feet shod with the preparation of the gospel

The Roman soldier's feet were fitted with hobnailed sandals, spiked underneath to grip the ground and give firm footing in the shock of close combat, and Paul takes up that picture to describe not motion merely but stability, a sure stance from which the whole man can stand and not be moved. The gospel that grounds this footing, however, must be rightly identified: it is the gospel of peace, not the gospel of the kingdom which the twelve were sent to preach to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 10:5-6), tied to repentance in view of an offered earthly kingdom, but the gospel of the grace of God (Acts 20:24) which Paul received of the Lord Jesus Christ directly, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). To stand on any other gospel, however true in its own setting, is to stand on ground never given for this dispensation, and the footing slips exactly where it is needed most.

This gospel is called the gospel of peace because it announces an accomplished reconciliation rather than a program still awaiting fulfillment: for he is our peace, who hath made both one... having abolished in his flesh the enmity... and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh (Ephesians 2:14-17), and therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1). The word rendered preparation, hetoimasia, carries the sense of firm foundation or fixed readiness, not a gospel one is still working to secure but one already settled, already finished, already proclaimed as peace rather than pending negotiation. A believer standing on the hope of a future kingdom yet to be established, or on a peace still contingent on Israel's national repentance, has no such fixed footing for this present warfare; but the one standing on a peace already made at the cross has ground that cannot shift under the strain of battle.

Practically, then, to have the feet shod this way is to hold a settled grip on Paul's gospel as both a stationary footing for the fight and a readiness to move, for the same preparedness that lets a soldier stand firm also carries him forward, and Paul elsewhere ties this very picture to those whose feet are prepared to bring good tidings, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace (Romans 10:15). The believer who is uncertain which gospel undergirds his standing, mixing kingdom conditions with grace, fights on unstable ground, easily pushed off balance by any doctrine that unsettles his peace. But the one shod with the gospel of peace, standing on a finished reconciliation rather than a pending one, holds firm footing beneath every other piece of armor, ready, having done all, to stand (Ephesians 6:13).