Types & Shadows: Intro.

types & shadows: intro

Jesus Christ is the grand and glorious theme of the Bible, the whole Bible, not just starting in Matthew, but starting in Genesis and going all the way through to the book of Revelation.  The Old Testament points forward to Jesus.  The narratives and the Law foreshadow Christ and other NC realities, the psalms and the prophets foretell of Christ and other NC realities.  The Gospels chronicle the miraculous birth, life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, the rest of the New Testament teaches theology and life application in light of Jesus.  The Bible closes with the apocalypse the great, glorious return of Jesus.  Jesus Christ is the grand and glorious theme of the Bible.

It’s easy to see Jesus as the theme in the New Testament.  The NT uses the name Jesus over 950 times.  One might even concede that yes, the prophets did indeed speak of the Messiah to come.  For example you can hardly look at passages like Isaiah 53 and not see Jesus.  But the Law and the historical narratives…how do they really point to Jesus?

These Old Testament is sprinkled with what is commonly called “types and shadows”, which are simply OC people, places, & things that pointed forward to NC realities.

“Types and shadows” is a concise way to say “types, shadows, patterns, symbols, figures, images, representations, correlations and any other word that communicates the essence of an Old Covenant person, place, or thing that pointed forward to a greater reality that would be found in the New Covenant.”

Let me say that again.  “Types and shadows” is a concise way to say “types, shadows, patterns, symbols, figures, images, representations, correlations and any other word that communicates the essence of an Old Covenant person, place, or thing that pointed forward to a greater reality that would be found in the New Covenant.”

So types and shadows are OC people, places, & things that pointed forward to NC realities. 

Throughout the OT we see types and shadows of the better things that were to come.  We find their ultimate fulfillment in the NT.  

The study of types & shadows is commonly called “typology.”

TYPE.  Probably the most common term in typology is “type.”  The word “type” comes from the Greek word “tupos.”  According to the Greek Lexicon the definition of tupos: the mark of a stroke or blow, print; a figure formed by a blow or impression of a figure or image; in the technical sense, the pattern in conformity to which a thing must be made

This word tupos is used in John 20.

The context is Jesus has been raised from the dead.  He appeared to Mary Magdalene.  Then the disciples  were meeting in a room where the door was locked because they feared the Jews.  Thomas wasn’t with them at that time when Jesus came.  John 20:25 So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."

A more literal translation is "Except I shall see in His hands the TYPE (print) of the nails, and put my finger into the TYPE (print) of the nails, and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe." This verse by context explains the meaning of the word.  The hole in Jesus’ hand corresponds- in size and shape, and in other respects as an exact counterpart to the nail which makes it.  The type corresponds to the, antitype.  The nail is the antitype.  The antitype left a print, a mark in Jesus hand.  The print, mark, hole in Jesus hand, was the type.

TYPEWRITER AS AN EXAMPLE. The antitype is the real thing. The type is an image of the antitype. Remember typewriters?  The hammer on an old typewriter, is the antitype; it creates the type, which is simply the image of the antitype.  The type isn’t the real thing, just an image of the real thing.  The antitype is the real thing.  In this case the antitype is the hammer that corresponds to the letter. 

When this hammer hit the paper through the ink ribbon, it left an image of the antitype. This image is called the "type". When you pulled out the paper, the letters were mere type images of the original antitype.  When you look at the paper, you don’t see the actual metal hammer in the shape of the letter “S.”  You see ink on a page, an image created by the actual metal hammer.  You see type, created by the antitype.  You see an image that represents the real hammer.

So in the OT we have types and in the NT, we have the corresponding antitypes.  In the OC we have the types, or images that correspond with NC realities.  In the NT, we have the antitype, the substance, the reality, the essence.

Again, type is probably the most common term used in the study of typology.  

OT – type; NT – antitype.

SHADOW  Another common term in the study of typology is “shadow.”  This comes from the Greek word “skiaah”.

According to Strongs Greek Lexicon the definition of skia: shadow; shade caused by the interception of light; an image cast by an object and representing the form of that object; a sketch, outline

That word “skiaah” is used in Hebrews 10:1 The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves.  The law is only a skiaah, a shadow of the good things that were to come, not the realities.

We all know what shadows are.  A shadow is an image or representation of the actual reality but not the reality.  If you are standing outside during a sunny day, you can see that the sun casts a shadow of you on the ground.  That shadow is simply a dark image of your silhouette.  That shadow isn’t you.  That shadow is just an image of you.  It represents you.  It reflects your general shape, posture, and stance.  It corresponds with you, but it’s not you.  You are the reality, it is only a shadow.

When looking upon someone’s shadow, you get an idea of the reality, but you don’t get the fullness of it.  You don’t see all of the intricate details of it.  You can see the general shape – that there is a body with arms and legs and there is a head.  But you can’t see the color of clothing; you can’t see the skin tone, you can’t see the expression on someone’s face; you can’t tell if they have tattoos; you can’t see the reality in all its fullness for what it truly is.  You only get a vague idea.

