05.04. Chapter Third
Chapter Third.—The Proper Nature And Province Of Typology—2. The Historical Characters And Transactions Of The Old Testament, Viewed As Exemplifying The Distinctive Characters Of A Typical Relationship—Typical Forms In Nature Necessity Of The Typical As A Preparation For The Dispensation Of The Fulness Of Times. IN the preceding chapter we have seen in what sense the religious institutions and services of the Old Covenant were typical.
They were constructed and arranged so as to express symbolically the great truths and principles of a spiritual religion—truths and principles which were common alike to Old and New Testament times, but which, from the nature of things, could only find in the New their proper development and full realization. On the limited scale of the earthly and perishable—in the construction of a material tabernacle, and the suitable adjustment of bodily ministrations and sacrificial offerings,—there was presented a palpable exhibition of those great truths respecting sin and salvation, the purification of the heart, and the dedication of the person and the life to God, which in the fulness of time were openly revealed and manifested on the grand scale of a world’s redemption, by the mediation and work of Jesus Christ. In that pre-arranged and harmonious, but still inherently defective and imperfect, exhibition of the fundamental ideas and spiritual relations of the Gospel, stood the real nature of its typical character.
Nor, we may add, was there anything arbitrary in so employing the things of flesh and time to shadow forth, under a preparatory dispensation, the higher realities of God’s everlasting kingdom. It has its ground and reason in the organic arrangements or appearances of the material world. For these are so framed as to be ever giving forth representations of Divine truth, and are a kind of ceaseless regeneration, in which, through successive stages, new and higher forms of being are continually springing out of the lower. It is on this constitution of nature that the figurative language of Scripture is based. And it was only building on a foundation that already existed, and which stretches far and wide through the visible territory of creation, when the outward relations and fleshly services of a symbolical religion were made to image and prepare for the more spiritual and divine mysteries of Messiah’s kingdom. Hence, also, some of the more important symbolical institutions were expressly linked (as we shall see) to appropriate seasons and aspects of nature. But was symbol alone thus employed?Might there not also have been a similar employment of many circumstances and transactions in the province of sacred history?If the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, with the blessings of His great salvation, was the object mainly contemplated by God from the beginning of the world, and with which the Church was ever travailing as in birth if, consequently, the previous dispensations were chiefly designed to lead to, and terminate upon, Christ and the things of His salvation,—what can be more natural than to suppose that the evolutions of Providence throughout the period during which the salvation was in prospect, should have concurred with the symbols of worship in imaging and preparing for what was to come?It is possible, indeed, that the connection here, between the past and the future, might be somewhat more varied and fluctuating, and in several respects less close and exact, than in the case of a regulated system of symbolical instruction and worship, appointed to last till it was superseded by the better things of the New dispensation. This is only what might be expected from the respective natures of the subjects compared. But that a connection, similar in kind, had a place in the one as well as in the other, we hold to be not only in itself probable, but also capable of being satisfactorily established. And for the purpose of showing this we lay down the following positions:—First, That the historical relations and circumstances recorded in the Old Testament, and typically applied in the New, had very much both the same resemblances and defects in respect to the realities of the Gospel, which we have found to belong to the ancient symbolical institutions of worship; secondly, that such historical types were absolutely necessary, in considerable number and variety, to render the earlier dispensations thoroughly preparative in respect to the coming dispensation of the Gospel; and, thirdly, that Old Testament Scripture itself contains undoubted indications, that much of its historical matter stood related to some higher ideal, in which the truths and relations exemplified in them were again to meet and receive a new but more perfect development.
I. The first consideration is, that the historical relations and circumstances recorded in the Old Testament, and typically interpreted in the New, had very much the same resemblances and defects, in respect to the Gospel, which we have found to belong to the ancient symbolical institutions of worship. Thus—to refer to one of the earliest events in the world’s history so interpreted—the general deluge that destroyed the old world, and preserved Noah and his family alive, is represented as standing in atypical relation to Christian baptism (1 Peter 3:21). It did so, as will be explained more at large hereafter, from its having destroyed those who by their corruptions destroyed the earth, and saved for a new world the germ of a better race. Doing this in the outward and lower territory of the world’s history, it served substantially the same purpose that Christian baptism does in a higher; since this is designed to bring the individual that receives it under those vital influences that purge away the corruption of a fleshly nature, and cause the seed of a divine life to take root and grow for the occupation of a better inheritance. In like manner Sarah, with her child of promise, the special and peculiar gift of heaven, and Hagar, with her merely natural and fleshly offspring, are explained as typically foreshadowing, the one a spiritual church, bringing forth real children to God, in spirit and destiny as well as in calling, the heirs of His everlasting kingdom; the other, a worldly and corrupt church, whose members are in bondage to the flesh, having but a name to live, while they are dead.—(Galatians 4:22; Galatians 4:31) In such cases, it is clear that the same kind of resemblances, coupled also with the same kind of differences, appear between the preparatory and the final, as in the case of the symbolical types. For here also the ideas and relations are substantially one in the two associated transactions; only in the earlier they appear ostensibly connected with the theatre of an earthly existence, and with respect to seen and temporal results; while in the later it is the higher field of grace and the interests of a spiritual and immortal existence that come directly into view.
