Friday, October 03, 2003

 
I promised y'all a few words on Patrick Fairbairn's "Typology of Scripture". Well here they are.

An Incomplete, Unbalanced and Quickly Thrown-together Review

I imagine that Patrick Fairbairn’s definition of the usefulness of symbolism and typology in his mammoth two-volume work “Typology of Scripture” will seem narrow and stiff to most of those who have benefitted from the work of James Jordan, Peter Leithart and Vern Poythress in this same area. There is a good reason for this. These men have helped us to go beyond the cursory reading of the scriptures to see the world of inter-testamental connections and the web of symbolism underlying the Biblical narratives. They have taught us to look at pre-messianic Bible figures and to see Christ pre-figured in their stories. Their observations make the Old Testament pop and sing and they help us to view the entire Bible as one organically unified text which speaks of the covenant grace of God manifested and incarnated in Jesus from cover to cover.

Fairbairn, on the other hand, mid-nineteenth century Presbyterian that he was, seems to have little time for this sort of perspective. To be fair, he is for the most part in this text criticizing those in the medieval church who overloaded Bible texts with mystical and weird meanings. But in his criticism, he draws too tight a circle around what he considers to be a proper usage of Biblical symbolism. He writes:

“Take… as an example… the occupation of Abel as a shepherd, which by many… has been regarded as a prefiguration of Christ in His character as the great shepherd of Israel. A superficial likeness, we admit, but what is to be found of real unity and agreement? What light does the one throw upon the other?… Admitting that the death of Abel somehow foreshadowed the infinitely more precious blood to be shed on Calvary, what distinctive value could the sacrifice of
life in His case derive from the previous occupation of the martyr?… For what purpose, then, press points of resmblance so loosely associated, and dignify them with the name of typical prefigurations? Resemblances in such a case are worthless even if real, and from their nature incapable of affording any insight into the mind and purposes of God.” (Volume I, page 68)

Perhaps he has read a poor interpretation of the similarities between Christ and Abel, but that doesn’t rule out Abel’s usefulness as a prefiguration of Christ in the Genesis narrative altogether. The fact that the Scriptures make note that he was a shepherd, ought to signal us to compare him with the other shepherds in the Scriptures. The Bible doesn’t simply toss out useless trivia. The question we ought to ask is not, then, whether there is any significance to our being told that Abel was a shepherd, but what is the significance of that fact, and how precisely does that fact work in the narrative to point us to the redemption of the human race, and ultimately, Christ. Similarly, we ask why was Abel murdered? And why is that account included in the text? We must be good students and ask how that leads us to a fuller understanding of the second Person of the Trinity, rather than discounting it completely as empty speculation just because there may be no connection immediately recognizable upon the first surface reading… in English… by a Westerner.

Here he is again commenting on the various interpretations of the symbolism of the bronze serpent:

“Hence we find them expatiating upon the metal of which the serpent was formed, and which, from being inferior to some others, they regard as foreshadowing Christ’s outward meanness, while in its solidarity they discern His divine strength, and in its dim lustre the veil of His human nature! What did it avail to the Israelite, or for any purpose the serpent had to serve, of what particular stuff it was made?. A dead and senseless thing in itself, it must have been all one for those who were called to look to it, whether the material was brass or silver, wood or stone… All such puerile straining of the subject arose from an inverted order being taken in tracing the connection between the spiritual reality and the ancient shadow.” (Volume 1, page 152)

Volumes could be written about the traditional reformed tendency to look beyond the physical and the tangible to find “spiritual realities” within, but I don’t have the time to do that here. Simply stated, Fairbairn perpetuates the idea that the physical is only a cheap vessel for the spiritual, and that the content, composition, design and character of the physical is of almost negligable importance, while the spiritual deserves all of the focus and attention. Further, he avoids any attempt to understand why, in this case, God required Moses to make a serpent, why Moses made it out of brass and why Jesus explicitly referenced this event, pointing to the way it symbolized His sacrifice. These details are peripheral for him, it seems. All that matters is a greater "spiritual reality" which, incidentally, he never gets around to addressing.

This plays itself out in his covenant theology wherein he denies the primacy of any physical covenant signs and holds forth that the reality of the covenant lies in the unseen, spiritual realm alone.

He says we learn this “important truth, that the spiritual element was ever to be held the thing of first and most essential moment, and that the natural was only to be regarded as the channel through which the other was chiefly to come, and the safeguard by which it was to be fenced and kept! From the first the call of God made itself known as no merely outward distinction; and the covenant that grew out of it, instead of being but a formal bond of interconnection between its members and God, was framed especially to meet the spiritual evil in the world, and required as an indispensable condition, a sanctified heart in all who were to experience its blessings and to work out its beneficent results. How indeed could it be otherwise? How could the spiritual Jehovah, who has, from the first creation of man upon the earth, been ever manifesting Himself as the Holy One, and directing His administration so as to promote the ends of righteousness, enter into a covenant of life and blessing on any other principle? It is impossible – as impossible as it is for the unchangeable God to act contrary to His nature – that the covenant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the covenant of grace and blessing, which embraces in its bosom Christ Himself and the benefits of His eternal redemption – could ever have contemplated as its real members any but spiritual and righteous persons.” (Volume 1, page 326)

At least he is consistent. Just as his view of Biblical typology has little room for the details of the physical creation, his view of the covenant has little room for any objective reality with regard to how one enters it, keeps it and is discerned to be a member of it.

In another section, he notes that some scholars have found as many as forty distinct similarities between Joseph and Christ and remarks,

“Of course a great proportion of such resemblances are of a quite superficial and trifling nature, and are of no moment, whether they happen to be perceived or not. For any light they throw on the purposes of Heaven, or any advantage they yield to our faith, we gain nothing by admitting them, and we lose as little by rejecting them.”

So are these similarities mere coincidences or accidents? Does the life of Joseph who was, in a sense, a savior of his people teach us nothing about the character of the Savior of His people?

Don't misunderstand me. I am not at all interested in searching out quaint, cute, or mystical meanings in Scripture nor am I looking for a secret key to unlock all the mysteries of the Bible. That is not the point at all. Further, I realize that throughout the Church's history some men have not always been entirely honest with the use of symbolism in Scripture as they attempt to pull applications from text. (I’m looking at you Spurgeon.) However, if we recognize that the Bible is the primary revelation of an infinite God, then it stands to reason that in our short two-thousand years of study, the Church has not exhausted all of the truths, symbols, connections and types in the Scriptures. We do ourselves no service if, like Fairbairn, we limit our discussion to only those types and symbols that are actually called types by the New Testament writers and even further limiting ourselves to trying to find the “spiritual” meaning with little or no regard to the physical realities of the covenant or the objective nature of life in it.