In the OT, there are shadows, not the realities themselves, but images that represent NT realities.  That shadow isn’t the NT reality, but is just an image of it.  It represents it.  It reflects it in many ways, corresponds with it, but it’s not the reality, only a shadow.  In looking at the shadows in the OT, we get a vague idea of the corresponding reality, but we don’t see it in all its fullness for what it truly is.  In the NT, we see the reality with all of its details; we see that which was casting the shadow.

A shadow by itself can be misleading (the shadow is not the reality).  When I was a kid, I loved trying to make really cool shadows with my hands.  I could position my hands in various ways to make shadows that looked like:

• An angel
• A crocodile
• A bunny rabbit
• A dog
• A monster

A shadow by itself can be misleading (the shadow is not the reality).  If all you see is the shadow, if you don’t see the reality cast by the shadow, you aren’t seeing the entire picture for what it’s worth.  You are missing out on some crucial details.  Now, can you imagine if I were to sneak into my kid’s room without them knowing and cast a shadow on the wall with my hands like this?  Wouldn’t it appear to them that there was a monster.  They could be misled.  They could be so focused on the shadow that they would not realize that there is no monster.  All they see is a shadow, not the reality; the reality is my hands.  There is no reason for them to fear if they can see me casting that shadow with my hands, but if all they see is the shadow, they will be misled and in fear.

If you’re not looking at the entire picture, all you can see are the shadows.  A shadow is not the reality itself, but an image cast by the reality.  

Only by looking at the big picture can you see the details of the reality that cast the shadow.  Only by looking at the entire picture can you see the shadow for what it is, in light of the reality that cast the shadow.  

The same holds true with the Bible.  Throughout the Old Testament Scriptures there are many shadows which are not the realities themselves, but rather are images cast by the reality, representations of the realities.  Only by looking at the entire picture (only by looking at the entire Bible) can you see the shadows for what they are, in light of the realities that cast the shadows.  The New Testament provides the rest of the picture.  Looking at the Old Testament by itself is like only looking at the shadows.  But looking at the Old Testament alongside the New Testament is like looking at the big picture seeing not only the shadows, but also the realities that are casting the shadows.  We see not only the shadows, but the realities themselves, details and all.

The law was only a shadow of the good things to come.  The reality is found in Christ.

OT-shadow  NT-reality

The study of typology, the study of types and shadows is a study of the things found in the Old Testament that represent greater and better realities found in the New Testament.  God used people, places, events & things throughout the history of the Old Testament to typify, to foreshadow, to represent people, places, events & things in the New Testament, where we find their substance, their reality, their essence.  

In our study we will be mainly focusing on types of Christ.  A great deal of the OT types and shadows pointed to Jesus Christ, himself, but not all of them.

For example, the flood in Genesis 6 was a type of baptism.  You might be thinking, how are you getting that?

Let me read to you 1 Peter 3:18-21 (NKJV) ¹⁸ For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, ¹⁹ by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, ²⁰ who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ

Look what this text calls baptism – an antitype.  This is in the context of the flood in the days of Noah; the inference is that the flood of Genesis 6 was a type of baptism.  The flood foreshadowed baptism.

The flood was a type of baptism.  The baptism is the antitype, or the reality.  

• NKJV - antitupos
• NASB & ESV-says baptism corresponds to the flood waters.  
• NLT says “And that water is a picture of baptism.”
• NIV calls the floodwater a symbol of baptism.

So as you can see, different words can be used to teach the same truth.  In one passage we see the flood as a type, a symbol, a picture.  We see baptism as an antitype and that which corresponds to the flood.  The baptism is the antitype, the reality itself.

Let’s look at a couple more examples of types & shadows along with their respective antitypes or realities to give you more of an idea of what it is that we’re talking about here.

JACOB'S LADDER AS A TYPE.  Turn with me to Gen 28:10-12 ¹⁰ Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. ¹¹ When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. ¹² He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

That was the OT, in which a NT reality is foreshadowed or typified.  Now let’s look at the NT, where we see the antitype, the reality.  Now, turn over to John 1:43-51 ⁴³The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, "Follow me." 

 ⁴⁴Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. ⁴⁵Philip found Nathanael and told him, "We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." 

 ⁴⁶"Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?" Nathanael asked.
      "Come and see," said Philip. 

 ⁴⁷When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, "Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false." 

 ⁴⁸"How do you know me?" Nathanael asked.
      Jesus answered, "I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you." 

 ⁴⁹Then Nathanael declared, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel." 

 ⁵⁰Jesus said, "You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that." ⁵¹He then added, "I tell you the truth, YOU SHALL SEE HEAVEN OPEN, AND THE ANGELS OF GOD ASCENDING AND DESCENDING ON THE SON OF MAN."

Remember Jacob’s dream?  Jesus presents himself as the reality foreshadowed by the ladder in Jacob’s dream.  There was a ladder connecting heaven and earth, there were angels ascending and descending on it.  Jesus says that he is that ladder.  He is the mediator between God and men, between “heaven and earth.”  The ladder in the dream was a type of Christ.  Jesus is the antitype, the reality, the fulfillment.   The ladder was a shadow.  Christ is the reality.

