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Resemblance - The first characteristic of a type is that a resemblance, similarity, or correspondence exists between the type and the antitype. However, this should not be thought of as some superficial relationship, but rather a genuine and substantial counterpart. It should be natural and not forced. Not everything that has correspondence is a type, though all types must have the element of correspondence. Numerous things in the OT are similar to things in the NT, but they are not necessarily types. A type has resemblance to that for which it is a type, but it has more than resemblance. The following elements are also necessary in order to have an official type.

Historical Reality - Persons, events, or things in the OT that are types of things in the NT had historical reality. A type in the OT is not something without reality. The types were persons who lived, events that happened, things that were seen. Seeing types in the OT does not mean the Bible student should look for hidden or deeper meanings in the text. He should stick with the historical facts as recorded in the OT. In other words the type should rise naturally out of the text, and should not be something the interpreter is reading into the text. The tabernacle is a type (Heb. 8:5; 9:23-24), but that does not mean that every small item in the construction of the tabernacle in some way depicted a New Testament truth.

Prefiguring - A type has a predictive or foreshadowing element to it. It looks ahead and anticipates and points to the antitype. A type is a shadow (Col. 2:17) that points ahead to another reality. A type is a form of prophecy. Prophecy is prediction by means of words, whereas typology is prediction by correspondence between two realities, the type and the antitype. Again there are many similarities and resemblances in the Scriptures, but not every correspondence or resemblance is a type. To be an official type, the correspondence or resemblance must have a predictive element, a foreshadowing and anticipation of the antitype. The type has a forward focus.

Heightening - In typology, the antitype is greater than and superior to the type. There is an increase, a heightening, an escalation. Christ is superior to Melchizedek. Christ's redemptive work is greater than that of the Passover, of which He is the antitype answering to the Passover, the type. 

Divine Design - Types are not mere analogies or illustrations which Bible readers note. Instead they are resemblances planned by God. The type was designed in such a way that it carried a likeness to the antitype, and likewise was planned by God to be the "fulfillment" and heightening of the type. Since centuries separated most of the types from their antitypes, it obviously required God's planning to have the types depict or picture the antitype.

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