John 13

CHAPTER 13THEME: Jesus washes feet of disciplesWe come now to the fourth main division of this Gospel. We first studied the prologue, which was the first eighteen verses of chapter 1. Then we had the introduction, which was the remainder of the first chapter. We have seen the Witness of His Works and of His Words from chapters 2 to 12. Now we come to the Witness of Jesus to His Witnesses, chapters 13 to 17. There is another way in which we could divide this Gospel. In the first twelve chapters the subject is light. They tell of His public ministry and that He is the Light. The division which we call the Upper Room Discourse is about the subject of love. He loves His own. The last part of the Gospel, from chapters 18 to 21, is about life. He came to bring us life, and that life is in Himself. Our life comes through His death. The Lord Jesus gave four major discourses. Three of these have already been studied in the Gospel of Matthew: the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7); the Mystery Parables Discourse (Matt. 13), telling us about the Kingdom of Heaven; and the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24; 25). Now we come to the Upper Room Discourse which is recorded in John 13-17. This discourse is one of the greatest that our Lord ever gave. It is the longest, and it is meaningful for us today because He took His own into the Upper Room and revealed new truths to them. It is still brand new and fresh for us today. There is nothing quite like it. His public ministry has ended, and He has been rejected. Now He talks about His love for us, how we are to live the Christian life, of the provision He has made for us, and of the relationships between Him and those who are His own. As He is on His way to the Cross, He has no message for the Pharisees or the religious rulers or the Roman government. This message is for His own.

John 13:1

JESUS WASHES FEET OF DISCIPLESWe come now to a most unusual incident. I wish I could shock you, startle you with it. We hear it so often that we lose the wonder of it. Jesus Christ leaves heaven’s glory and comes down to this earth and He takes the place of a slave and washes feet! In the preceding chapter, you will remember, we saw that the feet of Jesus were anointed. Here, the feet of the disciples are washed. What a difference! As the Savior passed through this sinful world, He contacted no defilement whatsoever. He was holy, harmless, and undefiled. The feet speak of the walk of a person, and the anointing of Jesus’ feet with spikenard tells of the sweet savor of the walk of our Lord. The disciples’ feet needed washing! Jesus washed their feet with water, not with blood. That is important to see. I hear many people talking about coming anew to the fountain filled with blood and being cleansed. This dishonors our Lord. The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sinpast, present, and futurein one application.

There is only one sacrifice. “For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified” (Heb_10:14). When you and I came as sinners to Christ Jesus, it was His shed blood that once and for all cleansed us and gave us a standing before God. But, my friend, we need to be purified along the pilgrim pathway; in our walk through the world we get dirty, and we need washing. We shall see that our Lord washed His disciples’ feet for this very definite purpose. There is a threefold reason given to explain why He washed their feet, and we shall note this as we read. Jesus washed their feet because He knew that He would “depart out of this world.” His ministry would continue after He went back to heaven. He has identified Himself with His people, and today He still washes the feet of His disciples. He says that He will depart out of this “world” (kosmos), meaning the world system. It is man’s world, a world of sin. It is a civilization that is anti-God and anti-Christ, and it is under judgment. Because He is leaving this world, He washes their feet. The second reason He does this is that He loved His own. He loved them “unto the end.” He is going to the Father because He loved His own. He died to save His own, and He lives to keep them saved. We have a wonderful Savior, and He loves us right on through to the very end. God loves us with an everlasting love; we cannot keep Him from loving us. The third reason is that another person had entered into the room. There was an uninvited guest present. His name was Satan. We speak of thirteen persons in the Upper Room, but actually, there were fourteen because Satan was there. Satan put into the heart of Judas Iscariot to betray Him. Wherever the Devil gets into Christian work, others are affected and the Lord must wash them. He must wash us if we are to have fellowship with Him. Notice that this took place at the Feast of the Passover. “Supper being ended” is literally “supper being in progress.” This is not the Lord’s Supper. Actually John does not even record the Lord’s Supper. Why does John omit something so important? I think it is because at the time John wrote, there were already Christians who were making a ritual out of the Lord’s Supper. There is a great danger in putting importance on a ritual rather than on the person Jesus Christ. It is more important to know the Word of God than it is to partake of Communion.

There is no blessing in Communion apart from a knowledge of the Word of God. An apologetics professor, whom I had, said that it was Christ in your heart and bread in your tummy. The bread in your tummy won’t be there long; Christ in your heart is the essential. I believe that is why John omits telling about the Lord’s Supper.

John 13:3

A better translation would be, “Since Jesus knew that the Father had given all things into His hands, that He was come from God, and that He is going to God.” It is restated that what He is doing is because He is returning to the Father. That is important.

