TIP of the day: Why I don't use the Cross-Reference section of the Passage Guide - Part III

MJ. Smith

Part I dealt with parallels/harmonies; Part II dealt with quotations/allusions; This section deals with some categories of cross-references present in New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge that are not well supported by Logos/Verbum.

1. In each case, the following steps are useful:

• Use NTSK to identify the cross-references it identifies for this case
• Augment the Passage Guide with Collection sections for each case (this implies tagging your applicable resources and/or building a collection of applicable resources).

What is meant by "case"?

• prophecy and its fulfillment
• type/antitype relationships
• symbols
• images

Example:

2. Resources useful for type/antitype include:

• Roza, Devin. Fulfilled in Christ: The Sacraments—A Guide to Symbols and Types in the Bible and Tradition. Bellingham, WA: Verbum, 2014.
• Fairbairn, Patrick. The Typology of Scripture. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1847.
• Goppelt, Leonhardt. Typos: The Typology Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982.
• Johnson, O. L. Bible Typology. James L. Fleming, 2005.

You may wish to read Puritan Typology if you erroneously think of typology as an archaic Catholic thing. Note that the NTSK includes a subcategory of types identified as such in the Bible.

An example of O.L. Johnson:

An example from Fr. Devin Roza:

This resource also offers another category - symbol - which should be in out types of cross-references.

Depending upon your collection, a scan of the Early Church Fathers may add additional suggestions of typology.

