David's Digest: The Truth, or Not the Truth: That is the Question

It is of the utmost importance for us as Christians to have the truth as given to us by God's Word. We can not lay hold of Christ nor worship God properly if we don't know who we are, who He is, and what He in the personages of the Trinity has done.

If we are to have any hope of having truth, then something in and of itself must declare it, wholly; and if salvation is indeed to be had, and if we are to know how to love and worship God properly, then those must be revealed as well. Thankfully, according to His graces, God has provided us with His truth in His Word, the Bible, which in and of itself contains the whole truth necessary as God would have for us. It then, and it alone, must be our measuring stick, otherwise truth becomes relative, which then cannot be trusted as truth.

By its very nature, truth is absolute: a truth can only be truly one thing at one time. If a thing is entirely the color green, it cannot also be the color blue. There is no such thing as "my truth" or "your truth"; there is only THE truth.

Also by nature, the truth divides, showing what is true and what is not true. Not having the truth is having a lie. Jesus Christ, being the truth Himself (John 14:6), was a divider: Matt 10:34-35 - "Think not that I come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law."

The Bible says that the Lord Jesus is the Word (John 1:1) and, as noted, the truth. It follows then that, if we do not have the truth as described in the Word of God (ie. we have a lie), then we do not truly have Christ. Therefore, it behooves us to make absolutely sure that we have the truth as it is brought forth in Scripture.

Paul says in 2 Cor 13:5, "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith..." Being in the faith does not just mean having faith versus not having faith. It also refers to which faith we have: whether our faith is an alive faith versus a dead faith (Jam 2:17,20,26), whether we believe in another Jesus versus the true Jesus Christ (2 Cor 11:4), or whether the Gospel to which we hold is the true Gospel or not (Gal 1:6). And so to discover whether we are in the faith or not, against what can we examine ourselves? It must be against something that shows the truth of our beliefs, so that we can know whether our faith is a true faith, our Jesus is truly Jesus Christ, and our Gospel is the true Gospel. Since God's Word contains those truths, we must examine ourselves against it.

Is the way to heaven via a false faith, false Jesus or false Gospel (ie. via a lie)? How can it possibly be? And so examining our beliefs is of great importance. We had better have THE truth, or it could be to our eternal detriment.

Further, when we examine ourselves, can we say that we have a love of the truth? The Bible declares a love of the truth is given by God: 2 Thess 2:10 says, "And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved." We therefore need to pray for a love of the truth, for our benefit and because of the warning that follows in 2 Thess 2:11-12: "And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."

May God's graces and mercies in this regard be with us, may God grant us a love of His Truth and Word, and may He grant us the desire and ability to honestly examine ourselves in the light of His Word.

-- David

David's Digest: Introduction to Type and Antitype (Typology) in the Bible

This is just an introduction to a large topic, but I wanted to take a moment and talk about it briefly in hopes it might benefit someone as it did me when I first learned about it.

There are two elements of the Bible called "type" and "antitype" (together referred to as "typology"). Types, or shadows, are spiritual "pictures" shown in the Bible that represent concepts or persons. The fulfillment of a type is referred to as its "antitype." Some have been fulfilled, perhaps in multiple ways (or layers) over time, and some have not. Also, a type may not represent an antitype completely, and the picture may only go so far; and there can be multiple types for one antitype.

Webster's 1828 dictionary defines type and antitype as follows:

type:

A sign; a symbol; a figure of something to come; as, Abraham's sacrifice and the paschal lamb, were types of Christ. To this word is opposed antitype. Christ, in this case, is the antitype.

antitype:

A figure corresponding to another figure; that of which the type is the pattern or representation. Thus the paschal lamb, in scripture, is the type of which Christ is the antitype. An antitype then, is something which is formed according to a model or pattern, and bearing strong features of resemblance to it.

