Borrowed Truths

Bruises

Picture of Borrowed Truths

Bruises

I recently heard a pastor on the radio speaking about Gen. 3:15 “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.” I could agree with everything that he stated right up to the explanation that he gave of “thou shalt bruise His heel.” The word “His” of course speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ, and this man’s explanation of that bruising was that it occurred at the cross. With this I cannot agree, for I do not believe that the word “His” here is speaking in the form of a personal pronoun as unto a singular individual.

Our Lord was not only bruised, beaten, whipped and spit upon, but also separated from the Father’s love for a period of time, experiencing His wrath and fury for all, who would deny this? But my contention with this gentleman would be that our Lord did all this of His own free will, “No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.” (John 10:18) He knew full well from the foundation of the world that this event was going to occur, no one bruised the heel of the Lord in His person or His plan, He allowed what happened to happen to Him for the glory of God, and He did so willingly. To bruise the heel would mean to impede the ability of one to perform a task, a limp if you will, a hiccup in the plan, albeit one that would quickly heal, as this speaker put it, “Only for the few hours on the cross.”

If the plan was perfect, which the events of the cross were, then there was no bruising of the heel of our Lord in this plan. Now of course there may have been a literal physical bruising or damage done to one of His heels, but that is not the construct of the verse no more than the crushing of Satan’s head was, the landlord has given the tenet a notice that it is time to vacate, and He gave that notice two-thousand years ago. To say that Satan bruised the heel of our Lord, that he caused injury to the perfect plan of salvation at the cross is in my humble opinion incorrect, a bruising would have caused that plan of salvation to be modified, and Christ’s work of our salvation was perfect and without error from its inception, before the foundation of the world, before Lucifer was even created.

The bruising of Satan’s head of course means the end of all of his plans for the human race and his control over this planet, and this event did occur at the cross, the debt for sin that God’s Holy righteousness demanded for sin was paid in full by the only One who could ever pay it, the only sinless One who ever lived. (1 Peter 2:22) The tenet was given his notice, his lease would be up very soon, it is why he goes about like a roaring lion. (1 Peter 5:8) The bruising, or crushing if you prefer, means death, but not necessarily immediate death, for I am sure that you are aware that Satan’s work is still going along quite well at this time for him, the bruising of the heel infers an inability to walk correctly, a limp if you will, forward movement is not stopped, but it is hindered, slowed down and even painful at times.

I suggest that the heel that is bruised are the followers of Jesus Christ, those who know Him as Lord. I know of not one true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ who would not lay down his life for Him, who would gladly sacrifice all they have and own for Him, but they are hindered. Their walk with the Lord is hindered by a bruised heel, fears come upon them when they least expect them to, self gets in the way and we trip, sometimes even falling, but we repent, and He puts us back on our feet. Notice the analogies, the path we are to walk, (Isa. 30:21) standing upon the rock, (2nd Sam. 22:47) “beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news” (Rom. 10:15) “feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace,” (Eph. 6:15) He washed the disciples feet. (John 13:5)

Just because the word foot, feet or any other relevant suggestion or word that relates to those two things that are at the bottom of your legs is in the Scriptures a few dozen times does not make my humble suggestion correct, but I cannot construct any logical deductive reasoning to the implication of Gen. 3:15 to infer that Christ’s plan of salvation was bruised or hindered in any way, as I have stated, the plan was perfect, Holy and Righteous, there was absolutely no way that Satan could stop it, much less hinder it in anyway. We though, those of us who will inherit the kingdom, (Matt. 25:34) we are easily bruised, and we tend to inflict a lot of those bruises upon ourselves. We fear when we know full well that perfect love casts out all fear, (1st John 4:18) we seek the praise of men, not continuously of course, but no Christian can truly say they are not affected in any way by the thoughts of others toward them, we pray, but not always in the firm assurance that He hears us. We doubt, stumble, fall, why do you think the lost say “You need Christ for a crutch.” Because we have a bruised heel, and they can see it.

We are commanded to be Holy, (Lev. 11:44) but we can’t be because of that heel that keeps flaring up. I mean no disrespect to the gentleman on the radio, this is not a salvation issue, I am a fixer, it is in my nature to repair that which is broken, but sometimes I fail to see that just because I think something is in need of repair doesn’t mean that it necessarily needs to be fixed. I will leave this discussion up to you and your thoughts, and we will both find out the answer when we get home. Until then, use the Lord as a crutch, even as a wheelchair, ask Him to carry you if you want, He will be glad to do all that and more for you.

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