The answer is all three are types of Jesus Christ. This month I want to look at typology in the Bible. We don’t hear many pastors or theologians speaking about typology. A theologian of a former era named Patrick Fairbairn (1805-1874) did. He wrote several volumes on the typology of the Bible. His most famous work was “The Typology of Scripture.”
Before we dive into it, what is a type of something in the Bible? A type is a representation by one thing of another. Adam was a type of Christ (Rom. 5:14) and so was Isaac (Heb. 11:19). The Passover was a type of Christ (1 Cor. 5:7). It usually is something in the Old Testament that is brought to life in the New Testament. The old saying is “the Old Testament contains the gospel concealed. The New Testament contains the gospel revealed.” That is equally true of types.
Let’s look at just three types: Adam, Moses, and the Passover Lamb. Adam was a type of Jesus Christ. He was both the physical (progenitor) and federal head of the race being the first human created by God and the representative of humanity. Jesus was the spiritual and federal head of the church being the first one resurrected from the dead and the representative of a spiritual people, the church (1 Cor. 15:22-23). Adam brought sin and death into the world. Jesus offers forgiveness and life to all who believe in Him.
Moses, too, is a type of Christ. In what way? Moses was the leader of God’s physical people, the nation of Israel; even as Christ is the Leader of God’s spiritual people, the church. Moses provided physical freedom from the bondage of slavery through the death and applied blood of a lamb. Christ provides spiritual freedom from slavery to sin through His death and shed blood as the Lamb of God. Moses was atop Mt. Sinai for 40 days and nights receiving the law (Exodus 34:28). Christ was atop the Mt. of Temptation for 40 days and nights defeating the devil (Matthew 4:2). Moses and Jesus both gave covenants to the people of God. Moses gave the old covenant of the law to Israel. Jesus gave the new covenant of grace to the church. Finally, Moses was willing to die for the sins of his people to avert God’s wrath against them (Exodus 32:32). Jesus did die for the sins of the world and took the wrath of God upon Himself (Romans 3:25).
The Passover Lamb (Pesach) is also a type of Christ. Here are the requirements for the Passover Lamb (Exodus 12:3-10). The lamb was to be spotless, without blemish. Even so, Jesus Christ was the sinless Son of God. The lamb was to be slain on the 14th of Abib at twilight. On the day Christ died on the Cross - for our sins, it was the fourteenth day of Abib, A.D. 33. At the third hour (9:00 AM), Israel's high priest tied the Passover lamb to the altar for sacrifice. At that exact moment outside the city walls of Jerusalem, Jesus, the Lamb of God, was nailed to the cross. For six hours both the Passover lamb and Jesus the Lamb of God, awaited death. Finally, at the ninth hour (3:00 PM), the high priest ascended the altar in the temple and sacrificed the Passover lamb. At 3:00 PM, Jesus, God’s Passover Lamb, cried out from the cross, “It is finished” and gave up His spirit (John 19:30)! In the Exodus account of the Passover, every Israelite household was to apply the blood to the doorframe and the lintel beam of the house to protect those inside from being slain by the angel of death. Even so, Jesus’ blood applied to our lives by faith protects us from the wrath of God and renders us spotless and fit for heaven.
That’s a small taste of typology in the Bible but let me issue a word of caution. It is possible to make nearly everything in the Old Testament a type of something in the New Testament. As one of my professors once said, “Some of the tent pegs of the tabernacle were actually used to hold it together!”
Learning with you the depth of God’s Word,
Irv