Dr. Lawrence Feingold - Typology and the Divine Plan - 2018 Applied Biblical Studies Conference

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so thank you so much Scott for that introduction and more importantly and for inviting me to be part of this magnificent conference and thank you all for coming it's a great pleasure to be here so let's start in the name of the Father Son and the Holy Spirit amen come Holy Spirit fill the hearts of thy faithful Kindle them the fire of thy life send forth thy spirit and they shall be created and thou shalt renew the face of the earth heal Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death amen Our Lady's seat of wisdom and the name of the Father Son and the Holy Spirit and so my talk is on typology and the divine plan to unite all things in Christ in other words typology comes from the centrality of Christ and so I'll explain what we've various talks have already been about typology and I'll go into more in a minute but what I want to start with is that the fact that the Bible has more than one sense that it has a typological sense is itself something mysterious I think as most human Tech's have one meaning the meaning intended by the words but the Bible is richer than that and what I want to suggest in this talk is that that's a consequence of a greater mystery and the greater mystery is the Incarnation passion resurrection of Christ because God has become man in the center of history the mystery of all mysteries the Bible has more than one sense because it's all about him whether it's before him or describing him or after him and so the centrality of Christ is the reason why the Bible has him as we'll see four senses and just one so biblical typology it's a consequence reset of the Incarnation and it refers to the fact that earlier events in Salvation history have a meaning beyond themselves right they point forward if they're events before Christ they point to Christ but they can also point to our life in Christ so they point to us they were written for our instruction st. Paul says when Corinthians 10 but they also speak about our ultimate destiny in Christ which is heaven alright and so scripture has a literal sense the meaning of the words but it also points to Christ to us in Christ and to our final destiny in Christ and so all history revolves around Christ and therefore the Bible shows us that centrality of the Christ by pointing to him not just through words but also through events which I'll explain in a minute all right so Christ is the model of everything what we're called to be in the present and in the future and therefore the center of the biblical text now it's often said that scripture and that the Bible introduces a linear understanding of Scripture before and outside of the Bible in am Greek culture or the various pagan cultures history is very often seen as a kind of eternal return a cycle and a golden age a decline a restoration a decline and a never ending cycle and it's fatalistic in a sense because there's no ultimate escape the Bible introduces a beginning creation and an end the life of heaven and so you get a linear journey but it's more than that because there is something circular about it what the Bible presents is a history that comes out from God in creation and returns back to where it came from heaven and being so in that first creation in Eden we get already a foreshadowing of the final return to heaven and so biblical history is yes linear but it's also circular in that sense of coming out from God and the whole point of it being returning back to him and to be united with him and by sharing his life for eternity all right so it's also in some way circular marked by exodus and return right so Exodus yes it's a particular episode in the history of the chosen people but in some way it's much more global than that right we all have come out from God or a whole life is a kind of Exodus but it's an exodus for the sake of the return to the promised land in heaven and it's a trial in that again just as Israel in the exodus had a trial that lasted 40 years the whole of our lives and therefore the whole of human history is a kind of Exodus in that sense to a trial and before we can be found worthy to enter the the promised land and in heaven and so that circular nature of of history coming out from God returning to him and we can see that again history isn't just a sequence of events because it comes forth from one who stands above history who guides history and so history has a meaning beyond itself so all of history is pointing beyond history to the source and goal of history God now that would already that would seem like a lot but there's more to it than that history isn't just simply our coming out from God and seeking to get back to him he helps us thanks to me to God it's not just that so there's the biblical history is marked by a reversal of directions right so God enters seeking man and so if we could say the catacombs is a beautiful line there are other religions of the world the natural religions we could say is the history of man's seeking God and Samantha throughout and his quest for wisdom was man seeking God biblical history is something much more amazing it's God seeking man calling to man but of course the central seeking is God Himself becoming man in the midst of that history to be an actor on the human stage of history the Lord of history entering history in the Incarnation and that's right in the middle of this circle we could say right so history comes out from God it's trying to return to him and in the midst of it in this Center God Himself enters in to bring us back to him all right so that's the biblical we could say arc of history right and the Fathers of the Church loved to speak about this God becomes man is of course the mystery of mysteries the author of history enters into history the infinite takes on the finite right to restore the finite and so we could think of that right he who is omnipotent becomes utterly dependent on a human mother being a fetus for nine months utterly dependent on his mother and the eternal wisdom needing to be taught to speak etc the all-powerful being nailed to the cross and so the the central event of history is of course something utterly opposite to all anything that we would have imagined without without God