Theological term
Typology
392 sermons · All terms
The Incarnation and the Salvation of God
Simeon's encounter with the infant Jesus in Luke 2:25–35 reveals the incarnation as the decisive fulfillment of every Old Testament promise — from Genesis 3:15 through the servant songs of Isaiah — and forces every hearer to declare whose side they stand on. The sermon expounds two movements in the passage: Simeon's confession that the child he holds is the salvation God prepared for all peoples, and Simeon's prophecy that this same child will cause the fall and rising of many, pierce Mary's soul, and expose the hidden allegiance of every heart. The call is direct: look to Christ by faith as Simeon did, die in peace as Simeon could, and do not be numbered among those who fell because they rejected the consolation of Israel.
The Wars of the LORD
Numbers 21 traces Israel's journey through military victory over the Canaanites, the punishment and grace of the bronze serpent, and the conquest of the Amorite kings Sihon and Og. The bronze serpent — condemned people bitten by fiery serpents, healed only by looking in faith to the remedy God prescribed — is taken up by Jesus in John 3:14 as a type of his own crucifixion, teaching that salvation comes by divine initiative alone, received through faith, not works. The same recurring sins of complaint, lack of faith in providence, and idolatry that marked the first generation persist in the second, warning the church that these corruptions follow the sin nature across every generation. The chapter closes with God's sovereign hardening of Sihon and the defeat of the giant Og, both down payments on the promised conquest and demonstrations of God's faithfulness, sovereignty, and goodness to his people.
2LCF Chapter 29 - Of Baptism, Part 1
Reformed Baptists administer baptism only to professing believers — but why? This confession study works through 2LCF Chapter 29 on baptism by examining the two foundational theological arguments that undergird credobaptism: covenant theology and federal headship. The covenant of grace and the new covenant are shown to be identical in substance, not merely different administrations of one covenant, meaning that only regenerate, believing covenant members are proper recipients of the covenant sign. The argument from federal headship reinforces this conclusion: since baptism signifies union with Christ as covenant head, it cannot rightly be administered to those still under the federal headship of Adam.
The Waters at Meribah
Numbers 20 records a pivotal transition: the first generation of Israel is dying off, yet the second generation repeats the same sins — grumbling, blaming Moses and Aaron, and longing to return to Egypt. At the waters of Meribah, Moses himself falls under divine chastisement for failing to hallow God before the people, striking the rock rather than speaking to it and presumptuously attributing the miracle to himself and Aaron. The chapter closes with the death of Aaron, whose priestly garments pass to his son Eleazar — a token of covenantal continuity pointing forward to the greater High Priest who stands between the dead and the living. The recurring lesson for the people of God in every generation is that the hardships of the wilderness are not evidence of divine abandonment but instruments of providence by which God conforms his people to the image of his Son.
The Covenant Ceremony With Abraham
Genesis 15 records the covenant ceremony by which God confirmed his promises of seed and land to Abram — not with a bilateral oath, but with a unilateral, self-maledictory act in which God alone passed between the divided animals. The sermon traces Abraham's justification by faith alone in verse 6, examines the ancient covenant-ratification ritual as a type of Christ bearing the covenant curse, and shows that the smoking oven and burning torch passing through the pieces preaches the substitutionary atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. The application presses believers to rest their assurance not in their own covenant faithfulness but in the faithfulness of the God who swore by himself and sealed that oath in the blood of his Son.
Ask FGBC #28: What is "The day of the LORD?"
The phrase 'the day of the Lord' refers to God's visitation in judgment, a theme running from the Old Testament prophets through the New Testament's eschatological texts. Multiple historical fulfillments — the fall of the Northern Kingdom to Assyria in 722 BC, the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC, and the AD 70 destruction — function as types pointing forward to the final day when God judges the living and the dead. First Thessalonians 5 and 2 Peter 3 ground the ultimate fulfillment: Christ's return, unexpected as a thief in the night, bringing final judgment upon all.
