What is the difference between interpretation and application?

I believe there is no exposition of the scripture which satisfies all the conditions of the context and of the rest of the Bible but this. Who would deny that scripture must have as its ultimate force some fixed determinate meaning? There must be a true and full object for the word of God, and this is in no way adverse to the principle of applying particular passages meanwhile. This is all right, and would not be objected to for a moment; but we must distinguish between the application of scripture and its just interpretation. The latter means the full mind of God, the intention and scope whether of prophecy or of anything else. Application is justifiable according to apostolic precedent as a practical use of it before "that day."

We have a perfect Word, and have been enlightened to understand it; but we still need to have it applied to mind and heart and life. The word in season is the word of prophecy. Let me illustrate: The account of Abraham and Hagar is divinely inspired; it is a perfect revelation of God's thoughts upon a certain theme. Further, we have been enlightened to get the meaning of the narrative; we see the two covenants of law and grace, the futility of nature's efforts, the power of God in linking us with the heavenly city, and so on. We see it, and are able to talk clearly about it all. But we need to have the Word brought home to our need. Are we carnal, seeking nature's strength for God's things? Are we legal, turning again to the "weak and beggarly elements" of a carnal commandment? Then the Spirit of God would apply to our conscience the truth He had made us see, and the result would be our practical deliverance.

We are to be not merely students of the Word, but obedient to it. This is effected by allowing the Spirit to apply it. There is nothing more deadening than to be engaged with truth without its acting upon the conscience. To traffic in the holy things of God for mere pleasure or worldly profit is awful to think of. Even where this extreme is not reached, we all need to remember that it is a solemn thing to have to do with God, and to have conscience open that the Spirit may make practical what we have been learning.

Thus it is that God will deal with Israel by-and-by. We must not attempt to interfere with the primary application of all those striking institutions which come under our notice in this profound and marvellous book of Deuteronomy. No doubt, there are lessons for us — precious lessons; but we may rest perfectly assured that the true way in which to understand and appreciate those lessons is to see their true and proper bearing. For instance, how precious, how full of consolation, the fact that it is by the word of the minister of grace that every controversy and every stroke is to be tried, for repentant Israel by-and-by, and for every repentant soul now! Do we lose ought of the deep blessedness of this by seeing and owning the proper application of the scripture? Assuredly not; so far from this, the true secret of profiting by any special passage of the word of God is to understand its true scope and bearing.

This I shall endeavour to gather, not by forcing it to speak Christian language, not by what I may call "gospelling" the different parts of Scripture, which is really very often a perversion; not even by taking profitable hints from it that are most just and true and concern the grand living principles of divine truth, most important as all these are. But still there is another thing that we ought all with jealousy to care for, and that is to seek the real mind of God — what is intended by the scripture that comes before us. This leaves perfect freedom for every other application, but we ought to have first and foremost what God intends us to understand by His word. The time will come when we shall require to know how far any application is just. Because, needless to say, the divine purpose in the scripture necessarily has the first place for him that respects God, and who is not uneasy and anxious, and who is not coming to scripture always asking, "Is there anything about me here?" or, "Is there anything for me?" The great point is this, Is there anything about Christ there, and what is it that God is teaching us about Christ there? I am supposing now that the soul's want has been already met.

H. Surely I do. I reject entirely this mystifying of the Old Testament. There are great spiritual principles and truths which are found, and must be found, in all that divinely unfolds God's relationships with men: God's faithfulness, His mercy, His patient goodness; man's trust and integrity of heart, his humbleness, the fear of God. But when I seek the meaning of a passage, I seek simply what God meant, where it is His testimony; or in what light He seeks to put man's conduct, if it is a history of this, or what is His purpose, as a whole, in the narration. I have already spoken of the difference of encouragement or warning afforded at the time, and its passing on to give the subject its place in the general purpose of God to be accomplished in a future day. What I object to is the unintelligent and, if you please, unphilosophical irrational way of looking for the plain meaning. "The office of the interpreter is not to add another (interpretation), but to recover the original one." Now here we are entirely agreed, but then, it is added, "The meaning, that is, of the words as they struck on the ears, or flashed before the eyes of those who first heard and read them." I affirm this to be in every case false, if the fine language means any thing. I have already referred to the soberer expression, "the meaning which it had to the mind of the prophets … or to the hearer or reader." Now, if I am reading or hearing a statement, I do not in any way look to the effect on the hearers. This may be a casual help, but no more. If I seek the meaning, I must seek, not the effect on others, but the intention of the speaker or writer — this as simply as you please, and nothing else. I have nothing to do with the impressions produced on hearers. There may have been none, or a false one, according to previous prejudices, or an imperfect impression; or even a right one as regards themselves, yet not taking in the full scope of what was said. If I am to believe scripture, the prophets themselves, so far from receiving a first impression and abiding by it, enquired into the sense of their own prophecies, and were taught of God that they referred, in the great topics connected with the purpose of God and deliverance, to after times. See 1 Peter 1:11-12