There was a picture of Jesus, right there in the OT.  When we read the OT alongside the NT, we see the big picture.  We see not only the shadow, but the reality that cast the shadow as Jesus makes a comment that implies that He is that ladder.  The ladder represented the Christ who was to come.  The ladder correlates with Christ, foreshadowed, Christ, typified Christ, symbolized Christ.  

Jesus says, I am that ladder that connects earth and heaven.  I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the father except through me John 14:6.  I am the one mediator between God and man 1 Tim 2:5.  

JONAH AS A TYPE.  You are all probably familiar with the story of Jonah and the whale.  God commanded a man named Jonah to go and preach to the nation of Ninevah.  His story is found in the book of Jonah.  He didn’t want to go to Ninevah so he bolted; he took a boat to an entirely different place.  A violent storm arose and he knew it was God bringing it upon them as a consequence of his rebellion.  So they (at his request) threw him overboard.  Johah 1:17 But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.  Inside the fish Jonah prays, that is the entirety of chapter 2 which ends with v10 And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

That’s the OT, in which a NT reality is contained.  This OT passage foreshadowed Christ.  Now let’s look at the NT, where we find the substance, the reality, the antitype.

Matthew 12:38-41  38Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, "Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you." 39He answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here.

Jonah really did get swallowed by a fish in the OT.  This foreshadowed a NT reality of Christ in the earth for 3 days.  The words of our Lord, Jesus explain the deeper and more significant truth behind Jonah’s experience as pointing forward to the greater reality of Him.  The reality is found in Christ.  

Jonah was a type of Christ; Christ was the antitype.  Jonah was a shadow, foreshadowing Christ, in whom we find the reality.

Types & shadows were like living prophecies.  Whereas Isaiah, Jeremiah and the other prophets foretold and wrote about Jesus and other NC realities, types and shadows were living prophecies.  They were people, places and things that simply foreshadowed the NC realities that were to come.  Jonah lived out a foreshadowing of the death burial and resurrection of Jesus, but he never said, “what I just did in the belly of the great fish represents what the Messiah will do in the future.”  He just lived it as God ordained it.  It was like show and tell, without the tell.

Before we close, a few things to remember, when looking at types and shadows: 

• THEY WERE REAL.  Jonah really did get swallowed by a fish for 3 days.  That wasn’t made up.  It really did happen.  But it foreshadowed Christ, one greater than Jonah, whose 3 days in burial were greater than Jonah’s.
• ANTITYPE IS ALWAYS GREATER THAN THE TYPE (and usually physical  spiritual)
• NOT EVERYTHING ABOUT THE TYPE WILL CORRESPOND TO THE ANTITYPE (there are differences.  Consider every type of Christ.  All men who foreshadowed Christ sinned, Christ was sinless.  Huge difference right there.)
• NOT EVERYTHING IN THE OT IS NECESSARILY A TYPE Be careful not to call things types that aren’t types.  The safest route is to only call things types that the NT calls types.  There are other types, I believe, that the NT doesn’t explicitly identify as types, but I would just encourage you to be careful with that.  I don’t want you going home tonight reading through the OT and come back next week asking, about Arphaxad.  Who or what did he typify?  What was he foreshadowing?  I don’t know?  He was just a dude in the lineage from Noah to Abram.  He may not be a type of anything or anyone.  He’s probably just a dude.

As we look upon the Old Testament let’s consider our vantage point.  For example, when you go to a play, do you try to sit in the nosebleed section so that the people you went to watch look like ants?  No.  You try to get the best seats in the house, so you have the best view of center stage.  Do you opt to sit in the seat behind the tall guy with the big head so that your view is blocked?  No! Do you ever position yourself so that all you see are the shadows cast by the actors?  No!  You try to get the best seat in the house so that you have the best view of the actors, themselves.  Viewing only the shadows cast by the actors is of far less value than viewing the actors who are actually casting the shadows.  The shadows are not the realities themselves.  The actor is the reality.  

In the same way, when we view the Old Testament let us view it from the best seat in the house, where we can see Jesus Christ, the star of the show center stage.  Let us view the events, the individuals, and the ordinances contained in the Old Testament as they truly are.  Let us see them as a shadow of the good things that were to come, not the realities themselves, as the reality is found in Christ.

Let’s look at the big picture; let us not view only shadows, but shadows in light of the reality that cast them.  Let us view the Bible as a unit, a cohesive work of God, who in His wisdom and Sovereignty foreshadowed in the OT greater realities to come in the NT.  Let us see Christ for who He is: the grand and glorious subject of the entire canon of Scripture.

Let’s walk in the realization of who Jesus Christ is and how what we have in the NC is far greater, vastly superior, more glorious and worthy of greater honor than all of the OT types that foreshadowed Him as He is our all in all.