The Significance of Israel in Biblical Typology

Mark Karl­berg wrote a book enti­tled Covenant The­ol­ogy in Reformed Per­spec­tive with the sub­ti­tle that sums up the con­tent of the book: Col­lected essays and book reviews in his­tor­i­cal, bib­li­cal, and sys­tem­atic the­ol­ogy. I have thor­oughly enjoyed the book. I espe­cially enjoy its con­tri­bu­tions to his­tor­i­cal and covenant the­ol­ogy. The Law/Gospel infor­ma­tion is also com­mend­able (he repu­di­ates the tri­chotomized dis­tinc­tion of the law: moral, civil, and ceremonial).

An arti­cle I really enjoyed was an arti­cle on the role of Israel in Bib­li­cal typol­ogy. That is, Israel served a role as a “shadow” of a greater real­ity, and he comes out and flatly says that it is of Christ who those who par­take are the true Israel.

“The Mes­siah revealed him­self as the New Israel. In the imagery of the vine Jesus iden­ti­fied his per­son and mis­sion with God’s pur­poses of old (Jn 15:1; cf. Ps 80:8 ff.; Is 5:1–7). And as the New Man, Jesus called all nations and peo­ples into his spir­i­tual house­hold. By his death on the cross he made sat­is­fac­tion for sin, remov­ing the curse of the law that was stand­ing against his peo­ple (Eph 2:14–18). The apos­tle Paul describes the tran­si­tion from Old to New Covenant in terms of the death of the Old Man — typ­i­fied by Israel under the law of Moses (Rom 6:1~7:13).16 The law as Israel’s school­mas­ter has ter­mi­nated with the com­ing of Christ (10:4; Gal 3:23–4:7). In con­trast to the shad­owy form of OT rev­e­la­tion, Jesus reveals the full­ness of God’s self-revelation. The law came by Moses; grace and truth came in Jesus Christ (Jn 1:17; cf. Heb 8:13; 10:1).” (pg. 197)

I enjoyed the arti­cle so much I extracted it from the online ver­sion and placed it here for easy access: “The Sig­nif­i­cance of Israel in Bib­li­cal Typol­ogy” from Covenant The­ol­ogy in Reformed Per­spec­tive by Mark Karlberg