passages does not necessarily cancel the original meaning as the application of the OT text differs from what the original author may have foreseen. This indicates that there is a double fulfillment; the NT authors can use OT texts with application to the church and do so with while maintaining the integrity of the OT’s meaning and unconditional promises for national Israel.
133Typological Perspectives within
typological fulfillment and then offers a separate category called authoritative illustration or simple typology which also figures into his rendering of typology. The first category is typological-prophetic fulfillment. Under this heading, Bock discusses texts where “there is a short-term historical referent, and yet the promise’s initial fulfillment is such that an expectation remains that more of the pattern needs ‘filling up’ to be completely
fulfilled.”
136Such expectations would have already been detected by the Jewish readers as passages such as Isaiah 65-66, the servant figure of the latter part of Isaiah, and short term partially realized promises (such as the “day of the Lord”) anticipate an ultimate fulfillment or completion in the future. In these OT passages, an aspect “demands fulfillment beyond the short-term event and thus points to the presence of pattern. The prophetic character of the text resides in this ‘needs to be fulfilled’ feature in the pattern.”
137The second category under typological-prophetic is typological-prophetic.
Typological patterns with this characterization still have a forward looking element embedded in the pattern and are prophetic since God designed the correspondence;
however, the pattern is not anticipated by the language of the immediate context but only becomes a decisive pattern when the fulfillment makes it apparent.
138Matthew’s use of Hosea 11:1 (Matt 2:15) and the righteous-sufferer and regal psalms are listed as
examples. Overall, with the broad typological-prophetic category, Bock elucidates typology as featuring identifiable patterns that have a prophetic orientation. Given that the typical event or person anticipates completion and fulfillment, moving to
consummation, an escalation is present between the type and antitype.
139136Bock, “Scripture Citing Scripture,” 271; and “Single Meaning, Multiple Contexts,” 119.
137Bock, “Scripture Citing Scripture,” 272.
138Ibid., 272-73. See also Bock, “Single Meaning, Multiple Contexts,” 119-20; cf. 121.
139See Blaising and Bock, Progressive Dispensationalism, 103, where Bock writes, “Escalation means that [Christ] fulfills [the typological pattern] to a greater degree than others before Him, pointing to His unique and often culminating position within the pattern.” Bock, Proclamation from Prophecy and
In addition, Bock also has a separate category for illustration or “simple typology” where there is no prophetic import. Past OT examples that do not have a forward looking element are used for illustrative purposes in the NT, having an exhortative function for the present.
140Fitting this description according to Bock are 1 Corinthians 10:1-13, where the Corinthians are to learn from the past examples of bad behavior, and the use of Psalm 95 in Hebrews 3-4. In sum, the “problem is that typology . . . involves a spectrum of usage, some of which is prophetic and some of which is not, so it is not a defining characteristic of the category as a whole, but comes to us in distinct ways.”
141Therefore, given this view, national Israel could fit in either the typological-prophetic general heading or the “simple typology” category because neither the analogous or illustrative nature of the latter nor the multiple fulfillments of the former would exhaust or abrogate the ultimate fulfillment of the promises to national Israel in the future. The
(prospective) because the pattern is worked out by God in his plan. Holding to a similar view to Bock’s, but without the explicit distinguishing categories under typological-prophetic, is W. Edward Glenny, “The Israelite Imagery of 1 Peter 2,” in Dispensationalism, Israel and the Church, 157-58.
140Bock, “Scripture Citing Scripture,” 273-74; Bock, “Single Meaning, Multiple Contexts,”
120-21.
141Bock, “Single Meaning, Multiple Contexts,” 121. See Philip E. Powers, “Prefigurement and the Hermeneutics of Prophetic Typology” (Ph.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1995), 184-219, 296- 306, who holds a similar view to Bock’s. Although Powers does not sub-divide the typological-prophetic category as Bock does, Powers finds two major classifications of typology: analogical/theological and prophetic typology: “The key element in the analogical/theological approach to typology which differentiates it from other typological approaches is the absence of any textual indicators of prefiguration in the intended meaning of the OT human author.” Ibid., 191, 297. Prefigurement in the sense of divine foreordination, but not prediction from the OT author’s stance, is observed from a retrospective vantage point for analogical typology as later biblical authors find or forge links between events and persons of their time and those of earlier history. Examples of this form of typology according to Powers are 1 Cor 10:1-13 (like Bock) and 1 Pet 2:9-10 (see ibid., 201-5, 298). Even though Powers finds escalation in the analogical/theological typological patterns as the result of the progress of revelation, OT Israel fits into this analogical/theological category because the present application and illustrative use of Israel’s blessings to the church does not nullify the future fulfillment of provisions directed to national Israel. Ibid., 206-7; 298. Powers’ other category, prophetic typology is like analogical/theological typology in having historical correspondence, divine intent, and escalation, but prophetic typology is prefigurative in having a genuine predictive element that is part of the OT intended meaning. Also, where escalation in analogical typology expands the scope of meaning to new antitypical referents, the escalation in prophetic typology narrows to one antitype that completely fulfills the promise associated with the initial event. Ibid., 299-300; cf. 208-19.
original contextual meaning of Israel’s promises and prophecies must be maintained even if the complementary development by later texts through the progress of revelation apply such promises to Christ and the church.
142Lastly, Blaising has also discussed typology in relation to the kingdom and the church.
143For Blaising, typology is to be framed within a holistic eschatology that he describes as a new creation eschatology involving the redemption of all dimensions of created reality. Thus, a holistic anthropology and soteriology has multifaceted dimensions including personal, familial, ethnic, tribal, and national levels of human existence that will be redeemed and brought forward into the consummation.
144Crucial for Blaising is his appeal that the consummated order is multinational as the future, eternal kingdom features interrelating nations, tribes, and ethnicities. Therefore, while the historical Israelite blessings have limited application within the church, “the typology moves from OT Israel to the eschatological Israel” because the eschatological kingdom includes
142Bock recognizes that some NT texts cancel previous revelation or provide a substitution, but a complementary relationship between texts and themes is to be maintained, for “the additional inclusion of some in the promise does not mean that the original recipients are thereby excluded. The expansion of promise need not mean the cancellation of earlier commitments God has made.” Blaising and Bock, Progressive Dispensationalism, 103, emphasis original.
143Craig Blaising, “Typology and the Nature of the Church” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the national Evangelical Theological Society, San Diego, November 19, 2014).
144Ibid., 5-6. Cf. Craig Blaising, “A Critique of Gentry and Wellum’s Kingdom through Covenant: A Hermeneutical-Theological Response,” MSJ 26 (2015): 120-24. In this poor critique of Kingdom through Covenant, Blaising charges Gentry and Wellum as asserting that typology is the means of establishing the divine plan (116-17) when Gentry and Wellum do not argue that. Instead, Gentry and Wellum observe that the escalated realities that come with what Christ has accomplished by inaugurating the kingdom and bringing forth the dawning of the new creation era are precisely what the storyline of Scripture provides as God’s plan is progressively unfolded. Blaising also makes the extraordinary claim that Gentry and Wellum hold to a form of mysticism that is a variant of metaphysical personalism (124-25), but such a claim is wide of the mark as these typological patterns are not mystically dissolved into the reality of Christ’s person. Rather, Jesus is the focal point of the covenant promises and typological patterns because he is the agent of the new creation, which includes a physical new heavens and earth enjoyed by all the saints and he is the one who initiates the fulfillment of the promises through his work.