A Counting the Cost Deep Dive
Typology Is Apostolic: Why a Strictly Literal Reading of the Old Testament Falls Short of the Pattern Jesus and the Apostles Taught
A Note to the Reader
This paper is written for those who care deeply about the authority of Scripture and the faithfulness of God to His promises. If you have been taught that a strictly literal reading of the Old Testament is the only way to protect those promises, you are not being dismissed here. The question before us is simply this: How did Jesus and the apostles themselves teach us to read those same texts? We will follow their example as closely as we can.
Thesis
Jesus and the apostles consistently treated the Old Testament as a unified witness that pointed forward to Him and found its fulfillment in Him. They read its persons, events, institutions, and promises typologically — not as a series of isolated, strictly literal predictions that remain largely unfulfilled until a future geopolitical program. The purpose of this paper is to recover that apostolic pattern so that our reading of Scripture remains centered on Christ, preserves the unity of God’s people, and honors the finished work of the New Covenant.
Biblical Background – Totality of Scripture
Scripture itself teaches us how to read Scripture.
Jesus opened the minds of the disciples to understand the Scriptures by showing them that Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms spoke of Him (Luke 24:27, 44–47). He declared that the Scriptures “bear witness about me” (John 5:39) and that Moses “wrote of me” (John 5:46).
Paul treated Old Testament events as types written for the instruction of the Church (1 Corinthians 10:1–11). He read the story of Hagar and Sarah allegorically (in the controlled, Christ-centered sense) to illustrate the two covenants (Galatians 4:21–31). He identified Christ as the singular “seed” of Abraham in whom the promises are fulfilled (Galatians 3:16).
The writer of Hebrews consistently presents the tabernacle, the priesthood, the sacrifices, and the covenant itself as copies and shadows of the good things that have come in Christ (Hebrews 8–10). The old is obsolete because the substance has arrived (Hebrews 8:13).
Across the New Testament, the pattern is the same: the Old Testament is not discarded, nor is it left as a set of unfulfilled national promises awaiting a future program separate from the Church. It is fulfilled, filled full, in Jesus. The promises find their “Yes” and “Amen” in Him (2 Corinthians 1:20).
A strictly literal approach that treats land, temple, sacrifices, and national restoration as still awaiting a future literal fulfillment apart from their fulfillment in Christ runs against this clear apostolic method.
Typology & Marriage Motif
In these papers we use the term typology for the biblically authorized pattern in which earlier persons, events, or institutions point forward to Christ and the Church. Typology remains grounded in the historical meaning of the text and is controlled by the way Jesus and the apostles read Scripture (Luke 24:27, 44–47).
Typology is not allegory that erases history. It is not a free spiritualizing that makes the text mean whatever the reader wishes. It is the recognition that God designed earlier realities to prepare for and point to the greater reality that has come in the Bridegroom.
Joseph is a type of the rejected brother who becomes the savior of the world. Boaz is a type of the kinsman-redeemer. The tabernacle is a type of the true dwelling of God with man. The sacrifices are types of the once-for-all offering of Christ. Israel itself, in its calling, failure, and hope, points forward to the true Son and the people formed in Him.
In marriage-motif terms, the entire Old Testament prepares the Bride for the coming of the Bridegroom. The types and shadows are the betrothal arrangements, the guardianship, the preparatory discipline. When the Bridegroom comes, the preparatory forms give way to the reality of the marriage union. To insist that the shadows must still be rebuilt in their old form is to treat the marriage as incomplete and the Bridegroom’s work as unfinished.
Ante-Nicene Understanding
The Ante-Nicene writers followed the same Christ-centered, typological reading they received from the apostles.
Justin Martyr repeatedly argued that the Old Testament finds its meaning in Christ and that the true Israel is those who believe in Him. Irenaeus taught that the one God is the author of both covenants and that the new fulfills and surpasses the old. The early fathers did not expect a future restoration of a national Israel with a rebuilt temple and renewed animal sacrifices as a necessary part of God’s plan. They saw the Church — believing Jews and Gentiles together — as the people who inherit the promises in Christ.
Their eschatology (predominantly Historic Premillennial) looked for the visible return of Christ, the resurrection, and the kingdom. It did not depend on a return to the shadows of the old covenant order.
Already and Not Yet
- Already: The types and shadows have found their substance in Christ. The New Covenant is established. The one people of God is formed by faith in the Bridegroom. Believers already possess every spiritual blessing in Him.
- Not Yet: The full, visible consummation of the kingdom, the final removal of every enemy, and the complete presentation of the Bride in glory still await the return of Christ.
Logical Syllogism
- Major Premise: Jesus and the apostles consistently read the Old Testament as pointing to and fulfilled in Christ, using typology controlled by His person and work.
- Minor Premise: A strictly literal method that leaves Old Testament promises largely unfulfilled and awaiting a separate national program detaches those promises from the way the New Testament actually interprets them.
- Conclusion: Typology, as practiced by Jesus, the apostles, and the Ante-Nicene church, is the faithful hermeneutic; isolated literalism that bypasses apostolic interpretation is not.