Or, let the use be considered that is made of the events which befell the Israelites on their way to the land of Canaan, as regards the state and prospects of the Church of the New Testament on its way to heaven. Look at this, for example, as unfolded in Hebrews 3:1-19 and Hebrews 4:1-16, and the essential features of a typical connection will at once be seen. For the exclusion of those carnal and unbelieving Israelites who fell in the wilderness is there exhibited, not only as affording a reasonable presumption, but as providing a valid ground, for asserting that persons similarly affected now toward the kingdom of glory cannot attain to heaven. Indeed, so complete in point of principle is the identity of the two cases, that the same expressions are applied to both alike, without intimation of any differences existing between them: “the Gospel is preached” to the one class as well as to the other; God gives to each alike “a promise of rest,” while they equally “fall through unbelief,” having hardened their hearts against the word of God. Yet there were the same differences in kind as we have noted between the type and the antitype in the symbolical institutions of worship—the visible and earthly being employed in the one to exhibit such relations and principles as in the other appear in immediate connection with what is spiritual and heavenly. In the type we have the prospect of Canaan, the Gospel of an earthly promise of rest, and, because not believed, issuing in the loss of a present life of honour and blessing; in the antitype, the prospect of a heavenly inheritance, the Gospel promise of an everlasting rest, bringing along with it, when treated with unbelief and neglect, an exclusion from eternal blessedness and glory.
Again, and with reference to the same period in the Church’s history, it is said in John 3:14-15, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The language here certainly does not necessarily betoken by any means so close a connection between the Old and the New, as in the cases previously referred to; nor are we disposed to assert that the same connection in all respects really existed. The historical transaction in this case had at first sight the aspect of something occasional and isolated, rather than of an integral and essential part of a great plan. And yet the reference in John, viewed in connection with other passages of Scripture bearing on the subject, sufficiently vindicates for it a place among the earlier exhibitions of Divine truth, planned by the foreseeing eye of God with special respect to the coming realities of the Gospel. As such it entirely accords in nature with the typical prefigurations already noticed. In the two related transactions there is a fitting correspondence as to the relations maintained: in both alike a wounded and dying condition in the first instance, then the elevation of an object apparently inadequate, yet really effectual, to accomplish the cure, and this through no other medium on the part of the affected, than their simply looking to the object so presented to their view. But with this pervading correspondence, what marked and distinctive characteristics! In the one case a dying body, in the other a perishing soul. There, an uplifted serpent—of all instruments of healing from a serpent’s bite the most unlikely to profit; here the exhibition of one condemned and crucified as a malefactor—of all conceivable persons apparently the most impotent to save. There, once more, the fleshly eye of nature deriving from the outward object visibly presented to it the healing virtue it was ordained to impart; and here the spiritual eye of the soul, looking in stedfast faith to the exalted Redeemer, and getting the needed supplies of His life-giving and regenerating grace. In both the same elements of truth, the same modes of dealing, but in the one developing themselves on a lower, in the other on a higher territory; in the former having immediate respect only to things seen and temporal, and in the latter to what is unseen, spiritual, and eternal. And when it is considered how the Divine procedure in the case of the Israelites was in itself so extraordinary and peculiar, so unlike God’s usual methods of dealing in providence, in so far as these have respect merely to inferior and perishable interests, it seems to be without any adequate reason—to want, in a sense, its just explanation, until it is viewed as a dispensation specially designed to prepare the way for the higher and better things of the Gospel.
Similar explanations might be given of the other historical facts recorded in Old Testament Scripture, and invested with a typical reference in the New. But enough has been said to show the essential similarity in the respect borne by them to the better things of the Gospel, and of that borne by the ritual types of the law. The ground of the connection in the one class, precisely as in the other, stands in the substantial oneness of the ideas and relations pervading the earlier and the later transactions, as corresponding parts of related dispensations; or in the identity of truth and principle appearing in both, as different yet mutually depending parts of one great providential scheme. In that internal agreement and relationship, rather than in any mere outward resemblances, we are to seek the real bond of connection between the Old and the New. At first sight, perhaps, a connection of this nature may appear to want something of what is required to satisfy the conditions of a proper typical relationship. And there are two respects more especially, in which this deficiency may seem to exist.
