Copyright 1994 - 2017 Bill's Bible Basics
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Published On :
November 9, 1997
Last Updated :
July 10, 2012
An Interesting Interpretation Of Jesus' Symbolic Act, And An Admonition To Beware Of The Bite Of The Serpent!
Following the fall of Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter three, we find the Lord pronouncing part of His judgments against Satan who has adopted some type of serpentine form in order to seduce the First Pair:
"And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."
Genesis 3:14-15, KJV
As stated in other articles, whatever serpentine form Satan may have taken when he appeared to Adam and Eve, it may be that it was not that of an actual snake as most people are led to believe. There are those who theorize that he may have appeared as some kind of erect bi-pedal being which was later doomed to crawl on his belly after the curse. This would seem to be consistent with the above passages. However, inasmuch as this present discussion is concerned, it is a minor detail. In the above verses we are then told that Eve's seed will bruise Satan's head, and that Satan will bruise the heel of Eve's seed. It is interesting to note that this is exactly what poisonous vipers do. Most can only strike as high as the calf of one's leg. However, as I have recently discovered, there are other verses which point to a deeper spiritual implication contained in these words as well. Part of this mystery can be found in a symbolic act performed by Jesus on the evening of His final meal with His Disciples just prior to His betrayal by Judas Iscariot:
"After that he poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded. Then cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all. For he knew who should betray him; therefore said he, Ye are not all clean."
John 13:5-11, KJV
What Jesus said here is truly amazing! Take special note of the words: "He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit". For a long time I never fully understood this verse. One explanation given to me many years ago, which I now find quite lacking, is that most diseases enter our bodies through our feet; thus if our feet our clean, our whole body will be clean. While this may be true -- and I certainly cannot prove this being as I am not in the medical field -- I find the Lord's direct revelation to me much more revealing, and closer to the spiritual reality of what He was really saying. In short, to have clean feet means to be submitted to the Lord's Spirit in your life. When you are submitted to God's Spirit and His Will for your life, you allow Him to direct your spiritual walk with Him; you allow Him to direct your steps. As an example, after his defeat of Goliath and his brothers, King David sang a song to the Lord. Part of that song says:
"Thou hast enlarged my steps under me; so that my feet did not slip."
2 Samuel 22:37, KJV
During the course of his sufferings, Job made the following statements:
"For now thou numberest my steps: dost thou not watch over my sin?"
Job 14:16, KJV
"My foot hath held his steps, his way have I kept, and not declined."
Job 23:11, KJV
"Doth not he see my ways, and count all my steps?"
Job 31:4, KJV
In his psalms, King David continued to show the importance of having "clean feet" by walking in the ways of the Lord:
"Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from thy way;"
Psalms 44:18, KJV
"Righteousness shall go before him; and shall set us in the way of his steps."
Psalms 85:13, KJV
The prophet Jeremiah also realized the foolishness of trying to direct our own steps as man has been trying to do for thousands of years:
"O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps."
Jeremiah 10:23, KJV
Paul also spoke of the importance of our spiritual walk with the Lord when he wrote to the Corinthians:
"I desired Titus, and with him I sent a brother. Did Titus make a gain of you? walked we not in the same spirit? walked we not in the same steps?"
2 Corinthians 12:18, KJV
While Peter did not initially understand why Jesus had to wash his feet, the Lord had promised him that he would understand later; and he most certainly did! Consider what Peter later said in one of his Epistles under the anointing of the Holy Spirit:
"For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:"
1 Peter 2:21, KJV
So as can be seen, this whole idea of the serpent biting man's heel has some deep spiritual implications. When Satan bites our heel, it is to try to cause us to fall out of step with the Lord; and when that happens, we may fall into iniquity as David tells us:
"Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me."
Psalms 119:133, KJV
Notice that the way to stay submitted to the Lord and to walk in His ways is by knowing His Word; because His Word tells us exactly what His Will is for our lives. In other psalms, David tells us:
"The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide."
Psalms 37:31, KJV
"BETH. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word."
Psalms 119:9, KJV
"Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee."
Psalms 119:11, KJV
"I have declared my ways, and thou heardest me: teach me thy statutes."
Psalms 119:26, KJV
"Make me to go in the path of thy commandments; for therein do I delight."
Psalms 119:35, KJV
"I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies."
Psalms 119:59, KJV
If we walk in the ways of the Lord, not only can we walk, but we can run! And not only can we run, but we can fly in the Spirit! It is similar to these guys who jump off of high hills or cliffs with their gliders. You have to start off slow, make a run for it, and then off you go soaring in the Spirit! That's how I feel sometimes when I write these articles. I'll start off slow, but as I keep going, the Lord just shows me deeper and more profound connections which just send me soaring high in the Spirit:
"I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart."
Psalms 119:32, KJV
"But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."
