Among the fruitful studies of Scripture, the study of the types, with their

corresponding antitypes must be given a place in any series that looks at truth in the

balance. The word tupos has passed into our language, and means something that is

symbolized or figured. The Greek word is derived from tupto "I strike or beat" and tupos

means, first "a blow", as tupis means "a hammer", then the mark or impression produced

by the blow or the impression of a seal, the stamp of a coin, the trace of a footstep, and so

a form, figure, image, pattern, model, example, emblem or type. So antitype, antitupos,

meant originally in classical Greek something that repelled or hit back, tupos antitupos

meant the "blow against blow" of the hammer and the anvil, and so the word came to

mean a copy, an impression, or the thing prefigured by the type. The O.T. abounds with

types. Not only are there such obvious types as the Passover Lamb, but there are typical

men, like Adam or Joseph, and typical events like the Flood and the Six days Creation.

We are told in I Cor. 10: 6 and 11, that the wilderness wanderings of Israel, with their

murmurings and experiences "happened unto them for ensamples" (I Cor. 10: 11). Both

"ensample" and "example" are used in this chapter to translate the Greek word tupos.

Ensample is obsolete, example is from ex+emere to take out, exempt, and means

"something taken out, a sample". This, however, is only part of the intention of tupos,

for tupos is not only an example, it is a figure which demands an antitype to make its

purpose complete.

We are told, positively in the N.T. that the following were types. Adam, "who is the

figure of Him that was to come" (Rom. 5: 14). The teaching of I Cor. 15: concerning

the first and the last Adam is fundamental. It involves the Headship of Christ, His

resurrection and the deliverance of His people, His future domain when all things shall be

put under His feet, all of which find their anticipatory type in the creation, position and

expressed intention at the creation of Adam. Peter uses the Ark and its deliverance from

the waters of the flood as a figure of salvation when writing to the dispersion, saying:

This passage literally rendered reads:

The apostle, writing to the Hebrews concerning the tabernacle and its antitype heaven,