1. It has been so much the practice to look at the connection between the Old and the New in an external aspect, that one naturally fancies the necessity of some more palpable and arbitrary bond of union to link together type and antitype. The one is apt to be thought of as a kind of pre-ordained pantomime of the other—like those prefigurative actions which the prophets were sometimes instructed, whether in reality or in vision, to perform (as Isaiah in Isaiah 20:1-6, or Ezekiel in Ezekiel 12:1-28), meaningless in themselves, yet very significant as foreshadowing intimations of coming events in providence. Such prophecies in action, certainly, had something in common with the typical transactions now under consideration. They both alike had respect to other actions or events yet to come, without which, preordained and foreseen, they would not have taken place. They both also stood in a similar relation of littleness to the corresponding circumstances they foreshadowed—exhibiting on a comparatively small scale what was afterwards to realize itself on a large one, and thereby enabling the mind more readily to anticipate the approaching future, or more distinctly to grasp it after it had come. But they differed in this, that the typical actions of the prophets had respect solely to the coming transactions they prefigured, and but for these would have been foolish and absurd; while the typical actions of God’s providence, as well as the symbolical institutions of His worship, had a moral meaning of their own, independently of the reference they bore to the future revelations of the Gospel. To overlook this independent moral element, is to leave out of account what should be held to constitute the very basis of the connection between the past and the future. But if, on the other hand, we make due account of it, we establish a connection which, in reality, is of a much more close and vital nature, and one, too, of far higher importance, than if it consisted alone in points of outward resemblance. For it implies not only that the entire plan of salvation was all along in the eye of God, but that, with a view to it, He was ever directing His government, so as to bring out in successive stages and operations the very truths and principles which were to find in the realities of the Gospel their more complete manifestation. He showed that He saw the end from the beginning, by interweaving with His providential arrangements the elements of the more perfect, the terminal plan. And, therefore, to lay the groundwork of the connection between the preparatory and the final in the elements of truth and principle common alike to both, instead of placing it in merely formal resemblances, is but to withdraw it from a less to a more vital and important part of the transactions—from the outer shell and appearance, to the inner truth and substance of the history; so that we can discern, not only some perceptible coincidences between the type and the antitype, but the same fundamental character, the same spirit of life, the same moral import and practical design. To render this more manifest, as it is a point of considerable moment to our inquiry, let us compare an alleged example of historical type, where the resemblance between it and the supposed antitype is of an ostensible, but still only of an outward kind, with one of those referred to above—the brazen serpent, for example, or the deluge. In this latter example there was scarcely any outward resemblance presented to the Christian ordinance of baptism; as in no proper sense could Noah and his family be said to have been literally baptized in the waters. But both this and the other historical transaction presented strong lines of resemblance, of a more inward and substantial kind, to the things connected with them in the Gospel—such as enable us to recognise without difficulty the impress of one Divine hand in the two related series of transactions, and to contemplate them as corresponding parts of one grand economy, rising gradually from its lower to its higher stages of development. Take, however, as an example of the other class, the occupation of Abel as a shepherd, which by many, among others by Witsius, has been regarded as a prefiguration of Christ in His character as the great Shepherd of Israel. A superficial likeness, we admit; but what is to be found of real unity and agreement?What light does the one throw upon the other?What expectation beforehand could the earlier beget of the later, or what confirmation afterwards can it supply?Admitting that the death of Abel somehow foreshadowed the infinitely more precious blood to be shed on Calvary, what distinctive value could the sacrifice of life in His case derive from the previous occupation of the martyr? Christ, certainly, died as the spiritual shepherd of souls, but Abel was not murdered on account of having been a keeper of sheep; nor had his death any necessary connection with his having followed such an employment. For what purpose, then, press points of resemblance so utterly disconnected, and dignify them with the name of typical prefigurations?Resemblances in such a case are worthless even if real, and from their nature incapable of affording any insight into the mind and purposes of God. But when, on the contrary, we look into the past records of God’s providence, and find there, in the dealings of His hand and the institutions of His worship, a coincidence of principle and economical design with what appears in the dispensation of the Gospel, we cannot but feel that we have something of real weight and importance for the mind to rest upon. And if, farther, we have reason to conclude, not only that agreements of this kind existed, but that they were all skilfully planned and arranged,—the earlier with a view to the later, the earthly and temporal for the spiritual and heavenly,—we find ourselves possessed of the essential elements of a typical connection. We have reason, however, so to conclude, as has partly been shown already, and will still farther be shown in the sequel.
2. But granting what has now been stated—allowing that the connection between type and antitype is more of an internal than of an external kind, it may still be objected, in regard to the historical types, that they wanted for the most part something of the necessary correspondence with the antitypes; the one did not occupy under the Old the same relative place that the other did under the New—existing for a time as a shadow, until it was superseded and displaced by the substance. Perhaps not; but is such a close and minute correspondence absolutely necessary? Or is it to be found even in the case of all the symbolical types? With them also considerable differences appear; and we look in vain for anything like a fixed and absolute uniformity. The correspondence assumed the most exact form in the sacrificial rites of the tabernacle worship. There, certainly, part may be said to have answered to part; there was priest for priest, offering for offering, death for death, and blessing for blessing—throughout, an inferior and temporary substitute in the room of the proper reality, and continuing till it was superseded and displaced by the latter. We find a relaxation, however, in this closely adjusted relationship, whenever we leave the immediate province of sacrifice; and in many of the things expressly denominated shadows of the Gospel, it can hardly be said to have existed. In regard, for example, to the ancient festivals, the new moons, the use or disuse of leaven, the defilement of leprosy and its purification, there was no such precise and definite superseding of the Old by something corresponding under the New—nothing like office for office, action for action, part for part. The symbolical rites and institutions referred to were typical—not, however, as representing things that were to hold specifically and palpably the same place in Gospel times, but rather as embodying, in set forms and ever-recurring bodily services, the truths and principles that, in naked simplicity and by direct teaching, were to pervade the dispensation of the Gospel.
There is quite a similar diversity in the case of the historical types. In some of them the correspondence was very close and exact; in others more loose and general. Of the former class was the calling of Israel as an elect people, their relation to the land of Canaan as their covenant portion, their redemption from the yoke of Egypt, and their temporary sojourn in the wilderness as they travelled to inherit it—all of which continued (the two latter by means of commemorative ordinances) till they were superseded by corresponding but higher objects under the Gospel. In respect to these we can say, the new dispensation presents people for people, redemption for redemption, inheritance for inheritance, and one kind of wilderness-training for another; objects in both precisely corresponding as regards the places they respectively held, and the one preserving their existence or transmitting their efficacy, till they were supplanted by the other. But we do not pretend to see the same close connection and the same exact correspondence between the Old arid the New in all, or even the greater part, of the historical transactions of the past which we hold to have been typical; nor are we warranted to look for it. The analogy of the symbolical types would lead us to expect, along with the more direct typical arrangements, many acts and institutions of a somewhat incidental and subordinate kind, in which a typical representation should be given of ideas and relations, that could only find in the realities of the Gospel their full and proper manifestation. If they were not appointed as temporary substitutes for these realities, and made to occupy an ostensible place in the divine economy till the better things appeared, they were still fashioned after the ideal of the better, and were thereby fitted to indoctrinate the minds of God’s people with certain notions of the truth, and to familiarize them with its spiritual ideas, its modes of procedure, and principles of working. And in this they plainly possessed the more essential elements of a typical connection.
