39. Typology and Symbolism

Typology and Symbolism

Chapter 38 A type is something emblematic or symbolic, used to express, embody, represent or forecast some person, truth, or event. It is an image or similitude of something else, sustaining to doctrinal teaching some such relation as a picture does to a precept or promise, representing to the eye or imagination a conception addressed to the ear or understanding. It is one of the most frequent forms of figurative teaching in scripture, but being sometimes more obscure than obvious, demands keener insight and closer study. The study of Types has unhappily fallen into disrepute in some quarters, by the fact that some have carried to excess an allegorical and mythical method of interpretation, tracing in every detail of Scripture, some fanciful notion or forecast; as when one writer seeks to prove the doctrine of the Trinity from the first word of Genesis, bara—because the three initial letters, beth, resh and aleph, are respectively the initial letters of the words which stand for “Son,” “Spirit” and “Father,” which may be only a coincidence and without designed significance.

Biblical types require a volume of themselves. There are several distinct sorts:

1. Typical Persons, like Adam, Cain and Abel, Melchizedek, Abram and Isaac, Moses and Aaron, Joshua, Samuel, Saul and David, Ruth, Rahab, Jonah.

2. Typical events, like Babel’s confusion of tongues, the crossing of Red Sea, lifting up brazen serpent, smiting the rock, siege of Jericho, Pentecost, etc.

3. Typical actions, like Zedekiah’s making horns of iron, to represent the repulse of the Syrians (2 Chronicles 18:10).

4. Typical structures like Noah’s Ark, Tabernacle, Temple, Solomon’s House of Cedar, etc.

5. Typical furniture, like altar, laver, ark and Mercy Seat.

6. Typical ritual, like offerings, five great festivals, Passover, etc., Day of Atonement, year of Jubilee, etc.

7. Typical robes, like high priest’s, breastplate and Holy Crown.

8. Typical rules and regulations, like laws about unclean contact with the dead, etc.

9. Typical forms, like cube, pyramid, sphere, or square, circle and triangle.

10. Typical colors, like blue, red, white, purple, green, etc.

11. Typical numbers, like four, seven, twelve, forty, seventy, one hundred, etc.

12. Typical Instruments, like trumpets, harps, rod, spear, hammer, etc.

We mention a few prominent types of Scripture which richly compensate study, and about which there is a consensus of opinion.

• Babel and Babylon—type of a godless, man-glorifying civilization

• The Beast—of a tyrannical, oppressive heathen monarchy

• Blindness—of ignorance, willful misapprehension and judicial veiling

• Bride—of redeemed church of Christ

• Bridegroom—of Christ in covenant with His people

• Bulls—of violent foes, destroying God’s heritage

• Candlesticks—of churches

• Chariots—of hosts of God, or obedient angelic servants

• Crown—of victory and reward

• Cup—of divine blessing in fullness

• Darkness—of gloom, wretchedness, despair

• Dogs—of the impure and vile and persecuting

• Door—of entrance, opening to salvation or opportunity

• Dragon—of Satan in violent assault

• Fire—of Power of God—generally in judgment

• Furnace—deep affliction

• Garments—of righteousness, or sin

• Gates—of power and security especially connected with sessions of judges and armed forces

