Bully's Blog

or Drive-By Typology

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Rome has this whole nutty Oedipus thing going. They want the infantile security of Mary’s breast when God calls them to grow up, to be as individuals men worthy of a bride’s affections, and corporately a bride who adores only her Husband!
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Verifying typological connections is a tricky business. Like driving, it is not a skill but an art. This means that although there are certain rules to follow, above all of that there are situations where being steeped in the types and structures of the Bible is the only way to proceed with wisdom. James Jordan recently commented that any such exegesis should be carried out within the conversation of the church, and:

“The popular notion that everyone should be able to read and exegete the Bible equally, as a result of learning some so-called “science” of hermeneutics, is about as stupid as thinking everyone can write music like Bach and Beethoven by studying the rules of harmony and counterpoint; or that anyone can be a Shakespeare.”

I’m no Shakespeare, but James Jordan’s identification of the biblical “universals” and an explanation of biblical types has helped me enormously. The Bible matrix structure has also helped me enormously. They are typological “systematics.” It is this kind of grounding, like practising scales on a piano, that enables us to more easily identify abuses of typology — such as the claim that Mary is a “New Eve.” Dischordant notes can be used to great effect in great music, but it takes a practised musician to know when it is within a greater “harmony” and when it is not. This is beyond the basic scales.

Mary is the New Eve?

Mary is very clearly Old Covenant. She is a type of the woman with 12 stars (sons) as a crown, a fruitful tree in the garden. But Mary is only part of the picture. She typifies one facet of first century Judah and only one. There is also the cursed tree with only leaves and no fruit.

The Old Covenant people is typified by other women, too. What about Herodias, who, like Athaliah, like Jezebel, formed false alliances and executed the faithful?

Mary’s Womb as Holy of Holies

The Temple was still a Holy Place until the crucifixion, or even until Pentecost. At Pentecost, the glory moved from ‘Saul’ to ‘David’, from Jesus’ mother Mary to Mary freed from seven demons, filled with a new Spirit. If anyone is a type of the resurrected Israel — the Christian church — Mary Magdelene is!

Then the Holy of Holies womb of Judah deliberately became a tomb. Like Rome, Judah gilded her own merit and put it on a pedestal. It refused to partake of Jesus’ death and denied His resurrection. But it was a womb opened by Christ for the very purpose of having more children. This is where totus Christus comes in. Jesus is the head of a body, and the birth pangs He referred to concerned the body, the revelation of the sons of God.

With Israel being divided in two by the creative Word, the unfaithful defiantly became a separate woman, Hagar instead of Sarah, the liar of the two prostitutes in Solomon’s court, a harlot who rejected the head and then rejected the body as if they were unclean things. Like Athaliah, Judah wanted nothing to do with Covenant succession and would wipe out this new Messianic line (just as Rome attempted with Protestantism). She was holding onto her “irrevocable” gifts tooth and claw. In rebellion, she even gave birth to an army of false brothers, Judaisers (unholy Nazirite locusts), as contenders for the throne. Then, get this, to end her harlotry, God actually “commanded” her to be truly fruitful one last time. Because she had become a new Egypt, He called His children to “come out of her” so they might avoid her plagues. She died in childbirth and there was no resurrection.

The main point here is, the womb is opened miraculously for the very purpose of having more kids, raising an army. Even the ‘harlot’ side of Israel bore children as a synagogue for Satan. Eternal virginity has Onan and Ichabod written all over it, just like Rome. Perpetual virginity is not sinlessness. It is a whitewashed tomb, a gilded sarcophagus, full of dead men’s bones.

God wants Covenant heirs to take dominion. Why wouldn’t Joseph and Mary’s life typify this, like every other marriage in Israel? Jordan writes:

“[Concerning] typological ‘evidences’ for Mary as perpetual virgin, queen of heaven, etc. I assert here that these have never been the reasons for Marian doctrines, but that they have been brought into consideration by those who are already completely convinced of those doctrines because of their traditions. As the previous discussion demonstrated, I believe, there is no Biblical warrant for the notion that Mary remained a virgin after the birth of Jesus Christ. The Bible explicitly states that Joseph did not routinely have sex with her until after her purification.” [1]

 

Mary as the Ark of the Covenant?

Here is a perfect case of drive-by typology. Tom Riello writes:

“I am surprised that you do not think that perpetual virginity of Mary has no typological basis in the Old Testament. Here is a case where you use the Greek Orthodox against the Church of Rome [concerning papal apostolic succession] and yet here is a case where the Greek Church would say to you, ‘bite your tongue.’

Surely the travel narrative in Luke’s Gospel, of Mary traveling to Elizabeth in the Visitation, follows the pattern of the travel narrative of the Ark in 2nd Samuel 6. The comparisons are astounding and if Luke did not intend this, then the happy hand of providence surely made sure that he would do this. The early Church almost unanimously acclaimed Mary as the New Ark of the Covenant and with good reason, as the Ark under the Old Law carried the Word (Tablets), the Manna, and the budding rod of Aaron (as Hebrews informs us).

