I. HISTORICAL TYPES.
4. The extravagance of a class of Biblical expositors in converting the Old Testament history into allegory typical of persons and events under the gospel dispensation has produced a strong reaction, leading some to deny altogether the existence of historical types. But this is going to the other extreme of error. No man who acknowledges the writers of the New Testament to be true expositors of the meaning of the Old can consistently deny the existence in the Old Testament of such types, for they interpret portions of its history in a typical way. But it is of the highest importance that we understand, in respect to such history, that it has a true and proper significance of its own, without respect to its typical import. It is not allegory, which has, literally taken, no substance. It is not mere type, like the rites of the Mosaic law, the meaning of which is exhausted in their office of foreshadowing the antitype. It is veritable history, valid for the men of its own day, fulfilling its office in the plan of God's providence, and containing, when we look at it simply as history, its own lessons of instruction. We call it typical history because, following the guidance of the New Testament writers, we are constrained to regard it as so ordered and shaped by God's providence as to prefigure something higher in the Christian dispensation.
No careful student of the New Testament can for a moment doubt that David's kingdom typified the kingdom of Christ. There is, indeed, a very important sense in which David's kingdom was identical with that of Christ; for its main element was the visible church of God, founded on the covenant made with Abraham, and therefore in all ages one and indivisible. Rom. 11:17-24; Gal. 3:14-18; Ephes. 2:20. But we now speak of David's kingdom in its outward form, which was temporary and typical of something higher. In this sense it is manifest that God appointed it to foreshadow that of the Messiah. David's headship adumbrated the higher headship of the Redeemer; his conflicts with the enemies of God's people and his final triumph over them, Christ's conflicts and victories. The same thing was true of Solomon, and in a measure of all the kings of David's line, so far as they were true to their office as the divinely appointed leaders of the covenant people. Unless we adopt this principle, the view which the New Testament takes of a large number of Psalms—the so-called Messianic psalms—becomes utterly visionary.
But neither David's kingdom nor his headship over it was mere type. The nation over which he presided was a historic reality, a true power among the other nations of the earth. His leadership also, with its conflicts and triumphs, belongs to true history. It brought to the people of his own day true deliverance from the power of their enemies; and it contains, when we study it without reference to its typical character, true lessons of instruction for all ages.
The declarations of Scripture in respect to the typical nature of the prophetical office are not so numerous and decisive as those which relate to the kingly office. There is, however, a remarkable passage in the book of Deuteronomy, from which we may legitimately infer that it was truly typical of Christ. When God had addressed the people directly from the midst of the cloud and fire on Sinai, unable to endure this mode of communication between God and man, they besought God that he would henceforth address them through the ministry of Moses: "Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die." Exod. 20:19. With reference to this request, God said to Moses: "They have well spoken that which they have spoken. I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth: and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him." Deut. 18:17-19. The essential points of this promise are, that the promised prophet shall be like Moses, one whose words shall be invested with supreme authority; and, especially, that he shall be raised up from among their brethren, and shall therefore be a man like themselves. The promise was manifestly intended to meet the wants of the covenant people from that day and onward. Yet the great Prophet in whom it was fulfilled did not appear till after the lapse of fifteen centuries or more. But in the mean time the promise was truly fulfilled to God's people in a typical way through the succession of prophets, who spake in God's name, and who were men like their brethren to whom they were sent. In these two essential particulars the prophetical office truly prefigured Christ, its great Antitype.
