October 5, 2005 ©Homer Kizer
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Commentary — From the Margins

Typology & Typological Exegesis

First and second century constructs whose time has returned, typology and typological exegesis assert that all of Holy Writ forms one tightly woven narrative that allows friends of Christ Jesus to “see” into the heavenly realm, a timeless dimension that matter cannot enter because of its apparent solidity. The six day creation account with its inherent problem of seed and fruit bearing trees being created on the third day before the sun and moon appear on the fourth day becomes the abstract for a spiritual creation account, the plan by which an unchanging dimension accommodates spiritual maturation. In a copy and shadow of this plan, barley and wheat sown on Judean hillsides, watered by the early and latter rains, and harvested in the spring and in the fall of the year represent the twin harvests of humanity. Judea, itself, represents this supra dimension, commonly called heaven. In the texture of Scripture, the physically circumcised nation that dwelt in stone houses and worshiped in a fabric tent or stone temple that housed two stone tablets on which were inscribed commandments represents the greater Christian Church, composed of spiritually circumcised disciples dwelling in fleshly tabernacles in which are two tablets of flesh on which are inscribed the laws of God. And the history of that circumcised nation—its liberation from bondage to Pharaoh, its journey through the wilderness, its going into Judea, its stay there, and its exile from the promised land—forms the record of the Church in the heavenly realm.

The natural precedes the spiritual and the visible reveals the invisible, thereby making “what is” a dark glass through which disciples can peer into the timeless heavenly realm. The structure of a day has light coming from darkness (Gen 1:3), and the structure of salvation has life coming from death (John 5:24). Light and life become synonymous linguistic icons, just as death and dark are synonymous. Thus, in Hebraic poetics the dual presentation of a concept first discloses what is natural (or of darkness), then what is spiritual (or of light). The movement between parallel presentations of a concept is from outside to inside, from hand to heart, from society to individual, from visible to invisible. The movement makes the first a type or shadow of the second. Therefore, by testimony and by structure, Holy Writ reveals meaning through typology. Geographical landscapes are the visible but lifeless copies of mental landscapes. Hence, all of human thought is represented by the original boundaries of Eden, inside of which Elohim placed a garden at the center of which was the Tree of Life.

All of biblical prophecy is about nations that occupied portions of Eden’s original boundaries, which stretched from Assyria and Babylon in the north and east to Egypt in the south and west. Biblical prophecies are not about Europe or the Americas or China, for these lands do not geographically represent aspects of humanity’s metal landscape that runs from lawlessness [Egypt] to death [Assyria]. The mental or spiritual journey of every disciple is from lawlessness [sin] to God’s rest or Judea, the promised land. But if a disciple individually or disciples collectively bring lawlessness into God’s rest, God will send the disciple into Assyrian or Babylonian captivity, just as He sent the natural house of Israel to Assyria and the natural house of Judah to Babylon. Jesus said not to be surprised when some are resurrected to life and some to condemnation (John 5:29), for the disciple who will not hear Moses will not hear Jesus, will not hear one raised from the dead (John 5:46-47 & Luke 16:31). Moses was the shadow of Christ Jesus, who spoke the words of the Father as Moses delivered the words of YHWH to natural Israel. And the second covenant (Deu 29:1) mediated by Moses is the accuser of every circumcised, physically and spiritually, Israelite (Deu 31:26), for disciples are the reality of the shadow that the physical ark of the covenant represented.

Except for typological exegesis, no reading strategy adequately accounts for the inclusion and exclusion of nations and peoples and events in Holy Writ. Historical exegesis is a tradition-based strategy that actually ignores the text and texture of Scripture. Precept-upon-precept exegesis denies that disciples have life in the heavenly realm while still dwelling in fleshly tabernacles, denies that spiritual maturation occurs following birth-from-above or being born of Spirit in a body of flesh in which sin and death also dwells. Precept-upon-precept exegesis denies that disciples are, today, actual children of God the Father, with life in the spiritual realm that came invisibly into a tabernacle of flesh through receipt of the Holy Spirit, the divine Breath of God [Pneuma ’Agion].

