counterpart, and are divinely designed, possessing a prophetic character (prefiguration or element of foreshadowing).
124Among many of this group of traditional dispensationalists, positive appeal is made to Patrick Fairbairn’s classic study and textual warrant, either explicit or implicit, is required in the identification of types. Roy Zuck and others follow the Marshian principle that typological patterns are only those so designated by the NT, but some reject this extreme for a moderate approach similar to Fairbairn’s.
125What is not as clear in these writings is the escalation in the typological pattern or the nature of the fulfillment between the type and the antitype. For Paul Feinberg and Zuck, typology involves a heightening or escalation as antitypes are on a higher plane compared to their corresponding types, but they differ in that Zuck describes this heightening in terms of fulfillment whereas Feinberg treats typology as a separate category from the fulfillment of prophecies or predictions.
126Therefore, within one group of more traditional
dispensationalists, a type is understood as a shadow, a form of prophecy, that reaches its
124Pentecost, Things to Come, 50-53; Donald K. Campbell, “The Interpretation of Types,”
BibSac 112 (1955): 248-55; Zuck, Basic Bible Interpretation, 169-82; Paul Lee Tan, “Symbols and Types in Prophecy,” in An Introduction to Classical Evangelical Hermeneutics, 71-84, esp. 80-84; Bigalke, “The Abrahamic Covenant,” 64. Cf. Feinberg, “Hermeneutics of Discontinuity,” 120-21; and John F. Walvoord,
“Christological Typology,” BibSac 105 (1948): 286-96, esp. 286-87, 404-17, and Walvoord, “Christological Typology,” BibSac 106 (1949): 27-33.
125Zuck, Basic Bible Interpretation, 175-76. See also John F. MacArthur, Jr., Matthew 1-7, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago: Moody, 1985), 43; Feinberg, “Systems of Discontinuity,”
79; and Douglas William Friederichsen, “The Hermeneutics of Typology” (Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1970), 130-57, 306-25, 331. Against Bishop Marsh’s view and in line with Fairbairn are Tan,
“Symbols and Types,” 82; Campbell, “The Interpretation of Types,” 251-53; and Walvoord, “Christological Typology,” 290-91. Walvoord does not fit in the Marshian camp because he identifies Joseph as a type of Christ. Zuck describes Joseph as an illustration of Christ, but not as a type. In fact, Walvoord seems to go in the direction of the Cocceian school as he also lists Benjamin and Aaron’s rod that budded as types.
Walvoord would be an outlier as Glenny, “Typology: A Summary,” 632, rightly notes that the commitment to literal interpretation in revised dispensationalism has resulted in identifying far fewer OT types than those offered by classic dispensationalists.
126Zuck, Basic Bible Interpretation, 173-74; Feinberg, “Hermeneutics of Discontinuity,” 120- 22 (for the feature of escalation in Feinberg’s position, see p. 121). Pentecost, Things to Come, 50, also notes how the antitype transcends the type. A degree of escalation is also detected in the way Tan,
“Symbols and Types,” 83-84, describes messianic typologies in conjunction with OT prophecies.
reality and fulfillment in the greater antitype.
127With this understanding of typology and given the commitment to dispensational presuppositions, Israel is not a type as Paul Tan seems representative in stating that certain things “should not be interpreted under [the]
type-antitype relationship. The different peoples of God (Israel and the Christian church) are not identical concepts.”
128On the other hand, another group of revised or more traditional
dispensationalists take a different approach. Rather than viewing types as shadows pointing to an antitypical reality or fulfillment, these “[d]ispensationalists do not think types necessarily are shadows, and they demand that both type and antitype be given their due meanings in their own contexts while maintaining a typological relation to one another.”
129For this conception of typology, the type may have a prophetic element or be divinely designed to correspond to the antitype, nevertheless, typology is an application of historical persons, events, and institutions for illustrative or analogical purposes with no sense of fulfillment as the “NT antitypes neither explicitly nor implicitly cancel the meaning of the OT types.”
130These particular dispensationalists can identify national Israel as a type
127Zuck, Basic Bible Interpretation, 173-74, 176, 178, is the clearest in positing the type as a shadow and a form of prophecy with the antitype as the heightening fulfillment of the type. Note also Tan,
“Symbols and Types,” 81. Bigalke, “The Abrahamic Covenant,” 64, also speaks of typology in terms of fulfillment. See also Elliott E. Johnson, Expository Hermeneutics: An Introduction (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1990), 126, as he generally fits into this group as well since he describes the type as a partial fulfillment of an earlier promise that anticipates an ultimate, completed fulfillment (antitype). For Johnson, only God’s promises of deliverance and blessing are involved in typology. Friederichsen, “The Hermeneutics of Typology,” 451-53, 456-57, concludes that types not only prefigure Christ, but they terminate and climax in Christ or his soteriological work and so are not illustrative analogies. OT types do not have any antitypical dimension with regard to the church. Strangely, only the Mosaic institutions, the Levitical priesthood and sacrifices, are constituted as typological in Friederichsen’s assessment (see esp. p. 461).
