Some practice with types.

“I don’t want you to be ignorant,” Paul says, 1Cor 10:1

Paul goes on to say that

“1 … that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; 2 and were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea;”
1Cor 10:1-2 WEB

It has been discussed that Moses was indeed a type, a shadow, symbolic of Jesus the Christ. Here Paul takes the subject further. If we analyze what is said here and in other places, it paints a picture of God as having things happen that are meant to be symbolic of future things. The symbolic people, things or events often come very near in time to the prophecy. The ultimate fulfillment of the prophecy is often in the distant future, sometimes even thousands of years into the future.

So Paul talks about ancient Israel as being
baptized into Moses,

as we are baptized into Christ. As was discussed in the post “Multiple Types of the Christ: Moses,” God announced Moses as being a type, symbolic of the Christ. God will send “a prophet … like you,” that is to say, like Moses. Here Paul continues that analogy and says that the children of Israel passing through the Red Sea with the cloud of God’s presence over them, was like our being submerged in water into Jesus Christ.

Further Paul says that the analogy is not accidental. Jesus said we must feed on him to have life in us.

“Jesus therefore said to them, “Most assuredly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you don’t have life in yourselves.””
Jn 6:53

Then astonishingly, Paul tells us that ancient Israel ate of the same spiritual food that Christians eat.

“3 and all ate the same spiritual food; 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.”
1Cor 10:3-4 WEB

Christian eat of the Christ who came before them. Ancient Israel ate of the Christ who followed them! All of us in the Lord our God have all along eaten of the same spiritual food. We are not under Moses Law, but contrary to many false teachers, the Old Testament and the New Testament are a unity.

Paul then points out that Yahweh, the Lord our God, was not pleased with most of them, and they died in their sins. Paul essentially says that the full history in the wilderness was intended to be a parallel to the Christian life.

“Now these things were our examples,”
1Cor 10:6

The word that is here translated “examples” is the Greek word tupos or type. The Greek word means a blow or impression, an example, an image of something, a model, a pattern, a type. Or as I say, a prototype of something.

The dark failures of Israel in the wilderness
are warnings to the Christian.

We should not lust after evil things, as they did, or be idolaters, 1Cor 10:6-7.

Understanding types is essential for understanding prophecy. This is some practice.

WEB is the World English Bible, a copyright free revision
of the original ASV American Standard Version 1901