The following are just a very few, brief examples:

Type	Antitype
Egypt	The world, its systems and culture
God bringing the Israelites out of Egypt.	God separating unto Himself a specific people; the people of God leaving the world (including its systems and culture) to worship God; the salvation of God's chosen from the bondage of sin and the world
Angel of death passing by those households in Egypt with blood on the door posts	Christ's blood saving His chosen from eternal destruction
Noah saved in the Ark	Salvation in Christ
Ark of the Covenant	Christ, His humanity (ark made of wood) and His deity (gold); as Christ's blood for propitiation (blood sprinkled on mercy seat for propitiation)
Sun – too bright to behold its glory; brings life; is the light of the world	Christ, the Son – too bright to behold His glory; brings life; is the Light of the world
Israel of the Bible (physical Israel) – God's chosen people on earth	Spiritual Israel – God's chosen people who are or will be in heaven
Moses – the deliverer of God's chosen people (physical Israel)	Christ – the deliverer of God's chosen people (spiritual Israel)
Joshua – brought God's chosen people (physical Israel) into the promised land	Christ – brings God's chosen people (spiritual Israel) into the Promised Land (heaven)
High priest for Israel and all of his duties	Christ in His office as spiritual High Priest of His people
David – King of Israel; savior of His people against their enemies; shepherd; the least of his brothers	Christ – King of spiritual Israel (and over all); Savior of His people against spiritual enemies; Shepherd of His people; clothed in servanthood and humility
Saul – enemy of David	Antichrist – enemy of Christ (who is the antitype of David)
Goliath – enemy of David and God's people	Antichrist/Satan – enemy of Christ and God's people
The animals slain, and skins clothing for Adam and Eve after the fall	Christ's sacrifice with blood, and the clothing of righteousness for His people
The 12 tribes of Israel (12 is the number of completion) – all of God's chosen people at the time	All of God's spiritual chosen people (His elect, throughout time)
High priest entering the Holy of Holies with the names of the 12 tribes (God's chosen people), and only them, written on the stones put on the shoulders of the ephod (Ex 28:11-12) on behalf of those with whose names he enters (and thus on behalf of only them)	Christ entering the Holy Place with the names of His chosen people, and only them, on behalf of those with whose names He enters (and thus on behalf of only them)
The paschal lamb during Passover	Christ as the sacrificial Lamb
Marriage of a man and a woman	The union of Christ and His bride (the Church)
A woman taking a man's last name upon marriage, forsaking her own name for his. Keeping her name or any part of it is not forsaking herself to her husband completely	A Christian taking the name of Christ, forsaking their own name for His. Their forsaking of themselves must be totally
Jonah – in the belly of the whale for three days and nights (Jonah 1:17); vomited out from the belly of the fish after that (Jonah 2:10)	Christ – in the grave for three days and nights; resurrected out from the grave after that (Matthew 12:40)
Christ raising Lazarus – he was dead, He gives him life, calls him forth, Lazarus is now able (now that he's alive) to respond and does so	The beginnings of salvation – the person Christ will call is dead in his sins, He gives him spiritual life (regeneration), calls him forth to Himself, and the person is now able (now that he's alive spiritually) to respond and does so
God's people, when most were rebellious, although there were a some righteous, like Joshua and Caleb, or the remnant gathered by God (Jer 23:3; Jer 31:7) after His judgment against wicked Israel (Jer 1-23:2), or His true disciples while He was here on earth vs. the religious leaders of the day	Professing Christians, who are mostly rebels (Matt 7:21-23), although there are some righteous (true Christians), who are the remnant/elect of God, the true spiritual seed of Abraham (Rom 9:6-8; Gal 4:22-31)
Sabbath day rest	Resting alone in Christ's righteousness (working on the Sabbath breaks this “antitype,” in essence claiming our works are our righteousness); eternal rest with Christ in heaven

Learning about type and shadow in the Bible really opened it up to me, especially the Old Testament. I believe the Old Testament events truly happened; but I believe just about everything in it also is some sort of type, mostly of Christ as the anittype. Hebrews talks quite a bit about Christ as the fulfillment of many of the Old Testament types. It's a beautiful work of wisdom by the Holy Spirit that paints such glories and wonderful pictures of our Saviour and His essence, characteristics, offices, etc.

If you have never heard of type and antitype in the Bible, I really hope you will spend some time learning about them. Here are a couple of starting points:

• Here is Wikipedia's entry for typology


• From A.W. Pink's The Divine Inspiration of the Bible, Chapter 6, "The Typical Significance of the Scriptures Declare Their Divine Authorship

Also, here are a set of sermons from our teacher, so you can get a better idea of typology. The teachings aren't about type and antitype, but they use them extensively. Plus, the sermons are spiritually edifying: Darkness and Light, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4


We are very thankful to the Lord for His gift of His word, preserved in our language through heavy persecutions; and we thank Him for granting us this understanding of type and shadow that He put in there to help us understand Him and His glory better.

-- David