"The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves."
— Hebrews 10:1
Quick Answer
The Old Testament is filled with people, events, and institutions that foreshadow Christ: Adam, the Passover lamb, the manna in the wilderness, the tabernacle’s high priest, Melchizedek, the bronze serpent, and David’s throne all point forward to who Jesus is and what he accomplishes. The New Testament identifies these connections directly, showing Scripture’s unified, Christ-centered design (Hebrews 10:1; Luke 24:27).
A Portrait Painted in Advance
Imagine reading a detailed sketch of someone’s face years before ever meeting them, only to recognize them instantly the moment they walked into the room. That’s something like what happens when a reader who knows Christ goes back through the Old Testament. Person after person, event after event, institution after institution turns out to have been quietly sketching a portrait of Jesus long before he arrived. The writer of Hebrews describes the old covenant law itself as ‘only a shadow of the good things that are coming,’ not the substance itself (Hebrews 10:1).
Rather than surveying typology in the abstract, it helps to walk through several specific, well-attested examples the New Testament itself draws out, seeing concretely how the Old Testament anticipates Christ long before his birth.
Adam, the Passover Lamb, and the Manna
Adam, the first man, becomes a type of Christ by contrast: through Adam’s disobedience, sin and death entered the world, while through Christ’s obedience, grace and life abound for all who believe (Romans 5:17-19). Where the first Adam failed in a garden, the last Adam triumphed, even in a wilderness of temptation.
The Passover lamb offers another vivid picture. Its unblemished body and shed blood spared Israelite households from the angel of death in Egypt (Exodus 12:5-13). Paul calls Christ directly ‘our Passover lamb,’ sacrificed once for all so that everyone trusting in his blood is spared from God’s righteous judgment (1 Corinthians 5:7). The manna that sustained Israel in the wilderness likewise foreshadows Christ, who calls himself ‘the bread of life’ that came down from heaven to give life to the world (John 6:32-35, 48-51).
The Tabernacle, the High Priest, and Melchizedek
The tabernacle’s entire sacrificial system, with its priests, altars, and the veil separating sinful people from God’s presence, prefigures Christ’s greater priestly work. Where the earthly high priest entered the Most Holy Place once a year with the blood of animals, Christ entered the true heavenly sanctuary once for all with his own blood, securing eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:6-12). When Jesus died, the temple curtain tore from top to bottom, signaling that his sacrifice had permanently opened access to God (Matthew 27:51).
Melchizedek, the mysterious king-priest of Salem who blessed Abraham long before Israel’s priesthood existed, becomes a type of Christ’s eternal, superior priesthood, one not based on genealogy or the Levitical line but on God’s own oath (Genesis 14:18-20; Hebrews 7:1-3, 17).
The Bronze Serpent, Jonah, and the Rock
When venomous snakes plagued the Israelites in the wilderness, God instructed Moses to lift up a bronze serpent on a pole; anyone who looked at it, trusting God’s promise, was healed (Numbers 21:8-9). Jesus applies this directly to his own crucifixion: ‘Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life’ (John 3:14-15). Jonah’s three days inside the great fish, followed by deliverance, becomes, in Jesus’s own words, a sign pointing to his own three days in the grave before resurrection (Matthew 12:39-40).
Paul even describes the rock that provided water for Israel in the wilderness as a picture of Christ himself, sustaining his people through their journey (1 Corinthians 10:4; Exodus 17:6).
David’s Throne and the Whole Story’s Center
David, God’s chosen king who suffered persecution before being vindicated and established on his throne, prefigures Christ, the greater Son of David whose kingdom, unlike David’s, will never end (2 Samuel 7:12-13; Luke 1:32-33). These types multiply the more closely you look, and they are never arbitrary; the New Testament writers themselves, guided by the Holy Spirit, draw out these connections again and again.
Jesus told two grieving disciples on the road to Emmaus that Moses and all the Prophets had been speaking of him all along, and he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself (Luke 24:27). Reading the Old Testament’s types and shadows this way isn’t forcing Christ into texts where he doesn’t belong; it’s recovering the very reading Jesus himself taught, one that finds him, faithfully and everywhere, at the center of God’s whole story.
None of this means every detail of the Old Testament carries hidden Christological meaning waiting to be decoded; that kind of over-reading can drift into speculation untethered from the text. The safest, most fruitful path is to anchor your reading in the connections Scripture itself draws explicitly, then let those clear examples train your instincts as you read further. Approached this way, types and shadows stop feeling like a puzzle to solve and start feeling like what they actually are: God’s long, patient, loving preparation of his people for the arrival of his Son.