Beginning at Moses
Types and Shadows of Christ in the Old Testament
"And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself."
— Luke 24:27
What Is a Type?
When the risen Christ walked the road to Emmaus with two discouraged disciples, He did not simply announce who He was. He opened the Old Testament and showed them that it had been about Him all along — real events, real people, arranged centuries in advance to picture the Redeemer who was to come. That teaching began with Moses and reached through all the prophets (Luke 24:27), and a few verses later Christ adds the Psalms to the same testimony (Luke 24:44).
Paul gives this method a name. Of Israel's wilderness experiences he writes that these things "happened unto them for ensamples" — the Greek word is tupos, our word "type." A type is a real, historical person or event that God designed to foreshadow a greater reality fulfilled in Christ, called the antitype.
Two related but distinct words are worth holding apart. "Shadow" (Greek skia) is Scripture's own word for the ceremonial law specifically:
"For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect."
— Hebrews 10:1
That is narrow language, aimed at the sacrifices, feast days, and priestly system given at Sinai. But the wider claim of Luke 24:27 — that Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms all testify of Christ — reaches further, into historical narrative that predates the law entirely, such as Isaac and Joseph in Genesis. Both categories are legitimate. The ten types below draw from each.
1. The Passover Lamb
On the night of Israel's deliverance from Egypt, God commanded a lamb without blemish to be slain, and its blood struck on the doorposts of every house:
"And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt."
— Exodus 12:13
Judgment fell on Egypt that night, but wherever the blood had been applied, death passed over. Paul names the fulfillment plainly — "For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us" (1 Corinthians 5:7) — and John the Baptist makes the same identification the moment he sees Jesus approaching, calling Him "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). The lamb had to be without blemish, just as Christ was without sin; the lamb died in the place of the household, and blood applied — not effort, not good behaviour — was the only thing that turned judgment aside.
2. The Sacrifice of Isaac
God tests Abraham with the hardest command given to any man in Scripture:
"Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of."
— Genesis 22:2
Isaac himself carries the wood up the mountain for his own sacrifice, and when he asks where the lamb is, Abraham answers, "My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering" (Genesis 22:8). At the last moment God provides a ram in Isaac's place, and Abraham names the mountain Jehovah-jireh — "the LORD will provide" (Genesis 22:14).
Hebrews reads this as a resurrection type — Abraham "accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead" (Hebrews 11:19) — and the language is echoed almost exactly in the gospel itself:
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
— John 3:16
A father offers up his beloved, only son. The son carries the wood of his own sacrifice, just as Christ carried His own cross. Moriah lies in the same mountain range where Solomon later built the temple (2 Chronicles 3:1), immediately north of Calvary — but where Abraham's hand was stayed and a substitute provided, no hand stayed the cup from Christ. He was the substitute.
3. Joseph, Betrayed and Exalted
Joseph, his father's beloved son, is hated by his own brothers, stripped, thrown into a pit, and sold for twenty pieces of silver (Genesis 37:28). Falsely accused and imprisoned, he is unexpectedly exalted to Pharaoh's right hand, with authority to save nations from famine. When his brothers stand before him years later, he does not take revenge:
"But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive."
— Genesis 50:20
Scripture attaches no explicit New Testament proof-text to Joseph the way it does the other types here, which is why this one rests on the wider Luke 24:27 pattern rather than a direct apostolic citation. The resemblance still stands on its own terms: a beloved son, betrayed by his own brethren, sold for silver (compare Matthew 26:15, where Judas is paid thirty pieces for Christ), condemned unjustly, and afterward exalted to a position from which he graciously saves the very people who betrayed him. Where Joseph forgave his brothers and preserved their physical lives, Christ forgives those who crucified Him and secures eternal life for all who believe.
4. Manna from Heaven
In a wilderness with no food supply, God tells Moses:
"Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you."
— Exodus 16:4
Each morning a fine substance covered the ground, sustaining the whole nation for forty years — but it had to be gathered fresh, daily dependence rather than stockpiled security. Jesus draws the connection Himself, and corrects a misunderstanding about it in the same breath:
"Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven... I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst."
— John 6:32, 35
Manna kept Israel's bodies alive one day at a time; Christ sustains the believer's spiritual life the same way — not a meal hoarded once, but daily, continual dependence on Him. The manna itself was never the true bread. It only pictured the true bread still to come.
5. Water from the Rock
When Israel had no water at Rephidim, the LORD instructed Moses:
"Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink."
— Exodus 17:6
Moses struck the rock, and water poured out for the entire nation. Paul identifies the rock directly: "that Rock was Christ" (1 Corinthians 10:4). The rock had to be struck for the water — the life — to flow, just as Christ had to be struck and put to death for the living water of salvation to be available to all who thirst. A sobering detail sharpens the picture: later, at Meribah, God instructs Moses only to speak to the rock a second time, but Moses strikes it again in anger and is barred from the promised land for it (Numbers 20:7-11). Christ, the Rock, was to be smitten once (Hebrews 9:28) — never repeatedly.
6. The Brazen Serpent
When a plague of fiery serpents struck Israel for their complaining, God did not remove the serpents. He gave a remedy instead:
"Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live."
— Numbers 21:8
Everyone bitten who looked at the bronze serpent lived — no effort required beyond looking. Jesus applies this to Himself in what may be the clearest type-and-antitype statement in all of Scripture:
"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life."
— John 3:14-15
The remedy for the poison of sin, like the remedy for the serpents' bite, is not striving — it is looking, believing, receiving what has been lifted up. Christ, who knew no sin, was made in the very likeness of the thing that was killing us (2 Corinthians 5:21), lifted up so that looking upon Him brings life instead of death.