presenting to us that this is what he's done and because of this everything that Jesus Christ does in his humanity has an infinite weight because the infinite one has taken on a finite body in a finite period 33 years in a finite space but everything he does in that brief moment in that brief space Galilee Jerusalem is done for all of history from the beginning to the end and therefore all the deeds of Jesus Christ have an infinite power and consequence of vision and because of that history acquires three new meanings so everything that was before the incarnation has a new meaning now of preparing for the Incarnation the Incarnation itself is for the sake of our being configured to him all right so God became man the Fathers of the Church loved to say God became man the Son of God became a son of man so that the sons and daughters of men us might become sons and daughters of God right so his incarnation illuminates everything that comes afterwards because it gives us our calling to be sons sons and daughters in the Sun and then that which we are here on earth already sons and daughters is a prefiguring of what our final destiny is to be and sons who see the father face to face in heaven and so Christ his coming illuminates history before illuminates our present and points in a decisive way to our future by giving the foundation for hope in a way that nothing else could do so let's look now at biblical typology so I'm going to refer here to the Catechism three numbers the Catechism is a masterpiece but these three numbers are among my favorites 115 16 and 17 I need some technical help here my thing is great but so the Catechism in 115 M says this according to an ancient tradition one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture the literal and the spiritual the latter being subdivided I'll explain this minute into the allegorical moral and anagogical senses the profound concordance of these four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the church all right so the Catechism is telling us to fully grasp all the riches that God wants to give us in his word we want to grasp these four senses of Scripture what are they the literal sense which is the first is the sense conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis following the rules of sound interpretation what does that mean simply the literal sense is the meaning of the words of Scripture rightly understood getting what the author intended to convey by those words in other words grasping the metaphor if there's a metaphor grasping the figure of speech grasping the literary and style now sometimes that's difficult so in other words the literal sense isn't a literalistic sense it's not what we mean when we say taking it literally the literal sense of Scripture we could say is the literary sense in other words the sense of the words rightly understood according to the literary conventions of the sacred author in used in his time all right so it requires some work to get the literal sense and that's why we've got scholars in the church who investigate the historical context and the figures of speech and the original language and we need them okay that's the literal sense all the other senses are based on that one right first you have to understand the meaning of the words all right but the word describe events and realities and here's the mystery not only the words have a meaning but the very events described by the words also point to later events to Jesus Christ and to our life in Christ here on earth and in heaven so not only the words have a meaning but the events or realities or deeds described by the words also have a meaning right and the Catechism calls that the spiritual sense of Scripture and we can call it the typological they're simply synonyms and for our purposes here the spiritual sense or the type of logical sense it's the sense of Scripture in which a deed or reality describe other words points to another reality in Christ and so the category says thanks to the unity of God's plan which centers on Jesus Christ not only that text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can also be signs alright now we're not saying that necessarily every text of Scripture has a spiritual or typological sense and it may or it may not all of Scripture has a literal sense the meaning of the words rightly understood and very often in addition it also has a typological or spiritual sense pointing to Christ or life in him and to heaven okay and the reason ultimately why there are these two senses is that God reveals himself to us not just through words but through words and deeds and that makes sense because God is revealing himself and it's taken analogy if I can reveal something of myself to my spouse by telling her words that I love her but it's more convincing when I communicate that with deeds and so if God is also communicating his love to us in his revelation we should expect that he's going to do it not just with words but with deeds and of the two which is going to be more important the right he's gonna show his love to us a buffalo by deeds described by words and so there's a beautiful interrelationship between the words and the deeds the words clarify the deeds but the deeds make tangible and flesh out the words and Scott spoke about this last night the Second Vatican councils document on divine revelation dei verbum right at the beginning number 2 speaks about this and it says this plan of Revelation is realized by deeds and words having an inner unity right so again the meaning of the words is the literal sense and the meaning of the deeds is the type of logical sense deeds have meaning and that's again that's obvious we all know it giving a wedding ring is a deed saying the vows words and we communicate our love both by the deed as well this word and of course the deeds aren't just the wedding ring but it's the whole married life etc it might be giving one's life for one's spouse in extreme cases all right and so God obviously is also revealing self words in deeds and the central deed is the Incarnation the passion and resurrection of Jesus Christ right that's the key deed but there are many other deeds that prepare for that central deed and other deeds that follow on that central datacite as we said in a minute ago right so that central deed is the center