• Girdle—of strength, particularly in race

• Hail—of sudden divine judgment in retribution

• Harvest—of good or evil brought to ripeness

• Hunger, etc.—of strong yearning, unsatisfied desire

• Incense—of prayer, praise and intercession

• Keys—of authority and control

• Night—of adversity, superstition, affliction

• Oil—of fertility, joy, anointing

• Palms—of victory

• Rock—of fixed truths and refuge

• Rod—of government and correction

• Salt—of influence, saving and savoring society

• Sea—of human society, especially in revolt

• Serpent—of subtlety and treachery—the devil

• Sheep—of disciples

• Star—of a prince or prominent ruler

• Sword—of slaughter or division

• Wilderness—of time or place of tribulation and exile

• Yoke—of toil and restraint

Blue is for some reason very conspicuous, as in the Tabernacle. The Robe of the Ephod was “all of blue,” and this is the predominating color, appearing in the “gate of the court,” the “door of the Tabernacle,” the vail and innermost curtains, the ephod, lower fastenings of the breastplate, ribbon which encircled the mitre and held fast the holy crown; in the mitre itself and the covering for the sacred vessels. We find it again conspicuous in the paved work below, and the firmament above, when the God of Israel was seen by the Elders (Exodus 24:10) and in the wall of the City of God (Revelation 21:10). What the blue means, we can only infer from the fact that it is pre-eminently the heavenly hue, as green is the earthly. Blue overarches the whole world, above; we cannot look up without seeing it everywhere and always, and, however clouded, still eternally there. Thus it may well represent the Divine faithfulness—God’s perpetual love and grace—His unfailing promise and covenant; and, so interpreted, every reference to blue, in the inspired Word, gets a new beauty and meaning. Man may vary, as the earth presents a thousand aspects and colors, from the bright green of grass and foliage to the dull gray of desert sands, or the brown of decay and the black of blight; but over all alike and always is God’s heavenly dome of blue.

Such uniform usage of the Scriptures naturally suggests a probability of typical intent and meaning, which sometimes approaches certainty. Here it is well again to note the first mention. For example, the reference to trees of a certain species is very consistent throughout, each having its own fixed associations and natural suggestions.

• The Juniper tree—despondency (1 Kings 19:4-5)

• The Mulberry tree—God’s signal and man’s opportunity (2 Samuel 5:23-24)

• The Olive tree—God’s promise—especially as to Israel. This is especially interesting (Genesis 8:11; Psalms 128:3; Romans 11:7-24).

• The Palm—Victory and uprightness (Judges 4:5; Psalms 92:12; Jeremiah 10:5; John 12:13; Revelation 7:9)

• The Cedar—Permanence, Richness and Fragrance (2 Samuel 7:2; Psalms 92:12)

• The Fig Tree—Fruitfulness or disappointed promise of fruit (Numbers 13:23; Luke 13:6-7; Matthew 21:19)

• The Sycamine or Sycamore Tree—that is, deep-rooted and ineradicable (Luke 17:6). Fruit, wild and abundant (1 Kings 10:27; Isaiah 9:10; Luke 19:4)

• The Apple Tree—Satisfaction, sustenance, consolation (Song of Solomon 2:3-5)

A very remarkable typical metaphor is the Olive Tree (Romans 11:16-24). Again the figure is almost an analogy.

There are some three instances when the Fig Tree appears very prominent; they appear to have a link of connection. Our Lord’s own application of the “Barren Fig Tree” to the Jewish Nation, suggests a possible key to the references to this tree in Scripture, and it seems to unlock many passages in both Testaments. Of the score of references, we select three as most conspicuous:

Luke 13:6-9—the Barren Fig-tree spared for another year of culture and opportunity.

Mark 11:12-14; Mark 11:20-21—the fruitless Fig-tree, cursed and withered away—dried up from the roots.

Matthew 24:32-34—the blossoming of the Fig-tree—a sign of the speedy consummation of the age.

Taking these in this their apparent chronological order, the Jewish Nation, even after three dispensational “years” of barrenness, have a fourth period of probation, as from the Crucifixion of Christ to the Destruction of Jerusalem.

Then, the Nation, having failed to fulfill the promise of its history and opportunity, fell under the curse.

Finally, the restoration of the Jew to national unity and covenant relation is to usher in the Millennium.

Still more careful analysis will suggest minuter points of analogy, for example: The “three years” of Luke 13:7 may represent the three years of our Lord’s personal ministry, He being at the time near the end of the third. During the first there had been the preaching of John the Baptist, as well as His own; in the second, conspicuous miracles and appeals to the Jewish people; in the last, His great passion and atoning death. And yet the Jews were spared for the Pentecostal witness to His Deity. The “fig tree in the way” may suggest the Jew as in the very path of our Lord’s career, with ostentatious display of pharisaic zeal and formal obedience, but, while saying, “Lord,” “Lord,” doing not what He says, but rather making God’s Word of none effect, etc.

Compare other recurrences of the reference to the fig tree.
The types and symbols of the Holy Spirit are most instructive:

Air, as breath, atmosphere, wind.

Light, burning in fire or flame, shining in radiance, illumining darkness, beautifying and glorifying that on which it falls.

Water, diffused in atmospheric moisture, condensed in rain, distilled in dew, poured in floods and streams.

