A Biblical Vision, Part I: Mastering the Old Testament Witness to Christ

Session 3: The History of Israel as Type and Analogy in the Old Testament’s Witness to Christ 43

d. Spiritual drink from the Rock, 1 Cor. 10.1-4 – I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, [2] and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, [3] and all ate the same spiritual food, [4] and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.

2. Much abuse of this kind of interpretation has caused many to ignore the richness of this method of connecting truth between the Old Testament and New Testament.

3. The Bible makes connections and analogies, having certain figures, images, and characters stand for and represent other things.

4. Seeking linkages and connections between the Old Testament and New Testament can help us see how the Old Testament bears witness to Christ and his Kingdom.

D. Aspects of biblical types

1. They are historically real , Rom. 5.14 – Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

2. They illumine the person and work of Christ, John 3.14-15.

3. They are contained (alluded to or mentioned in) the New Testament , 1 Pet. 3.20-21 – because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. [21]