How did an Old Testament believer use or relate to the type by faith? Genesis 3:15 told them who would save them from their deserved punishment for sin – the Seed of the woman. Noah’s ark told them a bit more of the how – by putting their faith in God’s Word and trusting in His appointed refuge, they would escape His just anger.

Is Noah’s ark a type of the cross? Is it a prophetic picture of what Christ did on Calvary? People often scoff at the idea, and perhaps even mock preachers who make typological connections by highlighting that just as the ark was made of wood, so the cross was made of wood. The critics are right to disdain such incidental and coincidental resemblances as evidence of typology. (e.g. see John Calvin’s criticism of Augustine’s fanciful interpretation in his comments on Genesis 6:14). However, they are wrong to use such tenuous connections to trash any possibility of the ark being a type of Christ. I believe that the ark is a type, a prophetic picture, of Christ’s person and work, but the resemblances are at a much more fundamental level than the material that both the ark and the cross were made of.

Biblical Presuppositions

Let’s start with a couple of foundational presuppositions:

1. The Old Testament is a revelation of God. Everything in it tells us what God is like and what God does.

2. God’s Genesis 3:15 promise to save sinners through a future deliverer created a forward-looking, a futuristic momentum to all subsequent revelation.

Putting both of these together, we can say that God revealed Himself and His future salvation to Old Testament believers through Old Testament characters, events, objects, etc.

That’s why I define typology as: A real person, place, object, or event that God ordained to act as a predictive pattern or resemblance of Jesus’ person and work.

With that in place, let’s now work through some of the questions I list for types in Jesus on Every Page:

1. Is the type real?

Unlike an allegory which may be fictional, a type is always a real someone or something. In this case, we are looking at the ark and the flood, a real historical object and event.

2. Is the type explicit or implied?

Does the Bible anywhere explicitly identify the ark as a type? Although there are more types in the Bible than those explicitly identified as such, if it’s explicitly identified, then that’s a huge advantage. What about Peter’s words?

The Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him (1 Peter 3:20-22).

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