II. Enough, however, for the first point. We proceed to the second; which is, that such historical types as those under consideration were absolutely necessary, in considerable number and variety, to render the earlier dispensations thoroughly preparative in respect to the coming dispensation of the Gospel. This was necessary, first of all, from the typical character of the position and worship of the members of the Old Covenant. The main things respecting them being, as we have seen, typical, it was inevitable but that many others of a subordinate and collateral nature should be the same; for otherwise they would not have been suitably adapted to the dispensation to which they belonged. But we have something more than this general correspondence or analogy to appeal to. For the nature of the historical types themselves, as already explained, implies their existence, in considerable number and variety. The representation they were designed to give of the fundamental truths and principles of the Gospel, with the view of preparing the Church for the new dispensation, would necessarily have been incomplete and inadequate, unless it had embraced a pretty extensive field. The object of their appointment would have been but partially reached, if they had consisted only of the few straggling examples which have been particularly mentioned in New Testament Scripture. Nor, unless the history in general of Old Testament times, in so far as its recorded transactions bore on them the stamp of God’s mind and will, had been pervaded by the typical element, could it have in any competent measure fulfilled the design of a preparatory economy. So that whatever distinctions it may be necessary to draw between one part of the transactions and another, as to their being in themselves sometimes of a more essential, sometimes of a more incidental character, or in their typical bearing being more or less closely related to the realities of the Gospel, their very place and object in a preparatory dispensation required them to be extensively typical. To be spread over a large field, and branched out in many directions, was as necessary to their typical as to their more immediate and temporary design.
Thus the one point grows by a sort of natural necessity out of the other. But the argument admits of being consider ably strengthened by the manner in which the historical types that are specially mentioned in New Testament Scripture are there referred to. So far from being represented as singular in their typical reference to Gospel times, they have uniformly the appearance of being only selected for the occasion. Nay, the obligation on the part of believers generally to seek for them throughout the Old Testament Scriptures, and apply them to all the purposes of Christian instruction and improvement, is distinctly asserted in the Epistle to the Hebrews; and the capacity to do so is represented as a proof of full-grown spiritual discernment (Hebrews 5:11-14). There is, therefore, a sense in which the saying of Augustine, “The Old Testament, when rightly understood, is one great prophecy of the New,”[39] is strictly true even in regard to those parts of ancient Scripture which, in their direct and immediate bearing, partake least of the prophetical. Its records of the past are, at the same time, pregnant with the germs of a corresponding but more exalted future. The relations sustained by its more public characters, the parts they were appointed to act in their day and generation, the deliverances that were wrought for them and by them, and the chastisements they were from time to time given to experience, did not begin and terminate with themselves. They were parts of an unfinished and progressive plan, which finds its destined completion in the person and kingdom of Christ; and only when seen in this prospective reference do they appear in their proper magnitude and their full significance.
[39] Vetus Testamentum recte intelligentibus prophetia est Novi Testamenti (Contra Faust. L. xv. 2). And again, Ille apparatus veteris Testamenti In generationibus, factis etc. parturiebat esse venturum (Ib. L. xix. 31).
Christ, then, is the end of the history as well as of the law, of the Old Testament. It had been strange, indeed, if it were otherwise; strange if its historical transactions had not been ordained by God to bear a prospective reference to the scheme of grace unfolded in the Gospel. For what is this scheme itself, in its fundamental character, but a grand historical development? What are the doctrines it teaches, the blessings it imparts, and the prospects it discloses of coming glory, but the ripened fruit and issue of the wondrous facts it records? The things which are there written of the incarnation and life, the death and resurrection, of the Lord Jesus Christ, are really the foundation on which all rests the root from which everything springs in Christianity. And shall it, then, be imagined, that the earlier facts in the history of related and preparatory dispensations did not point, like so many heralds and forerunners, to these unspeakably greater ones to come? If a prophecy lay concealed in their symbolical rites, could it fail to be found also in the historical transactions that were often so closely allied to these, and always coincident with them in purpose and design? Assuredly not. In so far as God spake in the transactions, and gave discoveries by them of His truth and character, they pointed on ward to the one “Pattern Man,” and the terminal kingdom of righteousness and blessing of which He was to be the head and centre. Here only the history of God’s earlier dispensations attained its proper end, as in it also the history of the world rose to its true greatness and glory.[40]
[40]
III. The thought, however, may not unnaturally occur, that if the historical matter of the Old Testament possess as much as has been represented of a typical character, some plain indications of its doing so should be found in Old Testament Scripture itself; we should scarcely need to draw our proof of the existence and nature of the historical types entirely from the writings of the New Testament. It was with the view of meeting this thought that we advanced our third statement; which is, that Old Testament Scripture does contain undoubted marks and indications of its historical personages and events being related to some higher ideal, in which the truths and relations exhibited in them were again to meet, and obtain a more perfect development. The proof of this is to be sought chiefly in the prophetical writings of the Old Testament, in which the more select instruments of God’s Spirit gave expression to the Church’s faith respecting both the past and the future in His dispensations. And in looking there we find, not only that an exalted personage, with His work of perfect righteousness, and His kingdom of consummate bliss and glory, was seen to be in prospect, but also that the expectations cherished of what was to be, took very commonly the form of a new and higher exhibition of what had already been. In giving promise of the better things to come, prophecy to a large extent availed itself of the characters and events of history. But it could only do so on the two fold ground, that it perceived in these essentially the same elements of truth and principle which were to appear in the future; and in that future anticipated a nobler exhibition of them than had been given in the past. And what was this but, in other words, to indicate their typical meaning and design? The truth of this will more fully appear when we come to treat of the combination of type with prophecy, which, on account of its importance, we reserve for the subject of a separate chapter. Meanwhile, it will be remembered how even Moses speaks before his death of “the prophet which the Lord their God should