We have a lot of nervousness about typological readings in the West and rightly so. Typology has been used in a way that is excessive and fanciful, proving all kinds of things that it was never meant to prove It goes to the point where people use typology to undermine the clear teaching of scripture; a deeply foolish enterprise.
However, we have no choice, but to read the Bible typologically, as the wise like to say, abusus non tollit usum. The abuse does not take away the use. The arguments from the apostles is well attested. The apostles use literary and typological readings in order to make their arguments in the New Testament scriptures.
However, it goes further than that. The typological readings of the apostles underly fundamental doctrines in the New Testament. If we leave behind the typological readings of the Apostles, we become all the more susceptible to readings of the New Testament that undermine these doctrines.
I want to briefly treat two doctrines, Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) and Paul’s teaching about the exclusion of women in preaching.
Although a lot of good work is done defending PSA atonement from the new Testament, the fundamental image that the Apostles are using is the sacrificial system. Jesus is the lamb of God, given for the sake of the world. Trusting in that lamb of God, the people of God offer themselves as living sacrifices to God in Jesus. We cannot understand that apart from the sacrificial typologies in the Old Testament. The worshipper must take hold of the animal and kill the animal, so that the animal is given in his place. Apart from this primary image, we can only rely on abstract concepts and various prepositions, that can always be bent into some other understanding of the atonement.
The other doctrine is the calling of males to the preaching ministry to the exclusion of females. We can appeal to the plain word, but in order to defend against the claims that things have changed, we need to understand typology. A case could be made that the reason the church is capitulating on this right, left, and center, is because of the rejection of typology by an overly rationalistic church. (The objection would be many traditions that rely on typology also have female preachers, but of course these traditions have already rationalistically undermined the plain truth of scripture and have reduced Biblical typology as a smorgasbord to pick and choose from.) Of course, men and woman are different, and a case can be made from that as well, in order to support Biblical teaching, but that in itself cannot fully make the case. We need the typology that Paul appeals to in 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2, in order to make our case.
Another reason to start to read the Bible as the apostles did.
