David S. Schaff on Symbolic Language and the Language of the Last Supper

Throughout the New Testament figurative language is used to teach religious truths. When John the Baptist pointed out Christ as "the Lamb of God," he did not mean that Christ was a real lamb. When Paul wrote that "Moses and the Israelites drank of the spiritual rock that followed them and that the rock was Christ," he did not mean that Christ was a real rock. John called the seven churches of Asia the seven stars--Rev 1:20--and meant nothing more than that churches like stars are set to give light. He also called Christ the lion of the tribe of Judah--Rev 5:5--but he did not mean that Christ was the king of beasts. When Joel called on his generation to "rend their hearts and not their garments," and Paul expressed the prayer that "Christ ay dwell in your hearts by faith," it was not the physical heart they had in mind. Augustine long ago observed that "Christ is many things metaphorically which, strictly speaking, he is not. metaphorically, Christ is at once a rock, a door and a cornerstone, a shepherd, a lion and a lamb. How numerous are such similitudes! But if you wish the strict significations, then he is neither a rock, for he is not heard and dumb, nor a door for no mechanic made it, nor a cornerstone for no builder constructed it, nor a shepherd for he is no keeper of four-footed animals, nor a lion for it ranks among the beasts, nor a lamb for it belongs to the flock. All such titles are by way of analogy,"--On John, Nic. fathers, 7:262 (David S. Schaff, Our Fathers Faith and Ours [2d ed.; New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1929], 331-32)

 Support Scriptural Mormonism