of history all right so the two meanings of Scripture are whether it's the meaning of the words or the meaning of the deeds events realities described by the words and the Catechism gives an example and the end let's take the crossing of the Red Sea the literal sense of Exodus describing the passage through the Red Sea the literal sense would be again the passage itself where it happened how it happened what circumstances and the consequence is freed from Pharaoh there's also an allegorical sense there a typological sense because that very deed of escaping from failure through the waters is a figure or type above an event that all of us have experienced our baptism by which through the waters of baptism we were released from one who pursued us and that one who pursued us was Satan and the consequences of original sin and ultimately death and the second death and then so baptism liberate sus from that pursuer and drowns him in the waters of baptism never to rise again we may commit future sins god forbid but those sins of the past are drowned and dead all right so that would be an example but at the same time that very event is also a type of Christ's Paschal mystery because Christ is the one who accomplishes our being released from sin and death and and so we could say that the Exodus is a type of Christ's Paschal mystery and a type of our being inserted into it in Baptism will give more examples in it okay the Catechism and we saw subdivides the typological sense in two three and at first sight this seems confusing and and the names are perhaps unfamiliar and but let's look at that so the three are the allegorical the moral and the anagogical types so the allegorical sense is a meaning by which an event usually in the Old Testament almost always in the Old Testament refers prefigures Christ his life his mysteries right the mysteries of his life the sacraments that he Institute's and the church that he founds so insofar as an event of the Old Testament like that the Exodus the crossing the Red Sea points to that we can say in addition to its literal meaning it has a typological allegorical meaning prefiguring in this case baptism or Christ Paschal mystery but there can be other kind of figures so for example Sarah who conceives miraculously when wage Barun she's far too old she then has to wait 25 more years after God tells her that she's gonna conceive and she conceives this son of promise I mean she's know so there's a literal sense there where's the mother Sears the mother of Isaac but there's also an allegorical sense in which it prefigures another woman who conceives miraculously Mary and so Sara can be a type of Mary so there can be types that point not only to Christ but to marry and to the church all right all of that is the allegorical sense the second type of logical sense is the EM yeah so here just a diagram of that all of that history from creation in Eden the fall the patriarchs the calling of Abraham the whole history of the chosen people in Egypt coming out of Egypt their life in the promised land right the crossing of the Jordan and the King David the whole history of Israel all of that all of those events are events that can have an additional meaning pointing to Christ in the church and so that whole arc of history from creation to the Incarnation can have this allegorical sense of pointing to Christ the moral type of logical sense is when a particular event in Salvation history is the model to us of what we're called to be in Christ or it might be what we're called not to be in other words scripture gives us not only positive types moral types but also negative ones that we're to avoid both of those constitute the moral sense and the catechism in explaining this site and st. Paul who M says that all these things were written for our instruction 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and so how we should act or not right they were written for our instruction when Corinthians 10 verse 11 and I'll come back to that or maybe we'll look at that right now so in this chapter 10 of the first letter to the Corinthians st. Paul and wants to tell the Corinthians not to take their salvation for granted not to think once saved always saved why and he gives an example from the Old Testament from the Exodus and that is precisely that all of the Israelites passed through the waters of the Red Sea and thus st. Paul says they were all baptized in the water and I want you to know brethren our fathers were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea so through the waters but also he's making reference there to the second sacrament of Christian initiation receiving the spirit which we call confirmation and he sees that prefigured in the fact that the cloud right led the way and all of Israel was following the cloud the cloud is a symbol of the Holy Spirit and so all of Israel in a sense was baptized and confirmed and then what happens they get into the desert and they're fed by God with food from above from the then the food bread from heaven Amana and that's a type of the Eucharist so in some sense the Israelites received types of the three sacraments of Christian initiation but what happened to them they wandered in the desert for forty years how many got into the Promised Land - and how many didn't yes everybody else and st. Paul sees this as a type of why we want not to be presumptuous because we can receive all these incredible gifts in Christ and that simply will give us a greater responsibility right to whom whereas given were as expected and so it doesn't work once saved always saved so st. Paul goes on right they with some of them God was not pleased we must not put the Lord to the test as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer now these things happen to them as a warning but they were written down for our instruction upon whom the end of the ages has come I suppose putting down a general principle what they did grumbling yearning for the fleshpots of Egypt it's something that we also do right we all of us have come out from Egypt in our baptism and yet how often we yearn for the fleshpots of Egypt things of sin and we grumble etc etc right so st. Paul says this was written for our instruction and then that strange last part upon whom the end of the ages has come now that sounds like like apocalypse