A Sojourner's Quest

2 1 4 / A S O J O U R N E R ’ S Q U E S T

The Case Against the “Older View” of Typology

The case against typology:

• Concerned only with finding “prefigurations” of Christ all over the Old Testament

• God ordained Old Testament events, institutions, and/or persons for the primary purpose of foreshadowing Christ.

Two bad results of this old hermeneutic:

• No need to find much reality and meaning in the events and persons themselves (Old Testament) becomes nothing more than a collection of shadows) • Interpreted every obscure detail of Old Testament “type” as a foreshadowing of Jesus (hermeneutics becomes magic, like pulling a rabbit out of a hat) Conclusion: typology is not the way of interpreting the Old Testament for itself. “But when we go back and read the whole of Psalm 2, Isaiah 42 and Genesis 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 . Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1992. pp. 115-116.

Rebutting Wright’s Claims:

• Jesus used typology (e.g., the brazen serpent, manna in the wilderness, the Temple of his body, the Good Shepherd, etc.)

• The Apostles and early Christian interpreters used typology as their normal way of reading the Old Testament (e.g., Moses’ striking the Rock, the wilderness journey of the nation of Israel, Jesus as the second Israel, etc.)