A Hermeneutic of the Cross

Sunday morning I will be preaching on the importance of the Bible.  While writing my sermon I thought a lot about interpretation.  The question arises, “How does one interpret Scripture?”  How do we make sense of the hard stuff we find in the Bible?  Even Peter says some of Paul’s writings are hard to understand and are twisted by those that have bad intentions. When considering interpreting the Bible many turn to understanding the following: learning the grammar of the text from the original languages, the historical background of the passages, the idioms used, and the context of the over passage in question.  I think all of these are excellent tools to use but I would like to propose another method.  I call it the hermeneutic of the Cross.

    I believe one way to look at hard passages is through the lens of the cross.  The cross is one of the single most dramatic ways that God demonstrated His love for us.  As John 3:16 tells us, “for God so loved the world.”  The Son going to the cross is Father’s ultimate display of His love for us.  Philippians 2 tells us that the Son willingly emptied Himself and died on the cross on our behalf.  I would propose that the cross is the template through which we should view God.  We see a trinitarian shape in the cross of Jesus.  We see the Father send the Son, the Son freely offer up Himself as the sacrifice, and the Spirit strengthen the Son in this mission.

So how can the cross help us with interpreting the Bible? 

    First of all, the cross tells us how serious sin really is.  Isaiah 53 tells us that we are healed by His stripes and He was crushed for iniquity.  Sin really is that bad.  When we look at the Exodus and Conquest of the land we can understand a little better why God tries to drill into the head of knotty head Israel that he means business about purity and holiness.  God is a loving Father that knows best.  He knows that sin will destroy us.  It is the darkness of sin that drapes over the cross and drives Jesus to say, “My God, My God why have your forsaken me?”  Jesus is one that knew no sin but became sin on our behalf.  So when we look at the Bible’s prohibition against sexual sin, anger, discord, and impurity we can just look to the cross and see how bad sin really is.

    Lastly, the cross displays the love of God.  The cross cries out that God loves so much that He does the reaching.  God does the saving.  It tells us that grace is the only way we can get out of the pit.  God has stoop down, get in the mud, and draw us out.  God takes us out and cleans us up.  The cross tells us that there is no way a little ‘works righteousness’ is part of God’s plan.  There will be no boot strap saving but a radical grace that sends the Son into the world to be a ransom.  The cross displays to us that God does not want anyone to perish but to come to a knowledge of the truth.

 This love also helps us understand the doctrine of Hell.  So many people have a difficult time with the idea that a loving God would send people to Hell.  We should remember that love is about choice.  God loves us so radically that He gives us a free will to choose Him.  When someone is sentenced to Hell, in essence, God is saying to the sinner, “Your will be done.”  Sinful folks do not want to be in the presence of God for eternity.  Heaven would be miserable for those that do not love God for what He did for them in Christ.  God in his love allows those people to make the final choice to be alienated from Him for eternity. 

So I propose to you a new tool in interpreting the Bible.  I call it he hermeneutic of the Cross of Jesus.