Unit11: Typology:The Life of Christ as Fulfillment of the Old Testament
Weekly Assignments:
In the Bible, King James Version, read Jonah, Gospel of Mark
In the King James Bible Commentary, read Jonah and Gospel of Mark: Introduction, Outline, and Commentary
Introduction:
Even the most casual reader is struck with how often the New Testament quotes the Old as a prediction of the life of Jesus. This lecture examines this pattern of quotation, which constitutes an interpretive system called typology. We'll study the typological system at work by looking at how Jesus draws on two Old Testament stories: Jonah and the Whale, and the Exodus.
Typology: The Life of Christ as Fulfillment of the Old Testament
I. The Christian Bible is divided into two parts, the Old Testament and the New. The New Testament is concerned with Jesus' life and teachings. But the relationship of the New to the Old Testament is not a simple one.
A. On the one hand, Jesus stresses that his message is new:
No man also seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment: else the new piece that filled it up taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse.
And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles (Mark 2:21-22, KJV).
B. Yet, on the other hand, the New Testament also claims that it continues the Old, that both tell one coherent story. The Gospels, the four books that tell the story of Jesus' life, consistently refer back to the Old Testament. Mark, for example, begins his gospel by quoting Isaiah 40:3:
As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger
before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.
The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of
the Lord, make his paths straight. (Mark 1 :2-3, KJV)
Each of the other gospels also refers to the Old Testament. Matthew traces Jesus' lineage through King David back to Abraham. Luke begins by having the Angel Gabriel, who earlier appeared in the Old Testament book of Daniel, announce to Mary that her son will inherit “the throne of his father David; And he shall reign for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end." (Luke 1 :32-33, KJV) The famous prologue to the Gospel of John alludes to the beginning of Genesis: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
This pattern, in which the New Testament recalls Old Testament prophecy and then shows how Jesus fulfills it, is called typology. Typology demands that Christians read the Old Testament primarily as a prediction of the life of Christ. Within typology, the old must yield to the authority of the new.
II. The gospels depict Jesus reading the Old Testament typologically. Sometimes he quotes an Old Testament prophecy and shows how he himself fulfills it. But he also interprets Old Testament narratives as if they, too, are prophetic. Typology assumes that every story in the Old Testament offers types for Jesus to fulfill. This demonstrates that Jesus' coming is part of God's plan since the beginning of time. It solidifies Jesus' authority.
A. Typological prediction in the story of Jonah and the whale-Jesus' death and resurrection.
1. In Matthew 12 and Luke 11, Jesus interprets the story of Jonah and the whale typologically as a prediction of his own death and resurrection.
For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. (Matthew 12:40, KJV)
2. Matthew sets this typological reading in the context of one of Jesus' confrontations with the Pharisees and Scribes--two groups who represent strict obedience to the Torah. They ask Jesus to perform some sign, to which he responds in Matthew 12: 1: "But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah." The point of Jesus' interpretation of Jonah is that it shows he is one "greater than Jonah." "The men of Nineveh
3. In Matthew 12:41, Jesus also predicts the Last Judgment; here we see that, quite typically, typology leads to anagogy (spiritual exaltation; mystical interpretation of sacred works) as the Old Testament text, besides predicting the life of Jesus, also predicts an event occurring in the afterlife.
4. Jesus predicts the Last Judgment as a warning to his audience: they should repent now in preparation for the Last Judgment. Thus, anagogy leads in turn to tropology: a moral directed at the reader, an injunction to repentance.
B. Typology Patterns in the book of Exodus.
The most important typological patterns informing the New Testament are those which interpret Exodus as a prediction of the life of Jesus. These patterns attempt to demonstrate that the New Covenant announced by Jesus fulfills the Old Covenant that God formed with the Israelites at Mount Sinai . There are numerous typological references in the Gospels to the events chronicled in the book of Exodus.
1. Mark recalls Isaiah's call to "prepare the way of the Lord, make his path
straight," an allusion to the literal journey of Exodus.