delay but st. Paul is speaking there about the whole life of the church right now for us the end of the ages has come in Christ because Christ is after Christ you've got the last times the whole of these last 2000 years is the last times because Christ is the center of history and now we've got life in Christ and so all of what was written before was written for us for the life of the church in Christ okay finally there's the anagogical sense terrible sounding word it's the Greek word for pointing up and so the anagogical sense refers to the meaning of a deed described by the words of Scripture insofar as that deed points to the last things and those last things death judgment heaven in Hell the New Jerusalem and the second coming right so any deed that points to judgment there are tons right so many deeds in the Old Testament involve a kind of prejudgment just the very fact that we said how many got into the Promised Land - that itself is in some way a anagogical type as well - some world type pointing out that the path is narrow on the positive level and so many things in the life of Israel and the church and above all Jesus Christ and His resurrection are pointing to the last things right so Jesus Christ's resurrection welcomed batter is the type of ours all right so the categories we can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance leading us to our true homeland thus the church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem that means every liturgical celebration every mass every sacrament is a sign of the church triumphant in heaven but we need eyes to see that and all the things in scripture that point to that likewise okay so in summary the Catechism gives us a little verse to summarize it the letter speaks of deeds allegory to faith and so that would be deeds pointing to the key elements of our faith in Christ and the church the moral how to act and a Noguchi pointing to our destiny and so all together we get four senses literal and three typological senses now at first sight you might think well that seems a little arbitrary why do we say that there are three typos logical senses and not say five or seven or something like that it's true three is one of those nice numbers but em so what I want to suggest is that there are three typos logical senses because of Christ no it's because Christ has become the center of history from now on the history before him points to him he points to our life in him and his very life and our life in him points to the life in heaven and so the three type of logical senses comes from the fact that Christ is this center of history but Christ came to be the model of our life on earth and the model of our life in heaven and so three typological senses beforehand pointing to him he pointing to us and our life in him pointing to our life in heaven not sure if this graph will help things so the Old Testament events the events described in the Old Testament can have an allegorical meaning when they point to Christ those very events can have a moral typological meaning when they point to our life in Christ so the Old Testament events so the very events described the Old Testament can have they always have a literal sense right but in addition they can have an allegorical sense when they point to Christ they can have a moral sense when they point to our life in Christ negatively or positively giving us a right what we're not to do or what we are to do and then they can also have an analogical sense by which they foreshadow our life in heaven so Jerusalem on earth the Temple of Jerusalem is itself a type of the heavenly Jerusalem okay so the Old Testament text can have all four senses there's always the literal sense but in addition it might have one or two or three typological senses depending on the case what about the New Testament the New Testament generally doesn't have an allegorical sense because the allegorical sin is pointing to Christ sometimes there is so just an example this is maybe not that important but an event or earlier in the life of Christ can point to a later event and the most important example there is his loss and finding in the temple for three days that's an event in the life of Christ that is pointing to the later event of his death burial and resurrection and Mary didn't fully understand that at the time but it was given to prepare her for that later event I saw an example of an allegorical sense in the New Testament but that's generally not the case I generally the New Testament is giving us directly Christ the center of history and his founding of the church but there there still can be a moral typological sense because Christ is the type of our life and all that he did he did for our instruction and to be right and so therefore the deeds in the life of Christ in addition to their literal sense have a moral type of logical sense that's really important right that we should pray on and meditate on that's the imitation of Christ that's the whole Christian life and in addition those very events in life of Christ above all his resurrection have an anagogical sense because that's the model or type of our future resurrection all right so the New Testament events always will have a literal sense but in addition they almost always will have a moral typological sense showing us how we're to live in Christ imitating it and then they often have an anti-god yokel sense as well right the Acts of the Apostles also obviously has this literal sense but in addition it can have the moral sense showing us how we're to live to imitate that early church in Jerusalem that we read about acts 2 3 and 4 etc but in addition that very life of the early church is a model for the life of heaven right they had all things in common there was this marvelous communion which here on earth is imperfect and but is a sign of the perfect communion in the church triumphant now there's an interesting difference between the typology in the Old Testament and the typology in the New Testament in the Old Testament the deeds done prefiguring Christ the type is less than the realization right so the type might be the sacrifice of Isaac and the the reality is Christ's sacrifice on Calvary the type is less than the realization but in the New Testaments the other way around interesting the type is Christ and he's the type