The feet referenced in our sermon title are those of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The text for our consideration, one of several passages of Scripture which includes the phrase, “under His feet”, is Ephesians chapter 1, verses 22-23.
Starting with verse 20, this is what the apostle Paul, referring to the Father’s exaltation of the ascended Lord Jesus Christ, wrote:
…when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.
[and then our text which is the concluding sentence of the chapter]
And He put all things under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
This symbolic expression “under His feet” comes from the ancient custom of conquerors putting their feet upon the necks of vanquished opponents.
Turn with me to the book of Joshua, chapter 10… starting with verse 24:
And when they brought those kings out to Joshua, Joshua summoned all the men of Israel and said to the chiefs of the men of war who had gone with him, "Come near; put your feet on the necks of these kings." Then they came near and put their feet on their necks. And Joshua said to them, "Do not be afraid or dismayed; be strong and courageous. For thus the LORD will do to all your enemies against whom you fight."
So when we read in our text “…all things under His feet…”, the meaning is that all things are in subjection to the sovereign command of the exalted Lord Jesus Christ who conquered sin and death, and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High.
The phrase applied here in the epistle to the Ephesians hearkens back to Messianic prophecy in the Psalms:
First and foremost Psalm 110, in which God the Father addresses God the Son in verse 1:
“Sit at My right hand til I make Your enemies Your footstool.”
To make enemies ‘His footstool’ is of course equivalent to “under His feet”, and Psalm 110 decrees the exaltation of Christ to the throne of the everlasting and increasing kingdom of God, affecting the conquering of His enemies and the multiplying of His subjects, made absolutely certain by this oath of Almighty God.
Our Lord Himself quoted this Psalm, and applied it to Himself, in Matthew 22, starting with verse 41 which reads:
While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, 42 saying, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?" They said to Him, "The Son of David."
He said to them, "How then does David in the Spirit call Him 'Lord,' saying: 'The LORD said to my Lord, " Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool" ' ?
If David then calls Him 'Lord,' how is He his Son?" And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question Him anymore.
Thus Jesus confounded the Pharisees with Psalm 110, the designation of His heavenly dignity, which the New Testament quotes more than any other Old Testament passage.
Let’s go quickly to just 1 of these quotes where we can make a couple of important points: Turn to Hebrews chapter 10… in verses 12-13 where it is written:
… when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until His enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.
Point 1 - waiting does not mean that He is idle, or that He takes no part in accomplishing this, but rather, the meaning is, that He looks to the certain fulfillment of the promise.
Point 2 - from that time until has the meaning of "from henceforth," which is to say expecting from that time forward His enemies made a footstool for His feet.
Back to our text in the epistle to the Ephesians stating that all things are put under the feet of Jesus, Paul also refers back to Psalm 8, let’s look there… starting with verse 4 we read:
…what is man that you are mindful of him, and the Son of Man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given Him dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under His feet…”
This Psalm has reference to mankind as created and blessed by God. Adam & Eve, in their pristine glory, were originally given dominion over all things in creation, to subdue it.
But after the fall, this dominion had to be recovered by the 2nd Adam, who restores man to as he was in innocence, as described by the Psalmist: having been made a little lower than the angels, and having dominion over the world, with all things under His feet.
Jesus fulfilled all that the Psalm says of the dignity and honor of man. …and the apostle applies it in our text to the working of God’s mighty power…
which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet…
…and recognizing the bond between Jesus with His redeemed people, Paul adds:
and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
What a wonderfully intimate connection we have with Jesus represented by us being His body; His fullness. In this sense what is under His feet is under ours as well. [We shall judge angels. cf. 1 Cor. 6:3]
The writer to the Hebrews makes this interpretation of Psalm 8, that mankind’s broken dominion is fully accomplished in the God Man to whom all things are subject. Let’s look at Hebrews chapter 2, starting with verse 5:
Now it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, [the Hebrews knew the reference]
(quoting Psalm 8):
What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet."
Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. 9 But we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
So there we have Jesus given dominion as Founder of the new creation in fulfillment of Ps. 8.
Now, let’s look back at the part of verse 8, where it is written:
Now in putting everything in subjection to Him, He left nothing outside His control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him.
This seeming contradiction introduces us to what has been referred to as the “already / not yet” nature of the kingdom of God. It is emphatically stated that all things are put under His feet, with no exception; but that we do not yet see it…
With this expression, not yet, the writer to the Hebrews tells us that the time is coming when it will be seen that all things are under the feet of Jesus.