Again, in typology physically circumcised Israelites as the firstborn son of YHWH (Exod 4:22) and as the holy nation of YHWH (Exod 19:5-6) form the shadow of the spiritually circumcised, firstborn son of God, a holy nation that wasn’t before a people (1 Pet 2:9).  The history of the physically circumcised nation in Judea is, therefore, a copy and shadow of the Church in the heavenly realm. The account of the patriarch Jacob going down to Egypt, seventy [or twenty-two] in number, and his descendants there becoming a great nation in bondage to Pharaoh forms the shadow of the history of the Church in bondage to the law of sin and death (Rom 7:25) here on earth. Egypt forms the visible representation of sin, just as Judea represents God’s rest (Ps 95:10-11). And the Apostle Paul never understood why the law of sin and death continued to dwell in his members even though Jesus had overcome both. Paul didn’t understand that he then, and disciples now are living through a single long night of watching foreshadowed by the long night of watching in Egypt that began when Passover lambs were slaughtered. Calvary began this single long night that will not end until the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of the Most High and of His Christ halfway through seven endtime years of tribulation. Only then will the seventy-week count resume.

One night, one twisting away from the light—disciples as lamps, as diminutive lights could not be seen if day had come at any time between Calvary and now. And this single long night of watching, of roasting the Lamb of God with fire, of eating the Lamb with feet shod and loins girded, will see the liberation of the Church from bondage to sin when death angels pass throughout spiritual Babylon, slaying firstborns not covered by the blood of the Lamb. It is on this night that the fruit of the ground [bread and wine] becomes the body and blood of the Lamb. And this night is the 15^th of the first month, the night of the first High Sabbath of Unleavened Bread. The last High Sabbath of Unleavened Bread represents the day when Christ returns to marry His Bride. Thus, the seven days of Unleavened Bread represent the seven endtime years during which the Son of Man is revealed, and disciples as the Body of Christ have no covering for sin except their obedience.

As the Lord liberated Israel from bondage to Pharaoh, the Lord through empowering  every disciple by the Holy Spirit will liberate the Church from sin and death, thereby removing both of these adversaries from within the fleshly tabernacles of disciples. Again, a physically circumcised Israelite dwelling in a house in Egypt forms the shadow of a spiritually circumcised disciple dwelling today in a tabernacle of flesh in spiritual Babylon. And as the Lord purged Judea of sin by sending the circumcised nation into foreign captivity, the Lord sent the Church into spiritual captivity for its lawlessness. Except for a remnant foreshadowed by Ezra and Nehemiah, the Church remains in spiritual Babylon where it has prospered, just as the majority of the circumcised nation remained in Chaldea, where that nation prospered.

The Apostle Paul, tutored by Christ Jesus, taught using typology. First century converts used typological exegesis to extract meaning from Scripture. These converts were then, as disciples are today, the temple of God (1 Cor 3:16-17). The commandments of God, inscribed on two tablets of stone and housed in a series of fabric tents, form a copy and shadow of these same commandments inscribed on the hearts and minds of born-from-above disciples, each an ark of the covenant under the mercy seat, each with the book of Deuteronomy placed beside the ark as a witness against it. The two stone tablets didn’t have a stone house until the reign of Solomon, to whom the Lord gave “rest” (the giving of rest also occurred when Joshua entered Judea). Likewise, the two tablets of flesh will dwell in separated tabernacles of flesh, each a living stone, until Christ Jesus’ millennial reign begins, that thousand year period when all of humanity rests through empowerment by the Holy Spirit. Only then will these hewn living stones come together to form a house for God. Thus, as Judea is a geographical representation of heaven, and as the weekly Sabbath is a theological representation of heaven (Gen 2:1 & Heb 3:19-4:9), Christ’s millennial reign is an administrative representation. And as rebellion against God brought Saul to Israel’s throne, and as Saul extended the borders of Israel despite having an evil spirit, the Church under the lawless one (2 Thess 2:3) will extend the borders of Christianity while attempting to kill God’s anointed.