of our life so his passion is the type of our Christian life in which we walk the way of the cross and his resurrection is the type of our victory over sin and its consequences but obviously our life in Christ is less than the type right so we could call that Christ is the archetype because what's described in the New Testament is yes the type of the Christian life but it's a type that's bigger infinitely than our participation in it right we always fall short and and it's also the type of heaven and and in Christ it's fall but we don't see it fully yet okay all right so in summary we can say typology enables all of sac Salvation history to be Christocentric right pointing to Christ yeah there's a saying of st. Augustine he's speaking with them managing the mana keys and disregarded the Old Testament I didn't think it was inspired and so san agustin explains that no all of those passages are about Christ they speak of Christ the head now ascended into heaven along with the body still suffering on earth us is the full development say the meaning of the whole purpose of the author subscription right so all of Scripture is about Christ and our life in him and that's what st. Paul meant when he said all of this was written for our instruction upon whom the edge of the ages has come my truth now at the parable of the Good Samaritan and the Fathers of the Church right so you all know the parallel and presupposing you know it and obviously there's a literal sense to this parable Jesus principle intention is first and foremost to teach us about fraternal charity to be like the Good Samaritan but the fathers of the church discover in this parable another meaning and that has to do with salvation history and it's a beautiful way to kind of give an outline of the whole of salvation history as you know the story the there's a man who goes from Jerusalem down to Jericho and he's robbed stripped and left naked right and and when we think about it Jerusalem is the holy place right you always go up to Jerusalem you go down to Jericho if you ever walked from I walked not the whole way but half the way from Jerusalem to Jericho and you go down constantly for a long time Jericho is the lowest place on earth right because you've got you've got the the Dead Sea I don't know the details something like 300 meters below sea level but in case and there's a symbol there right the man going from Jerusalem to Jericho can be seen to be a type of Adam and this is how Origen reads the parable of the Good Samaritan so he says that he got this interpretation not by figuring out himself not by doing a lectio divina but he got it from the elders it was something in his day two hundred already passed down by the tradition them and he says the man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho is Adam Jerusalem is paradise I didn't Jericho is this world the robbers are the hostile powers the priests right Satan and his minions the priest is the law the Levite the prophets we don't have to follow that exactly another the the priests and the Levites simply would be the old covenant which can't save the man right but the good samaritan who does take him him he's a type of christ and what does he do he binds his wounds and that origin says is a type of de sac remains of the church either sacraments so that the good samaritan the wounds and that symbolized in some way all seven sacraments of the church by which the wounds of sin are healed in different ways by the sacraments and then what is he doing puts him on his donkey and takes him to the inn and what do you suppose that synchronize right that's the church we're in the in right now but the Good Samaritan has to leave right so he entrusts him to the innkeeper so or just as well the inn keepers the those who exercised headship in the church in our bishops Pope and but the man promises to return right and that's the second coming and so the parable sketches out in some way the key stages of salvation history and so the very first stage would be still in Jerusalem but that stage lasts very short and and so the next stage is the fall itself right and that's the robbery and he's left there and a first stage would be the time of the patriarchs were at I'm still under natural law before God revealed a law to Israel so that would be the first stage after the fall we could call it the stage in which man was left to the guidance of the natural law written on the heart time of the patriarchs second stage begins with the calling of Abraham and through the Mosaic law the whole time of Israel but that can't save wounded Adam because to save wounded Adam we need God made man and so the Good Samaritan represents the incarnation which inaugurates a new age a new age in which we have been given point mints and healing medicines to heal the wounds of original sin and were entrusted to the church in expectation of his second coming and so that mataman he will come again and you'll have the church triumphant so that gives us a kind of map of salvation history and it shows us how the different periods in salvation history point to Christ who stands at the center of it now in explaining typology I think that the best way the easiest way is looking at an Easter Sunday so Jesus now Jesus taught about typology earlier before Easter Sunday but it's really on Easter Sunday that it comes out in this magnificent way two different episodes that Luke gives us the first is the road to Emmaus and so you have them the two disciples walking to Emmaus you all know the story sadly walking talking about the events and the stranger cometh to them what are you talking about and they looked sad and are you the only one in Jerusalem who doesn't know that things that happened here and Jesus says what things like to get him to talk concerning Jesus of Nazareth of prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people and how our chief priests and rulers living up to be condemned to death but we hoped he was the one to redeem Israel and Jesus responds Oh foolish men and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory and beginning with Moses and all the prophets he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself as we heard about this last night I think it was and and yes so Jesus unfolds the Scriptures number what's really interesting is that Luke tells