One remarkable feature here is that all these are elemental, and a peculiarity of all elements is that they are universally pervasive and comprehensive, necessary to life, Immeasurable and inexhaustible, independent; and that, while they are in us, we are also in them. The types used to represent Service are very significant. The first prominent typical lesson of this sort is connected with the Rod of Moses, which was probably nothing more or less than a shepherd’s crook, which may have been the rudest sort of a staff. But Jehovah said to him: “What is that in thine hand?” And he answered: “A rod.” And, He said: Take this rod in thine hand, wherewith thou shalt do signs” (Exodus 4:1-5; Exodus 4:17). Here the obvious lesson is that the simplest tool or weapon God can use for a sign or instrument of His power. With Joshua, the Spear was conspicuous. In the Book of Judges we have a series of such lessons. All the deliverers of Israel by their own weakness or obscurity or the inadequacy of the means they used, glorified the power of God. Ehud was lefthanded; Shamgar slew six hundred with an ox-goad; Deborah was a woman; Jael took a tent pin and hammer to slay Sisera; Gideon used lamps and pitchers and trumpets to create a panic among the Midianites; Samson slew a thousand men with the jawbone of an ass; etc.

Subsequently, the “Axe” and “Saw,” “Hammer” and Rod are referred to as passive instruments, wholly ineffective apart from the hand that wields them (Isaiah 10:15; Jeremiah 50:23). In both Testaments a “vessel”—especially an earthen vessel—is used as a symbol of service (Jeremiah 18:4; 2 Timothy 2:21).

There can be no accident in all this—a rod, a spear, an ox-goad, a tent pin, a hammer, a trumpet, lamp, pitcher, a jawbone, an axe, a saw, a vessel. Here are twelve symbols of human service—all of them powerless in themselves, useful only because passive in the hand of him that uses them. None of them can even lift themselves up or lay themselves down, or move themselves; a trumpet cannot sound of itself, an axe cleave of itself, a vessel fill, carry or empty itself. The joint lesson of all this obviously is that we are only powerful as we are passive—surrendered to the Hand and Will of the Great Workman. In Exodus 21:5-6, provision is made for a servant who in the year of Release refuses to leave his master, that his ear shall be bored through with an awl, in token of perpetual and willing servitude. In Psalms 40:6-7, “Mine ears hast Thou bored” refers to this custom, and is a typical expression of the preference of the Messianic Servant for His Father’s will. In Hebrews 10:5, “But a body hast Thou fitted Me,” etc., the quotation from the Old Testament serves a double purpose: first it explains the reference in the Psalm as Messianic, and again it reconciles an apparent inaccuracy in the quotation. The language in the Epistle to the Hebrews becomes the Spirit’s commentary on the sentence in the Psalm, and although the words vary the sense is equivalent. Junius says, “The ear is a member of the body; by the piercing of the ear hearing becomes possible; and only by the hearing does the body become the instrument of obedience.” As the slave’s body became a declared instrument of obedience when his ear was bored, so by the conception of the Holy Spirit was Christ’s body fitted to be the instrument of service to the Father. When the Israelitish servant protested his unwillingness to leave his master, his bored ear expressed a body newly surrendered to service, and even the change of words here interprets the Psalm’s meaning. The indirect prophetic element has ampler consideration in connection with the study of types, but a singular forecast of coming events sometimes may be detected in a simple historic occurrence. In Judges 6:37-40, Gideon’s two signs of the wet and the dry fleece primarily were meant to assure him that in his difficult task Jehovah was with him. But compared with Hosea 14:5; Romans 11:30-32, etc., it is easy to see how the two great periods of Hebrew history are forecast: First, the two thousand years during which God was “as the dew unto Israel;” they were as the handful of fleece on the floor, saturated with moisture, while dryness was on all Nations round about. Then, for another period, already nearly two thousand years, there have been on Israel, dryness and spiritual death, and the Spirit poured out on the Gentiles round about.

Thus, the close student finds constant surprises in the Word of God, correspondences that are both too frequent and too exact to be accidental. He finds a pervasive, prophetic element, as in the bird it is not only the wings that fit for flight, but the hollow, cylindrical and air-filled bones and whole shape and structure of the body. In Solomon’s Temple, the wings of the cherubim touched one another in the midst of the Holiest of all, and being stretched forth reached with their tips the side walls, thus spanning the entire breadth of the Sanctuary. Who can think of them without at least being reminded of the two great dispensations, which, touching each other in the midst of history at the Cross of Calvary, where God was manifested in the flesh, reach backward to the limits of past history in Creation and forward to the limits of future history in the new Creation, at the end of the ages!