Most people are familiar with the old adage, “Birds of a feather flock together.” It is a testament to the fact that people tend to associate with others who are of both the same mindset and/ or possess a commonality of interests. In Scripture we also find numerous examples of shared experience amongst the various characters found within the pages of God’s Word. These shared characteristics of experience are often referred to as Biblical Types and are used to not only teach us lessons regarding various aspects of Christian Theology, but they also serve to demonstrate to the believer the Sovereign control that God possesses over the events of World History (Isaiah 46:10). In that all of World History ultimately relates to Jesus, “For of him, and through him, and to him are all things…” (Romans 11:36), it should come as no surprise that the Old Testament record is in fact filled with Prophetic Types of Jesus Christ, of people whose actions or behavior in some way points to or reflects the character or actions of Jesus Christ in the New Testament.
With Abraham, we find in his willingness to offer his son Isaac. a foreshadowing of our loving Heavenly Father, who also willingly offered up His own Son, Jesus. It is of special interest to note that when Abraham offered up Isaac upon Mount Moriah, that it was upon the same mountain top which Jesus would later be crucified on.
In the life of Boaz, we see Jesus depicted as our Kinsman-Redeemer. By definition, a Kinsman-Redeemer is, “someone who redeems that which was lost.” Just as Boaz took the widowed Gentile Ruth to be his bride, so too will Jesus take both Jew and Gentile alike to be His Bride at the time of the Rapture of the Church.
When we consider the Old Testament Prophet Hosea, we again see a type or foreshadowing of not only Jesus, but also of God the Father. For just as Hosea paid the price to redeem his unfaithful wife, so too did Jesus pay the price for our redemption. Just as Hosea forgave his wife for her unfaithful behavior, so too does God the Father forgive us of all of our sins and unfaithfulness.
With Jonah, we find his spending 3 days in the belly of the great fish an illustration of Jesus’ spending 3 days in the grave after His Crucifixion (Matthew 12:40).
The person who is perhaps most commonly associated with being a Prophetic Type of Christ is Joseph. In Joseph we see a man, who like Jesus, is represented in Scripture without the mention of any apparent sin in his life. Like Jesus, Joseph had spent time in Egypt, and had also been subjected to not only rejection by his brethren (Genesis 37:20) but had similarly been sold for a few pieces of silver (Genesis 37:28, Matthew 26:14-16).
Moses the Archetypical Type of Christ
While it is common for many students of the Bible to promote the idea that Joseph was the ultimate archetypical type of Christ in the Old Testament, in actuality, the person in Scripture who is most like and typical of Jesus is Moses. The reasons for this are many:
- Just as Jesus is the dominant person presented within the New Testament record, so too was Moses the person who displayed the greatest impact within the pages of the Old Testament.
- Jesus and Moses shared similarities in their lives right from the moment of their respective births. For the ruling civil authorities at the time of both Jesus’ and Moses’ births tried to have them both killed (Exodus 1:16, Matthew 2:16).
- Just as Jesus the “Good Shepherd” leads His followers in their journey through this world on their way to Heaven, so too did Moses lead the Hebrew people out of the Wilderness and up to the Promised Land.
- Just as Jesus is presented as the believer’s great intercessor (Romans 8:34), so too was Moses the great intercessor for the Nation of Israel (Exodus 32:7-14).
- As Jesus was rejected by the Hebrew people after He had presented Himself as the fulfillment of the Mosaic Law (Matthew 5:17-18), so too was Moses rejected by his people when he first attempted to bring to them the written Law of God on Mount Sinai (Exodus 32:18-19).
- Just as Jesus demonstrate the ultimate expression of love by being willing to experience a separation from God while He bore the sins of the world on the Cross at Calvary (Matthew 27:46), so too was Moses willing to be eternally separated from God for the sake of his Hebrew brethren (Exodus 32:32).
- God’s Word directly testifies to the fact that Moses was indeed a “type” of Christ, as it refers to Jesus as being a Prophet “like unto” Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15).
Concerning Biblical end-times prophecy, it is only fitting that types and illustrations of the events concerning Jesus’ 2nd Coming should be found in veiled form in the life of Moses.
We now know that the member of the Godhead who came down to Mount Sinai was likely Jehovah, the 2nd Person of the Trinity, whom we now recognize as being the Pre-Incarnate Jesus Christ. We can easily ascertain this because Moses was said to have talked with Him “face to face” (Exodus 33:11), and no man hath seen God (the Father) at any time (I John 4:10-12).
On the same day that Moses and the Hebrew people arrived at Mount Sinai, Jehovah God came down from heaven and told Moses to tell the people to prepare themselves by washing their clothes over the next 2 days. Jehovah then proclaimed that He would come back down to them and visit them again on the 3rd day (Exodus 19:11). This visitation would be announced by the sound of a long loud blast of a trumpet (Exodus 19:13,19).