us starting with Moses and as I think what Scott mentioned that and Moses doesn't give me no John maybe this morning and doesn't give many direct promised prophesies yes the prophecy of the new Moses in Deuteronomy 18 but for the most part of the Book of Moses and the the Pentateuch gives us the deeds that prefigure Christ in other words the books of Moses and we could say all the historical books are giving us typological prophecy deeds that point to Christ and Christ says you should have understood it right how did you not see this and then he uncovers them how what was written there in the books of Moses in the prophets and in the Psalms and was about him and his key mystery his Paschal mystery right in other words Jesus unfolded typology to them now unfortunately we're not told what Jesus said right we wish we could have access to that discourse but God was really kept that from us so we could reinstate an and but what we are told is that their hearts burned and our hearts burn also when we get the typology right it's so many times I've had people come up to me ah I never nobody ever explained that can action that typological connection and that just makes it come together and it shows the centrality of Christ that's why they're excited and who was the same for these two on the way to Emmaus when Jesus open description they saw how was all punny to him right and it gave their faith life and it reveals the plan in those typology points to the wisdom of God how everything has a meaning in reference to Jesus Christ and that is the greatest motive of credibility for faith I did strengthens our faith and that's exactly what happened to those two right they had lost their faith and this type of logical discourse revived their faith they didn't yet know that it was he Jesus who was speaking to them right then that comes later in the breaking of the bread which is the second stage right that's the sacraments that would be the Eucharist so our eyes are open progressively but a big part of opening our eyes of faith is discovering the typology the second episode is just like that a few hours later in the upper room so the two disciples Emmaus rush back to Jerusalem they go into the upper room and the same thing happens there again jesus walks through the the closed door that itself is a type by the way right that closed door why is there why does Jesus walk through a closed door on Resurrection Sunday he could have knocked on the door right he normally did that he didn't usually barge through doors but in this particular case he went right through that door without knocking why because he had just gone through another bigger door the door of death right he had broken down the gate that hadn't been opened until Good Friday conquering sin and death rising from the dead going through that sealed tomb any case that's sorry close parenthesis so he he goes through those closed doors and he talks to the twelve and he tells them that basically the same thing everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and again we I think it's the exact same thing he opened their minds not just to understand the prophecies that were about him Isaiah 53 Psalm 22 etc that would have included that but much bigger too he opened their minds to see how everything was in some way about him in different ways more directly or less directly so it's he showed them the meaning of the deeds pointing to him as well as the meaning of the words right and he opened to us the scriptures so there's something bigger here the Fathers of the Church if you read the fathers of church they're full of typology right they're always talking about typology they interpret and the Old Testament about Christ and where did they learn this right you don't find that if you read the Talmud obviously where the Mishnah or the rabbi's Jesus introduced a new way of reading the Old Testament showing that it was all about himself now what I'd like to do now is all right Jesus introduced this on Easter Sunday in this magnificent dramatic manner but it was already there in the prophets and Scott mentioned this last night the prophets in speaking about the Messianic age in giving prophecy about the Messiah had to cast that prophecy in terms of some analogy right in order to make to clarify what we're hoping for what the Jews were hoping for they had to use an analogy that they would understand and the analogy was always the Exodus so the prophets in order to speak about the coming Messiah spoke about what he would do as in some way returning to the events of exodus but on a higher level in a bigger way in a transcendent way I shouldn't forget some of the examples of that and there are tons of examples one could use and Isaiah 43 and so I say here is speaking about them the Messianic hope and he says the Lord who makes a way in the sea a path in the mighty waters who brings forth chariot and horse army and warrior they lie down they cannot rise they are extinguished quenched like a wick you know it's to speak of what the Messiah is gonna do he used the example of Exodus and basically saying there's gonna be a new Exodus but what should we he doesn't clarify exactly what the difference will be right and it's Christ who fully reveals what the new Exodus is that it's Satan and sin getting drowned in those waters unable to rise again ok and he goes on remember not the former things nor consider the things of old behold I'm doing a new thing now it springs forth but in order to describe this new thing he's gotta use the old thing right in other words and that makes perfect sense that in order to God wants to lead us to higher things he has to show us those higher things through sensible things that we've experienced and what better way than through the key events of the history of Israel right to be a perfect analogy of greater things another text to part-to-part go out from there all right so just as the Israelites departed in haste on that first Passover and we are to depart touch no unclean thing go out from the midst of her purify yourselves you will not go out in haste you will not go in flight for the Lord will go before you and the God of Israel will be your rear guard so interesting it's gonna be like the exes but it'll be different that was all in one night you will not go out in haste what is he talking about