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

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A B i b l i ca l Vi s i on, Par t I : Mas ter i ng the Ol d Tes tament Wi tnes s to Chr i s t

Moses, Melchizedek, and David: Types of Jesus Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King

The Case against Typology: Is It A Way, Not The Way, of Understanding the Old Testament Theology? (What’s wrong with this picture?)

Typology, then, to sum up, properly handled, is a way of understanding Christ and the various events and experiences surrounding him in the NT by analogy or correspondence with the historical realities of the OT seen as patterns or models. It is based on the consistency of God in salvation history. It has the backing of Christ himself who, on the authority of his Father, saw himself in this way. But typology is not the way of interpreting the Old Testament for itself. This is partly because it is selective in the texts it uses from the Old Testament (i.e., those which particularly help us to understand Christ), whereas the New Testament itself tells us emphatically that whole of the Scriptures are written for our profit (2 Tim. 3.16f.), and partly because it is limited in the meaning it extracts from those selected texts (i.e., again, meaning which specifically relate to Christ). To come back to our three texts in the declaration at Jesus’ baptism, it is clear that each of them helps us to understand great truths about the identity and mission of Jesus. But when we go back and read the whole of Ps. 2, Isa. 42 and Gen. 22, it is equally true that they have enormous depths of truth and meaning for us to explore which are not directly related to Jesus himself. Typology is a way of helping us understand Jesus in the light of the Old Testament. It is not the exclusive way to understand the full meaning of the Old Testament itself.

~ Christopher J. H. Wright. Knowing Jesus through the Old Testament . p. 116.

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II. Moses, the Prophet of the Lord (a type of Christ)

A. Aspects of his prophetic ministry that resonate with Christ 1. As an infant, his life was sought by a king.

a. Moses, Exod. 1.22 – Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”