Types

I had seven weeks in Israel in 2018 which was a massive privilege. At one stage I stayed in the city of Arad which is in the Negev Desert, 23km west of the Dead Sea and 1,000m higher than the Dead Sea. Arad is the site of a very ancient Canaanite city and a later Israelite city and fortress.

I stayed in a bed and breakfast place. There were three Germans and a Jewish woman also staying there. The Jewish woman’s name was Dvora –we would say Deborah. She was a photographer from Tel Aviv taking a break to take some photos. This might sound dodgy to you, but I asked her if I could accompany her the next day. If that does sound dodgy, I can explain how it happened. It is all OK. I figured that she would know her way around and she was wanting to photograph interesting things and I knew nothing so she would be an excellent guide. I had a fascinating day driving around the area with Dvora.

She was an observant Jew – not Orthodox, but she took her faith seriously and endeavoured to obey the law. Most Jews are very secular. They might observe some of the customs and traditions, but they do not worship God. She was different. She was serious about her faith but, of course, Jesus was not part of that. Jews do not consider Jesus to be their Messiah. We had some really interesting conversations. I asked her about her believes; she shows some interest in what I believed.

Abraham is the father of Judaism. At one point, I said that when I read the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac (in Genesis 22), I see a signpost pointing to Jesus. I pointed out the parallels.

1.     This is a story of a father sacrificing his son, his only son, whom he loved.

a.      Isaac was the son God had promised and for whom Abraham had waited for 25 years – the answer to Abraham’s prayers.

b.     Isaac was the son through whom Abraham was to have descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. How could that happen if Isaac was to be killed?

2.     They went of a 3-day journey. For three days Isaac was effectively dead, in Abraham’s mind, and then, on the third day, he was given back to Abraham.

a.      Somehow, Abraham believed that God would still keep His promise.

                                                    i. Hebrews 11:19 - Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.

3.     Isaac carried the wood for the fire on his back, just as Jesus carried His own cross.

4.     When Isaac questioned where the lamb for the burnt offering was, Abraham said, ‘God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.’ (v.8)

a.      God did provide a substitute: the ram caught in a thicket.

                                                    i. Gen 22:13 – Abraham offered the ram instead of His Son – a substitute.

b.     Jesus would later be called “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”. He became the substitute who died in our place.

5.     God was very specific about where Abraham was to go to sacrifice Isaac.

a.     V.2 – God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, whom you love – Isaac – and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain that I will show you.

b.     V.4 – On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.

c.      V.9 – “When they reached the place God had told him about…” Abraham built an altar, bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar.

d.     A very specific place. Why? Where is the region of Moriah?

                                                    i. 2 Chronicles 3:1 - Then Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David. It was on the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite, the place provided by David.

                                                  ii. The Temple was later built on Mt Moriah. Jesus, of course, was not crucified in the Temple. He wasn’t even crucified within the city of Jerusalem, but Abraham had been told, very specifically to go to a particular spot in the region of Moriah. Given the way that God does things in the Old Testament that represent things in the New Testament, and given that God was so specific about going to this chosen spot, I think it is almost certain that Abraham offered up Isaac on the very spot where Jesus would later be killed.

6.     Isaac let Abraham bind him and lay him on the altar just as Jesus submitted to His Father and walked the path of obedience all the way to the cross.

Dvora got an abbreviated version of that. She did not suddenly believe in Jesus. She simply said that she had never thought of it that way and the conversation moved on.

The story of Abraham and Isaac is an example of what is called a “type”. We have been thinking about Jesus in the Old Testament: Jesus actually appearing, prophecies of Jesus, and types.

Types are people, events or institutions in the Old Testament that God designed to prefigure and point forward to Christ. They are pictures of Jesus, stories in which there are remarkable parallels with the story of Jesus. The Old Testament person or event or institution is called the type and Jesus is the antitype.

The word “type” comes from the Greek for a mark or impression left by a blow. Imagine a hammer leaving a dent in metal or a seal leaving an impression in wax. It is the same word used in printing of the little metal letters used to print pages. We used to have typewriters with metal letters that left an impression on a page. It means an impression or a form – maybe a picture. So we have typical: something that fits the standard form or the mould. We have words like prototype or stereotype.

Types in the Bible are pictures that foreshadow the story of Jesus. The type is the impression or the picture. Jesus is the reality that the picture points to.

There are heaps of types in the Bible.

Moses is a type of Christ. He is a prophet, lawgiver and intercessor who leads the people out of slavery. He was saved in infancy from a murderous ruler. He led the people through water (the Red Sea/baptism) into a new life, and fed them as they journeyed to the Promised Land. See the parallels?

The whole Exodus story from slavery in Egypt to entering the Promised land is a type of salvation.