3. Prophecy and its fulfillment has a distinct link with type/anti-type:

"1. The Typical Sense.—The typical sense of Scripture in general is the meaning the Holy Ghost intends to convey by means of the matter narrated. It is distinct from the literal meaning, because the latter is conveyed by the words themselves, while the former is expressed by the things signified by the words. The typical meaning is also called the spiritual, the mystical, the allegorical. The persons or things that God in his providence has ordained to signify the future events form the foundation of the typical sense. It follows from this that only he who has the free disposition of the future can employ a type in the strict sense of the word. For him alone have the present persons or things that connection with the future which the fœtus, e.g., in the course of its development, has with the fully organized body. The persons and things that God has thus assumed to signify future persons or things are called by St. Paul types, exemplars, shadows, allegories, parables; while the persons or things thus signified are named by St. Peter “anti-types,” though St. Paul gives this name to the former class also (Rom. 5:14; 1 Cor. 10:6; Heb. 8:5; Gal. 4:24; Heb. 9:9; 1 Pet. 3:21; Heb. 9:24). The typical sense of Scripture thus explained is threefold: it either proposes certain dogmas of belief, commonly regarding the future Messias, and then we have the prophetic or allegorical types; or it describes the objects of our hope, especially concerning the future life in heaven, and this is effected by means of anagogic types; or, finally, it shows us what we are bound to do by means of the so-called tropological types (cf. Gal. 4:24; Wisd. 16:17; Apoc. 21:2). It must, however, be noted that there is a marked difference between the typical and the allegorical or spiritual meaning of the Scriptures: the latter terms are used by theological writers of all the interpretations that are not strictly literal, while the first term has its own specific sense. In order to have this specific character, the type must fulfil these three conditions: 1. It must have a proper and absolute historical existence, entirely independent of the anti-type. 2. It should not have a natural and essential reference to its anti-type. 3. God himself must have referred the type to its anti-type by means of a positive ordination. It is beyond all dispute that there are such types in the Scriptures: for proof we may refer to Rom. 5:14; Gal. 4:24; Col. 2:17; Heb. 9:8, 9; Heb. 7; 1:5; John 19:36; Patrizi, p. 119.
2. Allegorical Types.—For the present we are principally concerned about the prophetic or the allegorical types. According to Eusebius (H. E. i. 3. M. 20, 72) the prophetic types of the Old Testament principally refer to the triple dignity of theocratic kingship, Aaronic priesthood, and divinely instituted prophetism. Hence the prophets describe the Messias as the great theocratic king; and since in David, who is the Messias’ father as well as his type, they see a king according to God’s own heart, they describe the Messias as possessing the qualities of David—nay, they call the Messias by David’s own name. In a similar manner the Messias is represented as the great prophet, who is to teach all nations, and as the eminent high-priest who will destroy all sin by offering himself as a victim. The unbloody sacrifice of the New Law is named by the same name as the unbloody sacrifices of the Old (Mal. 1:11). The Messianic kingdom is in the same manner represented by a series of pictures and figures taken from David’s kingship. Jerusalem is the centre of the Messianic kingdom, as it had been the capital of the theocratic reign; the Gentiles who are converted to the Messianic creed are said to flow to Mount Sion (Is. 2; Mich. 5), to be born on Sion (Ps. 86), to find their salvation on Mount Sion and in Jerusalem (Joel 2:32). The enemies of the Messianic kingdom bear the names of the tribes hostile to Jerusalem and the theocratic kingdom. In the New Law there will not be wanting priests and Levites to offer the burnt-offerings and the other sacrifices (Jer. 33:18), the sabbaths will be kept without intermission (Is. 66:23), all the nations will come to Jerusalem for the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles (Zach. 14:16).
3. Difference between Symbols and Types.—The prophetic symbols must be carefully distinguished from the prophetic types. They agree in this with the types that they are persons or things assumed to signify something future; but they differ from the types mainly in their want of any historical existence. In themselves they were nothing but images shown to the prophets in order to reveal to them a part of the future. Thus Jeremias (24) saw two basketfuls of grapes, the one good, the other bad, to indicate the different fate that was to befall those that had been transported to Babylon and those that were still remaining in Jerusalem. Amos (8) saw under the figure of a hook which bringeth down the fruit, the approaching desolation of Israel caused by the nation’s avarice and injustice. Isaias foreshows the shameful transportation of the Egyptians into Babylon by walking naked and barefoot. Jeremias breaks a potter’s vessel, and thus announces the desolation of the Jews occasioned by their sins (Jer. 19; Is. 20). The use of imagery in the prophetic writings is also the reason of the dramatic nature of many prophecies—a characteristic to which St. Jerome (In Nah. ii. 1. M. 25, 1303; in Is. 3:13; 21:3; in Jer. 9:14. M. 24, 68, 196, 767) attributed in great part the obscurity of the predictions. In Isaias (63) the prophet asks, “Who is this that cometh from Edom?” In answer the conqueror himself speaks: “I have trodden the winepress alone.…” And the prophet is in consequence incited to fervent prayer of thanksgiving: “I will remember the tender mercies of the Lord.…”
4. How to recognize the Typical Meaning.—It is in great part owing to the neglect of the prophetic types and symbols that the Jews did not recognize in Jesus the Messias. Without considering that the kingdom of David is only a type of the Messianic kingdom, they expected a literal fulfilment in the person of the Messias of all that had been said concerning his royal dignity. And if modern rationalists point out Messianic prophecies that have not been fulfilled in Jesus, they are generally taken from the typical predictions treating of the Messias as the great king, the infallible prophet, and the universal high-priest. In order, however, to answer these objections we must briefly point out a few rules by which we may be enabled to distinguish between the typical, the symbolic, and the literal predictions.
a. If a prophecy has been evidently fulfilled, the event must show whether it was intended in a typical or a literal sense. Before the advent of Christ it was doubtful whether Ps. 21:3–13; 109:7 were to be understood literally or typically. But after Christ’s crucifixion all doubt has vanished.
b. Other prophecies are rendered clear by a comparison with parallel predictions. Thus the statement that the Messias is to be a mighty warrior is explained by the other that he is the Prince of peace (Is. 9:6; 11:2–4); the typical character of the continued existence of the Levitical priesthood and of the Old Testament sacrifices is evident from the literal predictions announcing the end of priesthood and sacrifices alike (Jer. 33:18; Is. 56:6; 60:7; Ezech. 40–48; Jer. 3:16; 31:31; Mal. 1:11, etc.); that the Messias is not David in a literal sense is plain from those passages in which he is called the son of David.
c. If the literal acceptation of a prophecy would destroy the very nature of the person or thing of which there is question, we must seek for a typical or a symbolic meaning (cf. Corn. a Lap., Proleg. in Prophet. Can. Forer. in Is. 45:8). St. Jerome (in Is. xi. 6. M. 24, 150 f.), writing against the Christian millenarians (St., Justin, c. Tryph. 81. M. 6, 668; St. Iren., c. hær. v. 33, M. 7, 1214; Lactant., Instit. vii. 24. M. 6, 809; cf. Hengstenberg, Christol. ii. pp. 138 ff.; Delitzsch, “Isaias,” pp. 188 f.; Nägelsbach, “Isaias,” p. 148), ridicules all those who expect a literal fulfilment of Is. 11:6: “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb …” Cornely is of opinion that the same must be said of the literal fulfilment of Is. 2:2; Mich. 5:2 against all those who believe that at the end of time Mount Sion will be placed on the top of all other mountains, or that all other mountains will disappear, Sion alone remaining (cf. Cornely, Intr. II. ii. p. 304; Hofmann, “Erfüllung und Weissagung,” ii. p. 217; Delitzsch, “Isaias,” p. 61; Nägelsbach, “Isaias,” p. 148).
d. Finally, all those predictions that allude to facts of the Jewish history must be understood in a typical rather than in a literal sense. Thus we read: “If the Lord shall wash away the filth of the daughters of Sion, and shall wash away the blood of Jerusalem out of the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning. And the Lord will create upon every place of Mount Sion, and where he is called upon, a cloud by day, and a smoke and the brightness of a flaming fire in the night” (Is. 4:4, 5). At times the typical nature of the prophetic prediction is indicated in the words of the text itself (cf. Zach. 10:11, Hebrew text), and thus all difficulty is removed (cf. Reinke, Beiträge, ii. pp. 50–59; Hengstenberg, Christologie, iii. 2, 203 ff.; Cornely, Intr. II. ii. pp. 288 ff.; Meignan, “Les Prophèties dans les deux premiers ch. des Rois,” pp. 12–75).
5. The Figurative Sense.—What has been said about the interpretation of the typical and the symbolic sense of the prophetic predictions applies in a measure also to the figurative or the metaphorical sense. Since the style of the prophets is to some extent poetical, as has been seen above, in the interpretation allowance must be made for figures of speech and poetic ornament of language. It may show great devotion to inquire why Jeremias (24:1) saw two baskets of grapes rather than of any other fruit, or why Isaias in his description of the Prince of peace (11:6) mentions the sheep and the wolf rather than other animals; but it is very uncertain whether we shall ever be able to arrive at any certainty in these minutiæ (cf. Knab-enbauer, “Der Prophet Isaias,” pp. 170 f.; 180). It seems much preferable to ascribe them to the poetic language of the prophet."