The Coherence Typology Brings to the Totality of Scripture
One of the quiet strengths of the apostolic, typological reading is the way it allows the entire canon to fit together without forcing awkward gaps or contradictions.
Consider a single example that often surfaces when readers reach the closing chapters of Revelation. The text speaks of “the nations” walking by the light of the New Jerusalem, of the kings of the earth bringing their glory into it, and of the leaves of the tree of life being for the healing of the nations (Revelation 21:24–26; 22:2).
A system that removes the Church to heaven in a pre-tribulational rapture and then places all remaining humanity under final judgment frequently struggles to explain who these nations are. If the righteous are already in heaven and the unrighteous are consigned to judgment, the continued presence of nations on a renewed earth becomes difficult to place. The text itself, however, presents them as a real feature of the final order.
The typological, Christ-centered reading avoids this tension. Because it does not divide God’s people into two separate programs with two separate destinies, it can receive the whole storyline as one continuous movement: the same God who formed a people through types and shadows now gathers that people from every tribe and language into one in the Bridegroom. The nations are not an afterthought or an embarrassment; they are the fruit of the gospel reaching the ends of the earth, now brought into the ordered blessing of the new creation under the reign of Christ and His redeemed people.
The same coherence appears elsewhere. The olive tree of Romans 11, the one new man of Ephesians 2, the single seed of Galatians 3, the once-for-all sacrifice of Hebrews, and the final vision of the nations in Revelation all speak with one voice when Christ is kept at the center as the fulfillment of the types. A strictly compartmentalized literalism, by contrast, must repeatedly invent discontinuities to protect its system. Typology does not need those discontinuities. It lets the Bible say what it says — from Genesis to Revelation — as a unified testimony to the Bridegroom and the people He has made His own.
This is not a minor side benefit. It is one of the ways we recognize a faithful hermeneutic: it produces clarity and harmony across the whole of Scripture rather than requiring us to silence or strain certain passages so that others may stand.
Pastoral Summary
Many believers hold a strictly literal reading of the Old Testament promises out of a genuine desire to defend the reliability of God’s Word. That desire is honorable. The question is not whether we should take the text seriously — of course we must. The question is whether we are reading the Old Testament in the same way Jesus and the apostles taught us to read it.
When we follow their method, the types and shadows are seen for what they always were: preparatory realities that pointed to the Bridegroom. In Him the promises receive their true “Yes.” The result is not a diminished Old Testament but a more coherent one. Land, temple, sacrifice, people, and destiny all find their substance in Christ and in the one people formed by faith in Him. The same reading that honors the apostolic pattern also allows the final chapters of Revelation to speak without strain: the nations are present because the gospel has reached them, and they are ordered under the reign of the Lamb and His redeemed people.
This approach protects both the integrity of Scripture and the sufficiency of Christ. It keeps our eyes on the Bridegroom who has already accomplished what the shadows only anticipated, while we wait for the day when faith becomes sight.
Reflection Question
Am I willing to let Jesus and the apostles teach me how to read the Old Testament promises, even if that requires adjusting conclusions I have long held? What might change in my understanding of the whole story of Scripture — including the nations in the new creation — if Christ is consistently seen as the substance of every type and shadow?
Common Counterarguments
- “Typology is just spiritualizing the text and making it say whatever we want.”
Response: Biblical typology is controlled by the New Testament itself. It remains tethered to the historical meaning of the original text and is verified by the way Jesus and the apostles applied it. It is the opposite of uncontrolled allegory. - “A literal reading is the only way to honor the plain sense of Scripture.”
Response: The plain sense of the New Testament includes the apostles’ own explanations of how the Old Testament is fulfilled in Christ. Ignoring those explanations is not a more literal reading; it is a selective one. - “If the land and temple promises are fulfilled spiritually, then God has broken His word to Israel.”
Response: God has kept His word in the way He always intended — by bringing the promises to their true goal in the Messiah. The New Testament declares that the promises are confirmed and fulfilled in Him. The same God who made the promises has now revealed their substance. - “The early church was simply wrong or incomplete in its reading.”
Response: The Ante-Nicene writers stood closest to the apostles in time and language. Their consistent Christ-centered reading of the Old Testament carries significant weight. Later systems that reintroduce a sharp separation between Israel and the Church must justify why they depart from that early consensus.
Footnotes
¹ Luke 24:27, 44–47; John 5:39, 46; 1 Corinthians 10:1–11; Galatians 3:16; 4:21–31; 2 Corinthians 1:20; Hebrews 8–10.
² Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho; Irenaeus, Against Heresies (especially Books 4 and 5); the broader Ante-Nicene consensus on the unity of the covenants and the fulfillment of the promises in Christ.
³ The definition of typology used throughout the Counting the Cost series: biblically authorized patterns that point to Christ and the Church, grounded in historical meaning and controlled by apostolic interpretation. ⁴ The marriage motif: the Old Testament as preparatory betrothal and guardianship that gives way to the full marriage union accomplished by the Bridegroom.