WORTHINESS TO CARRY THE SANDALS OF JESUS

 

KEY VERSES: ¹¹ I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Ghost (KJV) and fire. ¹² His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Mat 3:11-12; NKJV)

  Those are the same key verses as yesterday whereon I commented about baptism; that there are only the Baptism of John with water, and the Baptism of Jesus with His own Holy Ghost. There is not a third mode of baptism. The imperative baptism is with the generous Living Waters of the Holy Ghost, not the plentiful waters of a moving stream!

  Today, I write about power and authority. In the key verses, John diminished himself and exalted Jesus as he should: “O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all” (1 Chron 29:11). Jesus was head of John and Matthew and John clarified who had the authority and power to baptize unto redemption and who did not. Those who administer water baptism do not have the power and authority to wash away sins, but only to express repentance!

  John said, “He who is coming after me is mightier than I.” Note that John did not finish that sentence entirely; he did not say, “mightier than I am.” Why not? In the Greek, that would be Ego Eimi. That is God’s identity — The Great “I AM.” Rather, he said, “mou,”meaning “I” or more humbly, “of me.” That contrasts to ego, which is mankind’s problem. John diminished himself as he exalted Jesus.

  John then continued, “Whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.” Note that “I” (ego) is not in the Greek manuscripts. That was added by the translators to complete the sentence. John endeavored not to be identified with Jesus, nor His Baptism. John said, only “eimi” which is “to be” in English (Strong’s Dictionary).

  I have written many times, that the noun “sin” did not exist in the English until the 1600s, and it was from the Danish language. “Sin,” in English, is quite simple — “to be.” Since the original sin of Adam, mankind has wanted to be gods and even God. Adam exalted himself beyond the authority of God and the Serpent called him out on it: “Ye shall be as Elohiym (God)” (Gen 3:5). “Ye shall be as” is not even in the Hebrew. That “to be” was understood by the Serpent but Adam did not understand sin at all. He just then came to realize what sin was — TO BE “I AM.”

  Those ministers who believe that water baptism is efficacious exalt themselves. It is by their own hands that, “ye must be born again.” Whose hands is it truly? John 3:14 clearly identifies rebirth as the by the Hand of Jesus. The chief priest neither carried the pole the brazen serpent was on, nor was it he who would someday kill the Serpent in His Tree. Jesus did all that, and the priests were nowhere to be found.

  Moses, when he held the pole, exalted God, and diminished himself. He was merely the pole-bearer (sarcasm intended).  John diminished himself and exalted Jesus in the same manner. “I” was not important to him, “I AM” was so important that he would not even say that sacred Name.

  My guess is those words have went unnoticed many times, as I have done, and we just took it for the obvious - that John wanted to point out, not only that he was not Elias, but neither was he the Messiah!

  In context, it should be obvious that he was diminishing both himself and his baptism with water in comparison to the Jesus and baptism with the Holy Ghost. That running and plentiful water was not enough, but baptism must be by Living Water. Yesterday, I tried to demonstrate that Living Water flowed from God to Adam and from the belly of Adam to Eve. It would be the blood and water from Jesus’s belly on the Holy Cross that was redemptive.

  As a side note, refer to this YouTube link: Jesus’ Blood Found on the Ark of the Covenant - YouTube. It was the blood of Jesus flowing on the Mercy Seat that would be the true Baptism. The blood and water flowed through the crevice onto the Mercy Seat below for blood to be the propitiation for sin. In my book, The Skull of Adam, I present the case for Adam’s burial beneath Golgotha, and that Jesus literally made a direct propitiation for Adam’s original sin (Gen 3:15).

  John continued: “Whose (Jesus’s) sandals I am not worthy to carry.” Of course, that indicated his humility, but the thought runs deeper! Examine the Edenic (Adamic) Covenant: “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.” Now examine the Hebrew for that verse: “And I will put” is shiyth,“ is “lay hand upon” (ibid). God’s manifestation is Jesus. God’s “Hand” is the Christ!

  God was promising Adam that Jesus will heal the rift between him and God and between mankind and God. The heel of Jesus would be bruised by the head of the “Serpent,” or the skull of Adam, hence the name of my book.

  What do sandals do? They protect the feet from bruising. Jesus would have His heel bruised by the Serpent. That was His death, and the footrest on the Cross, after several hours, would do just that. Nearby, was Satan in the “Serpent” Judas who hung himself. His heel was not bruised, and his death was not efficacious. To be Savior, the heel must be bruised. Some Muslims accept Judas as Isa (their “Jesus.). He is not and neither was John. John went to great care to acknowledge that because of people’s tendency to believe untruths.

