Types of the Messiah - Edwards - I

Required reading

Types of the Messiah in Vol 2 of the Works by Jonathan Edwards (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read up to the paragraph beginning with 'It is an argument that the manna God gave the children of Israel was a type of something spiritual...'

My summary

Today we begin a new work on types of the Messiah.

Edwards teaches us that the things of the Old Testament are types of things appertaining to the Messiah and his kingdom and salvation, made manifest from the Old Testament itself.

He piles up examples including from the lives of:

(i) Adam;

(ii) Moses;

(iii) Jonah;

(iv) David;

(v) Samuel.

Edwards begins showing how different prophecies and things (e.g. redemptions) point to the Messiah and his kingdom and salvation.

What grabbed me

I appreciated Edwards' comments on the prophecy in Genesis: 'It is much more reasonably and credibly supposed, that God should through the ages of the Old Testament be very much in typifying things pertaining to the Messiah and his salvation, not only in prophecies, but also in types; because we find in fact, that at the very beginning of God’s revealing the Messiah to mankind, prophecies and types went together in the first prophecy of the Messiah, and the first proper prophecy that ever was in the world, God foretold and typified the redemption both together, when God said to the serpent, Gen. iii. 15. “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” This is undoubtedly a prediction of the Messiah’s victory over Satan, and his suffering from Satan, and of the Messiah’s people’s victory and deliverance through him. And none can reasonably question but that here is also some respect had to that enmity there is between mankind and serpents, and the manner of serpents wounding mankind and of men’s killing them; for God is here speaking concerning a beast of the field that was ranked with the cattle, as appears by the foregoing verse. And this state of things with respect to serpents, was plainly ordered and established in these words. But if we suppose that both these things were intended in the same words, then undoubtedly one is spoken of and ordained as a representation of the other. If God orders and speaks of the bruising of a serpent’s head, and thereby signifies the Messiah’s conquering the devil, that is the same thing as God’s ordering and speaking of the bruising of a serpent’s head as a sign, signification, or (which is the same thing) type of his conquering the devil. And in what is said to the serpent, ver. 14. “Thou art cursed above all cattle, and above ever; beast of the field: upon thy belly shall thou go, and dust shall thou eat all the days of thy life;” it is evident that God speaks concerning that serpent that was a beast of the field. And yet it is also evident by the Old Testament, that he has respect to something pertaining to the state of the devil, that should be brought to pass by the Messiah; as by Isa. lxv.25. “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together; and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock, and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain;” compared with Isa. xi. 1-9. together with Isa. xxvii. 1. and Zech. iii. 1, 2,. &c. Thus the very first thing that was ordered and established in this world after the fall, was a type of the Messiah, and was ordered as such: which argues that typifying of the Messiah is one principal way of God’s foreshowing him. And as types and prophecies of the Messiah began together, so there is reason to think that they have kept pace one with another ever since.'

From the beginning, the lamb was slain.

Next week's reading

Continue Types of the Messiah in Vol 2 of the Works by Jonathan Edwards (Available from Amazon or free here) by reading up to the paragraph beginning with 'The things that are said of the burning bush, do wonderfully agree with the Old-Testament representations of the Messiah.'

Now it's your turn

Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.