This event can readily be seen to be a foreshadowing of Jesus, who as the 2nd Person of the Trinity, came down from Heaven to become the God Man at His Incarnation. After His departure back to Heaven (Acts 1:9,10), we are told that He would remain in Heaven for a period of 2 days, after which He was to return on the morning of the 3rd day (Exodus 19:16, Hosea 6:2). In that “a day with the Lord is like 1,000 years for man” (II Peter 3:8), Jesus’ returning to Heaven for “2 days” would therefore likely last for a period of 2,000 years, and after this He would thence come back to visit mankind heralded by the sound of a blast from a trumpet (Exodus 9:16, I Corinthians 15:52).
It would therefore seem that a logical time frame for Jesus’ 2nd Coming could possibly be 2,000 years after His Crucifixion, which many believe to have occurred in the year 30 A.D. This would make the timing of Israel’s restoration to fellowship with God as prophesied by Hosea and Zechariah (Hosea 6:2, Zechariah 12:10, 14:4), to be around the year 2030 A.D.
We must also take into consideration the fact that before Israel is restored to fellowship with God, the last 7 years of Daniel’s prophecy regarding the end time events must also occur. This would mean that the initiation of God’s program to bring about Jesus’ 2nd Coming, could begin as early as the year 2023.
Many theologians believe that the event which triggers the start of Daniel’s 70th or last week consisting of the 7-year Tribulation Period, is the Rapture of the Church. This occasion is commonly associated with the sounding of “the last trump”, as prophesied by the Apostle Paul in his first letter to the Church at Corinth (I Corinthians 15:52).
While Jesus stated that no man would know the day or hour of His return (Matthew 24:36), He did not say a word about the month or year. If Moses’ interactions with God at Mount Sinai were indeed a type or illustration of events which would occur in the future concerning the life of Jesus, then we could expect that the return of Jesus back to the Earth to set up His Millennial Kingdom would occur by the year 2030. If the trumpet blast from Mount Sinai was indeed representative of the trumpet blast that would occur at the time of the Rapture of the Church, then this blast could occur as early as the year 2023, because the events of Daniel’s missing 70th week of 7 years known as the Tribulation would also have to occur immediately prior to Jesus’ physical return at His 2nd Coming (Zechariah 12:10).
Regarding the time or season of the year in which the “last trump” will sound that initiates the events concerning Jesus’ 2nd Coming, we should remember that all the major events regarding Jesus’ life occurred on the Jewish Feast days. His Crucifixion was on Passover, His burial on the Feast of Unleavened bread, His resurrection on the Feast of First Fruits, and the beginning of His Church was on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-21).
While most Prophetic Prognosticators believe that the timing of the “last trump” which initiates the Rapture of the Church would likely occur during the Feast of Trumpets, as this Feast ends with a long blast of a trumpet, this may not be the case. For Jesus told us that His return would not necessarily be at an obvious time, for He stated in the Book of Matthew:
“Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour that ye think not the Son of man cometh.”
We would do well to consider that the trumpet blast that occurred at Sinai with Moses and the Hebrew people happened 50 days after Passover (there were 47 days journey from Egypt to Sinai in addition to God’s re-appearance on the 3rd day after their arrival (Exodus 12:6, 19:1). Therefore, this trumpet blast might not necessarily be associated with the Feast of Trumpets, but rather with the Feast of Pentecost, a Feast which occurs 50 days after Passover, and like God’s appearance at Sinai, was also denoted by fire and smoke (Exodus 19:18, Acts 2:3,19).
To this we must also consider another factor regarding the timing of Moses’ foreshadowing of the events of the 2nd Coming as possibly occurring around the Feast of Pentecost. For it would make perfect poetic sense for God to call the Church home on the same day that it had been initiated (Acts 2:1), and thereby making the Church a truly precise theological insertion into the History of the Children of Abraham and the Promises that had been given to them by God the Father through Abraham (Genesis 15:1-21).
Hence, we see that through the examination of Biblical Types, we are better able to not only understand many Biblical truths, but our eyes can be opened to explore new possibilities as to the likely timing of both the Rapture and the Physical 2nd Coming of Jesus back to the earth to set up His Millennial Kingdom. We should therefore be forever grateful for the fact that God incorporates the usage of Biblical Types within His Word.
For Biblical Types not only serve to better inform God’s people as to what He is and may possibly be doing in our world, and of His Sovereign Control of History, but they can also provide us with keener insights into Biblical Prophecy when we come to realize the fact that, “Birds of a feather, do indeed flock together.”
