00.5-Preface

Preface

Though many are inclined to look with disfavor on any attempt at setting forth the Scripture types and their meaning because of the extravagances of some interpreters of the past, yet the fact remains that these types occupy a considerable place in God’s Word and certainly were placed there for our instruction. In these are foreshadowed the grandest truths that ever entered into man’s mind. An endeavor is made in the following pages to describe the types sufficiently to give a proper basis for showing their antitypical meaning. The aim is to present these Biblical types and their meaning in a practical manner so that the average reader will be able to understand them. This work does not profess to be exhaustive. Its brevity excludes a detailed description of all the types with the various technical points related to them. Neither is it possible in the narrow limits of this volume to give a lengthy discussion of the various Christian truths typified. It is assumed that the reader is not entirely unacquainted with the Bible. But though the first aim is a popular treatment of topology, yet the subject is presented systematically and with a degree of fullness and reference that will, it is hoped, make it of value to the student of topology as a textbook.

Less interest in Scripture types has been manifested in recent years than formerly, probably partly because of the influence of the modern religious liberalism that denies the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and the prophetic element of Scripture. But every devout heart who gives careful thought to these "shadows of good things" can not fail to be strongly convicted of the fact that there is One who sees the end from the beginning and who in giving these adumbrations of glorious Christian truth proved once for all the existence of God, the divinity of Christ, and the divine origin of the Bible and of the religion it sets forth.

I have derived assistance from a number of writers on this subject, also from various commentaries and religious encyclopedias. Of the former I acknowledge special indebtedness to Fairbairn’s great classic on the "Topology of Scriptures," also to Dr. Moore head’s "Mosaic Institutions," though I have often felt obliged to vary widely from their interpretation of types. I especially desire to acknowledge the gracious assistance of the Spirit of God, whose illuminating influence I have very definitely recognized several times while writing when under his divine enlightenment new beauties shone forth that I had never before recognized. I sincerely trust that the same blessed Spirit will make the perusal of these pages profitable to the reader.

Anderson, Ind., July 1, 1922.

Russell R. Byrum.