raise up from among his brethren like to himself” (Deuteronomy 18:18)—one that should hold a similar position and do a similar work, but each in its kind more perfect and complete—else, why look out for another 1 In like manner, David connects the historical appearance of Melchizedek with the future Head of God’s Church and kingdom, when He announces Him as a priest after the order of Melchizedek (Psalms 110:4); he foresaw that the relations of Melchizedek’s time should be again revived in this divine character, and the same part fulfilled anew, but raised, as the connection intimates, to a higher sphere, invested with a heavenly greatness, and carrying a world-wide signifcance and power. So again we are told (Malachi 3:1, Malachi 4:5) another Elias should arise in the brighter future, to be succeeded by a more glorious manifestation of the Lord, to do what had never been done but in fragments before; namely, to provide for Himself a true spiritual priesthood, a regenerated people, and an offering of righteousness. But the richest proofs are furnished by the latter portion of Isaiah’s writings; for there we find the prophet intermingling so closely together the past and the future, that it is often difficult to tell of which he actually speaks. He passes from Israel to the Messiah, and again from the Messiah to Israel, as if the one were but a new, a higher and perfect development of what belonged to the other. And the Church of the future is constantly represented under the relations of the past, only freed from the imperfections that attached to its state, and rendered in every respect blessed and glorious.
Such are a few specimens of the way in which the more spiritual and divinely enlightened members of the Old Covenant saw the future imaged in the past or present. They discerned the essential oneness in truth and principle between the two; but, at the same time, were conscious of such inherent imperfections and defects adhering to the past, that they felt it required a more perfect future to render it altogether worthy of God, and fully adequate to the wants and necessities of His people. And there is one entire book of the Old Testament which owes in a manner its existence, as it now stands, to this likeness in one respect, but diversity in another, between the past and the future things in God’s administration. We refer to the Book of Psalms. The pieces of which this book consists are in their leading character devotional summaries, expressing the pious thoughts and feelings which the consideration of God’s ways, and the knowledge of His revelations, were fitted to raise in reflecting and spiritual bosoms. But the singular thing is, that they are this for the New as well as for the Old Testament worshipper. They are still incomparably the most perfect expression of the religious sentiment, and the best directory to the soul in its meditations and communings about divine things, which is anywhere to be found. There is not a feature in the divine character, nor an aspect of any moment in the life of faith, to which expression, more or less distinct, is not there given. How could such a book have come into existence, centuries before the Christian era, but for the fact that the Old and the New dispensations—however they may have differed in outward form, and the ostensible nature of the transactions belonging to them were founded on the same relations, and pervaded by the same essential truths and principles? No otherwise could the Book of Psalms have served as the great hand-book of devotion to the members of both covenants. There the disciples of Moses and Christ meet as on common ground—the one still readily and gratefully using the fervent utterances of faith and hope, which the other had breathed forth ages before. And though it was comparatively carnal institutions under which the holy men lived and worshipped, who indited those divine songs; though it was transactions bearing directly only on their earthly and temporal condition, which formed the immediate ground and occasion of the sentiments they uttered; yet, where in all Scripture can the believer, who now “worships in spirit and in truth,” more readily find for himself the words that shall fitly express his loftiest conceptions of God, embody his most spiritual and enlarged views of the Divine government, or tell forth the feelings and desires of his soul even in many of its most lively and elevated moods? But with this manifold adaptation to the spiritual thoughts and feelings of the Christian, there is still a perceptible difference between the Psalms of David and the writings of the New Testament. With all that discovers itself in the Psalms of a vivid apprehension of God, and of a habitual confidence in His faithfulness and love, one cannot fail to mark the indications of something like a trembling restraint and awe upon the soul; it never rises into the filial cry of the Gospel, Abba Father. There is a fitfulness also in its aspirations, as of one dwelling in a dusky and changeful atmosphere. Continually, indeed, do we see the Psalmist flying, in distress and trouble, under the shelter of the Almighty, and trusting in His mercy for deliverance from the guilt of sin. Even in the worst times he still prays and looks for redemption. But the redemption which dispels all fear, and satisfies the soul with the highest good, he knew not, excepting as a bright day-star glistening in the far-distant horizon. It was in his believing apprehensions a thing that should one day be realized by the Church of God; and he could tell also somewhat of the mighty and glorious personage destined in the Divine counsels to accomplish it of His unparalleled struggles in the cause of righteousness, and of His final triumphs, resulting in the extension of His kingdom to the farthest bounds of the earth. But no more—the veil still hangs; expectation still waits and longs; and it is only for the believer of other times to say, “Mine eyes have seen Thy salvation;” “I have a desire to depart, and to be with Christ;” or again, “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know, that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”
Such is the agreement, and such also the difference, between the Old and the New. “There we see the promise and prelude of the blessings of salvation; here, these blessings themselves, far surpassing all the previous foreshadowings of them. There, a fiducial resting in Jehovah; here, an unspeakable fulness of spiritual and heavenly blessings from the opened fountain of His mercy. There, a confidence that the Lord would not abandon His people; here, the Lord Himself assuming their nature, the God-man connecting Himself in organic union with humanity, and sending forth streams of life through its members. There, in the background, night, only relieved by the stars of the word of promise, and operations of grace in suitable accordance with it; here, in the background, day, still clouded, indeed, by our human nature, which is not yet completely penetrated by the Spirit, and is ever anew manifesting its sinfulness, but yet such a day as gives assurance of the cloudless sunshine of eternity, of which God Himself is the light.”[41] [41]
We here conclude the direct proof of our argument for the typical character of the religion and history of the Old Testament; but it admits of confirmation from two distinct though related lines of thought,—the one analogical, derived from the existence of typical forms in physical nature, coupled with the evidences of a progression in the Divine mode of realizing them; the other founded inferentially on what might seem requisite to render the progression, apparent in the spiritual economy, an effective growth towards “the dispensation of the fulness of times.” With a few remarks on each of these, we shall close this branch of our inquiry.