The Vindication of the Aaronic Priesthood
Numbers 16:41–17 records the immediate aftermath of Korah's rebellion: Israel accuses Moses and Aaron of murder, God's wrath breaks out in a plague, and Aaron runs into the congregation with a censer to make atonement, standing between the dead and the living until the plague stops. Chapter 17 then confirms the Aaronic priesthood definitively when Aaron's rod alone buds, blossoms, and produces ripe almonds, functioning as a perpetual sign against any future usurper of the priestly office. The typological weight of Aaron's intercession in verse 48 points forward to Christ, who stands between dead sinners and the wrath of God, propitating that wrath by his blood. The sermon calls hearers to recognize both the sinfulness of Israel's hasty accusation and the glory of the priestly atonement that alone grants the unholy access to a holy God.
The Rebellion of Korah & Company
Numbers 16:1–40 records a combined ecclesiastical and political mutiny against God's ordained leaders: Korah, a Kohathite Levite, challenges Aaron's exclusive priesthood, while Dathan and Abiram challenge Moses' civil authority. The rebellion is not merely an internal dispute but an act of treason against the living God, who appointed both men to their offices. God vindicates Moses and Aaron by a catastrophic judgment — the earth swallows the ringleaders and fire consumes the 250 who offered incense — and the bronze censers are hammered into an altar covering as a perpetual memorial against unauthorized priestly intrusion. The passage warns that malcontents misrepresent truth, recruit the influential, and ultimately reap divine judgment when they resist God's ordained authority structures.
The Requirements for Religious Life
Numbers 15 interrupts the narrative of Israel's rebellion in chapters 11–14 with renewed covenant obligations — laws of offerings, provisions for unintentional sin, and the command to wear tassels. The placement is deliberate: faithfulness to God's ordained means of grace is the proper remedy for the kind of corporate collapse just witnessed. The sermon traces how God's judgment on one generation does not exhaust His covenant mercy, and draws a typological line from Mosaic sacrifice and priesthood through to the once-for-all offering of Christ and the believer's advocate before the Father.
The Requirements for Priesthood and Sacrifice
Leviticus 21–22 sets out strict requirements for both the priests who offer sacrifice and the animals brought to the altar: wholeness, purity, and freedom from defect. These ceremonial regulations are not arbitrary exclusions but typological anticipations of the one perfect High Priest and the one perfect sacrifice that God himself would provide in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The sermon works through the four sections of the passage — practical restrictions on priests, physical requirements for priests, regulations concerning priestly food, and physical requirements for sacrificial animals — before turning to Hebrews 7–10 to show how Christ fulfills and surpasses everything the Levitical system could only shadow. The conclusion calls the congregation to the Lord's Supper with eyes fixed not on themselves but on the one who offered himself once for all and sat down.
The Martyrdom of Stephen
Acts 7:54–8:1 records the martyrdom of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, whose death exposes the murderous hatred that unbelieving Israel bore toward the Messiah and those who bore witness to Him. Standing alone before the Sanhedrin, Stephen receives a vision of the glory of God and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of the Father — confirming his theology of temple, rebuking his executioners, and manifesting the presence of the triune God with His servant in extremity. His dying words, mirroring Christ's own prayers from the cross, demonstrate that true temple worship — the meeting of God and sinners in prayer and forgiveness — is found not in any physical structure but in the Lord Jesus Christ. The passage calls believers to theological preparedness, courageous witness, and dependence on the triune God in the face of opposition, however severe.
Ask FGBC #13: Is there a difference between our temptations and what Jesus faced?
The question at hand is whether the temptations Jesus faced were different in kind from those faced by fallen human beings. The discussion distinguishes between the sinless nature Christ assumed — not fallen, yet genuinely human — and the far harsher conditions under which he was tempted compared to Adam in paradise. Drawing on the Adam-Christ typology found in Luke 3–4 and Matthew, the speakers explore why the Son of God's obedience in a fallen, hostile world makes his conquest of temptation more weighty than Adam's failure in paradise.