John 13:4

He lays aside His outer garment; that is, He takes off the robe that He is wearing. Then He takes a linen cloth, and He girds Himself with it. This is such a strange thing which He does. He takes the place of a servant. He is girded with the towel of service, and He is ready to wash their feet. In studying Exodus 21, we learn of a law regarding slaves. A Hebrew slave served his master six years, and he could go free on the seventh year. If, during that time, he had taken a wife and had had children, the master would free him but not his family. However, the slave could choose to stay. If he loved his master and his family, he could stay with them. Then the master would back him up to a door post and bore his ear with an awl which would identify him as a voluntary slave forever.

Although he could have gone out free, he stayed because of love. Our Lord Jesus came down to this earth, took upon Himself our humanity, and was made in the likeness of a servant. He did all this because He loved us. He could have gone out free, but He died on the Cross to provide salvation for us. He did this to establish a wonderful relationship for us and to make it possible for us to have fellowship with Him. He has become a slave because He loves us.

John 13:6

Some people say that this is a sacrament and that we should practice foot washing. I see nothing wrong with practicing this if the spiritual meaning is not lost. Others say that this is a lesson in humility and is an example to us. There is nothing wrong with that interpretation, but I do not think it goes deep enough. Peter certainly could see this was an example of humility; yet the Lord said, “What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.”

John 13:8

What did our Lord mean by that? He meant that without this washing there can be no fellowship with Him. This is the Passover Feast which speaks of His death. He arose from the Passover Feast which speaks of His rising in resurrection and going back to heaven. He is girded with the towel of service and He is saying to us, “If I don’t wash you, you’ll have no part with me.” You cannot have fellowship with him, service with Him, without the washing. How does Christ wash us today? “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word” (Psa_119:9). “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you” (Joh_15:3). “…even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word” (Eph_5:25-26). It is the Word of God that will keep the believer clean. And when we sin, how are we cleansed? “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1Jn_1:9). Too many people treat sin as a light matter. My friend, may I say to you, the feet speak of the walk, and when you and I become disobedient, we are not walking in His way. That is sin, and that needs to be confessed.

John 13:9

He at first pulls his feet up; then when our Lord says he won’t have fellowship with Him, he sticks out his feetbig old fisherman’s feetand he holds out his handsand they have been strong, calloused handsand he even held down his head, and said, “not just my feet, but also wash my hands, wash my head.” If it means fellowship, Peter wants all he can get of that.

John 13:10

Now He says, “He that’s washed needeth not to be washed.” That doesn’t make good sense, does it? The reason it doesn’t is that He used two different words and, unfortunately, the translators didn’t make the distinction (nor do our more recent translations make the distinction), but they are absolutely two different words. He says, “…He that is louo.” Louo means “bathed.” Nipto is the word translated “wash.” “He that is bathed needeth not except to wash his feet.” In those days they went to the public bath for their bathing. Then a man would put on his sandals to come home. In his home was a basin of water for him to wash his feet because they had gotten dirty walking through the streets of the city. Not only was there dirt, but in those days the garbage was thrown into the streets. So even though he had just come from a bath, he had to wash his feet when he entered the house. Our Lord is teaching that when we came to the Cross, when we came to Jesus, we were washed all over. That is the bath, louo, regeneration. When we walk through this world, we are defiled and get dirty. We become disobedient, and sin gets into our lives. I do not believe that any believer goes through a day without getting just a little dirty. He says that we cannot have fellowship with Him if we are dirty. So the washing of the feet, nipto, is the cleansing in order to restore us to fellowship. “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us [keeps on cleaning us] from all sin” (1Jn_1:6-7). Friend, in order to have our feet washed we must first confess our sin. To confess means to agree with God. It means to say the same thing that God says about our sin. One of the hardest things in the world is to get a saint to admit he is a sinner. Coldness, indifference, lack of love, all are seen by God as sin. If we confess, He is faithful and just to forgive. But that is not all. If you are going to have your feet washed, you must put them into the hands of the Savior. That is obedience. We can’t just say, “God forgive me, I did wrong,” and then go out and do the same thing all over again. That’s not getting your feet into the hands of the Savior.

John 13:11

Jesus knew that Judas would betray Him. He knew that Judas had not taken a bath. In other words, Judas had never been regenerated. That is why He said they were not all clean.

John 13:12

If you want joy in your life today, Christian friend, go to Him and confess. This is one of the problems in our Christian congregations today. We may have our heads full of doctrine, but our feet smell. Brother, there is nothing that smells as bad as unwashed feet! Maybe that is the reason some of our services don’t smell so good. That is the reason we don’t reach more people for Christ. We need to confess in order to have fellowship with Christ. Jesus said that as He had washed their feet, so they were to wash one another’s feet. What does that mean? Paul tells us in Galatians how we are to do that. “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted” (Gal_6:1). That is, when a brother in Christ falls into sin, he is to be brought back into fellowship by one who is spiritual. Beating him on the head and criticizing him is not washing his feet, friend. To restore him means to wash his feet.