1. The subject of typical forms in nature has only of late risen into prominence, and taken its place in scientific investigations. It had the misfortune to be first distinctly broached by men who were more distinguished for their powers of fancy, and their bold spirit of speculation, than for patient and laborious inquiry in any particular department of science; so that their peculiar ideas respecting a harmony of structure running through the organic kingdoms, and bearing relation to a pattern-form or type, were for a time treated with contempt, or met with decided opposition. But further research has turned the scale in their favour: the ideas in question may now be reckoned among the established conclusions of natural science; and so far from occasioning any just prejudice to the interests of a rational deism (as was once supposed), they have turned rather to its advantage. For, in addition to the evidences of design in nature, which show a specific direction toward a final cause (and which remain untouched), there have been brought to light evidences, not previously observed, of a striking unity of plan. The general principle has been made good, that in organic structures, while there is an infinite variety of parts, each with its specific functions and adaptations, there is also a normal shape, which it more or less approaches, both in its construction as a whole, and in each of its organs. Thus, in plants which have leaves that strike the eye, the leaf and plant are typically analogous: the leaf is a typical plant or branch, and the tree or branch a typical leaf, with certain divergences or modifications necessary to adapt them to their respective places. In the animal kingdom the structural harmony is not less perceptible, and still more to our purpose. It has been found by a wide and satisfactory induction, that the human is here the pattern-form—the archetype of the vertebrate division of animated being. In the structure of all other animal forms there are observable striking resemblances to that of man, and resemblances of a kind that seem designed to assimilate the lower, as near as circumstances would admit, to the higher. In all vertebrate animals it is found that the vertebrate skeleton is composed of a series of parts of essentially the same order, only modified in a great variety of ways to suit the particular functions it has to discharge in the different animal frames to which it belongs. Thus, every segment, and almost every bone, present in the human hand and arm, exist also in the fin of the whale, though apparently not required for the movement of this inflexible paddle, and the specific uses for which it is designed; apparently, therefore, retained more for the sake of symmetry, than from any necessity connected with the proper function of the organ.[42] Most strikingly, however, does the studied conformity to the human archetype appear in the formation of the brain, which is the most peculiar and distinguishing part of the animal frame. “Nature,” says Hugh Miller, “in constructing this curious organ in man, first lays down a grooved cord, as the carpenter lays down the keel of his vessel; and on this narrow base the perfect brain, as month after month passes by, is gradually built up, like the vessel from the keel. First it grows up into a brain closely resembling that of a fish; a few additions more impart the perfect appearance of the brain of a bird; it then developes into a brain exceedingly like that of a mammiferous quadruped; and finally, expanding atop, and spreading out its deeply corrugated lobes, till they project widely over the base, it assumes its unique character as a human brain. Radically such at the first, it passes through all the inferior forms, from that of the fish upwards, as if each man were in himself, not the microcosm of the old fanciful philosopher, but something greatly more wonderful—a compendium of all animated nature, and of kin to every creature that lives. Hence the remark, that man is the sum total of all animals—‘the animal equivalent,’ says Oken, ‘to the whole animal kingdom.’”[43]
[42]
[43] Footprints, p. 291.
