Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 21:1 (Spring 2017)
Article: Biblical-Theological Exegesis And The Nature Of Typology
Author: Aubrey Sequeira

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Biblical-Theological Exegesis And The Nature Of Typology

Aubrey Sequeira

and

Samuel C. Emadi

Aubrey Sequeira is a church-planting intern at the NETS Center for Church Planting and Revitalization in Williston, Vermont. He earned his PhD in Biblical Theology and Old Testament from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Samuel C. Emadi is Pastor of Preaching and Theology at Heritage Baptist Church, Owensboro, Kentucky. He earned his PhD in Biblical Studies from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

As Doug Moo has noted, “typology is much easier to talk about than to describe.”1 Even among evangelicals, competing definitions of typology are legion. These matters are further complicated by related (and equally polarizing) issues such as the nature of biblical theology, the NT’s use of the OT, the structure of the canon, authorial intent, the relationship of the divine and human authors of Scripture, and other knotty theological and hermeneutical issues.2

Given the debate surrounding typology, even in evangelical circles, this article argues for an approach to typology that coheres with a self-consciously Reformed and evangelical understanding of the discipline of biblical theology. Our aim is to set out the essential features of a type by rooting typology in the basic presuppositions of biblical theology and in Scripture as a self-interpreting divine-human book that progressively unfolds along covenantal epochs. In other words, we are endeavoring to uncover the exegetical logic that undergirds the NT authors’ interpretation and that leads them to interpret typology as a feature of divine revelation. Understanding

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that logic will reveal a great deal about how the NT authors conceived of the nature of types. Put simply, we are attempting to describe how typology in the NT “works.”

Ultimately we will argue that the exegetical logic of the NT authors demonstrates that types are historical, authorially-intended, textually rooted, tied to Scripture’s covenant structure, and undergo escalation from old covenant shadow to new covenant reality. In order to unpack this thesis we will first explain our understanding of the discipline of biblical theology. Second, we will unravel how our understanding of biblical theology both creates and constrains hermeneutical commitments with regard to the relationship between the testaments and the NT use of the OT. We will describe this approach to Scripture as biblical-theological exegesis. Third, we ...

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