent unto so many and diverse senses, that silly poor conscience could conceive no certain doctrine of anything.” And Calvin maintained that “the true meaning of Scripture is the natural and obvious meaning, by which we ought resolutely to abide.” Calvin’s attitude toward the fabrications and the inventions of the fathers is evident from the following passage.
But as the apostle declares that these things are allegorized, Origen and many others along with him, have seized the occasion of torturing Scripture, in every possible manner, away from the true sense. They concluded that the literal sense is too mean and poor; and that under the outer bark of the letter, there lurk deeper mysteries, which cannot be extracted but by beating out allegories. And this they had no difficulty in accomplishing; for speculations which appear to be ingenious have always been preferred, and always will be preferred by the world to solid doctrine.
With such approbation the licentious system attained such a height, that he who handled Scripture for his own amusement not only was suffered to pass unpunished, but even attained the highest applause. For many centuries no man was considered to be ingenious, who had not the skill and daring necessary for changing into a variety of curious shapes the sacred word of God. This was undoubtedly a contrivance of Satan to undermine the authority of Scripture, and to take away from the reading of it the true advantage. God visited this profanation by a just judgment, when He suffered the pure meaning of Scripture to be buried under false interpretations. Scripture they say, is fertile, and thus produces a variety of meaning. I acknowledge that Scripture is a most rich and inexhaustible fountain of all wisdom; but I deny that its fertility consists in the various meanings which any man, at his pleasure may assign.
After the period of the Reformation several schools of interpretation arose, each school representing a distinct system of interpretation. For the present we pass them by save one, viz., the school of Marsh, which arose about the middle of the nineteenth century. The abuses of the prevailing system of this period were responsible for the opinion that the types of Scripture are only those that are declared by Scripture to be types. This view had an able expounder in the person of Bishop Marsh. Says he:
There is no other view from which we can distinguish a real from a pretended type, than that of Scripture itself. There are no other possible means by which we can know that a previous design and a pre-ordained connection existed. Whatever persons or things, therefore, recorded in the Old Testament, were expressly declared by Christ or by His apostles to have been designed as prefigurations of persons or things relating to the New Testament, such persons or things so recorded in the former, are types of the persons or things with which they are compared in the latter. But if we assert that a person or thing was designed to prefigure another person or thing, where no such prefiguration has been declared by divine authority, we make an assertion for which we neither have, nor can have the slightest foundation (Lectures, p. 373. Quotation appearing in Fairbairn’s The Typology of Scripture).
This principle of interpretation, together with that of the church fathers, are the two extremes to be shunned. If we should endorse the views of Marsh, we would have to contract greatly the typical elements of Scripture. To be sure, only those events or transactions or phenomena may be regarded and treated as types which have been ordained to be such. This is one of the principles which should guide one applying himself to the typical materials of Scripture. However, it is one thing to say that a certain event or person must have been ordained a type in order to partake of that character and quite another thing to aver that, in each case, Scripture must expressly declare that a certain event or person or transaction was ordained a type. If so, Holy Writ would contain comparatively few types. We readily grant, to be sure, that Scripture alone determines what is typical and what is not. But this does not mean that every particular case must be specified. Joshua was an ordained type of Christ, yet it is nowhere asserted in Scripture. But Scripture furnishes us with the fundamental rules or principles of interpretation. This is sufficient for the enlightened man. Then it will be seen that the events of which it is expressly declared that they partake of the nature of a type are but samples taken from a storehouse where many more are to be found.
Definition of the Term
Our next step must be to look more closely at the meaning of the term type.
The Greek equivalent is typos (the noun) and typto (the verb), meaning to beat, strike, impress. A type or tupos is, therefore: (1) the mark made by a strike or blow, a print; (2) a figure formed by a blow or impression; hence a figure, image. Upon the United States half dollar has been impressed the figure of the American eagle. Taking the type in the broad, natural sense, this particular coin may be regarded as a type of the eagle. Anything, then, upon which has been impressed or engraved the image or the figure of some other thing deserves to be called a type. The impression is the type; the one whose image is being born, is the antitype. The latter is, then, the pattern of the former, and the former a figure of the latter. And it necessarily follows that there is a strong likeness between the two.
Let us now ascertain the biblical use of the term. In John 20:25 it appears in the natural sense of mark or impress. Thomas said unto them, “Except I shall see in his hands the print (typon) of the nails….”
The term type has several derived meanings. It is used to signify an idol. So it is employed in Acts 7:43, which reads: “Ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Rempham, figures (types) which ye made to worship them.” The types, here, are the images of the god whom the wayward Jew served.