The reign of Solomon forms a copy and shadow of the Millennium. Canticles, or the Song of Solomon is a three-part drama that, by being a staged play, indicates a different reality within a Book of shadows. The Holy Spirit will, during the Millennium, have been poured out upon all flesh, thereby changing even the natures of the great predators. This outpouring of the Breath of God will change human nature, which isn’t, foremost, the production of biology but is received from God, as evidenced by King Nebuchadnezzar being given the mind of a beast for seven years. Thus, in the texture of Scripture, the great rebellion against God that will occur during the Tribulation is first foreshadowed by the rebellion of the circumcised nation in the wilderness of Paran (Num chptrs 13-14), then again foreshadowed by the rebellion of the circumcised nation during the Samuel’s days, then foreshadowed by the Church’s rebellion in the period leading up to the Council at Nicea. Therefore, since the great falling away occurs after the Church is liberated from sin and death at the beginning of seven endtime years of tribulation (this falling away actually being a second rebellion by the Church), the combined reigns of Saul and David form the shadow of the holy nation of God during the first and second halves of the Tribulation. The mighty men who were with David foreshadow mighty disciples, undefeatable in spiritual battles, during the latter portion of the Tribulation. And as Israel under Joshua routed the Canaanites and other peoples then occupying Judea, the third part of humanity (Zech 13:7-9) under the remnant that keep the commandments and have the spirit of prophecy (Rev 12:17, coupled with Rev 19:10) will marry the Christ. They will be saved through enduring to the end (Matt 24:13). They will spiritually defeat the antiChrist when he is given the mind of a man and cast to earth (Rev 12:9-10).

Paul taught that Jesus was the last Adam. The first Adam was created as a physical corpse prior to receiving the breath of life (Gen 2:7); the last Adam lived as a man, the son of a carpenter, a prophet from birth, prior to receiving the Breath [Pneuma ’Agion] of the Father (Matt 3:16-17). And herein is the comparison between physical and spiritual: prior to receiving life imparted by the Breath of God, an air-breathing human being is as spiritually lifeless as a non-breathing corpse is physically lifeless. The person’s skin coloring changes some when a living person becomes a corpse, but the person still appears as the person (the person doesn’t instantly decompose), and a similar slight change in coloring would have marked the first Adam’s change in appearance when Elohim [singular in usage] breathed into Adam’s nostrils (Gen 2:7). The first Adam as a lifeless corpse appeared a moment before receiving the breath of life as he appeared the moment after. The defining quality of the physical creation is change. The absence of life and the presence of life (or vice versa) cannot simultaneously prevail within an entity at the same moment. Thus, change requires one moment to become the next moment—the moment when the absence of life prevails must change to become the moment when life prevails. The first Adam, before he began to breathe, appeared as he did the moment after he began breathing. Likewise, an air-breathing person a moment before receiving the Breath of God [Pneuma ’Agion] and spiritual life appears the same as the moment after this person has been born anew. And as the presence of physical life is detectable through a change in coloring; the presence of spiritual life is detectable through a change in behavior. Appearance in the physical realm becomes action in the spiritual realm. And this analogy must never be forgotten: as a livestock breeder selects one animal from another based by appearance, with one being accepted and one rejected, the Lord also accepts one son of promise and rejects another, with behavior being the basis for acceptance or rejection. Many are called, but few are chosen (Matt 22:14). Again, Jesus said not to be surprised when some are resurrected to life and some to condemnation. It isn’t God’s will that any fail, but the reality of salvation is that some love this world more than they love God. They demonstrate their love for this world through their disobedience to God, through their transgression of the laws of God.

The first Adam was created outside of the garden of God and placed into that garden, where he named the animals. No helpmate was found for him, so inside of the garden, Eve was created from him. And in a similar manner, Jesus received the breath of the Father, becoming the high priest of the spiritually holy nation even though His physical birth did not place Him inside the temple. The Father had to place Him there, where He found no helpmate among the scribes and Pharisees. He named these “animals”: hypocrites, vipers, hypocrites, hypocites (Matt chptr 23). And they will forever be so named.

