This section is directly copied from an article written by Pastor David B. Curtis of Berean Bible Church USA titled ‘The Typology of Israel’. Currently, this is the only piece of someone else’s work I’ve directly included in full on this site. I’ve tried to make it clear throughout this site that my eyes were opened in 2018 solely from immersing myself in the scriptures and then deeply pondering daily on what I’d read, and that is important to me because I personally know that no one has brainwashed me, and that’s what I’m trying to convey to you, that this is not fanciful thinking but illumination from the Spirit of God. However, I’m always open enough to admit that I’m not gifted enough to put the meat on the bones that I find and this appears here because this is one of those articles that puts the meat on the bone, it’s an article that you’re not likely to stumble across and it’s too good to remain hidden.

Relevant to Section Two then and the subject of typology, this refers to the example we used of Matthew 2:14-15, speaking first of Joseph ‘When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt: And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son’. Matthew is quoting from Hosea and to let Pastor Curtis continue……

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.  Hosea 11:1 ESV

When we study this text in the context of the entire book, we find that Hosea is referring to the Exodus described in the book of Exodus. But as we have just seen in Matthew 2:15, the writer applies Hosea 11:1 to Yeshua as a youth returning to Judea from Egypt. This reference does not seem in keeping with the intention of Hosea. It is here we must remember where the meaning of a text ultimately resides—in the intention of its author, God Himself. And as we read the Scripture in the context of the Bible as a whole, we see that He has made an analogy between Israel, God’s son, being freed from Egypt, and Yeshua, God’s Son, coming up from Egypt; a pattern that runs throughout Matthew’s Gospel. “Out of Egypt I have called my son” is Exodus typology, where Yeshua is the New True Israel.

Yeshua is baptized (Matthew 3:12-17). As Yeshua emerges from the water, we hear, “This is My beloved Son,” which evokes a related image: Israel was adopted and became God’s son at the Exodus from Egypt at the crossing of the Red Sea, and so this is New Exodus Typology in which New Israel is born.

When we come to Matthew 4:1:11, which describes Yeshua’s temptation in the wilderness; if we are familiar with the Tanakh, we will see this pattern again. When we read that Yeshua, the Son of God, spent 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness, this reference may remind us of the Israelites’ 40-year trek in the wilderness. But the comparison goes beyond the number 40. The Israelites also were tempted in the wilderness in the same three areas in which Yeshua was tempted: (1) hunger and thirst, (2) testing God, and (3) worshiping false gods. Yeshua, however, shows Himself to be the obedient Son of God, where the Israelites were disobedient. Indeed, Yeshua responded to the temptations by quoting Deuteronomy, the sermon that Moses gave the Israelites at the end of their 40-year sojourn.

What does Yeshua do next in Matthew?

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: Matthew 5:1-2 ESV

Yeshua goes up on a mountain, like Moses, and gives New Torah; the “Sermon on the Mount.” Yeshua is the New Israel, and this typology can only be seen if we are familiar with the Tanakh.

The transfiguration experience is pregnant with exodus symbolism. Just as Moses went up into the mountain with three companions, so does Yeshua. Moses’ face shone with the glory of God; the face of Yeshua “Shone like the sun,” Matthew tells us. Moses and Elijah appear, and the voice from the cloud says, “This is my beloved Son; listen to Him” is most likely echoing the words of:

“The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen—  Deuteronomy 18:15 ESV

From the mount our Lord descends, as did Moses, to find confusion on the plain:

And he answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.” Mark 9:19 ESV

Matthew and Luke add the word “perverse,” which shows that they saw a parallel between the generation of our Lord’s day and the generation of the first exodus.

In the book of Acts, Stephen begins his sermon with a review of Israel’s history. In this the exodus receives the major part of his attention. There is a clear parallel between Moses, the redeemer, rejected by his people who worshiped idols, and Yeshua, the Redeemer, rejected by His people who used the Jewish cultus in an idolatrous way. So the nation Israel was a type, and their leader Moses was a type.

What was the first Mosaic institution given? It was the Sabbath: Not one text in all the Bible enjoins the observance of the Sabbath upon any man before the exodus, nor since Pentecost. Its first recorded observance was at the time of the giving of the manna (Exodus 16:23). Its purpose was for a memorial or a sign (Exodus 31:17) of their deliverance from Egypt, and that they were the special people of God (Deut. 5:15; Ezek. 20:12). It was observed in commemoration of the beginning of their nation at the exodus, as Americans observe the Fourth of July for a similar purpose. It was a weekly reminder of their peculiar relation to God.

It was observed by a complete cessation from work (Exod. 20:10; 35:2; Lev. 23:3). The law was very strict in its requirement of Sabbath observance. No fire was to be kindled and no cooking done. The violation of the Sabbath was punishable by death.

As we have already seen in Colossians 2:16-17, the Sabbath was a type or shadow. What is the anti-type of the Sabbath? Yeshua! The Sabbath was a type or shadow of a body or substance which we obtain in Christ. The main idea of the Sabbath was physical rest. That physical rest, therefore, must have been typical of some higher rest to be found by the Christian. The strict observance of the Sabbath, which God required of the Jews, like the requirement of strict adherence to the divine pattern for the tabernacle, was because it was to typify a perfect spirit-rest of the Christian.

Centuries before Moses, the patriarch Jacob predicted Christ’s coming under the name “Shiloh,” or Rest-giver (Gen. 49:10). Yeshua Himself is the Rest-giver, and the rest He gives from the burden and bondage of sin is the Christian’s Sabbath foreshadowed by that ancient Mosaic rest-day. It was predicted that “His rest shall be glorious.”