Now, If I ask my son “Did you put the garbage out?”, he may say “Not yet.” Ten minutes later when I ask him again, he may say the same thing, “Not yet”. In this context of human affairs this could leave me wondering if he will ever in fact put the garbage out, at least before the garbage truck comes….
But with God’s word, this ‘not yet’ (the Greek word there is oupo) actually affirms that it will take place. For what God has said will be done is the same as if it were already done, so sure is it.
Our text states that He has put all things under His feet. Yet in the 1st epistle to the Corinthians it is written [of Jesus]: For He must reign until He has put all enemies under His feet.
In Ephesians, Paul teaches the prophecy of victory as definitively fulfilled in Christ’s Ascension to the Father’s right hand, and His Messianic reign;
…and in 1st Corinthians, he emphasizes an historical perspective that Christ’s rule is continuous and progressive until all enemies, already under His feet in principle, are visibly defeated in history over time.
So we see that this placing of all things under the feet of Christ has both a present and a future dimension. It is an eschatological process. It is ‘already, not yet’.
The kingdom has come, yet we still pray “Thy kingdom come” in the Lord’s prayer.
Jesus announced that the kingdom was ‘at hand’ in the 1st century, and explained that its growth would be gradual over time. Let’s look at two examples of this:
-Mark chapter 4, starting with verse 30:
And he said, "With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade."
and secondly…
-Luke chapter 13, and verse 20:
And again he said, "To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened."
The parable of the mustard seed teaches the vast proportional growth of the kingdom of God.
The comparison of the leaven to the kingdom, where yeast initially was hid in the flour, until eventually it was all leavened, teaches the pervasive growth of the kingdom of God, which is not apparent to the human eye. –we don’t see the process, it’s so gradual.
Thus the kingdom encompasses not only the present reality but also all of time & history moving inexorably to the future consummation and final victory.
…and how will this happen? Through the gospel, growing like a mustard seed; leavening secular humanism and all other dead worldviews with God’s word.
All things are indeed already under the feet of Jesus, even as He sovereignly determines how and when to manifest it.
God often ordains things in ways that do not seem victorious to us. Jesus overrules sinful acts and makes the folly of lawlessness a part of His wise plan for history.
The Lord Jesus Christ is reigning now, by divine right; sovereign over all things, subduing His enemies, expecting us to be instrumental in the process. We are His body.
Then in God’s own time, according to His purposes & will, comes the end, when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Isaiah 45:23; Romans. 14:11; Philippians 2:10).
At His ascension, Christ was coronated as Lord of all. He is already at the right hand of the Father reigning over all creation, even as the whole of creation is not yet in willing subjection to Him. He reigns in the midst of enemies (Psalm 110:2).
Even so, glory in the Highest, He reigns! In the Old Testament, the prophet Daniel interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of a giant statue representing historical earthly kingdoms which were struck by a stone that was cut out by no human hand, crushing those kingdoms.
Of course the stone cut out by no human hand is the kingdom of God which becomes a great mountain to fill the whole earth. This is summed up in Daniel chapter 2, verse 44 which reads:
And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever.…
Daniel also prophesied of the ascension of the Son of Man to inaugurate His Messianic reign of the kingdom from the right hand of the Father. In Daniel chap.. 7, vs 13-14 we read:
I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came One like a Son of Man, and He came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him. And to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him…
[BTW the NASB translation adds clarity by including the word “up” – he came up to the Ancient of Days which helps understanding the passage as referring to our Lord’s ascension.]
This now present reign of Christ is a common theme throughout the New Testament as well, and the apostle Peter wrote of the Messiah’s lofty exaltation in his 1st epistle, chapter 3, vs 22:
[referring to Jesus] …who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him.
This includes all the hosts of heaven, all the angels there; and all things on earth: The Lord Jesus Christ is not only King of the saints, He is King of kings, and Lord of lords!
…and as we have seen, the writer to the Hebrews makes it even more emphatic by adding:
For in that He put all in subjection under Him, He left nothing that is not put under Him.
So there is no exception. That all things under His feet is not yet visibly consummated does not alter the fact of it. There is nothing outside of the sovereign control of the reigning Lord Jesus Christ.
After His resurrection, Jesus Himself declared “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.”
Now before winding this all up, let’s delve a little deeper into this concept of how even though all things are already indeed actually under the feet of Jesus, we don’t visibly see it yet.