From a wound in Jesus’ side while on the cross at Calvary, the last Eve was created and presented to the glorified last Adam (John 20:22-23). And as the first Eve was tempted by the serpent, believing the serpent’s lie that she would not die (Gen 3:4), the last Eve succumbed to the old dragon’s lie that human beings have immortal souls and will not die. The last Eve took to herself the determination of good and evil, and as the first Eve was driven from the garden of God before she ate of the Tree of Life, the last Eve was delivered to the spiritual king of Babylon and barred from reentering the Jerusalem above. As the first Eve then gave birth to a son, then to another; the last Eve will give birth to a son before she goes into labor (Isa 66:7-8). She will then deliver another son, a righteous Abel, the grafted natural branches that were broken off until the fullness of the nations came to the Son. And as Cain killed his righteous brother, the spiritual firstborn son of the last Adam and the last Eve will slay his righteous younger brother before the third part of humanity will be born from above when the Holy Spirit is poured out upon all flesh.

The Christian Church today is the last Eve, who has given birth to a son before experiencing the hard labor pains of childbirth. And the Church, once liberated from bondage to sin and death, will rebel against God and will slay its righteous brother, disciples who keep the commandments of God, all ten commandments, not nine or eight or six or three. This firstborn son of the last Eve will, with rebellion, come under a great delusion from which repentance is impossible; this firstborn son will be spiritually dead even though he still lives physically. And the second born son of promise was spiritually dead, slain by the law, before being made spiritually alive through obedience to the law. This second son will then be slain physically before receiving an incorruptible body. So with the firstborn son spiritually dead and the second-born son physically dead, the endtime harvest of God will be a third-born son of promise, a spiritual Seth who is also analogous to the patriarch Jacob, the physically third born son of promise. This third-born son will be as the uncircumcised children born in the wilderness were. And the second covenant mediated by Moses (Deu chptrs 29-31) was made with these children of the nation that left Egypt and bondage to Pharaoh.

 The rejection of YHWH by the circumcised nation in the days of Samuel foreshadows the rebellion of Church. The circumcised nation’s refusal to enter the promised land when the twelve spies returned foreshadows the rebellion of the Church. In both instances, Israel did not realize that the nation, by its actions, was rejecting God. Likewise, in the Tribulation, the Church will not realize that it rejects Father and Son when it attempts to enter God’s rest on the following day, the eighth day, Sunday, a day about which Scripture is silent. The greater Church will use historical exegesis to support its rebellion, and the entirety of disciples who reject the seventh day Sabbath will come under a delusion from which they cannot repent, such is the insidious nature of historical exegesis.

Jesus showed the difference between the physical and spiritual covenants in His Sermon on the Mount, the spiritual reality foreshadowed by the giving of the commandments of God from atop Sinai. Murder, committed with the hand, becomes anger, a production of the heart. Adultery, an act of the body, becomes lust, a thought in the mind. Unsaid is that Sabbath-breaking moves from the work the hand does on the seventh day to what the mind thinks and the heart desires on the seventh day—the day doesn’t change. The commandments do not change. All that changes is where the transgression of the commandments occur.

The laws of God, physically written by the finger of the Lord on stone tablets that were lugged off the mountain by Moses, become spiritually written by the Lord on two tablets of flesh within every disciple…again, the physically circumcised Israelite who lived in a stone house and prayed to God in a stone temple that housed two stone tablets, an earthenware jar of manna, and the budded staff of Aaron in a wood ark of the covenant is a copy and shadow of the spiritually circumcised son of God dwelling in the fleshly tabernacle of the crucified old self. This cannot be overemphasized: a disciple is the new creation born-from-above into the same tent of flesh that the crucified old man occupied. The disciple isn’t the flesh, isn’t the body that is either plumbed internally or externally, that is painted some shade of brown, that was either free born or slave, that is or isn’t descended from the tabernacle in which the patriarch Abraham dwelt. The disciple is a one-of creation, just as the first Adam was. The disciple has no parent but God the Father. The Church as the last Eve nurtures, but doesn’t bring to birth. Thus, every disciple, regardless of the condition or description of the fleshly tent in which the disciple dwells, is a spiritually circumcised son of God.

