Typology: Old Testament Pictures of Christ and His Salvation

Typology is one of the ways Scripture speaks in pictures – a God-given preview written into history itself, pointing forward to what He would accomplish in Christ.

What Is Typology?

Typology takes something familiar today and uses it as a picture of something greater that God would do in the future. A type is a real person, event or institution in the Old Testament that God designed to foreshadow a greater reality still to come – the type is the picture, and its fulfilment is the reality. Just as a portrait hints at the person it represents, so the types of the Old Testament hint at the person and work of Christ.

The Old Testament is God's picture book of grace

Shadows That Point to Christ

Many things in the Old Testament are patterns or foreshadowings of what would be fully worked out in the New Testament. The Old Testament animal sacrifices foreshadowed Christ, the innocent 'Lamb of God' who takes away the sin of the world (Jn 1:29); those who looked at the bronze snake Moses lifted up did not die, and all who put their faith in Jesus when He was lifted up on the cross will be saved (Num 21:6-9; Jn 3:14-15). The law was only a shadow of the good things to come – not the reality itself (Heb 10:1).

Reading Types with Discernment

An understanding of biblical typology can help inspire and motivate our faith as we see how God has worked throughout history. However, an unhealthy focus on symbolism can develop, finding meanings the biblical text may never have intended; such pictures are better called illustrations, and they should be kept in proper perspective.

Hold the picture in proper perspective

How to Recognise Biblical Types

Recognising a biblical type begins with reading the passage in its context – establishing what the person, event or institution actually meant to its original hearers. Look for the links Scripture itself makes, because the strongest types are those the New Testament explicitly identifies. Keep the main point in view: a type foreshadows the person, event or institution as a whole, not every incidental detail.

Check that the fulfilment is greater – a type always points upward to something greater in Christ, never the other way round. Where Scripture is silent, be content to admire the picture without building doctrine on it.

Three Pictures Scripture Names Itself

Adam – the head of the old creation was "a pattern of the one to come", foreshadowing Christ, the head of the new creation (Rom 5:14; 1 Cor 15:45-49). As the first man came from the dust and the second man from heaven, so in Adam all die and in Christ all will be made alive. What Adam lost by disobedience, Christ won back by obedience – the two stand at the head of two humanities, and everyone belongs to one or the other (Rom 5:15-19; 1 Cor 15:22, 47-49).

The shadow is real; the substance is Christ

The Passover lamb – its blood, struck on the doorposts, delivered Israel from death on the night of judgment, pointing to Christ "our Passover lamb" who was sacrificed for us (Ex 12:13; 1 Cor 5:7). The details were fulfilled precisely in Jesus, the unblemished "Lamb of God": not a bone broken, none left till morning, and only those sheltered under the blood spared (Jn 1:29; 1 Pet 1:18-19).

Jonah – three days and nights in the belly of the fish pointed to the Son of Man spending three days and nights in the heart of the earth before His resurrection (Mt 12:40). As Jonah was delivered and went on to proclaim God's message to Nineveh, so Christ, risen from the grave, sends His followers with the same call to repentance to every nation (Lk 11:30,32) – deliverance first, then proclamation.

Reflection and Application

Thank God that His Word is rich with pictures that make unseen truths easier to grasp.
Read an Old Testament story this week and ask what it reveals about Jesus.
Choose one biblical type and trace how the New Testament confirms it.
Share with a friend how a biblical type has strengthened your faith.