What is a type?

In the definition, (1.) We are to respect its etymology. (2.) Its Homonymy, or various acceptations. The Greek word τυπος, typos, which generally is used in this affair, is derived of τυπτω, which signifies to beat or strike, and is formed of its mean præter-tense) has various significations. As,

1. In a general signification τυπος, a type, is called the print or mark, which is made by beating, as John 20:25. What we call, the print of the nails, is in Greek, τυπος ηλων, the type of the nails; that is, the impression or holes left by the nails beaten or driven through his hands.

2. More particularly, it denotes an example or exemplar, which in certain actions we imitate, this goes before, and is to be imitated; see Phil. 3:17, 1 Thess. 1:7, 2 Thess. 3:9, 1 Tim. 4:12, Tit. 2:7, 1 Pet. 5:3, and 2:21, Acts 23:25, Rom. 6:17. What we translate form of doctrine, in the Greek, is τυπος διδαχης, that type of doctrine; that is, in which God has prescribed the rule, form, and example of obedience, and life to us, viz. to believe the gospel, and live accordingly, Phil. 1:27.

3. In another signification τυπος, a type, is called a description not very exact, viz., that which is made summarily, briefly, and less completely.

4. It has also another signification with physicians, who call that form and order observed or noted in the increase or abatement of diseases; τυπος, a type, denoting the symptoms of the disease, and what it is: hence Galen wrote a book entitled, περι των τυπων, of types. As to other senses wherein lawyers and politicians take it, consult Stephanus in Thesaur. Græcæ Linguæ, Tom. 3. Col. 1691.

5. But to approach nearer to our scope and business, τυπος, a type, denotes a figure, image, effigy, or representation of any thing, and that either painted, feigned, or engraven or expressed by any other way of imitation, Acts 7:43. So Isocrates in Evag. Encom. calls τυπους, the images of bodies, (των σωματων εικονας.)

6. Divines understand nothing else by types, but the images or figures of things present or to come; especially the actions and histories of the Old Testament, respecting such as prefigured Christ our Saviour in his actions, life, passion, death, and the glory that followed. In which sense some judge this appellation to be εγγραφον, written or inscribed, and refer Rom. 5:14, to it, where Adam the first man, is called τυπος του μελλοντος, figura futuri, “The figure of him that was to come,” viz., “the last Adam,” 1 Cor. 15:45, and 10:6, ταυτα τυποι ημων εγενηθησαν, “Now these things were our types;” and verse 11, ταυτα παντα τυποι συνεβαινον εκεινοις, “Now all these things happened to them for types.” These two texts we translate examples, or ensamples. But in the former place, Rom. 5:14, a type seems not properly to denote what we here intend, for there is a certain comparison made between Adam and Christ, which carries rather a disparity than a similitude in it. The protasis, or proposition, is in ver. 12. As Adam conveyed death together with sin to all that were born of him, (ut Adamus omnibus ex se natis cum peccato mortem communicat.) The apodosis, reddition, or return, is not expressly set down, but insinuated in the foregoing words, as if he had said, so Christ conveys or communicates life to all those that by faith are given to, and implanted in him. A Type therefore in the said place denotes a similitude generically, and relates to the fifth particular. In the latter example τύπος, a type, signifies an example, shadow, or umbrage of things to come, as the words annexed make out, yet not properly relating to the types in hand. To this some refer Heb. 8:5, Acts 7:44, where τύπος, a type, is taken for the pattern and image shown to Moses in the mount, Exod. 25:40; in the Hebrew it is called הבנית, an exemplar, pattern, figure, or form, denoting that the structure of that Levitical tabernacle, was a type or prefiguration of the truth which was to be expected under the gospel dispensation: so Gregory Nazainzen says, “That the Levitical law was a shadow of things to come, as the apostle declared, and as God commanded Moses to do all things, κατα τον τυπον, according to the example showed him in the mount, viz. of things obvious to sense, which afterwards were to be discovered by faith. Piscator says, that by τιπος, a type, Heb. 8:5, the αρχετὺπος, or archetype, is to be understood; that is, the principal or primitive exemplar or pattern of those heavenly and spiritual things, which were prefigured by the tabernacle, and the ceremonies relating to it, as antitypes, viz. the death of Christ upon the altar of the cross, and his entrance into the heavenly sanctuary, which things were spiritually revealed to Moses.”

But we may be satisfied that by type, or example, in the aforesaid place, we are to understand the disposition and form of the future building of God’s house under the evangelical dispensation, and so it belongs to the fifth signification, according to the signification of the Hebrew word בנה, Banah ædificavit, he hath built.

Synonymous Terms

The word typos used by the seventy, answers to חננית Exod. 26:37, and צלﬦ, Amos 5:26; but neither of these concern us in this place. Yet we may refer to this that general appellation, משל, Mashal, which denotes a similitude, or the comparison of one thing to another: also a parable, proverb, axiom, dark or figurative speech: see Ezek. 24:3. In the Arabic tongue we meet with the word שבה, Schibh, which denotes a similitude, type, or parable, from שבה, he was like, &c. 2. From Greek writers, as well canonical, as ecclesiastical, we may mention some synonymous appellations; as from the New Testament, we find that the types of things to come are called.

1. Σκια, a shadow of things to come, Heb. 8:5, σκια τών επουρανιών, “a shadow of heavenly things; and Heb. 10:1, σκια των αγαθων, “the shadow of good things to come;” because Christ, with his blessings and works performed for the salvation of mankind, was proposed to the godly in an obscure way, or a shadowy description of his lineaments in the Old Testament. Hence some think that (Rom. 13:12,) the Old Testament is represented by night, or darkness, and the New Testament by day, or face to face.

