How do you know it is a figure: Not every event, and not every character in the Old Testament, is a symbol or a figure of something. Preachers can wear themselves out, trying to find a figurative lesson, when there is no figure, no shadow, no type, involved. One of the percs that goes with the territory, if you have been preaching for a while, is that sometimes a young preacher will ask you, “What does this passage mean?” I read the passage, and I tell him, “This is what they did, and this is what they said, and these were the consequences; that is all I see in the text.”
“But don’t these things represent something?”
“No, not that I can tell. This is what they did, and this is what they said, and these were the consequences.”
“But, isn’t there another lesson in addition to that.”
“No, this is what they did, and this is what they said, and these were the consequences.”
But, sometimes he will just wear himself out, trying to find some deep, dark lesson that is not there in the first place. I believe that one reason so many people are sure they cannot understand the Bible is that they have been taught to look for something that is not there to be found. I believe that if there is a figurative lesson in any passage, it will be fairly clear there is a figure involved.
One way you can know that something is a figure is that the Bible calls it a figure. That should be simple enough. Baptism is a figure of death, burial, and resurrection. The Bible calls it a figure in so many words. Peter said, “The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God.” Human ingenuity cannot design a clearer figure—a clearer illustration—of death, burial, and resurrection than baptism by immersion in water.
The sacrifices of the Law Service, the lambs, the turtle doves, the bullocks, were figures of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible makes that plain enough. But lest we might have missed the point, Isaiah explains it for us.
“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth,” Isa. 53:6,7.
When the Lord finally did appear on the scene, God had John the Baptist, standing in the river of Jordan, with a huge crowd standing there, waiting to be baptized. And, with that crowd of people looking on, he pointed to Jesus and said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,” John 1:29.
The type was finally giving way to the antitype, and God would not allow us to miss the point.
God intended for his people to see those Old Testament sacrifices as illustrations of the various aspects of the suffering and death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he intended that, for centuries to come, preachers would use those figures to explain what he accomplished on behalf of his people. He provided this fairly simple, and easy to understand way, for preachers to explain the gospel.
Paul shows that the Tabernacle was itself “a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect,” Heb. 9:9.
It prefigured, or illustrated, what the Lord would be to his people, and what he would do for them.
Another way to know that a person is a figure is that the Bible calls the figure, and the object of the figure, by the exact same name. Joshua was a figure of the Lord. Joshua, or Jehoshua, in the Old Testament, and Jesus in the New Testament are the same name in two different languages.
Joshua in the Hebrew, and Jesus in the Greek, both mean deliverer, or savior. It was as if Joshua went around with a sign on his back, saying “My name is Joshua; I am a figure of the Savior.”
David was one of the clearest Old Testament figures of the Lord. He was such a clear figure of the Lord that, in some Old Testament passages—Psalms 89 for instance—it is not always easy to tell if the writer is talking about David the son of Jesse, or the Greater David, the Son of God.
I am convinced that if there is a figurative lesson in any passage, the figure is usually fairly easy to recognize. And if the figure is not fairly clear, I think it is a good idea to just leave it alone.
Preachers would get in a lot less trouble if we never did explain anything we do not understand.
In this text Abraham the father of Isaac, is a figure of the God the Father. Isaac, the son of Abraham is a figure of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to figure that out. God calls Isaac thy son, thine only son in order to let us know he is a figure of God’s only Son.
But the Bible makes it clearer than that. Paul says, “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac, and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten Son,” Heb. 11:17. We have heard that expression before, haven’t we?
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” John 3:16. God saw to it that the translators used the exact same expression in referring both to Isaac and the Lord Jesus Christ. They are both called his only begotten son. He will not let us miss the point.
That expression is the way the words appear in the King James Version of the Bible. I am not going to wax so bold as to say the King James translators were inspired in the same way the apostles and prophets were inspired. That is not true. The apostles and prophets were inspired in a manner that no other group of men ever has been. When they were writing the things they wrote in the Bible, God would not allow them to make a mistake. But, on the other hand, I do not have the slightest doubt that those honorable and godly men who translated the King James Version of the Bible were mightily influenced and assisted by the Lord’s Spirit.
Their work was very much like the preaching of a minister who is preaching under the power and demonstration of God’s Spirit. No minister of today is infallible. No matter how powerfully he may be preaching, he can still make mistakes, even when he feels to be the closest to the Lord.
But while that is true, when he is preaching under the influence of the Spirit, he is able to preach with an ability which is not his own. While I would not claim infallibility for the King James translators, I have no doubt that we can see the immediate influence of God’s Spirit evident in their work, and I become very impatient when I hear others, who are much less informed, and probably much less spiritual, challenging their conclusions. I have no doubt that it was the Spirit of God that prompted them to use the exact same words in referring both to Isaac and to the Lord. God will not allow us to miss the point. hlh