Another type of Christ is the temple (1 Kings 6:2). In the Old Testament the temple was the house of God (1 Kings 6:1). As God’s house, the temple, which was the enlargement of the tabernacle (1 Kings 6:2, 20; cf. Exo. 26:15-16, 18, 20, 22), was founded upon a foundation of stone (1 Kings 5:17; 6:37), and it was built of stone, cedar, and fir overlaid with gold (1 Kings 6:7, 9, 15-16, 18, 20-22). Stone signifies transformed humanity; cedar, humanity in resurrection; fir, humanity through death; and gold, divinity. With the temple we see the mingling of divinity with humanity through death and in resurrection and transformation. The temple built of these materials was God’s rest; it satisfied His desire. This temple is a wonderful type of Christ.
In Matthew 12:6 the Lord Jesus said to the Pharisees, “A greater than the temple is here.” The Lord’s revealing to the Pharisees that He is greater than the temple was another change, a type-fulfilling change from the temple to a person who is greater than the temple. This was a change from the type to the reality. Outside the temple everything was common. But once something was brought into the temple, it was sanctified by the temple. Likewise, every day was sanctified by the temple. Every thing, every day, every matter, and everyone in the temple was holy. The temple, however, was a type, not the reality. The reality is Christ, the greater temple.
Throughout the New Testament the real temple of God is not a place; it is a person. When Christ became flesh, His physical body was God’s tabernacle (John 1:14). According to John 2:19, His body was also the temple. Both the tabernacle and the temple are God’s dwelling place. Realizing that the body of Jesus was God’s dwelling place, Satan destroyed it on the cross through the Jews. But the Lord raised up this temple “in three days,” that is, in resurrection. After Christ’s resurrection, His body, the temple (John 2:21), was reared up on a much larger scale. The body the enemy destroyed by crucifixion was merely the body of Jesus; the body raised up by the Lord in resurrection was not only His own body but also includes everyone who is joined to Him by faith (1 Pet. 1:3; Eph. 2:6). This means that the resurrected temple in John 2:19-21 is Christ raised up with His members. This temple is Christ enlarged in resurrection as the house of God, the church.
Revelation 21:22 speaks of the ultimate consummation of the temple in the New Jerusalem: “Its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.” According to the Bible, the temple is the place where God dwells and also the place where His people worship Him. In eternity Christ with God will be such a temple, a temple that is both God’s habitation and our dwelling place. For eternity we shall dwell in Christ to enjoy the Triune God, and by enjoying Him we shall worship Him and serve Him.
In the fulfillment of the types and figures in the Old Testament, Christ is also the real Elisha (2 Kings 5:9; Luke 4:27). Elisha was more pleasant as a prophet than Elijah was. Elijah may be considered a condemning prophet, and Elisha, a blessing prophet. One of the most striking things Elisha did was to heal the death waters with salt (2 Kings 2:19-21). This healing indicates that Elisha was a sweet prophet of blessing to the people. As a prophet of condemnation, Elijah was a type of John the Baptist, who rebuked the Pharisees and Sadducees, even calling them a “brood of vipers” (Matt. 3:7). Just as Elisha came after Elijah and was the continuation of Elijah, so Jesus came after John the Baptist as his continuation. As the real Elisha, the Lord Jesus is a sweet and pleasant prophet, a prophet of blessing.
Jonah 1:17 says, “The Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” Jonah is a type of Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. The Lord’s own word indicates this. When the scribes and Pharisees asked Him for a sign, He said that no sign would be given “except the sign of Jonah the prophet” (Matt. 12:39). Then He went on to say, “As Jonah was in the belly of the sea monster three days and three nights, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights” (Matt. 12:40). “The heart of the earth” is called the lower parts of the earth (Eph. 4:9) and Hades (Acts 2:27), where the Lord went after His death. Hades, equal to Sheol in the Old Testament, has two sections: the section of torment and the section of comfort (Luke 16:23-26). The section of comfort is Paradise, where the Lord went with the saved thief after they died (Luke 23:43). Hence, the heart of the earth, the lower parts of the earth, Hades, and Paradise are synonymous terms, referring to the one place where the Lord stayed for three days and three nights after His death and before His resurrection.
In Matthew 12:41 the Lord Jesus went on to say, “Men, Ninevites, will stand up in the judgment with this generation and will condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, a greater than Jonah is here.” Christ, as the Prophet sent by God to His people (Deut. 18:15, 18), is greater than Jonah the prophet. Jonah turned from Israel to the Gentiles and was put into the belly of the great fish. After he had remained there for three days, he came out to be a sign to that generation for repentance (Jonah 1:2, 17; 3:2-10). This was a type of Christ, who would turn from Israel to the nations and would be buried in the heart of the earth for three days and then be resurrected, becoming a sign to this generation for salvation. As the One greater than Jonah, Christ in resurrection is the unique sign for today.
Isaiah was a prophet of the gospel. No other prophet in the Old Testament prophesied, or spoke, the gospel as much a Isaiah did. Consider how much of the gospel is found in Isaiah 53.
Isaiah 8:18 indicates that Isaiah was a type of Christ: “Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts.” Hebrews 2:13, which quotes from this verse, indicates that Christ is the fulfillment of the type of Isaiah, the prophet of the gospel. Christ’s children are His believers who have partaken of blood and flesh, and He also shared in the same (Heb. 2:14). Isaiah’s children were given to him by God; Christ’s believers were also given to Him by God the Father (John 17:2; 6:37).
Psalm 23:1 says, “The Lord is my shepherd.” The main thing a shepherd does is to feed the sheep. In John 10:11 the Lord Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” As a man the Lord Jesus has the human life, and as God He has the divine life. The Lord laid down His human life to accomplish redemption for His sheep (John 10:15, 17-18) so that they may have His divine life (John 10:10), the eternal life (John 10:28), by which they may be formed into one flock under Himself as the one Shepherd. As the good Shepherd, Christ feeds His sheep with the divine life in this way and for this purpose.
Christ is our Shepherd, and we are His sheep. Now the Lord shepherds us in life from within. Inwardly we have Him as our Shepherd, a Shepherd of life and in life. As our Shepherd, the living Christ not only gives us life—He is life to us. The living of the Lord within us is actually His shepherding. Christ shepherds us by being life to us and by living in us.
Hebrews 13:20 tells us that God “brought up from among the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep.” The “sheep” here are the flock, which is the church. God raised Christ from among the dead to be the great Shepherd of the sheep in resurrection. Having been redeemed by Christ, we are now being fed by Him as our great Shepherd.
First Peter 5:4 says that Christ is the Chief Shepherd, the head of all the shepherds. Furthermore, 1 Peter 2:25 says that He is the Shepherd of our souls. Christ was our Redeemer in His death on the cross. Now He is our soul’s Shepherd in the resurrection life within us and thus is able to guide us and supply us with life. As the Shepherd of our souls, He shepherds us by caring for the welfare of our inner being. In order to be our living Shepherd, it is necessary for Christ to dwell within us. Today Christ as the life-giving Spirit lives in us to be the Shepherd of our souls.