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To: Buggman
Indeed, the importance of the Torah is that it gives us the first iterations of that cycle, what Christian commentators sometimes refer to as "prophetic types."

The primary purpose of OT typology was not to point to events, but to a Person, the Messiah of Israel, Jesus Christ.

"27 And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. ... 44 Then He said to them, "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me." 45 And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures." (Luke 24)

Thus people (e.g., Joseph, Joshua, and Melchizedek), places (the temple and Jerusalem), and activities (the feast days of old Israel and the sacrifices) were all types of Christ. They pointed the people of the old covenant to their Messiah.

Prophetic types have their telos in the person and work of Jesus Christ. "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." (Rom. 10:4) They are not a license to speculate on every conceivable future event. There is no warrant in true typology to make, for example, Ahab or Nebuchadnezzar into types of the future dispensational antichrist.

9 posted on 10/28/2008 8:35:49 AM PDT by topcat54 ("The selling of bad beer is a crime against Christian love.")
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To: topcat54
The primary purpose of OT typology was not to point to events, but to a Person, the Messiah of Israel, Jesus Christ. . . . Thus people (e.g., Joseph, Joshua, and Melchizedek), places (the temple and Jerusalem), and activities (the feast days of old Israel and the sacrifices) were all types of Christ. They pointed the people of the old covenant to their Messiah.

Messiah is indeed the spirit of prophecy, but there were also types of Israel's history that played out in the Torah: See Jacob's life in my Genesis Notes and the pattern of prophecy about both Messiah and Israel in The Feasts and the Exodus.

The Gospel is given in the genealogy of Genesis chapter 5. That Yeshua would first save the Gentiles before being reconciled with His brothers, the Jewish people, and yet would have a remnant within the Jewish people is also prophesied in the life of Joseph (see "Notes on Genesis" again). The construction of the Tabernacle and later the Temple provides a picture of Heaven, the Messiah, Israel, and the Ekklesia. In fact, even that the Gospel would be presented in a Gentile tongue rather than in Hebrew is foretold in the Torah.

Israel's history beyond the Torah continues the pattern: The book of Joshua provides an archetype for the book of the Revelation. The very pieces of land that Israel failed to secure from her enemies remain the contested grounds to this day. David was first rejected by Israel's official leadership (Saul) and gathered a following among the Gentiles (as a mercenary captain) before returning to Zion in triumph. Hezekiah's reign provides a type of the Millennium. Israel's regathering from the first Diaspora parallels her regathering from the second. The persecution and blasphemy of Antiochus is the historical and prophetic forerunner to that of Antichrist (cf. Mat 24:15ff).

Indeed, the primary focus of the Tanakh--the Torah, Prophets, and Writings--is on Yeshua, but just as a character in a novel cannot be presented without a setting, the King of Israel and the World could not be prophetically presented without prophetically presenting His setting.

Shalom!

11 posted on 10/28/2008 9:00:01 AM PDT by Buggman (HebrewRoot.com - Baruch haBa b'Shem ADONAI!)
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To: topcat54
There's already a type of Antichrist in the OT.

It isn't Ahab or Nebuchadnezzar.

12 posted on 10/28/2008 9:19:17 AM PDT by Campion (Vote for Obama and Get Nuclear War for Free!)
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