NIV Study Bible: Typology and Jesus

Typology and Jesus

Mt 2:15

New Testament writers understand Jesus to be the fulfillment of the Jewish story told in the Jewish Scriptures. One way they emphasize Jesus as this fulfillment is by highlighting an OT figure, object, or event, and then connecting it to Jesus.

In this correspondence, the OT “type” is shown to be brought to completion in Jesus (who is sometimes called the “antitype”). For example, Matthew connects Jesus with Israel by citing Hos 11:1, which speaks of God’s son, Israel, coming out of Egypt. Matthew shows that Jesus, like Israel of old, will be delivered from Egypt by God (see Mt 2:15 and note; 2:20–21). Therefore Israel is “a type” of Jesus (with Jesus as the “antitype”).

For another example, consider the temple in John’s Gospel. Jesus fulfills the purposes of the temple (God’s presence with his people; cf. Jn 1:14–18). And according to Jn 2:13–22, Jesus could speak of his body (his self) as the temple (Jn 2:20–21). John also goes on to show how various Jewish festivals are types of Jesus’ person and work. For instance, John understands the Feast of Tabernacles as typological of Jesus’ identity as light and the living water, key elements of this festival (Jn 8:12; 7:37–38; cf. 4:10,14).

Comments

John Stott on the "old man" and the "body ruled by sin" in Rom 6 v 6

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Berkoff: "The law was not substituted for the promise; neither was faith supplanted by works. "

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The NT does not contain a detailed code of rules for the Christian. Codes of rules, as Paul explains elsewhere, are suited to the period of immaturity when the children of God are still under guardians; but children who have come to years of responsibility know their father’s will without having to be provided with a long list of “Do’s” and “Don’t’s.” What the NT does provide is those basic principles of Christian living which may be applied to varying situations of life as they arise. So, after answering the Corinthian Christians’ question about the eating of food that has been offered to idols, Paul sums up his advice in the words: “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). Phrases current in worship, like “to the glory of God” or (as here) “in the name of the Lord Jesus,” were given a practical relevance by being applied to the concerns of ordinary life. Bruce, F. F. (1984). The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the...

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