Type and Antitype

At times, I’ve felt that my polemics against semi-marcionitism in sacramental theology and hermeneutics finds no actual targets. And then I read something like this. In his book on hermeneutics, Louis Berkhof characterizes the difference between type and antitype: “The one represents truth on a lower, the other, the same truth on a higher stage. To pass from the type to the antitype is to ascend from that in which the carnal predominates to that which is purely spiritual, from the external to the internal, from the present to the future, from the earthly to the heavenly.” To which I say, WHOA! Has Berkhof heard of the incarnation?

Then he adds, “Rome loses sight of this when it finds the antitype of the Old Testament sacrifices, in the mass; of the priesthood, in the apostolic succession of priests and bishops; and of the high priest, in the pope.” I don’t agree with the specific typologies he mentions, but they are not wrong because they move from OT “carnal” to NT “carnal” realities; the Westminster Form of Church Government does that when it appeals to the example of priests and Levites to demonstrate that ministers should read the Word in public worship.

Berkhof’s version of typology is more conducive to Baptist than paedobaptist theology. But the fact that paedobaptists operate with something like Berkhof’s assumptions is one of the deep sources for the schizophrenia of paedobaptist heremeneutics and theology.