The Lordship given to Christ by God’s oath is even now already real, present, unlimited and complete whether acknowledged by mankind or not. But wherever God's grace awakens the miracle of faith, the Lordship of Christ is made plain and visible, as it will be to all at the consummation of all things.
It seems to the natural mind that if the Lord Jesus Christ were reigning at the right hand of the majesty on High, with all things put in subjection under His feet, that neither the world nor the church would be in such an imperfect state as they are in…
…with sin seeming to abound and evil holding sway over so many, we don’t see all things put under the feet of Jesus… …but remember: we walk by faith and not by sight. (2 Cor. 5:7)
We must renew our minds, subdue our worldly ‘reason’, and allow the eye of faith to increase our submission to the word of truth. (repeat)
And besides, look at it this way: if all things were not put under the feet of Jesus, what do you suppose the world would look like? Would not our enemies have devoured us and completely silenced the gospel? Would Christianity have grown from a tiny band of disciples in the 1st century, to the world’s largest religion with over 2 billion followers? Would it be the fastest spreading faith in the world today, growing by leaps and bounds in Africa, Asia, and South America?
…and consider this: what was it like before all things were put under the feet of our risen, ascended Lord? In the Old Testament there was only one single nation chosen as God’s people. The rest of the world was in pagan darkness.
When Jesus walked the earth, it seemed like there was someone possessed by a demon at every turn. Mary Magdalene had seven of them. One man had a whole legion of demons in him! Demonic spirits were active and bold, as indicated in this passage about the sons of Sceva:
[it’s from Acts 19, starting w/ vs.13]
Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, "I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims." Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirit answered them, "Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?" And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.
The point is that Satan and all his minions are under the feet of Jesus. Yes, Satan still goes about like a roaring lion, but he has been bound by a chain, figuratively speaking. He has been leashed, and is under the feet of our ascended, sovereign Lord along with everything else; and this great deceiver can no longer blind the nations where the gospel is proliferating.
The strong man’s house
All persons, including civil magistrates from the heads of state down to the local Sheriff, derive their power from, and are completely subject to the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything is equally subject to His almighty power; everything. All of our personal trials, all of our temptations, afflictions, persecutions, etc. are put under His feet, and are sovereignly ordained to be among those ‘all things’ which, according to His promise, work together for good, as the house formerly under the sway of the evil one is being plundered (cf. Mark 3:27) leading to the inevitable victory of the gospel.
Do you believe this?
It may seem hard to believe, but here is what God has said, and let God be true and every man a liar:
"As truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord." (Num. 14:21);
…and again,
"For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea." (Habakkuk 2:14.)
Now does that sound like puddles here & there after the rain. No! To fulfill the promise, the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will come to entirely fill the earth.
So let us not be restless that this promised glory is not yet fully realized, nor murmur that trials and tribulations are permitted to visit us, or at the infirmities of aging or, or even that death still stalks every one of us.
Because the sting of death is gone, and this Jesus, the 2nd Adam, is already in the process of reconciling all things to God, and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, bringing salvation unto eternal life to the innumerable multitude of His people throughout time & history.
In his epistle to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, provides the church with a chronology of this process:
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ's at His coming.
Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.
(1Cor. 15:22-26)
…to which he then adds: (v. 27), quoting Psalm 8 again for good measure:
For "He has put all things under His feet."
Death is not yet abolished. That doesn’t happen until the end – at the resurrection and final judgment when all things are consummated. That is the day Jesus referenced when He instituted the Lord’s supper and said “But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom."
In the meantime, this Holy One, who has already crushed Satan’s head, overcome death, and been given all authority in heaven and on earth, is subduing His enemies, bringing new life & light to the world, and building and purifying His church, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. (Eph. 5:27) …on that glorious day of the marriage supper of the Lamb.
As we close, let’s recall our text in its entirety:
And He put all things under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
So with our reigning Lord Jesus as the Head over all things, and us as the members of His body, the feet should be moving and the hands reaching out, the tongue speaking… We are the church militant on the way to becoming the church triumphant!
We may not see it in our generation, even so: ours is not to sit back, wait, watch or complain about what Jesus is doing or not doing. We are what Jesus is doing. We should get going!
The next word our Head says after declaring “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” … the next word He says is “Go…”
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.*" Amen.
*Our Lord promised to be with the disciples unto the end of the age, which was at hand when the new covenant church was being established; and correspondingly with us unto the end of the world as the kingdom has come, is coming, and is to come in consummate glory.
~
[originally preached at Auburn Road Presbyterian Church 6/25/17]