As I am confident you know, typology works from the lesser to the greater and if that is the case, and it is, then if the lesser covenant Ark was pure, holy and immaculate and not to be touched (Uzzah) then why should we should expect that under the New and greater covenant that the Ark is pure, holy and immaculate.” [2]

There was later  a comment about a Pope claiming this visit to Elizabeth was the first Eucharistic Procession! I’m afraid this is an instance of starting with a “doctrine” and then looking for typological evidence to support it. The exodus/return pattern is common throughout Scripture, but observing these leads us to see Christ as the Ark, not Mary. He is the Law incarnate (in a box), not Mary. He is the mediator that protects us from coming face to face with the Law of God, not Mary. He was the One speared so the good things hidden in the Ark could be poured out (Word, Sacrament, Government). He is the box carried on human legs. [3] His was the sinless blood that allows us to approach the heavenly throne of grace, not Mary’s. The whole thing is back to front. This is where the “eternal virginity” is imposed on the text.

The Catholics agree with typology being a process of lesser to greater. But Mary is a type of the faithful Old Covenant remnant. She is lesser, and as Jordan points out, we hear nothing of her after Acts 1. Like John the Baptist, she passed the baton on.

Rome’s Oedipus Complex

The Roman church fails to understand the difference between a mother and a bride, and how the process of Covenant succession flows through the OT. The RCC follows the church fathers’ error concerning Mary as New Eve and sees this as the foundation for the “unveiling” of the doctrine of the immaculate conception. But Mary isn’t the New Eve, the church is, so that whole construct is a very badly built house of cards. Mary is, if anything, the antitype of the Old Eve. Her Son begins a new creation, and creation comes before Eve does. Rome has this whole nutty Oedipus thing going. They want the infantile security of Mary’s breast when God calls them to grow up, to be as individuals men worthy of a bride’s affections, and corporately a bride who adores only her Husband! This is the process of Covenant succession. Mum doesn’t figure in the new equation. A man leaves his father and mother and begins a ‘new covenant.’ Mary grew old and was then under her Son’s care, under His New Covenant, brought into His new house.[4] The house of Jacob is absorbed by the new house of Joseph. The Tabernacle of David is absorbed by the Temple of Solomon, etc.

I hold the Bible as an authority over church tradition, including the fathers. Jordan and Leithart deftly identify the “universals” that we find in biblical types. That’s why I call this process “systematic typology.” By this I mean symbols contained in repeated structures, which allows us to verify the connections. I can say Judas being sent out from the last supper is both a type of the coming destruction of Judah and an antitype of the scapegoat because all three events follow the structure of the seven feasts in Lev. 23. None of these Marian claims meets such a criterion. They are one-offs and drive-bys. If we practice our scales enough on the actual biblical structures, aberrant ideas like Mariolatry stick out like a sore thumb, or in this case an extra limb! They rub the Bible’s fur the wrong way. 

I should say that an identification of biblical structure is also the reason I strongly disagree with Jordan and Leithart concerning infant(ile) baptism, but that’s another story. In my opinion, that’s where they also get fluffy and rely on tradition and read biblical types the wrong way.[5] That’s where they see typological “support” for an extrabiblical practice. This too rubs the Bible’s fur the wrong way. Mariolatry and paedobaptism get childhood and maturity round the wrong way, and I can demonstrate from the Scriptures that this is so. It is no one-off or drive-by type.

(As always, I may sound uncharitable and arrogant at times but I am not. I am dealing here with ideas and if I ever attack anything, it is ideas. I consider all these men brothers in Christ, and part of that relationship is the ability to be frank within the bounds of love. I am ever willing to be corrected on any doctrinal point as long as the Scriptures are our agreed standard over any tradition. Any idea can and should be tested without mercy as long as one’s ammunition is Scripture.)

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See the discussion and comments at:
[1] Concerning BMEV, More Thoughts on BMEV and Protestants and BMEV.
[2] Discussion in comments under Ecclesial Deism.
[3] I was then accused of Nestorianism, but explained, “Seeing Christ as the Law written on tablets of flesh is not inevitably Nestorianism. I believe Jesus was/is in fact more truly human than you or I. His glory was temporarily veiled. The contents of the box were both as divine and as human as the box. Jesus was the Word, Sacrament and Government man. Is there a name like “Nestorianism” I can call the error of giving Mary the obvious symbolic divinity of the Ark? The Ark lid was a symbol of the throne of God (see Leithart http://www.biblicalhorizons.com/biblical-horizons/no-50-the-footstool-of-his-feet/). Adding Mary into the mix is foreign to the Bible, whatever the fathers or church tradition says. So, yes, Mary’s journey was like the Ark’s journey, but so was every exodus throughout the OT (and my book outlines most of them). We don’t give this divinity to anyone else.”
[4] See Behold Your Mother.
[5] See Cutting Off Flesh By Water.