7. The Day of Atonement
Once a year the high priest performed a ritual involving two goats. One was sacrificed as a sin offering. Over the other, the priest laid both hands on its head and confessed Israel's sins upon it, before it was led away into the wilderness, bearing those sins away from the camp entirely:
"And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness."
— Leviticus 16:22
Hebrews contrasts this whole system with what Christ accomplished — "neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us" (Hebrews 9:12), and, "so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many" (Hebrews 9:28). The two goats together picture a single work no one animal could accomplish: one satisfied the penalty of sin, the other carried it away, never to return. Christ alone did both — and did it once, not yearly.
8. Melchizedek, Priest and King
After Abram returns from rescuing Lot, he is met by a figure who appears only briefly in Genesis: "Melchizedek king of Salem... was the priest of the most high God" (Genesis 14:18), who blesses Abram and receives tithes from him. No genealogy is given for him — no birth, no death — unusual in a book as careful about lineage as Genesis. Hebrews builds an extended argument on exactly that silence:
"Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually."
— Hebrews 7:3
This echoes a Messianic oath in the Psalms — "The LORD hath sworn... Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek" (Psalm 110:4). Every Levitical priest had to prove his lineage, and eventually died and was replaced. Melchizedek's unrecorded genealogy pictures a priesthood that depends on neither — precisely why Hebrews can explain how Christ, from the tribe of Judah rather than Levi, holds a valid and superior priesthood, "after the power of an endless life" (Hebrews 7:16).
9. Jonah and the Great Fish
Fleeing God's call, Jonah is thrown overboard in a storm and swallowed: "Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights" (Jonah 1:17). From what is effectively a tomb, he is delivered back to dry land to fulfil his commission. Jesus names this event Himself as the one sign He would give a generation demanding proof:
"For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."
— Matthew 12:40
This is the only type on this list Christ explicitly labeled a sign of His own burial and resurrection in advance — not merely a thematic echo, but a specific, deliberate correspondence in timing.
10. Moses, the Prophet to Come
Near the end of his life, Moses tells Israel that his own leadership was not the final word (Deuteronomy 18:15). God confirms this to Moses directly:
"I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him."
— Deuteronomy 18:18
Peter applies this prophecy to Christ by name in his sermon at the temple: "him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you" (Acts 3:22). Here Moses himself is the type, not merely an event connected to him. As Israel's deliverer, lawgiver, and mediator, Moses pictured the greater Prophet, Deliverer, and Mediator to come — one who would speak God's words directly to His people, without Moses' own failures, and without the barrier that kept Israel from approaching God's presence (compare Hebrews 3:1-6).
A Portrait Painted in Advance
None of these ten accounts requires imported symbolism to arrive at Christ. In every case, either the Lord Jesus Himself or a New Testament writer draws the connection explicitly, using the Old Testament event as the very vocabulary by which they explain who He is and what He came to do. This is what Christ meant on the road to Emmaus: the Hebrew Scriptures, "beginning at Moses and all the prophets," were never simply a record of Israel's national history. They were a portrait, painted in advance, of the One who would fulfil them.
Two categories are worth holding apart rather than blending into one. Scripture reserves the word "shadow" specifically for the ceremonial law — the Passover, the Day of Atonement, and the like — while the broader testimony of "Moses and the prophets" to Christ, seen in figures like Isaac, Joseph, and Moses himself, rests on typological pattern rather than that particular word. Both are legitimate ways Scripture points to Christ; distinguishing them keeps the study honest rather than treating every parallel as a "shadow" in the technical sense of Hebrews 10:1.
The Bereans searched the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so (Acts 17:11). The invitation here is the same one Christ extended on the Emmaus road:
"Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."
— John 5:39
Summary
The Passover lamb (Exodus 12) — slain and its blood applied, turning aside judgment (1 Corinthians 5:7; John 1:29)
The sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22) — a beloved, only son offered on Moriah, with a substitute provided (Hebrews 11:17-19; John 3:16)
Joseph (Genesis 37-50) — betrayed for silver, exalted, and gracious to those who wronged him
Manna (Exodus 16) — daily bread from heaven, fulfilled in the true bread of life (John 6:32-35)
The smitten rock (Exodus 17:6) — struck once, so that living water might flow (1 Corinthians 10:4)
The brazen serpent (Numbers 21:8-9) — lifted up, so that looking upon it brings life (John 3:14-15)
The day of Atonement (Leviticus 16) — sin's penalty satisfied and sin carried away, done once for all in Christ (Hebrews 9:11-28)
Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18-20) — a priesthood without genealogy, pointing to a priesthood without end (Hebrews 7:1-3; Psalm 110:4)
Jonah (Jonah 1:17) — three days and three nights, named by Christ as a sign of His own burial and resurrection (Matthew 12:40)
Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15-18) — the deliverer and mediator himself a type of the greater Prophet to come (Acts 3:22)
Key Verses
Luke 24:27–44 · Hebrews 10:1 · Exodus 12:13 · 1 Corinthians 5:7 · Genesis 22:2–14 · Hebrews 11:17–19 · John 3:16 · Genesis 50:20 · Exodus 16:4 · John 6:32–35 · Exodus 17:6 · 1 Corinthians 10:4 · Numbers 21:8–9 · John 3:14–15 · Leviticus 16:21–22 · Hebrews 9:11–28 · Genesis 14:18–20 · Hebrews 7:1–3 · Psalm 110:4 · Jonah 1:17 · Matthew 12:40 · Deuteronomy 18:15–18 · Acts 3:22 · John 5:39