This, however, is not the whole. For, as geology has now learned to read with sufficient accuracy the stony records of the past, to be able to tell of successive creations of vertebrate animals, from fish, the first and lowest, up to man, the last and highest; so here also we have a kind of typical history—the less perfect animal productions of nature having throughout those earlier geological periods borne a prospective reference to man, as the complete and ultimate form of animal existence. In the language of theology, they were the types, and he is the antitype, in the mundane system. Or, as more fully explained by Professor Owen, “All the parts and organs of man had been sketched out in anticipation, so to speak, in the inferior animals; and the recognition of an ideal exemplar in the vertebrated animals proves that the knowledge of such a being as man must have existed before man appeared. For the Divine mind which planned the archetype, also foreknew all its modifications. The archetypal idea was manifested in the flesh long prior to the existence of those animal species that actually exemplify it. To what natural laws or secondary causes the orderly succession and progression of such organic phenomena may have been committed, we are as yet ignorant. But if, without derogation of the Divine power, we may conceive the existence of such ministers, and personify them by the term NATURE, we learn from the past history of our globe, that she has advanced with slow and stately steps, guided by the archetypal light amidst the wreck of worlds, from the first embodiment of the vertebrate idea under its old ichthyic vestment, until it became arrayed in the glorious garb of the human form.” It is curious to notice that considerably before the progress of physical science had enabled its cultivators to draw this deduction from the lower to the higher forms of organic being, the same line of thought had suggested itself to the inventive mind of Coleridge from a thoughtful meditation of the successive stages of creation as described in Genesis, viewed in the light of progressive developments in the mental as well as material world. The passage as a whole is singularly characteristic of its distinguished author; but the part we have properly to do with is the following: “Let us carry ourselves back in spirit to the mysterious week, the teeming work-days of the Creator; as they rose in vision before the eye of the inspired historian of the generations of the heavens and of the earth, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. And who that hath watched their ways with an understanding heart, could, as the vision evolving still advanced toward him, contemplate the filial and loyal Bee; the home-building, wedded, and divorceless Swallow; and, above all, the manifoldly intelligent Ant tribes, with their commonwealths and confederacies, their warriors and miners, the husband-folk that fold in their tiny flocks on the honeyed leaf, and the virgin sisters with the holy instincts of maternal love, detached and in selfless purity—and not say to himself, Behold the shadow of approaching humanity, the sun rising from behind, in the kindling morn of creation! Thus all lower natures find their highest good in semblances and seekings of that which is higher and better.” (Aids to Reflection, i. p. 85.)[44]
[44]
It is indeed a marvellous similitude, and one, it will be perceived, which is not less fitted to stimulate the aspirations of hope toward the future, than to strengthen faith in what the Bible relates concerning the history of the past. For, if the archetypal idea in animated nature has been wrought at through long periods and successive ages of being till it found its proper realization in man; now that the nature of man is linked in personal union with the Godhead for the purpose of rectifying what is evil, and raising manhood to a higher than its original condition, who can tell to what a height of perfection and glory it shall attain, when the work of God “in the regeneration” has fully accomplished its aim? “We know not what we shall be, but we know that we shall be like Him,” in whom the earthly and human have been for ever associated with, and assimilated to, the spiritual and divine. But the parallel between the method of God’s working in nature, and that pursued by Him in grace, especially as presented in the above graphic extract, naturally raises the question (to which reference has already been made, p. 62), whether, or how far, the creation as constituted and headed in Adam, is to be regarded as typical of the incarnation and kingdom of Christ? As the question is one that cannot be quite easily disposed of, while still it has a very material bearing on our future investigations, we must reserve it for separate discussion.[46] [46]
2. If now we turn from God’s plan in nature to His plan in grace, and think of the conditions that were required to meet in it, in order to render the progression here also exhibited fitly conducive to its great end, we shall find a still farther confirmation of our argument for the place and character of Scripture Typology. This plan, viewed with respect to its progressive character, certainly presents something strange and mysterious to our view, especially in the extreme slowness of its progression; since it required the postponement of the work of redemption for so many ages, and kept the Church during these in a state of comparative ignorance in respect to the great objects of her faith and hope. Yet what is it but an application to the moral history of the world of the principle on which its physical development has proceeded, and which, indeed, is constantly exhibited before us in each man’s personal history, whose term of probation upon earth is, in many cases half, in nearly all a third part consumed, before the individual attains to a capacity for the objects and employments of manhood? Constituted as we personally are, and as the world also is, progression of some kind is indispensable to happiness and well-being; and the majestic slowness that appears in the plan of God’s administration of the world, is but a reflection of the nature of its Divine Author, with whom a thousand years are as one day. Starting, then, with the assumption, that the Divine plan behoved to be of a progressive character, the nature of the connection we have found to exist between its earlier and later parts, discovers the perfect wisdom and fore sight of God. The terminating point in the plan was what is called emphatically “the mystery of godliness,”—God manifest in the flesh for the redemption of a fallen world, and the establishment through Him of a kingdom of righteousness that should not pass away. It was necessary that some intimation of this ulterior design should be given from the first, that the Church might know whither to direct her expectations. Accordingly, the prophetic Word began to utter its predictions with the very entrance of sin. The first promise was given on the spot that witnessed the fall; and that a promise which contained, within its brief but pregnant utterance, the whole burden of redemption. As time rolled on, prophecy continued to add to its communications, having still for its grand scope and aim “the testimony of Jesus.” And at length so express had its tidings become, and so plentiful its revelations, that when the purpose of the Father drew near to its accomplishment, the remnant of sincere worshippers were like men standing on their watch-towers, waiting and looking for the long-expected consolation of Israel; nor was there anything of moment in the personal history or work of the Son, of which it could not be written, It was so done, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled.