A. J. Maas, Christ in Type and Prophecy, vol. 1 (New York; Cincinnati; Chicago: Benziger Brothers, 1893), 154–159.

In addition to Maas (quoted above) resources available in my Logos library include:

• Hays, J. Daniel, J. Scott Duvall, and C. Marvin Pate. Dictionary of Biblical Prophecy and End Times. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2007.
• Walvoord, John F. The Prophecy Knowledge Handbook. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1990.

As this is not an area of particular interest to me, I am sure that other users can expand on this list.

From the Dictionary:

From the Handbook:

4. Imagery is closely related to metaphor and simile which one finds under Figures of Speech. However, there are sufficient resources on imagery that I prefer to treat it as a separate category. By two primary Logos resources are:

• Beck, John A., ed. Zondervan Dictionary of Biblical Imagery. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011.
• Ryken, Leland, Jim Wilhoit, Tremper Longman, Colin Duriez, Douglas Penney, and Daniel G. Reid. Dictionary of Biblical Imagery. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000.

From Beck:

From Ryken et. al.:

While one can gain all the cross-references by considering, for example, "dove" as just a shared word cross-reference, I find that the discipline of looking at type, anti-type, image, symbol as appropriate provides a more fruitful study. On prophecy and its fulfillment, I find that identifying multiple opinions for a single passage helps me focus my issues of interpretation on things that actually require serious thought as serious authors come to differing answers.

<continued in subsequent posts ... each going through another type of cross-reference>