That this is the true Sabbath-keeping is argued by the inspired writer to the Hebrews (4:3-11). He who ceases from his own works to obtain righteousness and trusts in the mercy of God for pardon of sin has entered the true Sabbath. The Sabbath, like the other ceremonial requirements of the Law of Moses, is abolished (Col. 2:14-17; Heb. 8:6- 13), but the blessed spirit-rest it prefigured remains for the people of God.

The writer to the Hebrews says that Joshua, who led the Israelites into Canaan, failed to give them the promised rest (4:8). He spiritualizes that promised rest and locates it, not in literal Canaan, but in Christ, of which Canaan was a type. Here is positive proof that God attached typical meaning to that journey of the Israelites.

What event ended the first exodus period? The destruction of Jericho. Jericho stood at the entrance to the promised land. It was a fortified city that represented a serious challenge to Israel’s claim to the land. Its fall telegraphed a message to all the world that God was the Lord of this people.

What event marked the end of the second exodus? The destruction of Jerusalem. Jesus is the Greek transliteration of Christ’s Hebrew name, which is rendered in English as Joshua. Old Covenant Judaism was a major problem for those early believers. Nothing represented the old system better than the Temple. Here was where the presence of God dwelt. His presence assured them they were His people. But forty years after the cross, in A.D. 70, believers fled the city of Jerusalem as the walls fell and the city was destroyed and burned.

Similar to the collapse of the walls in Jericho, the fall of Jerusalem’s walls symbolized the entrance of the redeemed remnant into Christ’s everlasting Kingdom. The believers were vindicated and revealed as “the sons of God” while judgment fell on the Jewish system which had rejected God as King.

Believers now reside in the New Jerusalem, which is the New Covenant:

Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. Galatians 4:24 ESV

Paul is talking about the two covenants, the Old and the New.

Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. Galatians 4:25 ESV

Present Jerusalem (of Paul’s day) represents the Old Covenant.

But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. Galatians 4:26 ESV

What exactly is this “Jerusalem above” who is our mother? You must keep in mind that the comparison here is between two covenants. Earthly Jerusalem represents the Old Covenant, so this heavenly Jerusalem represents the New Covenant.

The events of Jericho offered a graphic image and actual prophecy of events at the close of the Jewish age, forty years after Pentecost, when there were seven angels with seven trumpets of doom and judgement:

Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. Revelation 8:2 ESV

At that time the great and powerful city of Babylon (Jerusalem) suddenly fell:

They will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say, “Alas! Alas! You great city, you mighty city, Babylon! For in a single hour your judgment has come.” Revelation 18:10 ESV

As in Joshua, the destruction of the city came at the sound of the trumpets, so at the end of the Jewish age, the destruction of Jerusalem came as Yeshua sounded the trumpet.

This exodus Typology is seen throughout the New Testament. We see it very clearly in the book of Acts. Speaking of Moses, Stephen says:

This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us. Acts 7:38 ESV

The word for “congregation” here is the Greek word ekklesia. This word is taken over and used of the church:

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. Acts 20:28 ESV

This was the flock which He purchased with His own blood. They were the redeemed of the Lord, they were Israel.

In 1 Corinthians 10:1ff the experiences of Israel redeemed at the Red Sea, sustained but disobedient in the wilderness, are said to be types for us:

Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. 1 Corinthians 10:6 ESV

Their baptism corresponded to ours. They too fed on heavenly food. Christ, figuratively speaking, came with them also out of Egypt and through the desert. Being a Jew, Paul must have felt that in this sense he, himself, belonged to the exodus generation. But as a Christian, he must have had this feeling still more strongly. He knew that he belonged to the new eschatological exodus under Yeshua, the Messiah; and, in his opinion, this new exodus of Salvation was a complete typological counterpart of the ancient, historical exodus, only on a larger scale and in a more profound sense.

The author of Hebrews sees the situation of his readers as being parallel to that

of the people of the first exodus. The cross and resurrection are the second exodus; the forty years are running out as A.D. 70 approaches; the people of Israel are to bring upon themselves the curses threatened in an exodus context in the book of Deuteronomy, and they will be dispossessed of their inheritance as the heathen were; the new people of God will then be led by the new Joshua, Yeshua, into their true spiritual inheritance. If a material kingdom and a material Temple had in a sense been the goal of the first exodus, these things must now be forsaken despite their obvious pull, and God’s people must step out with new faith.

We also see the exodus Typology in the titles of Christ. He is the I AM, the Rock, the Shepherd, the Bridegroom, as was the God of the exodus. He is the fulfilment of the human side also. He is the New Israel and, in a deeper sense than Israel was, the Son of God, and the Vine. He is the second Moses, the Prophet and the Servant. He is the second Joshua, Yeshua the Savior and Conqueror. His titles overlap each other as in His unique Person He fulfills all that had been spoken by Moses, in the Law, and by the Prophets.

So Dispensationalism is wrong, Israel and the Church are not separate peoples. National Israel was a type and the Church, the true Israel is the anti-type. All the promises that God made to His covenant people are fulfilled in the Church, the true Israel. The “true Israel” is the Israel of faith, not birth; Israel is spiritual, not natural. This view has been called “replacement theology”; it is said that the Church replaced Israel. But a much better term would be “fulfillment theology”; the promises of God made to Old Covenant Israel are “fulfilled” in the Church of Yeshua, which is true Israel. Covenant, not race, has always been the defining mark of the true Israel.

Full article appears here https://www.bereanbiblechurch.org/transcripts/topical/the-typology-of-israel.htm