int is not worth contention. Let each understand it as he may.
Both interpretations given are correct. I hold to what I have offered
because all the circumstances of the incident, and earlier words of
God, pointed to a future Christ, a Christ who should follow, in whom
they should all believe. Thus Abraham saw behind him the ram in the
thicket and took and sacrificed him; that is, he believed in the
Christ who afterward should come and be sacrificed.

19. Again, some say the common noun in the clause "and the rock was
Christ" means the material rock; and since Christ cannot be material
rock they explain the inconsistency by saying the rock signifies
Christ. They here make the word "was" equivalent to "signifies." The
same reasoning they apply to certain words of Christ; for instance,
they say where Christ, referring to the Holy Supper (Mt 26, 26),
commands, "Take, eat; this is my body"--they say the meaning is, "This
bread signifies, but is not truly, my body." They would thereby deny
that the bread is the body of Christ. In the same manner do they deal
with the text (Jn 15, 1) "I am the true vine," in making it "I am
signified by the vine." Beware of such reasoners. Their own malice has
led them to such perverting of Scripture. Paul here expressly
distinguishes between material and spiritual rocks, saying: "They
drank of a spiritual rock that followed them: and the rock was
Christ." He does not say the material rock was Christ, but the
spiritual rock. The material rock was not spiritual, and did not
follow or go with them.

20. The explanations and distortions of such false reasoners are not
needed here. The words are true as they read; they are to be
understood in substance and not figuratively. So in John 15, 1,
Christ's reference is not to a material but a spiritual vine. How
would this read, "I am signified by a spiritual vine"? Christ is
speaking of that which exists, and must so be understood--"I am"; here
is a true spiritual vine. Similar is John 6, 55, "My flesh is meat
indeed." The thought is not, "My flesh signifies, or is signified by,
true meat"; spiritual meat is spoken of and the meaning is, "My flesh
is substantially a food; not for the stomach, physically, but for the
soul, spiritually." Neither must you permit the words "This is my
body" to be perverted to mean that the body is but signified by the
bread, as some pretend; you must accept the words precisely as they
mean--"This bread is essentially, b