Church of God, Carmichael, CA
Russell R. Byrum, 1922
[Original Page Numbers]
The Difficulties of Typology.—In endeavoring to interpret Old Testament types we are not unaware of the abuses of the subject and extremes to which typical interpretation has been carried in the past. This immoderation of the past is probably the cause of the present neglect of the subject among Christians. There is a general skepticism concerning types. Much of what is written on the subject consists of warnings against improper interpretations. The dangers of error have been allowed to eclipse almost entirely the fact that these constitute an important part of God's Holy Word and are given for our instruction. We might also be skeptical about the interpretation of other portions of the Bible, because there has been error in a greater or less measure in interpreting all phases of it in the past. Is it not better that instead of saying with the agnostics, "We do not know and it can not be known," that we do as with other portions of the Bible—learn by the errors of our predecessors, avoid their extremes, and learn what is knowable about the subject even if we can not understand everything about it?
The antenicene Greek church fathers were much given to finding a typical meaning in every part of the Bible. This was especially true of the learned Origen. He held a plain or literal sense of all Scripture and also an allegorical, typical, or spiritual interpretation. He held at least a twofold, and some have supposed a fourfold, meaning of all parts of the Bible. This method of interpreting the Bible was so destructive to certain knowledge of truth that it led to a revolt from that method by Luther and other reformers who always strongly held for a single plain sense.
But subsequent to the Reformation a prominent school of typical interpretation arose under Cocceius which without regard for sound principles of interpretation endeavored to find types wherever they found a mere superficial resemblance between things in the Old Testament and the New. This tendency became widespread. As is too often the case, this extreme led to an opposite one by Bishop Marsh's school, which denies typical significance in things of the Old Testament unless they are expressly declared [17] or obviously implied to be types by the New Testament. Marsh's rule has had wide acceptance, doubtless due to the prevalence of the other extreme.
As the Cocceian method violates sound principles of interpretation to which we have already called attention, so Marsh's view on the other hand is too narrow and excludes many real types. Doubtless we should look to the Scripture for a correct knowledge of the nature of types, but we should not expect to find in the New Testament a formal or systematic interpretation of every Old Testament type. Those that are interpreted there are done so only incidentally, as occasion required. Bible truth is not revealed scientifically but historically, and it is an error to view, the Scriptures as a scientific or systematic treatment of theology. Nor do we think of applying so rigid a rule to the interpretation of word prophecies or parables. Examples are given in the Bible of the interpretation of prophecy and parables, and from these we derive the general principles for interpreting the others not there explained. Likewise we deal with the symbolic predictions of Daniel and the Apocalypse. When we read in Revelation 1 that the seven candlesticks are the seven churches, in the seventeenth chapter that the ten horns are ten kings, and other similar examples, we get the idea that these are symbols analogous to certain facts. May we not be as reasonable in our study of the Bible types?
Principles of Interpretation.—The following specific rules for interpreting types are intended, not to dispel every ambiguity, but rather to set forth the more prominent principles bearing upon the subject.
1. A proper analogy must be sustained between the type and the antitype or that predicted as there is also between the type and that symbolized. Only the most precious materials in the construction of the tabernacle were fit to represent the true tabernacle, God's church.
2. The antitype, though analogous to the type, yet is essentially different in nature from it. The type is [18] material, the antitype is spiritual. Aaron, the priest, does not typify the Christian minister but something essentially different—the meditorial office of Christ.
3. The antitype is higher and more glorious than the type. The thing signified is more valuable than the sign, and eternal spiritual realities are more precious than temporal material things. Christ "is the mediator of a better covenant" (Heb. 8:6) than was Moses.
4. The antitype must contain, and furnish the basis for, the same element of truth as the type symbolizes. If the brazen serpent, as a type of Christ, was a symbol of salvation from death, then Christ's being lifted up must be for a similar purpose.
5. (This and the following rules are especially applicable to the ritual types.) An understanding of the name of a type is important to its interpretation; for, as in the "sin offering," the name is given with direct reference to the idea represented.
6. A clear understanding of the outward constitution of the type is important to the correct interpretation of the antitype. To attempt to know the antitype without first knowing the type is like trying to reach an end without using the means.
7. In interpreting types we must not attempt to find antitypical meanings of those accessories of the type which are required by its physical constitution, such as the grate of the brazen altar, which was required probably to make the fire burn well, the rings and bars on the ark by which it was transported, or the snuff dishes by the golden candlesticks. If we keep this in mind we are not liable to go too far wrong in explaining the details of these ritual types. [19]