Is Joseph a type of Christ? It is traditional to view Joseph as a type of Christ even though he is not specifically identified as a type of Christ in the New Testament, and pretty well all the old commentators and writers go in the direction. But in more recent times – creeping in over the last century and a half, and now quite common – it is denied that Joseph is a type of Christ. It's a great shame that that should be so. Some quite orthodox and soundly evangelical Bible surveys that are popular, deny that Joseph is a type of Christ. Many will say something vague like, ‘Some say he is.’ Some? The overwhelming weight of Bible interpretation says so, not just some. His life bears many parallels to that of the Saviour, many corresponding features, so he is a kind of Old Testament symbol speaking of and representing Christ. And it is very important because to see this is to see how the Bible works and how it's structured and how it's planned. This is what the Old Testament narrative is about. It is not just an interesting collection of histories of different persons, and as you read the history and the events and you can extract some useful moral and spiritual lessons from it. No, the Bible is a unique book. It's not like any human book. It is inspired of God and structured by him. It all follows a certain organizing principle. It has one author, that is the Holy Spirit of God or Christ and his Spirit. The structure of the Bible is to present saviours all the way through the Old Testament, and that is how the Jews in olden times tended to see it.
We may ask the question, as they read the Book of Genesis about Joseph and then in due course in Exodus about Moses – and Moses is certainly identified as a type in the New Testament – would the Jews of those days understood them to be types of the Messiah? Would they have understood that these historic narratives are looking forward to a Saviour? Well indeed they would have done, because the old Jewish scholars, even if they didn't recognize Christ when he came, all identified these passages as messianic. These passages speak of one who God will send, the great heir that was promised, who will deal with the whole problem of human alienation from God and sin. Now even if they didn't apply these when Christ came to him and they were in a state of spiritual coldness and apostasy, nevertheless their theoretical judgment was that these passages were not just historic narratives but they were prophetic. They were forward-looking, they were full of types, foreshadowings of events that would happen. You get it throughout the Old Testament; you get it in the Book of Judges. Who were the judges? They described with a Hebrew word that can be applied to mean saviours? They saved their generation from oppression. That is how the Bible is structured: saviour after saviour, giving the hint, pointing forward.
Luke 24 tells us of the two men on the Emmaus road, and the risen Christ appeared to them. In verse 25 Christ – they didn't know it was the Saviour – said to them, ‘O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Behooved it not the Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into his glory? 27 And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.’ The Lord began at Moses. That means the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. When he refers to Moses he is not referring only to the law of Moses but to the book of Moses which we have as five books. The first five books of the Bible were the Book of Moses, one book. Well, where in the Pentateuch are there narratives which show someone's suffering and then subsequently entering into glory? Now this rules out the worship types and shadows like the sacrifices. They are all types of the work of Christ, but they are not a complete story. No one of those shows suffering and glorification: the whole span of the life of Christ. So where in the Book of Moses are you going to find Christ, if you don't find him in Joseph? The whole narrative is there from his being a favourite of his father, the one representing the godly, the one who was sold into slavery and plunged down into humiliation, false trial in the course of that and condemnation and then elevated again and then at the right hand of Pharaoh dispensing of all things bread for the Gentiles as well as the Jews. Where in the Book of Moses do you get such a complete parallel narrative of the ministry of Christ? That is the challenge of old Dean Burgon. Where else in the Book of Moses if not in Joseph? In the last chapter of Acts the Apostle Paul has the same experience with the Jewish leaders and he has them in his hired house when he is under house arrest in Rome between two guards. And just like Christ, he teaches them the things of Christ from Moses and the whole scene is spread out. There are other passages which testify to this also.