2. Matthew perhaps contains the greatest number of references to Exodus, since he wrote for Jewish Christians. Matthew sends the infant Jesus to Egypt to fulfill the prophecy: "out of Egypt
The Gospels' references to Exodus gather density in those passages that portray the suffering and death of Jesus. Those are the events that usher in the New Covenant.
In Luke 22:15-19, we see Jesus eating the Last Supper with his disciples.
And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer:
For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God
And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this and divide it among yourselves:
For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God
And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. (Luke 22:15-19, KJV)
Jesus is observing the Passover, which is a celebration of the Exodus. But the manner in which Jesus celebrates this feast begins a new ritual which becomes the main liturgical celebration among Christians, known as the Lord's Supper or Eucharist. The tropology we take away from this story is that Jesus died for our sins. For Christians, the center of salvation history is not the Exodus but Christ's crucifixion and resurrection.
III. The Exodus story with its typological, tropological, and anagogical meanings furnished a model for Christian literature. We'll look at how the Exodus narrative provides the narrative plot for Dante's Divine Comedy, and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
A. In Dante's Divine Comedy, Dante portrays himself as making a literal journey through Hell and Purgatory to Heaven. This journey corresponds to the Israelites' journey from Egypt
B. In John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, the main character is Christian. Like the Israelites in Exodus, Christian successfully crosses a raging river, walks through a wilderness and arrives at a land that flows with milk and honey. Bunyan is obvious in his typological analogies, explaining each metaphor.
Jonah and the Whale—Michelangelo
JONAH AND THE WHALE
The story of Jonah is a simple one. Jonah is a minor prophet who is called by God to preach to the residents of Nineveh Nineveh is the capital of the Assyrian empire-one of Israel Nineveh
THE JEWISH ROOTS OF THE LAST SUPPER/EUCHARIST
Passover is the oldest continuously observed holiday in the history of the human race. It is celebrated in remembrance of the Jews' deliverance from Egyptian slavery. Passover began when the tenth plague, in which God brought death to the firstborn in Egypt
Summary:
In this lecture, we've examined typology, the manner in which the New Testament presents its relationship to the Old: In typology, the Gospels continually invoke the Old Testament as a prophecy of the life of Christ; Christ's life not only fulfills the Old Testament but simultaneously and paradoxically ends its authority. The authority that Jesus establishes in the Gospels, however, continues to the end of the world and beyond. To demonstrate this continuing authority, the New Testament's typological interpretations often show that Jesus' life not only fulfills the Old Testament, but that it also predicts his return in triumph at the Last Judgment. Most importantly, the continuing teaching authority of Jesus should rule the Gospels' reader; hence, typology's end result should be tropology: the reader's awareness of a need to repent.
We've looked at two biblical narratives that employ the four-fold method of typological interpretation. Jesus' interpretation of the sign of Jonah is a Gospel narrative that, in spite of its brevity, shows the complex view of time that typology teaches. The Jonah story is just one of many typological narratives imbedded in the Gospels. Of these, the most significant is the Exodus. Exodus is the story of God's covenant with Israel , where God gives Israel Mt. Sinai
Since Christian typology is an interpretive system designed to make a reader realize his or her own place in human history, and the need to repent now, it has exerted a tremendous influence on Christian writers whose main goal is to strike such awareness into the hearts of their readers. Christian authors like Dante and Bunyan adapt the journey-narrative of Exodus for their own typological programs.
Suggested Reading
Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy: The Inferno. Purgatorio. and Paradiso.
Bunyan, Paul. The Pilgrim's Progress. New York : Penguin USA
Other Books of Interest
Cahill, Thomas. Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After
Jesus. New York
Durant, Will. Caesar and Christ: A History of Roman Civilization and of
Christianity from Their Beginning, A.D. 325. Vol 3. Fine Communications,
1993.
Gallagher, Joseph, and John Freccero. A Modern Reader's Guide to Dante's
The Divine Comedy. St. Louis
Wilson, Walter. A Dictionary of Bible Types. New Jersey
Publishers, 1999.
Websites to Visit
1. All about historical Jesus of Nazareth : words teachings and life of Jesus Christ- site dedicated to presenting historical information
about the person Jesus without religious affiliation.
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