The Same Divine Author

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). Lessons are not the less to be regarded because they are to be found in the Old Testament. Time was when interpreters were accustomed to appeal to the Old Testament in support of particular practices, without duly considering the difference between the Jewish and the Christian dispensation. The time is now come when, on the ground of that difference, interpreters, for want of just principles, are in danger of evacuating the authority of the greater part of the inspired volume and rendering its instruction uncertain, if not altogether nugatory.

Its interpretation is thus, in a great measure, converted (if I may use the expression) into a game of chance, or a leap in the dark. So long as the contents of the Old Testament agree with his opinions, the interpreter rests his arguments on its dictates; but no sooner does he meet with anything which contradicts a favorite dogma, than he reckons it sufficient to exclaim, “Oh, this refers to the Jews and to Jewish governors!”

I know of nothing that would contribute more to the establishment of Christians, and, I may add, to the removal of differences subsisting among the friends of evangelical and practical religion, than the laying down of solid principles for the application of the Old Testament, founded on the analogy between it and the New, as proceeding from the same divine Author, and intended to promote the same great ends. But, alas! from these principles we seem to be receding faster than ever, and I see no prospect of our returning to them until the falsity of the fashionable notions have been demonstrated by the palpable and pernicious consequences to which they naturally lead.

It is easy to start new views, or new versions, of particular passages; but to give a consistent meaning to the inspired volume — to declare the whole counsel of God — and, by comparing spiritual things with spiritual and one part of Scripture with another, to exhibit the entire system of truth, assigning to each part its proper place and its due weight — we must learn to interpret and apply the instructions of Old Testament Scripture.

— Rev. Thomas M’Crie (1772-1835)

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