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Foreword

It is of paramount importance, right from the beginning of this book, to believe and understand that the whole Bible is the word of God. The word of God is not only the New Testament but also the Old Testament. The God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are one and the same. It is a complete lack of understanding of the plan and purpose of God to try to show that the God of the New Testament is better or different from the God of the Old Testament, ‘For I am the LORD. I do not change.’ (Malachi 3.6).

The Old Testament conceals the will and plans of God, and the New Testament reveals the will and the plans of the same God.

‘Remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from the ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure.’’

Isaiah 46.9-10

It is like God’s signature tune, to declare the end from the beginning. There is no other god like Him. If by God’s grace the blindness which came over the eyes of nation of Israel in the wilderness is removed from the eyes of many Christians, we will realise that the first few books of the Bible encode the whole message, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the plan and the will of God. It was delivered to the Old Testament saints in shadows, types, and copies. To decode these prophetic messages one need to have an idea about the true meaning of these shadows, types and copies.

Everything God made and did in the world had to conform to the already existing realities and precedents in eternity. An example is the building of the Ark of the Covenant. ‘And see to it that you make them according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain.’ The true Ark of the Covenant was revealed when the Word become flesh and dwelt amongst us. In the New Testament one will find a lot of references to the Old Testament because the Old Testament forms the basis for the proper understanding of the New Testament. If one throws away the Old Testament, one has thrown away the foundation and disfigured the complete understanding of the message of God.

Moses, as the mediator and the redeemer of the children of Israel, was a type of Jesus Christ, the true Mediator and Redeemer. The nation of Israel can also be seen as the first nation, a type of New Testament nation, called ecclesia, church. Many of the things that happened to the first nation are reflected more fully in the New Testament.

‘So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come but the substance is of Christ.’

Colossians 2.16-17

The Old Testament was the shadow. What a powerful shadow! But what is a shadow? The Greek word for shadow is ‘skia,’ which means an imperfect copy or a reflection of the true substance. A shadow is an image cast by an object, making a form, a sketch, or an outline of the primary or the original object. The Bible says, ‘the substance is of Christ.’ Jesus Christ existed before the foundation of the world (Revelations 13.8), and He cast shadows in the Old Testament.

It means the laws, ordinances, statutes, times, seasons and feasts in the Old Testament, as powerful as they were, only presented shadows of the life and ministry of Christ, the anointed one. In other words, the laws, ordinances, statutes, times, seasons and feasts were images of the Lord Jesus Christ concealed, which became revealed in the New Testament. ‘And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.’

In the time of the Old Testament, Jesus Christ had not physically come to the earth, and the New Testament was in the future. So how can someone or an object which is not present cast a shadow? The substance or the original substance was already existing in eternity. When the light of God fell on Him, who was already existing in eternity, it cast a shadow in the Old Testament. The Old Testament, then, was pointing to the original intent of God, which was fully revealed by Jesus Christ in the New Testament.

‘Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.’

1 Corinthians 10.11

The reference points of these ‘examples’ were the experiences the children of Israel went through, especially in their journey to the promised land; the cloud, the glory of God, the wilderness experiences, the signs and the miracles. The Greek word for ‘example’ is tupos. Tupos means a type, a constituent element of some reality which is yet to come; a prototype or a preview; that which is yet to be evolved, developed and perfected. So, the events which occurred in the Old Testament, especially to the children of Israel, were types, prototypes and previews of what was to happen to the children of God in the New Testament, the ecclesia (the church).

God also used copies in the Old Testament to point to the heavenly realm and what was to come in the New Testament.

‘Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.’

Hebrews 9.23-24

Two different Greek words are used for the word ‘copies.’ The first one is hupodeigma. It means ‘an example or an exhibit for imitation or for warning.’ It can be seen as a specimen or a pattern of imitation. KJV uses the word patterns, so it reads, ‘Therefore it was necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens,’ pointing us to the imitation of the things in heaven. The earthly tabernacle with all its utensils and services, so powerful, was just a copy. So, God hid the knowledge of the heavenly things in the earthly copies in the Old Testament.

He told Moses, ‘Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishing, just so you shall make it.’ (Exodus 25.8-9); so the earthly tabernacle was a copy, a ‘type.’

The second Greek word used for ‘copies’ is ‘antitupon’, meaning antitype. It is a combination of two words, anti, meaning equivalent or in its stead, and tupos, which we have already encountered as meaning a type, prototype, or preview. Antitupon is therefore a form or a figure corresponding or representing a type or the prototype. Antitupon is a figure answering to and representing a reality or the substance of the ‘type.’ The ‘type’ is in the Old Testament and the antitype is in a New Testament. In the Old Testament, God deals with the ‘types,’ copies, patterns and shadows, and in the New Testament, God deals with the antitype, the original intent and the substance.

With this understanding we can begin straight away to see that what happened to the saints in the Old Testament (like Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Moses) were really shadows and patterns of what would happen to the New Testament saints. Apostle Paul says categorically in Galatians 3.29, ‘And if you are Christ’s you are Abraham’s seed, and heir according to the promise.’

The glory of God is addressed more in the Old Testament than in the New Testament because in the New Testament the glory of God is first and foremost within us. We are the temples of God. However, the Old Testament gives us more understanding of the nature and the character of the glory of God. Jesus Christ is ‘the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of His Person.’ (Hebrews 1.3). He was the last expression of God which became flesh (John 1.14). So, one cannot know God unless He reveals Him. He said, ‘He who has seen Me has seen the Father.’ All the shadows, copies, examples, and patterns were fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Man is created as a pattern of the Ark of the Covenant. We have the spirit, a soul, and live in a body; spirit, soul and body. The glory of God dwelt in the most holy place in the Old Testament. So, the glory of God dwells in the spirit and not in the soul nor in the body. To discover the glory of God in us we have to bypass or go through the body and the soul.

The soul, which is self-conscious, acts like the veil in the tabernacle, to prevent us getting into our spirits. So even though the glory of God and the kingdom of God are within every truly born-again believer, we have still to learn to discover and engage them. I do not believe the soul is bad, but we need to bring our souls in line with our spirits and with God. You see, the children of Israel left Egypt, but Egypt was in their hearts. They had to learn to bring their souls in line with the will and purpose of God before entering the promised land. And this is exactly what we have to do.

God is in us, but we have to learn to discover Him. Many of us behave as if God is not in us, but only in heaven. Until we discover the God in us, we shall not know God, however much we try to substitute His presence with other things. It also means that we shall not be able to influence the world around us. ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory.’ Unless we turn this hope into a living faith, we still don’t know and have not experienced the glory of God. In the last days, discovering and following the glory of God will be crucial to our survival.