When man has, through grace, received the word of truth, which addresses itself to him as such, he is in a condition to understand all its bearings by the help of the Holy Ghost; and, in this case, the circumstances of the persons, to whom it was addressed historically, become a means of understanding the intention of the mind of God in that part of the word which is under consideration. These circumstances, as we have seen, do not at all affect the divine pureness of the word; but, since God speaks to men according to their condition, this condition, as set before us in the word itself, is a very great assistance in understanding that which is said. This condition itself is only understood by the word, by the help of the Holy Ghost. Sometimes it is the effect of the wickedness of the human heart; sometimes it partly depends on the dispensations of God.

Many applications are often made of the details of this beautiful book; but before these can be rightly made, it is necessary to ascertain its place and significance according to the mind of God. There are two ways in which it may be viewed - as actual history, and what is prefigured by the history; that is, there are lessons to be gleaned from the actual facts, and from the conduct of the persons recorded; and there is also much instruction to be gathered from the typical meaning of the facts and persons, in their relation to Christ and His people.

We are agreed as to the plenary inspiration of the scriptures — of the whole Scriptures — and that the plan and form of the revelation is as much a part of the divine wisdom as its subject-matter, and to be carefully attended to in its interpretation. If He has given some portions of Scripture in the form of letters addressed to the church of God, and others in the form of private letters to individuals, He has done it advisedly and of set purpose, with the view that the things therein set down might bear differently on the minds and actions of His people. Had a commission to ordain elders, like that addressed to Titus, presented itself in any epistle addressed to an assembly of the church, of God, unless some special intimation had expressly limited it to a purely local bearing, I should not have hesitated to accept it as conferring ordaining authority on the church to all time and in all places. And why so? Simply because the church of God, being ONE in God's mind and purpose — however man's wickedness may have thrust this truth aside — what He addresses to the church in one place and period He addresses to the whole, irrespective of separating distance or time — to the assemblies in England or America, as to those in Ephesus or in Corinth; to the assemblies in the nineteenth century, as to those in the first. When, however, it becomes a question of the application of things written in a private letter to a particular individual, I shall go monstrously astray if I act indiscriminately on the same principle. So far as the individual addressed is spoken to merely in his character of a child of God, I shall do right to apply every word spoken to the guidance of myself or any other child of God who may be found in identical circumstances at any time, because God's mind, being one and unvarying, has not two sets of principles or two modes of action for His children under identical circumstances. Hence, when I meet in such epistles with exhortations like "Fight the good fight of faith," "Let every one that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity," I have no difficulty as to the right of appropriation. But when I read orders to the man Timothy or the man Titus about ordaining elders, I dare not appropriate such a commission to myself, or assign it to another: neither he nor I are Timothy or Titus, nor can we ever find ourselves in identical circumstances with them, till an apostle shall have said of us, as of them, "I besought thee to continue in Ephesus (or elsewhere), that thou mightest charge some," &c.; "I left thee in Crete (or elsewhere), that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city." In short, there can be no parallel till I or he find ourselves apostolic delegates, as were the men addressed.

Not only has God visited us in grace, but we have to take into our own mind what the present actual result of the grace is that has reached us, so that we hold fast the great principles under which God has set us as Christians, and at the same time be able to apply those principles to the circumstances in which we find ourselves. These circumstances may vary according to our actual position, but the principles never vary. Their application to the path of faith may vary, and does.

Not only has God visited us in grace, but we have to take into our minds what the actual present result of that grace is, so that we hold fast the great principles under which God has set us as Christians; and at the same time be able to apply those principles to the circumstances in which we find ourselves. These circumstances may vary according to our position, but the principles never vary.