The Old Testament contains not only typical orders of men, but typical transactions also; that is, transactions which, while they had their own proper significance as a part of the history of God's church, were yet so ordered by God as to shadow forth with remarkable clearness and force the higher truths of Christ's kingdom. Such are the transactions between Melchizedek and Abraham recorded in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis. Considered simply in itself, Melchizedek's priesthood belongs to the class of ritual types. But in the record of his intercourse with Abraham there is an accumulation of historic circumstances arranged by God's providence to shadow forth the higher priesthood of Christ. (1.) He united in his person the kingly and priestly offices, as does the Messiah. In the hundred and tenth Psalm it is, in like manner, a king invested by God with universal sovereignty, to whom the declaration is made: "The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek." (2.) In official dignity he was higher than Abraham, and thus higher than any of Abraham's descendants by natural generation; for Abraham paid tithes to him, and received from him the priestly blessing (Gen. 14:19, 20); "And without all contradiction the less is blessed of the better." Heb. 7:7. (3.) His priesthood was without limitation, and had thus the attribute of universality. It was not restricted in its exercise by nationality, for Abraham was not one of his people. (4.) He did not belong to a line of priests, who transmitted their office from father to son. He was, so far as we know from the record, without predecessors, and had no successor in his priesthood. The author of the epistle to the Hebrews describes him as one who is "without father, without mother, without pedigree" (marginal rendering), "having neither beginning of days nor end of life: but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually." Heb. 7:3. In the interpretation of this difficult passage, we must begin with the axiomatic principle that Melchizedek was a human being. He could not have been, as some have thought, the Son of God himself; for how could the Son of God be "made like unto the Son of God?" Nor could he have been an angel; for angels are not partakers of human nature, and cannot therefore typify him who came in human nature to deliver those who are "partakers of flesh and blood." Heb. 2:14-18; 4:15; 5:1, 2. And if he was a proper man, then he was "without father, without mother, without pedigree," not in an absolute sense, but with reference to his priesthood. He was a priest whose genealogy is not mentioned, because his priesthood was not restricted, like that of the Levitical priests, to any particular line of descent. He held his priesthood from God, without predecessors or successors. The words that follow—"having neither beginning of days nor end of life: but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually"—are more difficult. It is certain, however, that they cannot be understood absolutely. They are commonly interpreted upon the same principle as the preceding words; namely, that in omitting from the inspired record every limitation of Melchizedek's life as well as descent, it was God's purpose to shadow forth the unlimited nature of Christ's priesthood; that, in truth, the apostle describes Melchizedek, the type, in terms which hold good in their full meaning only of Christ the great Antitype. They who, admitting that Melchizedek was a human being, find the interpretation unsatisfactory, must leave the apostle's words shrouded in mystery.
But whatever obscurity there is in the scriptural notices of Melchizedek, they abundantly affirm the typical nature of his priesthood as distinguished from that of the Levitical priests. He was a type of Christ not simply as a priest, but also in the peculiar character of his priesthood. He united with his priesthood the kingly office; was superior in dignity to Abraham himself, and thus to the Levitical priests; and his priesthood had the attribute of universality. Here, then, we have an undoubted example of a historic type.
It is not without reason that the deliverance of the covenant people from Egypt, their journey through the wilderness of Arabia under God's guidance, and their final settlement in the land of promise, have been regarded as typical of the higher redemption, guidance, and salvation received through Christ. From the earliest ages of the Christian church this wonderful history has been an inexhaustible storehouse of analogies for the illustration of Christian experience. In his pilgrimage through this vale of tears, the believer instinctively turns to it for instruction and encouragement. The mighty interposition of God when the Israelites were "yet without strength" in their bondage; their protection through the blood of the paschal lamb sprinkled on the doors of their houses when the destroyer passed through Egypt; the opening of a way through the Red sea when all human means of escape failed them; the journey through the wilderness; the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night to guide, the water from the rock to refresh, the manna from heaven morning by morning to feed them; God's faithful discipline in contrast with human unbelief, waywardness, and folly; the final preparation for the conquest of Canaan and its successful accomplishment—this whole series of events is wonderfully adapted to illustrate the course of Christian experience, and who shall say that God did not order it with a view to this end? We do not resolve it into mere type. We acknowledge it to be true history, valid to the men of that age—a true earthly deliverance, guidance, and sustenance in the wilderness, conducting to the possession of a true earthly inheritance. But we say that it is a history so ordered by God as to typify the higher pilgrimage of the believer to the heavenly Canaan. It is undeniable that the writer to the Hebrews regards the rest of the covenant people in the land of promise as a type of the rest of heaven. Heb. 3:7-4:11. And if that part of the history was typical, it is reasonable to infer that the whole was typical. It belongs to the nature of a type that it should, on the one hand, come short of the fulness of meaning that belongs to the antitype, and, on the other, should contain some things which find no correspondence in that which it adumbrates. The priesthood of the sons of Aaron, as we shall see, typified Christ's priesthood, but only inadequately, as a shadow represents the substance; while sinfulness, which belonged to all the priests of Aaron's line, not only did not correspond to the character of the Antitype, but was in contradiction with it. So is it also with the historical types that have been under consideration. They represent the antitype inadequately, and only in certain respects.