2LCF Chapter 25 - Of Marriage
Marriage as a divine institution is examined through the four paragraphs of 2LCF Chapter 25, with Matthew 19:5–6 as the anchor text where Christ grounds marriage in the creation of male and female. The sermon argues that marriage is not a social construct or ecclesiastical sacrament but a creation ordinance ordained by God before the fall, designed for the union of one man and one woman in monogamous covenant. A threefold providential purpose is unfolded — companionship, the inhabitation of creation, and a hedge against sexual immorality — and the regulative bounds of marriage regarding consanguinity, affinity, and Christian marital duty are applied against both contemporary sexual confusion and Roman Catholic sacerdotalism.
The Reconnaissance of the Land
Numbers 13 records the reconnaissance of Canaan, in which twelve tribal leaders are sent to survey the land God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Ten of the spies return with a report grounded not in the word of the living God but in an appeal to fear, functioning as anti-prophets who slander the land and paralyze the congregation — while Caleb calls the people to immediate, faith-driven obedience. The chapter exposes the difference between faithless fear and faithful courage as the decisive interpretive divide among those who witnessed the same evidence and held the same promise. The narrative calls believers to ground their courage not in the absence of obstacles but in the sovereign faithfulness of God, who has promised, guided, and proven himself in redemptive history.
The Glory of God in the Valley of Elah
Standing in the Valley of Elah, the armies of Israel cower before Goliath for forty days — not merely from want of courage, but from failure to rest upon the covenant promises of God. Against this backdrop of faithless fear, David's response exposes what true faith looks like: a jealous zeal for the honor of Yahweh, grounded in historical retrospect upon God's past deliverances, expressed in bold confidence that the Lord of hosts will act. The narrative drives toward a climax in which Goliath falls on his face to the earth — mirroring the fall of his god Dagon before the ark — as a forced worship of the very God he defied, and the whole account points forward to Christ, the greater Shepherd-King who crushes the head of that ultimate enemy at the cross.
The Gospel of Christ in the Valley of Elah
David's victory over Goliath in 1 Samuel 17 is not merely an episode in Israelite history but a Christological shadow pointing forward to the greater conquest of Christ over Satan at Golgotha. This sermon works through twelve points of typological correspondence between David and Christ — from Bethlehem's birthplace, to the shepherd-king, to vicarious representation, to the skull motif of Genesis 3:15 — demonstrating that the whole of Scripture is organically unified around the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The exposition serves as a Lord's Supper meditation, calling believers to rejoice in their conquering substitute and urging the unconverted to flee to the champion who uses death itself to destroy death.
Bible Study - Numbers 12:1-16
Numbers 12 records the rebellion of Miriam and Aaron against Moses, ostensibly over his Cushite wife but in reality a challenge to his God-given authority as Israel's unique covenant mediator. The passage establishes a hierarchy of prophetic revelation — vision and dream to the prophets, but face-to-face speech to Moses — which God himself defends by immediately judging Miriam with leprosy. Moses' humility and intercessory prayer on behalf of his accusers point forward typologically to the greater Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, who alone bears the full weight of God's people and speaks face-to-face with the Father.
Departure from Sinai
Numbers 10:11–36 records Israel's long-awaited departure from Sinai, the first movement of a covenant community organized around the visible presence of God. The passage is examined under three headings: the ordered departure of the tribes, Moses' invitation to Hobab as an exercise of providential wisdom, and the petitionary prayers at departure and rest that frame the entire march. The sermon draws out a sustained tension between the ideal covenant life depicted in the legislation of Exodus and Leviticus and the realistic failure narrated immediately in Numbers 11–12, pressing the parallel to New Covenant believers who are fickle yet sustained by a faithful God and the advocacy of Jesus Christ.
Introduction to the Book of Numbers
The book of Numbers records Israel's wilderness sojourn from Sinai to the plains of Moab, functioning as the narrative of a covenant community learning to live under Yahweh's sovereign guidance. This introductory study surveys the title, authorship, structure, and major themes of Numbers within the framework of the whole Pentateuch, tracing how the glory cloud of Exodus 40 provides the predicate for both Leviticus and Numbers. The overarching argument is that every element of the book — census, legislation, failure, and restoration — testifies not to Israel's faithfulness but to God's faithfulness to his covenant promise to the patriarchs, a promise that finds its ultimate fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Ask FGBC #9 - How is Jesus the greater fulfillment of the Old Testament Israel?