Joshua is a type of Jesus. They have the same name, Yeshua, “the Lord saves”. He led the people into the Promised Land. The eternal rest that Jesus gives is infinitely better, but the parallels are there.

David is a type. The Old Testament talks about a descendant of David who, like him, will be a king but the descendant’s kingdom will be eternal. Like David, Jesus is a man after God’s own heart, a king, a warrior, a shepherd, One who would be rejected by His own people. Jesus is the new King David.

The Old Testament system of sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins is a type of the reality that would later come. John the Baptist referred to Jesus as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”

The bronze serpent raised on a pole in the desert is a type of Jesus. When people looked to the serpent they were healed from snake bites. Jesus Himself provided the explanation…

John 6:48-50

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.

They are everywhere. Another obvious example is the Passover Lamb.

When the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, Moses commanded Pharaoh to let them go, but Pharoah refused. God caused ten plagues to come on Egypt. Pharaoh sometime relented then changed his mind again, refusing to let the people go. The last plague was to be the death of the oldest son in every family. God would go throughout Egypt and every firstborn son would die. But God told Moses to tell the whole Hebrew community that each house was to select a one-year-old male lamb without defect. On the appointed night, they were to slaughter the lamb at twilight, take some of its blood, put it on the top and the sides of the doorframe of their house. Then they were to roast and eat the lamb.

READ Exodus 12:12-13, 21-30

Again, there are huge parallels. God was writing the story of Jesus into Old Testament people and events.

The Passover is a story of deliverance, salvation. Those saved were saved because of the blood of the lamb. If the blood of the lamb was on their doorpost, the angel of death passed over. It had to be a male lamb without defect just as Jesus was without sin. 1 Peter 1:19 describes Jesus as “a lamb without blemish or defect”. The New Testament is explicit about the connections between the Old Testament type and Jesus.

Later in Exodus 12 it says that none of the lamb’s bones were to be broken. Psalm 34:20 says that not one of the bones of the righteous man will be broken. John 19 tells us that the soldiers broke the legs of the two men crucified alongside Jesus, but they did not break Jesus’ legs because he was already dead, thus fulfilling the requirement in Exodus 12 and the prophecy in Psalm 34. Is all of this coincidence?

The Israelites had to choose. They had to believe that when God said He was going to kill each firstborn male, He meant it. If they thought that was an empty threat, they would not have put the blood on their doorposts. Today, if we do not believe in the reality of judgement, we will not know that we need a Saviour. Some people today believe that God is all-loving and would never judge. That is not what the Bible says. It is knowing that God is holy and will judge sin, and knowing that we are all sinners and deserve judgement, that forces us to admit that we need a Saviour, and we must turn to Jesus.

God could have just said, ‘I know you are Israelites. I will pass over you’. But no, the Israelites had to apply the blood as commanded. They might have said the blood was a silly idea. What is the use of blood on the doorposts? How could that protect them? They had to believe that this was what God had said. Everything depended on that blood on the doorposts.

Everyone was to stay in the house. It was there that they were under the protection of the blood.

Imagine the basin on the ground at the bottom of the doorway. Then the blood is lifted up on the bunch of hyssop, hyssop being a small herbal bush. It was to be put on the top and the sides of the doorframe. That creates the shape of the Cross. Is that a coincidence? Or is that part of the detailed way God has written Jesus into the Old Testament?

Jesus was crucified during Passover – the celebrate of the Jews having been saved from judgement by the blood of the Passover lamb. Jesus celebrated the Passover with the disciples. Is that coincidence? Or is Jesus the real Passover Lamb who had been prefigured 13 or 14 centuries earlier? Is that God’s way of saying, “That is how it was then, and the people were saved by the blood of the lamb, but now we come to the fulfilment of that ancient picture.” The principle remains the same: people will be saved by putting their faith in the blood of the Lamb – the Lamb who would be sacrificed; the Lamb who would die – people who trust that God said, ‘This is how to be saved’ and who therefore looking only to Jesus. There is no other way to be saved – not our good works, not some government policy. Jesus is the ultimate Passover Lamb who has been sacrificed. It is those who trust in His shed blood who will be saved.

Easter is two weeks away. Easter was the culmination of all that God had planned. So much in the Old Testament points forward to Easter. Easter was, and is, a demonstration of the love of God. He sacrificed His own Son who would be the substitute, dying for us. Now, are we relying on God not really being serious about sin; He’ll just love us? Are we relying on our own perceived righteousness? Do we think that scientific breakthroughs will save the world? Or do we believe the only hope is Jesus? Are we trusting only in the blood of the Lamb? Everything in the Bible, including in the Old Testament points to Jesus.

NotebookLM infographic

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