  John died before Jesus did. Someone else carried Jesus’s sandals, but it was not him. Jesus was nailed to the Cross without His sandals for the Purpose of giving up His Ghost. John did not give up the Ghost of Jesus, Jesus did that. John gave up his own “ghost” as many spiritual men before him. In other words, John had no impact on giving up the Ghost and the Baptism of John would not suffice as the Baptism of Jesus whose sandals John could not carry.

  In the Testament of Zebulon is written:

Simeon and Gad and six other of our brethren took the price of Joseph, and bought sandals for themselves, and their wives, and their children, saying: We will not eat of it, for it is the price of our brother's blood, but we will assuredly tread it under foot, because he said that he would be king over us, and so let us see what will become of  his dreams. Therefore, it is written in the writing of the law of Moses, that whosoever will not raise up seed to his brother, his sandal should be unloosed, and they should spit in his face. And the brethren of Joseph wished not that their brother should live, and the Lord loosed from them the sandal which they wore against Joseph their brother. For when they came into Egypt they were unloosed by the servants of Joseph outside the gate, and so they made obeisance to Joseph after the fashion of King Pharaoh. (3:2-7)

  Of course, this sacred literature is not canon in the West, but the apostles referenced it often as it was written long before John came to baptize. John was likely an Essene. Remnants of Zebulon’s Testament were found in the Dead Sea Scrolls where the Essenes resided. John had certainly read and surely used the passage above to make his point.

  Simeon and Gad were the two most adamant of the twelve children of Israel to kill Joseph. The others had mercy on him and rather than die, Joseph was kept safe in a dry pit until he was sold to the Ishmaelites into slavery. There was no water in that pit. Joseph was not saved by water but by the grace of God who touched the hearts of his brothers. God saved him by His Holy Spirit, not by water. I believe John was making that point.

  Simeon and Gad sold out Joseph for the price of sandals just as Judas sold out Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. Those shoes were Joseph’s sandals. Because he was sold for the brothers’ sakes, those sandals should have been his. They were wrong because Joseph was sold because “he would be king over us.” Their desire was to diminish Joseph, and Simeon and Gad would do that by killing him, but they were restrained. Like the thirty pieces of silver, the sandals they bought was “blood money.”

  The brothers “lorded” it over Joseph, and they had the audacity to improve their lives by sandals. No longer would their heels be bruised for Jacob nor his God. Then, “The Lord loosed from them the sandal which they wore against Joseph their brother.” They were unworthy to carry their brother’s sandals because they had endeavored to kill the man who would be king.

  John surely thought of that. He was not worthy of doing what Jesus would do! Like Simeon and Gad whose sandals God had loosened, John was wise enough to neither loosen the sandals belonging to Jesus nor even carry them!

  Finally, with a little irony, it was a man named Simon who would carry Jesus’s “sandals” so to speak, when he carried the Cross whose footrest would bruise the heels of Jesus. John was certainly not worthy of baptizing as the Ghost of Jesus would do, but he would not even protect the heels of Jesus from the serpents out to kill Him.

  The twelve sons of Israel would all be kings of tribes of Israel. They exalted themselves TO BE future kings. Rather, “they (finally) made obeisance to Joseph after the fashion of King Pharaoh.” It was Joseph who would be “king,” but not king of Israel, but “king” of Egypt. Finally, when they all humbled themselves and admitted that Joseph was king of kings, they were blessed. God showed them that they were not worthy to be kings but were not even worthy of  carrying the sandals bought by the blood of Joseph.

  As such, Christians are to be servants of Jesus, because He served us by dying on the Cross. It was not John who died for us. He died for Jesus, yet he recognized whose death had a greater value.

  Hopefully, the “take” on this story is that water baptism is secondary to Baptism of the Holy Ghost. It is Jesus whose work saved, not ours and not John’s.

  My bet is that when John baptized that those who repented kept their sandals on. John would not be worthy of carrying their sandals either! When Jesus baptizes, he does not look at the feet nor the flesh, but the heart. Are we willing to carry Jesus’s sandals? If not, then, “His winnowing fan is in His hand and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor.”

  It is not the plentiful moving water that will winnow out the sinners from the Church, but the Holy Ghost of Jesus whose Living Water certainly will! That Living Water? That is the Breath of God whose Holy Spirit breathes life unto otherwise lifeless people.

(picture credit: British Museum; "Winnowing Fan.")

 and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor.”