How does the New Testament present Jesus as the fulfillment of Old Testament Israel? This question-and-answer exchange traces the biblical-theological thread from Adam as 'son of God' in Luke 3:38, through Israel as God's firstborn son in Exodus 4, through the Exodus typology developed by the prophets, to Jesus as the obedient new Israel and last Adam who accomplishes what both God's first son and corporate Israel failed to do. The discussion concludes with the observation that the apostles read the Old Testament through Christ because he is their Lord — what one participant calls 'lordship hermeneutics.'
The Atonement at Gibeah
The atonement made at Gibeah — where seven descendants of Saul were executed to satisfy the blood-guilt incurred by Saul's slaughter of the Gibeonites — is expounded as a typological anticipation of penal substitutionary atonement. David's inquiry of God, the Gibeonites' insistence that no silver or gold could ransom a murderer (Numbers 35:33), and the hanging of the seven men before the Lord all illustrate that atonement is the satisfaction of divine justice through blood. The sermon argues that Rizpah's grief beside the bodies of her sons is a solemn, sin-cursed scene designed to strip away abstraction and force the reader to feel the horror of what atonement costs. Only when the gore of Gibeah is taken seriously does Golgotha regain its proper weight: Christ, the greater Son of David, stood in the place of his people to quench the wrath of God and secure the covenant safety of all whom the Father gave him.
The True Vine, Part 2
Jesus' declaration 'I am the true vine' (John 15:1) is not a free-standing metaphor but the culmination of a redemptive-historical pattern running from Adam through Old Covenant Israel to the Last Adam. The sermon traces the vine imagery through the Psalter and the Prophets — Psalm 80, Isaiah 5, Jeremiah 2, Ezekiel 15 and 17 — to show that Israel was the vine God tended, judged, and finally condemned for covenant unfaithfulness. Christ as the true vine fulfills what both Adam and ethnic Israel forfeited, and those united to him by faith are therefore identified by the apostles as the Israel of God, the new covenant people who inherit all the promises. The sermon closes with a direct application: ethnic Jews today are to be called to repent and believe on Jesus Christ, not treated as a covenant people apart from faith in Him.
The True Vine
When Jesus declares 'I am the true vine' in John 15:1, he is not merely offering a pastoral metaphor — he is making a claim that draws together the entire sweep of Old Testament revelation. This sermon traces the two categories of 'I am' statements in John's Gospel, first the absolute 'I am' without a predicate (rooted in Exodus 3:14 and the Isaianic Yahweh-speeches), and then the seven predicative 'I am' statements, culminating in the vine. The second half sets that declaration in its biblical-theological frame: Old Covenant Israel was named God's firstborn son (Exodus 4:22), and Matthew's Gospel deliberately patterns the opening of Jesus' ministry — the flight to Egypt, the passage through water, the wilderness temptation — on Israel's national history, identifying Jesus as the true and obedient Israel who succeeds where Adam and Israel failed. The sermon calls hearers to believe on the one who says 'if you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sins,' and to worship him as the fulfillment of every covenant promise.
The Institution of the Lord's Supper
What does Christ accomplish at the Lord's Supper, and how does it connect to the Passover, the new covenant, and the future kingdom? Expounding Matthew 26:26–30, this sermon traces the institution of the supper through its Old Covenant setting in the Passover, the covenantal and sacrificial significance of the bread and cup, and the eschatological anticipation of the messianic feast. The sermon argues for a real but spiritual presence of Christ at the supper — against transubstantiation, consubstantiation, and bare memorialism alike — grounding this in the Spirit's mediating work. Throughout, the ordinance is presented as a means of grace that communicates the forgiveness of sins purchased through Christ's substitutionary, penal death for the many.
