8.  If, as has been shown above (chap. 37, No. 4), examples of historic types are found in the Old Testament, these contain a twofold sense.  The priesthood of Melchizedek and the transactions between him and Abraham were true historic realities, having their own proper office and meaning.  Yet the word of inspiration teaches us that the circumstances connected with Melchizedek’s priesthood and his meeting with Abraham were intended by God to shadow forth the higher priesthood of Melchizedek’s great Antitype.  He brought forth bread and wine, the very symbols that should afterwards represent Christ crucified as our spiritual food and drink, blessed him that had the promises, and received at his hand tithes of all (Gen. 14:18-20), thus exercising the prerogatives of one higher than Abraham, and consequently higher than all his posterity.  Heb. 7:4-10.  In the intention of the Holy Ghost, the higher typical meaning lay in this transaction from the beginning, but it was not revealed to the apprehension of believers till the Christian dispensation had begun.  So also the rest of the covenant people in the land of Canaan is represented in the New Testament as typical of the true heavenly rest.  Heb. 4:7-11.  Other examples might be adduced, but these will serve as an illustration of the principle now under consideration.

9.  The most striking examples of a literal covering a typical meaning are furnished by the so-called Messianic psalms, a part of which describe the victories and universal dominion of a mighty King whom Jehovah himself establishes on Zion to reign there for ever (Psalms 2, 45, 72, 110, etc.); another part, the deep afflictions of a mighty Sufferer and his subsequent deliverance, which has for its result the conversion of all nations to the service of Jehovah.  Psalms 22, 40, 69, 109, etc.  That such psalms as the second and seventy-second, the twenty-second, fortieth, and sixty-ninth (not to mention others), have a true reference to Christ’s person and work, cannot be denied without imputing either error or fraud to the writers of the New Testament.  Nay more, our Lord himself said, after his resurrection:  “These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me” (Luke 24:44); whence we learn that it was our Lord’s custom to refer to the psalms as containing prophecies of himself.  If the psalms, when legitimately interpreted, contain no such prophecies, then, when the writers of the New Testament quoted them as referring to Christ, they either believed that they were making a true application of them according to the mind of the Holy Spirit, or they simply accommodated themselves to what they knew to be the groundless prejudices of the age.  Upon the former supposition they were in error; upon the latter, they were guilty of fraud.  Such is the dishonor which the modern principles of rationalism put upon the word of God.  In the interpretation of these psalms, then, we must assume as a fundamental truth that they contain a true reference to Christ.  The only question is, whether they contain a lower reference also.