How Types and Antitypes relate to each other and to the True

Christ is first. All is patterned off him as He is the True. Rightly, no one applies ‘type’ (Gk: tupos), given us in Scripture, to Jesus, but how often does one find commentators of various persuasions calling him an ‘antitype’?  Yet, just as the word ‘type’ is used in the Greek New Testament, and we apply it, so in Heb 9:24 the plural of ‘antitype’ (Gk: antitupa) occurs and is the precedent for our use.

If we applied this term as Scripture does in this case, just as we apply ‘type’ from Scripture, then we would not even consider applying ‘antitype’ to Christ.  Just because he is not the type this does not make him, on Scriptural usage, an ‘antitype’!  In order of greatness, Jesus is ‘better than’…. He is the origin of, or original for, the representations (in type, antitypes, shadow, examples, etc.), though they may come before him and have their moment before his, in Old Testament time (“then present” Heb 9:9).

These signifiers constitute the identity of Christ; his spirit in the prophets/prophecies (“…beginning with Moses and all the prophets…he expounded unto them the things concerning himself” Luke 24:27). They are what it is to be his ‘I am’ before he was. 

The True

Jesus Christ our Lord

Not a type or antitype

He is before all things, and by him all things consist/stand
…He has the pre-eminence.
(Col 1:17-18)

The very image of good things (to come)
Of…the heavenly things themselves (Heb. 9:23; 10:1)

The actual reality/the original – “the beginning” (Col 1:18) –

He is (to be) the one who is represented by type and antitypes*

Gk: alēthinōn – the true

 Heb 9:24 …the true = heaven itself…the presence of God
Heb 9:11 Christ…a greater and more perfect tabernacle

Heb 9:34 Christ entering the presence of God in heaven…
Holy of holies – not made with hands

Christ and his sacrifice
Rev 5:2 Worthy is the lamb that was slain…

Jesus’ baptismal death
Rev 1:5 He washed us  from our sins in his own blood

 

Relations of/to the True: representational order & levels[1]

Heb 8:5 Who serve unto the example/pattern/token [Gk: hupodeigmati] and shadow of heavenly things.

Heb 9:23 …the patterns/examples/tokens [Gk: hupodeigmata] of things in the heavens.
Level 1  Both are shadows or tokens of the true Level 2

Type

A pattern; prophetic model; based on the True
The descriptive stage or idea

Antitype(s)

Fulfilment of the type; of what it previewed.
Implementation of the idea described
“The Holy Spirit this signifying…” Heb. 9:8

Vision (or communicated idea) of the reality.
Or, a representation of the True

A realization of the type or vision:
Representing materially or in ritual what was shown (to Moses) in the type of the True.

Gk: tupon – KJV ‘pattern’

Shown to Moses

Heb. 8:5 by God…to make…all things according to the pattern/type shewed to thee in the mount.

Gk: antitupa – KJV ‘figures’

Heb 9:24 For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true

Tabernacle Heb 9:24

*Note: Equation of ‘antitype’ with ‘parable’ Heb 9:8-9
Heb 9:25 High Priest entering the holy place
Holy of holies – made with hands

Rev 13:8 (cp. Gen. 3:21)
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world

 Passover and other sacrifices

Baptism (as a concept and before Christ’s death)

Baptised into Moses (in cloud and in the sea)
1 Cor 10:11 All these things happened to them typically/tupikōs

Saved by water (after Christ’s death)
1 Pet 3:21 – the like figure/antitupon…
Heb 10:22 – bodies washed in pure water
1 Cor 6:11 – Now ye are washed…
Rev 7:14 – these…have washed their robes…in the blood of the lamb

[1] For further development, see: John Adey, “A Shadow of Good things to come” The Testimony (Jan 1984).