Isaiah 40:31, KJV
That is so true! My old flesh gets so tired sometimes, but when the Lord really starts pouring it on, I get so into the Spirit that I forget about time and my aching body. The next thing you know, I see the sunlight peeking through my window! The quiet of the night is a great time for getting things from the Lord when all other distractions have been lessened. Well, if you would like to continue this study on having clean feet, use search words such as "ways" "path" and "feet" instead of "steps", and you will also come up with some very interesting results.
The point is, when we walk in the ways of the Lord, He frees us from the bondage of Satan's grip; and we are free and at liberty to soar as high as we want to:
"And I will walk at liberty: for I seek thy precepts."
Psalms 119:45, KJV
This is the very thing which Jesus came to do as prophesied by Isaiah. In fact, Jesus used these very verses when He began His ministry:
"The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;"
Isaiah 61:1-2, KJV
"And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord."
Luke 4:17-19, KJV
Paul likewise preached about this very same thing when he said:
"Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."
Romans 8:21, KJV
"Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."
2 Corinthians 3:17, KJV
"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."
Galatians 5:1, KJV
In the case of Adam and Eve, they listened to the lies of Satan, and this is exactly what happened to them. They believed in his false promise that they would be as gods; and they lost the freedom of the Spirit, and fell under the bondage of sin:
"While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage."
2 Peter 2:19, KJV
This is also what happened to Judas Iscariot. Due to his unbelief, he fell away from The Path. He let his feet slide into sinning against the Lord. This is why after washing their feet, Jesus said that not all were clean; because Judas did not walk in the ways of the Lord:
"The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way."
Psalms 37:23, KJV
Judas did not truly accept Jesus as the living Word of God. He had not been cleansed by the Word of God. Thus, he was not every whit clean as Jesus had said:
"Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you."
John 15:3, KJV
Spiritual cleanliness only comes through acceptance of and belief in the Word of God. It is only through humble submission to His Word that we allow the Lord to direct our steps. What I also find interesting is that, just as the Apostle Paul spoke of the "son of perdition" in his second Epistle to the Thessalonians, Jesus also referred to Judas as the "son of perdition". In Spanish, it is the verb "perder" which means to lose; and in Latin it is "perdere" which also means to lose or to destroy. Thus, Judas was lost; he was the "son of perdition":
"While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled."
John 17:12, KJV
What is also interesting is that in one Bible I have, in both the above verse, as well as in Paul's description of the one who will sit in the Temple of God claiming to be "God", instead of calling him the "son of perdition", this other Bible calls him the "son of hell". According to my dictionary, this is a second definition of the word "perdition". In describing what motivated Judas to betray Jesus, John tells us:
"And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him;"
John 13:2, KJV
Luke was even more bold about it and tells us directly that Satan actually entered into Judas:
"Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve."
Luke 22:3, KJV
In dealing with Jesus, it appears that Satan wanted to handle the matter directly himself by getting as close to Jesus as he possibly could. I think this may be exactly what he did when he temporarily possessed Judas Iscariot. It was Satan himself, just as Luke tells us. It wasn't a minor demon, but the King of Demons himself making certain that the job was done right!
Returning to the idea of the serpent biting us on the heel, as I have pointed out in other articles, the lies Satan tells us are like fiery darts which fill our minds with lethal poison, just like the venomous bite of a viper:
"Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked."
Ephesians 6:16, KJV
If we aren't careful, that old Serpent can inject us with his poison so that we get dizzy, or double-minded, and fall off of or stray away from The Path set before us due to indecision in our lives. Jesus spoke of this very same Path upon which we must keep our feet when He said:
"Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."
Matthew 7:13-14, KJV
James described the effect of the Serpent's bite quite well when he said:
"A double minded man is unstable in all his ways."
James 1:8, KJV
Indecision, being on the fence, is one of the hardest places at which a person can be. The only way to avoid straying off of The Path, or to keep from getting hung up on the fence, is to keep our eyes on the goal. In other words, we need to be single-minded and not double-minded. We need to keep our eyes on Jesus and not be led astray by the things of the world:
"Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."
Hebrews 12:2, KJV
"The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."
Matthew 6:22-24, KJV
"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world."
1 John 2:15-16, KJV
So, we need to watch out for that Serpent, and not allow him to distract us by dangling beautiful things in front of our eyes which cause us to become sidetracked. We need to bash him on the head before he gets a chance to lunge at us and fill us with his poisonous lust for the things of the world. Once that poison enters our bloodstream, it can cause us to become dizzy. We might acquire double vision so that we can't distinguish the True Path from the false one. The only way to avoid this is to stay close to the Lord and submitted to His Word; for it is through His Word that we acquire Faith; and it is with this Shield of Faith that we can deflect all of the fiery darts of the wicked:
"So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."
Romans 10:17, KJV
Have you allowed Jesus to wash your feet? Are you clean every whit? Are you allowing your steps to be ordered by the Lord? I certainly hope so!
With these remarks, I am going to bring this article to a close. I trust that it has been instructive, and a blessing in your life. If you have enjoyed reading it, please also consider sharing its URL with your online friends. If you have an account with Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, etc, I would also appreciate if you would take the time to click on the corresponding link that is found on this page. Thanks so much, and may God bless you abundantly!