In Scripture the term type also has the meaning of model. “Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses, that he should make it according to the fashion (typon) that he had seen” (Acts 7:44). “For see, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern (typon) shewed to thee in the mount” (Heb. 8:5b). The word is also used to designate the form of an epistle. “And he wrote a letter after this manner (typon)” (Acts 23:25). Then, too, the term type may have the meaning of example. “Now all these things happened unto them for examples (typon); and they are written for our admonition…” (I Cor. 10:11). Again, in Philippians 3:17: “Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an example (type).”
It should be noticed that in most of the above passages the term type has the meaning of model, example, pattern. Very seldom is the term employed in its natural sense, i.e., as an impression made by a harder substance upon one of softer material. Never, as far as we are aware, is the term used in the sense of prefigure. If this is not borne in mind, such passages as Hebrews 9:24 will prove to be very perplexing. The passage reads: “For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures (antitypa) of the true.” Strange to say, in this passage the earthly tabernacle is called an antitype. It follows that it is the desire of the author of this epistle that his readers regard the true, the heavenly tabernacle, as the type. We see at once that the term type in this passage may not be substituted by the term prefigure. The true, the heavenly, is no prefiguration of the earthly. To the contrary, the earthly was a prefiguration of the heavenly. Hence, in the above Scripture passage, the term type has the meaning of model, pattern; and the equivalent of the term antitype is the term prefiguration.
In Scripture, then, the term type indicates the position and character of an individual to which others should comply. When so used, the term is the equivalent of the term model, pattern, exemplar. Barring a few exceptions, this is its scriptural use. Never, I repeat, is it used in the sense of prefigure. It is not strange, then, that the apostle Paul directs the attention of the flock entrusted to his care to himself as their type. The apostle may rightfully call himself a type in the sense of model, pattern, exemplar. Well may the Christian take Paul as his model, to which he desires to be conformed. Christ, to be sure, is in a supreme sense the type, i.e., the model, exemplar of His sheep. “For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps” (I Pet. 2:21). There are many more passages where the term type must be given the meaning of exemplar or pattern (II Thess. 3:9; Tit. 2:7; Phil. 3:17; I Cor. 10:6, 11).
Every student of Scripture knows, however, that Holy Writ deals with still other relations between one class of things and another, to which the term type is not made to apply. These relations form the main theme of the epistle to the Hebrews. They are the typical-symbolical institutions and transactions of the old dispensation, together with the higher realities typified and symbolized—the suffering Christ, the exalted Christ, the heavenly places, the throne of grace. These realities, together with their prefigurations, constitute largely the theme of this epistle. In the book of Hebrews we are confronted with relations and realities which should not be placed in a class with those relations designated in Scripture, as we saw above, by such terms as type, pattern, example, model. It is these relations and realities that we intend to make the object of our study.
It is for these particular prefigurations that theologians have reserved the name type. The corresponding realities then were called antitypes. It appears, therefore, that in theology the term type has a different signification than it has in Scripture. The scriptural meaning of the term is model, pattern, while in theology it is used to designate what in Scripture is called shadows. Never in Holy Writ is the term type used in the sense of shadow or prefiguration, except perhaps in one instance: Adam is called the figure (tupos) of Christ (Rom. 5:14). There is one Scripture passage (Heb. 9:24) where the Hebrew word for antitype is applied to that object for which theologians have reserved the name type. In this passage the earthly tabernacle is called an antitupon. It is a bit confusing that there is so little correspondence between the theological sense of the term type and the meaning which it has in Scripture.
There is a reason, of course,why theologians made the word type represent the prefigurations of the old dispensation. A type is, as was pointed out, an impression. The shadows, too, were impressions of realities of a higher province bearing their stamp and, consequently, prefiguring, foreshadowing, and demonstrating them.
In summary, those institutions and transactions which in theology have acquired the name types, Scripture calls, not types, but shadows, figures (Heb. 9:9). Hence, we repeat, to apply to the shadows of the old dispensation the term type leads to confusion. Why not abide by the terminology of Scripture? These names were furnished by the Holy Spirit. There was absolutely no reason for setting them aside. These names are expressive of the very character, nature, and genus of the prefigurations which they signify. For these various reasons, we do well, I think, to return to them. Henceforth we shall speak, not of the types but of the shadows of the old dispensation. The term shadow is very fitting. A shadow is unsubstantial and unreal. The shadows, likewise, were not the realities.