well that the new Exodus hasn't yet come to an end the new Exodus is to do not every I teach RCA I love that doing that and every Easter Vigil there's a new Exodus right new souls and every baptism right there's a new Exodus new souls passing through the waters out of Egypt into the the land of the church for this trial of this life awaiting for the promised land right so it will go on until the end of the world this new Exodus so get see Keogh 36 so in the Easter Vigil we get all of these Old Testament readings and one of them is Ezekiel 36 and Ezekiel is talking he's in the time of the exile in Babylon and he's speaking about a return but it's bigger than simply so here's another example Ezekiel now is gonna talk about the messianic times using two analogies the Exodus and the current coming back or the the proximate coming back out of Babylon so he says I will take you from the nation's and gather you from all countries and bring you into your own land all right so we could understand that at first sight as simply coming back to Israel after the 70 years in Babylon but it goes on to say I will sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean from all your uncleanliness uncleanness --is and from all your idols that will cleanse you a new heart I will give you and a new spirit I will put within you and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit in you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances and so we can see that there's something I'm a little level yes of bringing back to Israel and a cleansing from the impurity of Babylon but that falls short right he's talking about something bigger because he says I will cleanse you from all your uncleanness and so what he's really speaking about there is baptism and then what follows baptism receiving the spirit in confirmation that's what the Messiah will do cleanse us and give us a new life but above all to give this spirit so that the spirit writes the law on the heart right so that's the Messianic task and again it's the Prophet uses Israel's history to show what the Messiah will do now we talked about baptism st. Paul when he speaks about baptism he also uses a typology but now it's no longer the typology of the exodus it's now the typology of Christ's death and resurrection so st. Paul says do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death we were buried right now we if we were baptized as infants we tend to forget this right it's more it makes a big impression I was baptized when I was 29 my wife and baby and um it makes a big impression when you're an adult alright but nevertheless simple is telling it's something pretty strong here he says you were buried now we tend to miss this no because a little water is poured on ahead in then early church was full-body immersion and you were buried right so the being immersed into the baptismal pool is a sign of entering into the tomb with Christ and then rising out of the pool is a sign of rising into the resurrected life of grace on the model or type of Christ's resurrection so Christ's death and resurrection is the type of the whole Christian life which is a death toward the old man in sin and arising to the new life in Christ and again it's a typology that is all encompassing I did want to mark everything that we do tragically it doesn't write because we said if we have been United with him and a deathlike is we shall be united with him in a resurrection like kids so it actually has two meanings our baptism and it means that right now we are configured to him in this life living and in earthen vessels this having this treasure of the state of grace but it's also a sign of our future life with him in heaven thanks to that and if we've risen with him in baptism with the resurrection like his it's a sign that we will be united with him in heaven and so that's why we say that baptism gives us the and makes us sons and heirs of heaven and gives us the pledge of that future life let's look a little bit and so Christ is this that the key archetype right the key type let's look at in one more text that you all know Philippians chapter 2 it's the the self-emptying him but what's interesting is the context here st. Paul is speaking about and fraternal charity and so he's telling the Philippians to love one another and to not and basically to live at peace with one another and to think of each one as superior to ourselves one so he tells them do nothing from selfishness or conceit but in humility count others better than your self now that's easy to say right but that's hard to do mine universally to to regard every single one here it's better than myself I ought to do that right but simple doesn't leave it as just a nice exhortation but he gives us a model right and the model is The Passion of Christ the Incarnation passion have this mind among yourselves which was in Christ Jesus for Christ Jesus though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped he emptied himself taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men right but it doesn't end there been found in you and for me home himself and became obedient unto death even death on a cross therefore God has highly exalted so basically simple is saying that Christ self-emptying right he's not his purpose here isn't a give us Christology what we should it does do that but his purpose is to give us the model of our Christian life to do likewise right so again the whole of the Christian life is meant to be modeled on the Incarnation the self-emptying in the Incarnation and passion right so if God who is God doesn't think that it's taking away from his dignity to be a fetus and to be just another boy growing up in Nazareth and just another one in the synagogue and we what not to think that we're neighbor that's the idea and to apply that in everything let's look at another great text about how Christ is the universal type is Ephesians chapter 1 9 through 12 again you know this text I'm sure st. Paul says he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him things in heaven and that's all right so this is stumps up this whole talk and in fact the whole of salvation history so st. Paul is telling us that the plan of God is recapitulated in Jesus Christ so what comes what's translated here in the RSV as unite all things in him in the original Greek is