The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

which "is" means "a symbol of." The passage on which he relies does not
have the word "is" at all. He replies in effect, the Word is understood, and
if it were there it would have that sense. But the fact that it is not there
shows that it is the mere substantive copula, and can have no such sense as
Zwingli claims. If "is" be involved in the subject, then all symbolical
possibility must lie in the predicate. Zwingli makes no appeal to the
Septuagint on this point: First, because the thing demanded was an
instance of a divine use of "is" in the sense "be a symbol of." It was
acknowledged, on the conservative side, that the Hebrew substantive verb
has the same general force in the Greek, and, therefore, Zwingli appealed
to the Hebrew. He could not appeal here to the Septuagint, for it is but a
human translation. The question was not one of Greek, but of the divine
use of the substantive verb, common to both Hebrew and Greek. Second:
Apart from this, the Septuagint is decisive against Zwingli, for it makes the
proposition impersonal: "Passover is to the Lord," not at all: "The Lamb is
the passover." 2: The "it" does not refer to the lamb--but to the whole
transaction which takes place with girded loins, and the eating of the lamb.
The "it" is used indefinitely, as if we would say, "Let us gather round the
cheerful hearth, let us light up the children's tree, for it is Christmas." The
reason of the name "Passover" follows in the twelfth verse. "It is the Lord's
Passover. For I will pass through the land." What sense is there in the
words: The lamb is a symbol of the Passover, for I will pass through it?
3: In no sense in which the word "Passover" could hold, whether in the act
of angelic transition, or the feast instituted to commemorate it, could the
lamb signify, or be a symbol of it. The lamb was that whose body was
literally slain, and whose blood was literally shed, in making the Passover
Covenant. It was not a symbol of the passing over of the angel, for there is
no analogy between a slain lamb and a passing over. It was not a symbol
of the Feast of the Passover, but the chief material of the feast. Nor was the
lamb a memorial of the original passing over. The Passover feast itself, as a
whole, was. Nor was the lamb a memorial of this feast, but simply a chief
element