Typology: A summary of the present evangelical discussion

V. SUMMARY

This paper has surveyed four views of typology. Covenant theologians often use typology to describe the relationship between the OT institutions and people of God (Israel) and the NT institutions and people of God (the Church or the new Israel). For them typology describes the progression of salvation-history from the old covenant to the new.

For the revised dispensationalist, typology is limited to specific persons, events or institutions of the OT that are designated as types in the NT. It does not describe the relationship between the old and new covenant. It describes the relationship between specific entities so designated in Scripture.

Progressive dispensationalists agree with the revised dispensationalists' understanding of typology but go beyond that in allowing some of the OT promises for Israel to find a typological fulfillment in the Church age. For them typology is one of many hermeneutical classifications describing the use of the OT in the NT. It involves an initial fulfillment but does not annul the original OT meaning for Israel.

Richard Davidson has developed a comprehensive system of typology involving historical, prophetic, eschatological, Christological and ecclesiological elements. Perhaps most unique about his view is his insistence that typology has a predictive-prophetic element and that the indication of this predictive quality of OT types must exist before the antitypical fulfillment.

The first step in finding the answers is asking the right questions. From my perspective there are several questions we need to address. What is the Biblical conception of history? If types are historical realities, are they annulled or crossed out of God's program by the antitype? If the institutions and people of the OT (Israel) are types of the institutions and people in the NT (the Church), does that mean that every experience or aspect of the type is related to a corresponding aspect of the antitype? If not, as I suspect most would say, are we perhaps too broad in our categorizing of types when we use people and institutions? Would it be better to speak of specific events and experiences in the history of those people and institutions as types and antitypes?

Furthermore, what does fulfillment mean in the NT? Do antitypes fulfill types? Does fulfillment of a type require an indication before the fulfillment (in the antitype) that the type was a prediction?

What part does Christ have in the correspondence between Israel and the Church? Or-to try to word this question more clearly-how does the Church's "in Christ" relationship help explain the application to the Church of OT promises for Israel?

All of these questions and more need to be addressed. The way ahead is to keep going back to the text of Scripture to work out the details passage by passage, perhaps beginning as Davidson has done with clear hermeneutical typos-passages. The widely recognized importance of this topic and the great differences of opinion concerning it today demand that it be a priority in our studies in the days ahead.