The Regulative Principle of Worship, Part 2
What authorizes the church to add, subtract, or substitute elements in corporate worship? Tracing the divine appointment of worship from Exodus and Leviticus through Deuteronomy 12:32 and into the books of Chronicles, this sermon demonstrates that Old Covenant Israel worshiped according to explicit divine command — not human creativity, cultural accommodation, or felt need. The same God who consumed Nadab and Abihu for offering strange fire, who filled Solomon's temple with his glory when worship was ordered according to his word, has not relaxed his standard in the New Covenant. The regulative principle is not a straitjacket but a guard against idolatry, and the New Covenant church is called to the same obedience: asking King Jesus what he has commanded, and doing that.
The Regulative Principle of Worship
The regulative principle of worship holds that only what God explicitly commands in Scripture is acceptable in corporate worship — nothing may be added, altered, or subtracted. This sermon works through the Old Testament foundation of that principle, tracing the divine appointment of worship through the moral law of Exodus 20, the ceremonial law governing the tabernacle and priesthood, and the stark warning of Deuteronomy 12:32. The contrast between Nadab and Abihu's condemned "strange fire" and the fire of divine approval in Leviticus 9 illustrates that God judges the manner of worship, not only its object. The congregation is exhorted to approach the living God obediently rather than creatively, recognizing that the same consuming fire who regulated Old Covenant worship governs New Covenant worship unchanged.
Ask FGBC - Podcast with Jim Butler, Dr James Renihan, Dr Richard Barcellos
This roundtable conversation between three pastors and theologians addresses a wide range of questions submitted by church members, covering biblical theology, covenant theology, baptism, eschatology, and Christian living. The discussion moves from how Christ fulfills Old Testament Israel, through the covenantal basis for believers' baptism, to the nature of the eternal state, the hermeneutics of applying Old Testament promises, the place of ethnic Israel in relation to the church, and the means of grace for raising covenant children. Throughout, the speakers return to a consistent Reformed hermeneutic: Christ is the true and greater fulfillment of all Old Testament promise, the church is the eschatological Israel of prophetic expectation, and the ordinary means of grace — Word, prayer, and faithful worship — remain God's appointed instruments for the conversion and nurture of his people.
CTF 2024 Session 5 - Confessional Guidelines for Scripture Interpretation
Christ is the scopus scripturae — the bullseye around which the entire canon coheres. Drawing on Luke 24, John 5, and Acts 2, this lecture argues that the Old Testament was a messianic document independent of Christ's own self-witness, and that the apostles, particularly Peter, interpreted Scripture exactly as Jesus taught them: finding the sufferings and glory of Christ throughout the law, prophets, and writings. The session establishes that when Scripture cites and explains Scripture, the explanatory words need not appear in the cited text — a pattern that legitimates expository preaching and creedal formulation alike.
CTF 2024 Session 7 - Q&A Panel Discussion
A conference Q&A panel addresses a wide range of confessional, theological, and pastoral questions arising from lectures on the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession and its relationship to broader Reformed orthodoxy. Topics range from the nature of creedal subscription and what it means to be Reformed, to the hermeneutics of typology, the mystery language of Ephesians 3, the humanity and knowledge of Christ, divine immutability and impassibility, and the differences between the Second London Confession and the Three Forms of Unity. The panel consistently grounds its answers in the churchly authority of confessions over individual interpretation, the centrality of the means of grace for generational faithfulness, and the necessity of theological humility before the accumulated witness of the church.
CTF 2024 Session 6: Further Explorations in Scripture Interpretation
Christ is the scope of the whole of Scripture — this is the claim Peter makes in Acts 3 and unpacks theologically in 1 Peter 1:10–12, and it is the claim this session presses upon interpreters of the Bible today. Beginning with Peter's sermon in Acts 3 and moving to his mature reflection in 1 Peter 1, the lecture traces how God spoke through the writing prophets from Moses onward concerning the sufferings and glory of Christ, how those prophets studied one another's writings in search of a fuller understanding, and how the coming of Christ together with the New Testament's explanatory revelation made explicit what was implicit in the Old Testament all along. The session closes with several hermeneutical implications: the analogy of Scripture is not a Reformation invention but a prophetic practice; the Old Testament contains a surplus of divinely embedded meaning that awaits later revelation to unveil; and subsequent revelation does not reinterpret the Old Testament but fulfils and illuminates the meaning that was always there.