# Interpretation of Gen 3:15



## JS116 (Mar 29, 2012)

Good news guys,I'm finally starting to read and see the bible through a covenatal lens after 19 years! Unfortunately in doing so I keep running into passages that I carelessly looked passed or interpreted wrong from my dispensational upbringing. One for example is the Gen 3:15 passage, I understand everything until I hit the words "he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." I'm hearing from a reformed prospective it is the proclamation of the gospel of the coming triumphant messiah. My question is how do you see that? Where in that text is that laid out? I'm struggling with this maybe because since I dropped my incorrect interpretation of the scriptures I no longer know how to exegete these sort of passages apart from a dispensational presupposition. 

I have to learn how to properly use biblical hermeneutics and exegesis allllll over again...Anyone care to help?


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## BobVigneault (Mar 29, 2012)

Shawn, I don't understand your confusion over this passage. This verse is the pivot point of the history of the world. This verse is the prophesy and summary of all of redemptive history. The rest of Scriptures until the death and resurrection of Jesus is a repetition of the 'seed of the serpent' trying to stop the 'seed of the woman'. We see it in Pharaoh against the Israelites, Jael and Sisera, David and Goliath, Esther and Haman, Samson and the Philistines, Herod and the innocents. The serpent never stops trying to stop the line of the redeemer and destroy God's covenant with his people.

What would you call the Dispensational interpretation of 3:15?


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## GulfCoast Presbyterian (Mar 29, 2012)

Shawn: I believe that SWBTS style dispensationalists would also see this verse as a prediction of the coming Messiah. See generally: http://www.sbts.edu/resources/files/2010/07/sbjt_102_sum06-hamilton.pdf


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## TheElk (Mar 29, 2012)

I think he is saying that someone reading this passage for the first time would probably think that this passage is explaining why snakes slither on the ground and don't have legs. More than likely they would not understand that this was a prophecy in regards to redemptive history. What say ye?


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## rookie (Mar 29, 2012)

I was going to answer, but wasn't sure how. Bob pretty much hit what I was going to say...


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## Contra_Mundum (Mar 29, 2012)

The promise made to Eve (and Adam) put simply is: that she will produce a seed who will crush the serpent's head.

One of the lessons of the following chapter is that any expectation that this must happen in one generation is a misunderstanding. It is also a misunderstanding to think that we can identify the seed ourselves; Cain seems to be preferred to Abel, which turns out to be a phenomenally faulty expectation. We need to look to matters greater than birth-order. We may even need more revelation to tell us which heir will have the heritage from which comes the ultimate fulfillment.

There is more hidden in the promise; in a most inexplicable twist we find a virgin-birth promise here, an expectation that takes further revelation (e.g. Is.7:14) to make more explicit.

The serpent who tempted is a manifestation of someone, a malevolent spirit, whose evil intent toward mankind will not stop at the first attack and effort to destroy. The sure way to kill the serpent is to crush its head--stepping on the tail will not do the job.

A venomous snakebite is deadly. To be taken at the heel may be far from the heart, but the poison is just as toxic there as anywhere. The sign includes an indication that the promised seed will take a death-dealing blow himself in the contest.

And the greatest scope of this salvation is indicated by the promised birth. The interest of all humanity is at stake. The promise to save is a worldwide promise, and not a parochial one. The seed is not for one people or nation. Moses will be a servant in the house of the Son, Heb.3:5, given for the sins of the world, 1Jn.2:2. Therefore, the whole Abrahamic and Mosaic (and any other economy one cares to describe) is not the focus of revelation. Such men and the nation are chosen not for their own sake or for privilege, but for the service they shall do for the Messiah and all his people, taken from every kindred, tongue, tribe, people, and nation. There's no room for human glory.


Does this address the question?


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## Fogetaboutit (Mar 29, 2012)

I would say the Gospels shed light on this, Christ many times rebuked the Pharisees (which were trying to silence and kill him) and called them "serpents" or "of the devil"



> Matthew 23:33
> 
> *Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers*, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?





> John 8: 40-44
> 
> But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.
> Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.
> ...





> John 8:47
> 
> *He that is of God heareth God's words*: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God



You can see the covenantal reference in there as well, the word of God is referred to as seeds in some parables, we also know that Jesus is the Word of God and the "Seed" of Abraham and of the "Seed" of the woman.


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## au5t1n (Mar 29, 2012)

Shawn,

I don't think Revelation 12 has been mentioned yet (apologies if I missed it--I can't use control-F on my iPod). It identifies Satan as "that old serpent" and shows Christ's victory over him, as well as his persecution of the woman, which in Revelation 12 is the Church.


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## Peairtach (Mar 29, 2012)

Angelic creatures - which are essentially spiritual beings - are described in animalistic terms elsewhere in Scripture. 

The Cherubim or "Living Ones", good angels, are mentioned first in Genesis 3:24 and are described in terms of a lion, an eagle, an ox and a man in Ezekiel and Revelation.

Fallen angels are described in terms of snakes and scorpions (e.g. Luke 10:19), and we are explicitly told that the Serpent of Genesis 3 is Satan in Revelation 20:2.

Whether Satan - the Serpent - used or appeared as a snake, or an angel of light, or whispered in Eve's ear is a question. 

There is not much metaphor in Genesis 3, _contra_ the false teaching of liberal theology which makes the history of the Creation and Fall one myth among many, but there may be respecting the Serpent/Satan.


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