. . . the word “type” can have a number of meanings, but only two of
these interest us here. The first meaning is that of “archetype”, “pattern”,
“model”. The second is that of a person or thing in the past which foreshadows
imperfectly a greater reality to come.44 Thus, in the first meaning,
the “type” is the superior reality on which something inferior is modelled. But
in the second meaning, the “type” is part of a movement of history in which the
inferior prepares the way for the superior.
Both Acts 7:44 and Heb 8:5 refer to Ex 25:40, where Moses is shown on
Sinai the pattern, “type”, of the details of the tabernacle to be constructed.
The writer of Hebrews develops this thought along Platonic lines: the “really
real” sanctuary is the heavenly one, in which Christ ministers. In this way of
thinking, that which comes first is superior, that which follows is an inferior
copy.
However, it is above all the second meaning of “type” which has been
adopted in later theological thought. Here the “type” is necessarily inferior.
The idea is based on an acceptance of the unity between the Old and the New
Testaments, in which the Old provided a preparatory sketch of the New, in which
the New “fulfilled” the persons, things and events of the Old. For example,
Paul could say that the first Adam “was a type of one to come”, that is,
Christ. After describing the passage of the Israelites through the sea, their
“baptism into Moses”, their sharing of supernatural food and drink, and their
later disasters, Paul goes on to say that “these things took place as types for
us”,46 “these things happened to them typically, and were written
down for our instruction, upon whom the fulfillment of the ages has come”.
An “antitype” is determined by its corresponding “type”. Since the
“type” can have the two meanings discussed above, so the “antitype” can be
either the inferior copy based on the heavenly “type”, or the superior
Christian reality which fulfils the earlier “sketch” or “type” of the Old
Testament. The writer of Hebrews, in keeping with his Platonic background,
could write: “For Christ has entered, not into a sactuary made with hands, a
copy (ἀντίτυπα) of the true
one, but into heaven itself”. The only other case of ἀντίτυπος in the New Testament is that of 1 Pet
3:21. It is almost universally accepted that in 1 Peter the word “antitype” has
the same meaning as that found or supposed in Rom 5:14 and 1 Cor 10:6, 11. Thus
it refers to the later reality of the New Testament, which fulfils a
corresponding reality of the Old Testament. In the text of 3:21 it indicates
Christian baptism, not the flood. (William Joseph Dalton, Christ’s
Proclamation to the Spirits: A Study of 1 Peter 3:18-4:6 [Analecta Biblica
23; Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1989]. 197-98)