The history of humanity, the history of physically circumcised Israel, the history of the early Church that is recorded in Acts—all serve as a copy and shadow of born-from-above sons of God in the timeless heavenly realm. Thus, the only valid means of extracting meaning from Scripture is through typological exegesis. There is no other way for flesh and blood disciples to see themselves and their era in a dimension they cannot enter to make observations or measurements.

A point on a two-dimensional plane cannot perceive the height of a cylinder. If the point encounters the sidewall of the cylinder, it might (if it possessed self-awareness) determine that the arc formed a circle. But the limitation of being confined to two-dimensions would preclude the point from even looking up. Likewise, human beings prior to being born-from-above cannot perceive Father and Son; they cannot even look up. They are, of necessity, hostile to the things of God (Rom 8:7), and they will vigorously deny the existence of a dimension they cannot enter, know about, or explain. They will belittle those for whom this dimension is seen darkly through the things that are. And their demeaning of what they cannot perceive reveals that, indeed, they are as points on a two-dimensional plane.

Light comes from darkness and life from death and righteousness from overcoming disobedience to which all of humanity has been consigned (Rom 11:32). With pedantic redundancy, I say again: the structure of Hebraic poetry places one concept (or idea) in close proximity to the repetition of the concept. The movement between first presentation of the concept and its second presentation is from darkness to light, natural to mental, physical to spiritual, hand to heart—from the laws of God written on the outside of the heart to the desires of the heart that come from within. The first covenant foreshadowed the second covenant, and the second covenant mediated by Moses foreshadows this same covenant mediated by Christ Jesus. The Levitical priesthood is a copy and shadow of disciples as the royal priesthood of God (1 Pet 2:9). The rebuilding of the walls of physical Jerusalem with burnt stones is a shadow of rebuilding the walls of the spiritual city with less-than-perfect disciples. Thus, all of Scripture (including Hebrew as a language) supports typological exegesis. And the testimony of Scripture is that the Church today is as Ishmael was: it is the natural firstborn son of the patriarch, a son born into bondage to sin and death, a son that dwelt in the wilderness of Paran, the geographical location where the circumcised nation rebelled against God by trying to enter his rest on the following day.

A different spirit was in Caleb than was in the remainder of the nation. This different spirit needs to be in every disciple. But the testimony of Scripture is that though many are called, few will be chosen. Few will live by faith, choosing to obey God when the greater Church—like the circumcised nation that left Egypt—attempts to enter God’s rest on the following day. Few will love God enough to practice walking uprightly before Him. Few will love neighbor enough to urge God to spare an evil world for the sake of ten righteous men as Abraham did when he learned that Sodom would be destroyed. Most self-identified Christians will, instead, pray that God spare themselves, either hiding them in a place of physical safety or bodily rapturing them to heaven, both asinine doctrines that reveal how little love these disciples have. They are foreshadowed by the first thief on the cross; they want Jesus to save their flesh while demanding that He prove He is the Christ. And as the first thief received no promise of salvation, they have no promise of salvation. With few exceptions, they are hypocrites, vipers, dens of thieves, an evil generation that loves pleasure more than God. If it were not for the few—foreshadowed by the ten for which God would have spared Sodom—disciples who practice walking uprightly before God, the entirety of this generation that has been born-from-above would be justly destroyed.

To understand what has occurred and what will occur in this timeless dimension that is heaven, disciples need to practice typological exegesis. They might then see themselves in the course of history. Hopefully, they will be repulsed by their “natural” faces and will turn to God, begging forgiveness for slaying the sheep. Scripture, however, indicates that they will never see themselves as they are.

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"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."

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