Zuck finds many more genuine types, but like of the implications of Friederichsen’s study, he concludes that Adam is only an illustration of Christ (Rom 5:14) and the Israelite responses in the wilderness (1 Cor 10:7-10) as negative examples for Christians, but not as types. Zuck, Basic Bible Interpretation, 181.
128Tan, “Symbols and Types,” 81.
129Feinberg, “Systems of Discontinuity,” 78.
130Ibid., 79. Feinberg follows David Baker in rejecting prefiguration since that may alter the meaning of the original OT context, although he does argue that types “look to the future, but not in a way that makes their meaning equivalent to the antitype.” Ibid., 78-79. Paul Feinberg, “Hermeneutics of
of either Christ or the church because the escalation and fulfillment aspects (also dubbed as the “vanishing principle” where the antitype cancels the meaning of the type) of typology are absent.
131Fulfillment may be present in a few other typological patterns (e.g., the sacrificial system). Given these hermeneutical commitments, Matthew’s use of Hosea 11:1 (Matt 2:15) can be taken in two different ways. Matthew’s citation can be interpreted as merely an analogy or illustration between Jesus’ life and the exodus events of national Israel, or, since the meaning of the original type is never substituted or cancelled by the antitype, a typological connection is present in Matthew 2:15, but such a link does not nullify Israel’s future role.
132As this example shows, the NT writers’ use of certain OT
Discontinuity,” 121, seems to advocate a similar position as he mentions prefiguration as a feature of typology, but he rejects any prediction-fulfillment element and pairs typology with analogy. Walvoord,
“Christological Typology,” 286, should also be grouped with this perspective, although he is more free in finding OT types. While noting a prophetic import with regard to types, he states that “[t]ypology is primarily concerned with application of an historical fact as an illustration of a spiritual truth” (emphasis original). Walvoord’s study of Christological typologies reduces to mere illustrations of spiritual truths with a few exceptions (e.g., OT sacrifices) Similarly, Justin Michael Brown, “Is Typology an Interpretative Method?” (Th.M. thesis, Master’s Seminary, 2014), 82-85, 101-2, affirms God’s purposeful design of the type-antitype correspondence, but rejects the prospective or prophetic element (with the exception of the OT sacrifices), dismisses antitypical fulfillment of the type, and describes typological relationships in terms of their explanatory and illustrative purposes. In this study, Brown wrongly pits typology against corporate solidarity when they should not be separated and he provides unconvincing exegesis of the hermeneutically significant τύπος passages, failing also to develop how the nature and characteristics of typology interface with many other texts lacking the τύπος term (with exception to a few passages related to the land
promise). Aside from Fairbairn, Goppelt, and Davidson, Brown does not engage other important works that feature helpful conclusions regarding typology (like the works by D. A. Carson, Paul Hoskins, Friedbert Ninow, and others, see chap. 2).
131Feinberg, “Systems of Discontinuity,” 72, does describe Israel as a type of the church. For how Jesus can be thought of as the “true Israel” (or antitype of Israel) but in a way that only secures national Israel’s future restoration, consult Vlach, “What Does Christ as ‘True Israel’ Mean,” 43-54; cf.
Brown, “Is Typology an Interpretative Method?,” 101-2. If the arrival of the antitype consists of the completion and fulfillment of the type, then Israel is not a type, for unconditional promises to Israel must be fulfilled and the NT still affirms Israel’s future, so Feinberg, “Systems of Discontinuity,” 79-83;Vlach, Has the Church Replaced Israel?, 104-7, and Michael J. Vlach, “Have They Found a Better Way? An Analysis of Gentry and Wellum’s Kingdom through Covenant,” MSJ 24 (2013): 12-17.
132Feinberg, “Hermeneutics of Discontinuity,” 122, interprets Matthew use of Hos 11:1 as an analogy. Vlach, Has the Church Replaced Israel?, 91-93; Vlach, “Have They Found a Better Way?,” 17;
Vlach, “What Does Christ as ‘True Israel’ Mean,” 48; indicates a typological correspondence is present between Jesus and Israel in Matt 2:15, but such does not deny Israel’s unique eschatological place in God’s plan. It is not difficult to postulate the promised land as an analogy or as a type within this scheme; see Walvoord, “Christological Typology,” 296 (land of Canaan as analogy), and Brown, “Is Typology an