Typing the Scriptures

In today's Scripture readings for Mass, we have a very good example of typology - where a person or event from the time of the Old Covenant prefigures something far greater that God has in store for his people later on in salvation history in the New Covenant.

An example of this is the Adam-Christ analogy, where Adam is a type of Christ. Adam fails when tempted in a garden and brings about the destruction of the human race in sin, whereas Christ triumphs over temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane, bringing about salvation for the human race through his Passion, death, and Resurrection. Christ succeeds where Adam fails.

This is what St. Augustine meant when he said, "The New Testament is in the Old, concealed; the Old Testament is in the New, revealed."

In today's first reading from Numbers 21:4-9, we hear of the Israelites who were bitten by poisonous snakes, and how God commands Moses to fashion a bronze serpent and raise it up on a pole - whoever looks upon it will be healed.

Then, in the Gospel reading from John 8:21-30, we see this:

So Jesus said to them,“When you lift up the Son of Man,then you will realize that I AM,and that I do nothing on my own,but I say only what the Father taught me.The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone,because I always do what is pleasing to him.” Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him.

Of course, Jesus was 'lifted up" on the Cross, as he says elsewhere in John:

"Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that whoever believes in him will have eternal life" (3:14, 15).

Moses was able to provide healing for God's people, attacked by snakes, and mortally wounded. Jesus, the New Moses, heals by his cross those who have been eternally wounded by sin, those bitten by the fangs of "that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan" (Revelation 20:2).

This is the victory we will celebrate next week.