2. Υποδειγμα, an example, or pattern; the priests of the Old Testament are called λατρευοντες, υποδειγματι επουρανιων, to serve to those things, Heb. 8:5, that is, to be exercised in those parts of divine worship, which were types and figures of things to be expected in the New; here there may be an ellipsis of the preposition εν, and so the sense is, that their priesthood or ministry expired εν υποδειγματι, in the exemplar or shadow of heavenly things, because by their priesthood, the celestial and spiritual priesthood of Christ was prefigured as in types; the like appellation we have, Heb. 9:23.

3. Σημειον, a sign, Matt. 12:39, where Christ applies the three days’ stay of Jonas in the whale’s belly, as a type of himself, σημειον του Ιωνα του προφητου, “the sign of the prophet Jonas.” Here Christ accommodates his speech to the words of the Scribes and Pharisees, who asked a sign of him; otherwise a sign and a type differ in signification, the one being of a larger, the other of a narrower signification: every type is a sign, but every sign is not a type: every sign may represent the thing signified although unlike; but the condition of a type is, that it must bear a parity, proportion, or likeness to the thing typified.

4. Παραβολη, a parable, Heb. 9:9, which term in the Hebrew books of the Old Testament, frequently answers the Word משל, but is put in this place for such typical or prefigurative things, and actions, as are related in the Old Testament. So Heb. 11:19, the phrase of “Abraham’s receiving his son in a figure,” which son was by him adjudged as good as dead, εν παραβολη, in a parable or similitude, is well expounded, that he was a type or similitude of Christ. In ecclesiastical writers we meet with the same appellations, of such as are very near, only we are to take notice, (1.) That they confound the allegory with the type frequently: so Augustine, Tom. 1, oper. lib. de vera Relig. cap. 56, says, an allegory, under which term undoubtedly he comprehended types, is four-fold, viz., respecting history, fact, preaching, and sacraments. (2.) Gregory Nazianzen puts the antitype for the type, Orat. 42, εις το αγιον ωασχα, Pag. 692, his words are, ο δε καλχους, οφις κρεμαται μενκατα των δακνοντων οφεων ουκ ως τυπος δε του υπερ ημων, παθοντος αλλʼ ως αντιτυπος; that is, yet really the brazen serpent was not hanged up to prevent the biting of serpents, nor yet as a type of Christ, who suffered for us, but as an antitype. (3.) In the Latin tongue the words Exemplar, Figura, Præfiguratio, are much used, that is, a pattern, figure, or representing a thing to come. But the word type was most usual to denote privileges to come, by the donation of parents to such as were denizens of the city of Rome, when it was imperial.

What is an antitype?

The correlative, or that which answers a type, is the antitype, that is, the thing represented by the type, or that which answers to it; as 1 Pet. 3:20, where when the history of eight souls saved by water, (in the deluge, Gen. 6:17, 18,) is mentioned, the apostle subjoins, ver. 21, ω αντιτυπον νυν και ημας σωζοι βαπτισμα, i. e. “to which the antitype, baptism, doth now also save us,” so the Greek; by which the apostle denotes, that baptism, which is a medium, or means of salvation in the Gospel dispensation, is the antitype, or answers to the type, of that great preservation of those few faithful persons that were saved in that universal deluge, commonly called Noah’s flood.

This antitype, or thing prefigured, has other appellations in the New Testament, as first, Col. 2:17, where it is called σωμα, a body, which is opposed to τη σκια a shadow, and signifies only the very thing or genuine essence, whose αποσκιασμα,obumbration, or shadow, or picture was prefigured in the time of the Old Testament; hence it is said, ver. 9, of the same chapter, “that in him, viz. Christ, dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead, σωματικως, bodily.” In the time of the Old Testament God dwelt in the temple of Jerusalem, and upon the ark of the covenant, in the mercy-seat, but it was τυπικως, typically. But when the fulness of time was come, the whole fulness of the Deity dwelt bodily, truly, and in a most eminent manner personally in Christ’s human nature.

2. Consult Heb. 10:1, where you will find a metaphor taken from painters, who first with a charcoal are wont to draw a σκιαγραφια, that is, a rude adumberation or delineation of the thing they intended to paint, and afterwards perfect it with true and lively colours, till they make a fair picture. By the first of these, the apostle in this place, means the σκιαι, or shadows of the Old Testament; by the latter, the truth and compliment of the Old Testament types, which the apostle calls εικονας, images.

Heb. 9:23, τα εν τοις ουρανοις, “Things in the heavens,” or, as the explication subjoined has it, “heavenly things,” are called such things as are understood to typify the heavenly priesthood of Christ, and other things mentioned in the Old Testament: so ver. 24, they are called τα αληθινα true, by which is hinted, that the images, prefigurations, or adumbrations of those good things, were but exhibited only in the Old Testament: see John 1:17, where it is said, “That grace and truth came by Jesus Christ;” in which place, grace is opposed to the curse of the law, and truth, to the ceremonies, shadows, and prefigured types thereof.

The definition of the thing is thus: a typical sense is when things hidden, or unknown, whether present, or to come, especially when the transactions recorded in the Old Testament prefigure the transactions in the New, are expressed by external action, or prophetical vision. The division of types follows.

Benjamin Keach, Tropologia: A Key to Open Scripture Metaphors (London: William Hill Collingridge, 1856), 225–228.