'The 3:15 Hermeneutic'

By Jason Strange
4/3/2010

In Genesis 3:15 a curse is given to Satan concerning his demise and this by the one who will crush his serpentine skull. This One who makes all this happen, this 'skull crusher' is Jesus Christ; he comes from the seed of the woman and his offspring are at war with the seed of the serpent. This is the Biblical pattern we see unfolding throughout all of the Bible.

This is what I call the 3:15 Hermeneutic , whereby this becomes the silhouette laid on top of all redemptive History. This is God's meta-narrative, his over-arching map, this becomes the paradigm , the state of things. So that all of history, every person, every decision ever made, God in his providence is working all history's minor and major events to the culmination of this one great ending, this climatic finish. This is astonishing to think about... that all of history has to bend and contort and conform and move as God is making it so, that the revelation of 3:15 can occur. This is the bulldozer pushing throughout history's time line carving out God's plan and shoving the darkness out to its edge and dumping it into hell. 3:15 hums and echoes throughout Scripture and we can begin to see it along the story line, Cain kills Abel (3:15); The flood (3:15); Sodom and Gomorrah (3:15), Israel's deliverance from Egypt (3:15) Salvation through Joseph includes not only rescue from famine, but a change of heart in his brothers (3:15), David-the giant slayer and Israel's military general subduing the nations (3:15), Jonah in Nineveh (3:15); Elijah on Mt. Carmel (3:15) ect...

When we consider how this impacts our Hermeneutics we must realize that there is an overlapping cohesive relationship between history, revelation, and salvation; Reason being: God gives revelation in real time and space. God's word creates the timeline, his word upholds and sustains the timeline and is constantly intersecting the historical timeline; this word is the message of salvation so that they are all moving in tandem with one another. The relationship is such that as we engage in biblical hermeneutics we are engaged in events that have happened in history and this history has one end in mind, one purpose, that Christ be glorified through the salvation of his people. Revelation (God's word) is moving history and redemption is its theme. Just as the sun is dragging our solar system throughout space so too is God's word carving a path and dragging us with it. So when we interpret the Bible we obviously don't disengage in history but history is in our face, we can use grammatical historical means to gain a better understanding of the people and the times, but we can also use a redemptive historical Hermeneutic so that we can see the skull crusher (as he truly is without imposing him upon the text, because he is already there) working along the time line, showing forth the Gospel and rescuing his people from enslavement of sin and death, and bringing them home.

3:15 has been partially fulfilled through Christ death and resurrection (as he has disarmed the enemy), but the complete fulfillment comes when He returns in glory and then a new-age will dawn and the enemy of our souls will be disposed of and detained, and this will usher in a new hermeneutic .