Typology & Biblical Theology

“These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” --- Colossians 2:17

Biblical theology reads Scripture as a single, unified narrative --- the story of God creating, redeeming, and restoring a people for His glory. Within that story, God has woven recurring patterns, images, and institutions that point forward to their ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

What Is Biblical Theology?

Biblical theology traces the progressive unfolding of God’s plan of redemption across the entire canon. Unlike systematic theology, which organizes doctrine by topic, biblical theology follows the storyline of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, asking how each part contributes to the whole.

• It respects the historical and literary context of each biblical book
• It traces themes and motifs as they develop across redemptive history
• It reads earlier texts in light of later fulfillment without flattening their original meaning
• It culminates in the person and work of Jesus Christ

What Is Typology?

Typology is the study of divinely intended correspondences between earlier and later events, persons, and institutions in Scripture. The word comes from the Greek typos (τύπος) --- a mark, pattern, or model. A type is a real historical figure, event, or institution that God designed to foreshadow a greater antitype (antitypos, ἀντίτυπος) --- its fulfillment.

• Adam is a type of Christ (Romans 5:14)
• The Passover lamb is a type of Christ’s sacrifice (1 Corinthians 5:7)
• The temple is a type of Christ’s body and the Church (John 2:19—21; 1 Corinthians 3:16)

Key Themes in This Section

• Types and Shadows --- The biblical vocabulary and major typological pairs that connect Old Testament patterns to New Testament fulfillment
• Temple, Exile, and Kingdom --- Three interlocking themes that form the backbone of the biblical narrative, from Eden to the New Jerusalem
• Old Testament to New --- How the New Testament reads, interprets, and fulfills the Old, and what this means for how we read the whole Bible today

Why It Matters

Understanding typology and biblical theology protects us from two errors: reading the Old Testament as though Christ were irrelevant to it, and reading it as though its original historical meaning were irrelevant to us. The whole Bible is one book, authored ultimately by one God, telling one story of redemption --- and Jesus stands at its center.

“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me.” --- John 5:39