to recapitulate to bring everything again to a head in Jesus Christ no it's to summarize all things in Jesus Christ things in heaven things on earth and he can do this because he's the god man right God takes on humanity and so he has all things in himself he's the Word of God and yet by taking on flesh he's taken on our condition our nature and in some way he's taken on all of our history he's the new Adam and so he's in some sense put himself in solidarity with every son of Adam son and daughter of Adam and and so he recapitulates in himself the whole of human history the prehistory before him and the history of our life now in the church after him st. Irenaeus one of the great father's church in the secretary he loved this this text and this notion of recapitulation and he makes it the center of his theology he's a beautiful text he's writing in about the year 180 he's a disciple of Polycarp who is a disciple of John the Apostle and so he's close to the apostles three generations from Jesus Christ as it were and he says this when he had become when he had become incarnate he recapitulated in himself the long unfolding of human kind granting salvation by way of compendium compendium another summary it's got everything himself that in Christ Jesus we might receive what we had lost an atom to be according to the image and likeness of God in other words he's taking on the nature of Adam made in the image likeness of God so as to restore the image and likeness of God in every one of us and so again he stands at this Center and here by looking at and maybe it's too ambitious and Hebrews 8 to 10 I just like Hebrews very difficult and full and rich and dense and it's all about typology and I could speak more about it but I'm just gonna take one idea and it's in chapters 8 through 10 and the letter to the Hebrews uses an interesting type it takes the type from the book of Exodus where Moses on on the mountain Mount Sinai sees an image of the tent of meeting and he's told by God to make everything according to the type that was shown to you on the mountain and so just a little level might say all right the type he was given a kind of architectural blueprint of the tent of meeting but the father's the letter to the Hebrews takes it in a bigger sense and takes it that he was shown that type that pattern was and his Paschal mystery and the sacraments of the Church and so Moses was told to make the liturgy of Israel on the type or pattern of this greater exemplar Christ and the sacraments of the Church and then in in Hebrews 10 verse 1 it says since the law has but the shadow of good things to come instead of the true form or icon of those realities it can never by those same sacraments sacrifices offered year after year make perfect those who draw near and so we can see here there are three levels of worship there's the worship of Israel which is said in this text to be like a shadow because it's a image of an image it's an image of the church's worship which is an image of the heavenly worship all right so that's the threefold so three worships in heaven we're gonna be worshiping write the Book of Revelations all about that and and here on earth we're participating in the same worship that we'll have in heaven but under veils right sacramental veils so this morning at Holy Mass we had the Lamb of God here on the altar mystically slain his blood was shed on the altar as it were in the separate consecration of the bread into his body and the wine into his blood he was mystically immolated and we received him but we received him in a veiled way we couldn't see the Lamb except through the eyes of faith but it's the real thing Israel didn't have the real thing they had other lambs they had simply animal lambs and so they had a kind of shadow of the worship that we have pointing to this worship we have the reality but it's still only an icon because even though we have the real thing it's veiled and it will continue to be veiled until the second coming in which case when we'll be brought into the heavenly worship and that are wrong as soon as each one of us and enters into glory will see that heavenly worship face to face I'd saw three levels and again that gives us a beautiful illustration of typology having these different senses before Christ pointing to him this Paschal mystery and then Christ himself 22 our life in him worshiping him now and in heaven all right conclusion sorry so in what I want you to come away with is that biblical typology is really fitting all right it's really fitting that the biblical text has more than one sense and in fact has precisely four senses the literal and these three different type of logical senses that all Center on Christ and it's simply it's there are two fundamental reasons for this the first is in our nature and the second is the Incarnation from our nature we need typology why because it's our nature to learn about higher things spiritual things heavenly things through sensible things right we've got senses and we learn through our senses and we need to have analogies images drawn from history and from the things that we can see but God wants to lead us to higher things and so he has to make use of typology really to lead us to those higher things that's the first reason then tied together with that is we human nature is historical profoundly historical my each of us has a personal history and were embedded in this larger history and so it makes sense that God will use history to reveal the end of history so he makes use of typology because we're historical second reason this typology is central because the central fact of all of history is God became man and typology allows all of history to point to Christ and thus to unite all things in Christ things before him and things now in our time and the final things are all going to be about Christ because the glory of heaven will be the glory of the Lamb right and we'll see that lamb in the heavenly worship described for us in the book of Revelation thank you you [Applause]

Channel: Steubenville Conferences

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Keywords: Steubenville Conferences, Catholic, Franciscan University, Catholic Ministry, New Evangelization, Youth

Id: hUqBhRul6TE

Length: 63min 48sec (3828 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 18 2018