It is plain, however, on a little consideration, that something more was needed than the hopeful announcements of prophecy. The Church required training as well as teaching, and training of a very peculiar kind; for she had to be formed for receiving things “which men had not heard, nor had the ear perceived, neither had the eye seen—the things which God had prepared for those that waited for Him” (Isaiah 64:4). “The new dispensation was to be wholly made up of things strange and wonderful; all that is seen and heard of it is contrary to carnal wisdom. The appearance of the Son of God in a humble condition—the discharge by Him in person of a Gospel ministry, with its attendant circumstances—His shame and sufferings—His resurrection and ascension into heaven—the nature of the kingdom instituted by Him, which is spiritual—the blessings of His kingdom, which are also spiritual—the instruments employed for advancing the kingdom, men devoid of worldly learning, and destitute of outward authority—the gift of the Holy Spirit, the calling of the Gentiles, the rejection of so many among the Jewish people:—these, among other things, were indeed such as the carnal eye had never seen, and the carnal ear had never heard; nor could they without express revelation, by any thought or natural ingenuity on the part of man, have been foreseen or understood.”[47] But lying thus so far beyond the ken of man’s natural apprehensions, and so different from what they were disposed of themselves to expect, if all that was done beforehand respecting them had consisted in the necessarily partial and obscure intimations of prophecy, there could neither have been any just anticipation of the things to be revealed, nor any suitable training for them; the change from the past to the future must have come as an invasion, rather than as the result of an ever-advancing development, and men could only have been brought by a sort of violence to submit to it.
It is to this preparatory training, as being on the part of God sufficiently protracted and complete, that we are to regard the Apostle as chiefly referring, when he speaks of Christ having appeared, “when the fulness of the time was come.”—(Galatians 4:4) Chiefly, though not by any means exclusively. For there is a manifold wisdom in all God’s arrangements. In the moral as well as in the physical world He is ever making numerous operations conspire to the production of one result, as each result is again made to contribute to several important ends. It is, therefore, a most legitimate object of inquiry, to search for all the lines of congruity to be seen in the world’s condition, that opportunely met at the time of Christ’s appearing, and together rendered it in a peculiar manner suited for the institution of His kingdom, and advantageously circumstanced for the diffusion of its truths and blessings among the nations of the earth. But whatever light may be gathered from these external researches, it should never be forgotten that God’s own record must furnish the main grounds for determining the special fitness of the selected time, and the state of His Church the paramount reason. In everything that essentially affects the interests of the Church, pre-eminently therefore in what concerns the manifestation of Christ, which is the centre-point of all that touches her interests, the state and condition of the Church herself is ever the first thing contemplated by the eye of God; the rest of the world holds but a secondary and subordinate place. Hence, when we are told that Christ appeared in the fulness of time, the fact of which we are mainly assured is, that all was done which was properly required for bringing the Church, whether as to her internal state or to her relations to the world, into a measure of preparedness for the time of His appearing. Not only had the period anticipated by prophecy arrived, and believing expectation, rising on the wings of prophecy, reached its proper height, but also the long series of preliminary arrangements and dealings was now complete, which were designed to make the Church familiar with the fundamental truths and principles of Messiah’s kingdom, and prepare her for the erection of this kingdom with its divine realities and eternal prospects.
It is true that we search in vain for the general and wide spread success which we might justly expect to have arisen from the plan of God, and to have made conspicuously manifest its infinite wisdom. With the exception of a comparatively small number, the professing Church was found so completely unprepared for the doctrine of Christ’s kingdom, as to reject it with disdain, and oppose it with unrelenting violence. But this neither proves the absence of the design, nor the unfitness of the means for carrying it into effect. It only proves how in sufficient the best means are of themselves to enlighten and sanctify the human mind, when its thoughts and imaginations have become fixed in a wrong direction proves how the heart may remain essentially corrupt, even after undergoing the most perfect course of instruction, and still prefer the ways of sin to those of righteousness. But while we cannot overlook the fatal ignorance and perversity that pervaded the mass of the Jewish people, we are not to forget that there still was among them a pious remnant, “the election according to grace,” who, as the Church in the world, so they in the Church ever occupy the foremost place in the mind and purposes of God. In the bosom of the Jewish Church, as is justly remarked by Thiersch, “there lay a domestic life so pure, noble, and tender, that it could yield such a person as the holy Virgin,” and could furnish an atmosphere in which the Son of God might grow up sinless from childhood to manhood. There were Simeon and Anna, Zacharias and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph, the company of Apostles, the converts, no small number after all, who flocked to the standard of Jesus, as soon as the truths of His salvation came to be fully known and understood, and the believing Jews and proselytes scattered abroad, who, in almost every city, were ready to form the nucleus of a Christian Church, and greatly facilitated its extension in the world. Did not the course of God’s preparatory dispensations reach its end in regard to these? Does not even the style of argument and address used by the Apostles imply that it did? How much do both their language and their ideas savour of the sanctuary! How constantly do they throw themselves back for illustration and support, not only on the prophecies, but also on the sacred annals and institutions of the Old Testament! They spake and reasoned on the assumption, that the revelations of the Gospel were but a new and higher exhibition of the principles which appeared alike in the events of their past history and the services of their religious worship. By means of these an appropriate language was already furnished to their hand, through which they could discourse aright of spiritual and divine things. But more than that, as they had no new language to invent, so they had no new ideas to discover, or unheard-of principles to promulgate. The scheme of truth which they were called to expound and propagate, had its foundations already laid in the whole history and constitution of the Jewish commonwealth. In labouring to establish it, they felt that they were treading in the footsteps, and, on a higher vantage-ground, maintaining the faith of their illustrious fathers. In short, they appear as the heralds and advocates of a cause which, in its essential principles, had its representation in all history, and gathered as into one glorious orb of truth the scattered rays of light and consolation which had been emanating from the ways of God since the world began. Thus wisely were the different parts of the Divine plan adjusted to each other; and, for the accomplishment of what was required, the training by means of types could no more have been dispensed with, than the glimpse-like visions and hopeful intimations of prophecy.