In the church we have all sorts of talentexcellent speakers and beautiful musicbut there is no revival. We need foot washing; we need to be cleansed. Before we can wash the feet of a brother, we need first to have the Lord of glory wash our feet. We should come to Him every time that we are dirty and be cleansed by Him. The psalmist says, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psa_139:23-24). There is not a one of us who goes through a day without some sin. We need to confess that to the Lord and be cleansed. We are washed by the Word of God. We put our feet into His hands, which means that we are completely yielded to Him. This places us in fellowship with the Lord Jesus. Friend, don’t let a single day go by without this fellowship. Don’t let sin come in to break this fellowship with Him. The disciples were like a group of children in that Upper Room. They were frightened, and rightly so. The shadow of the Cross had fallen upon that little group.

John 13:18

Jesus is very careful to tell them that He does not speak of all of them. He has just told them they are happy if they do these things, but there is one man among them who cannot do them. Do you know why? He has not believed. Jesus has already told them that all of them are not clean. Jesus had said, “Ye call me Master and Lord.” A master is a teacher and he is to be believed. A lord is to be obeyed. Faith and obedience must go together. Saving, living faith leads to obedience. Judas did not have this faith. Jesus quotes Psa_41:9: “…which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.” He is referring to Judas. It is not a question of this man losing his spiritual life. It is rather a revelation that he never had a spiritual life! He is not a sheep who has become unclean; he is a pig that has returned to its wallowing again, or a dog that has returned to its vomit. That is the picture of Judas Iscariot. Yet, he was there in the Upper Room and this man got his feet washed. He received the washing by the Word of God, and he rejected it totally. Let us go over this again so it is very clear. The blood of Jesus Christ is the Godward side of His sacrifice. The blood is for the expiation of our sin. The blood has cancelled all my guilt and has washed out that awful, black account which was against me. It has given me a standing before God because it has blotted out all my transgressions. The blood is for penal expiation. The cleansing by the water is the manward aspect of it. This is for our moral purification. After we have our standing before God on the ground of the blood of Jesus Christ, the water of the Word gives us our moral purification in our daily walk.

John 13:19

Jesus tells them that one of them will “lift up his heel” against Him so that when it happens, they will not be shocked. Then they cannot say it was a pity Jesus didn’t know about it. Have you ever noticed that the Lord Jesus is betrayed from the inside? This is still true today. People complain about the sin outside the church, but that doesn’t hurt the church. In fact, some of those sinners get saved. The hurt comes when Jesus Christ is betrayed on the inside.

John 13:20

Jesus adds this because Judas had been sent on missions with the rest of the disciples. He had preached and he had healed. “He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.” No one is saved by the faith of the messenger or preacher. We are saved by hearing the Word of God and receiving Christ. If a Western Union boy brings you a telegram that a rich uncle has died and left you a fortune, the fact that the Western Union boy may be a thief doesn’t invalidate the message of the telegram, does it? I knew a preacher who had become an unbeliever. A man who drove me to the train said to me, “Dr. McGee, I am puzzled. I was saved under the ministry of that man. I know I am saved and I know I am a child of God but I am puzzled. How can you explain it?” I showed this man this very text and told him that even Judas had gone out preaching and had won converts, not because he was Judas, but because he had given the message. God will bless His Word. We are saved by hearing the Word.

John 13:21

If you think that Jesus was unmoved because Judas was going to betray Him, you are wrong. He was troubled in spirit. The disciples were stupefied. You can imagine the shock wave that went over that room. Judas had been so clever that not a person there believed he was the traitor. Each one thought it might be the other, and each one thought it might be himself. Each disciple knew that he was capable of doing the same thing. I doubt that the little by-play between John and Peter was noticed by the others. There must have been confusion in the room. Peter was probably farther away from Jesus, and since John was next to Him, Peter signaled to John to ask.

John 13:26

It was the custom for the host at a banquet to take a piece of bread, dip it in the sauce, and present it to the guest of honor. The Lord makes Judas His guest of honor by this gesture. He is extending to him the token of friendship. Judas is at the crossroads. Christ keeps the door open to Judas up to the very last. Even in the garden Jesus will say, “…Friend, wherefore art thou come? …” (Mat_26:50)still keeping the door open for Judas. Jesus knew what Judas would do. As another has stated it, “foreknowledge is not causation.” That is, although the Lord knew what Judas would do, the Lord did not force him to do it. In fact, He offered His friendship to Judas to the very last.

John 13:27

Satan took over this man Judas gradually. I don’t think that Satan ever takes a man suddenly. There are many little falls that permit Satan to move in gradually. Then finally he takes over. The Lord gave Judas an opportunity to accept Him, but Judas turned his back on the Lord. Then Satan moved in and took him over completely. Judas makes his own decision. God never sends a man to hell unless that man first of all sends himself there. You see, God ratifies human decision; God seconds the motion. When a man says that he accepts Christ, God says, “I second it; I receive you.” When a man says that he rejects Christ, as Judas did here, God says, “I second the motion.” Now Jesus asks him to leave quickly. Having made his decision, he is not beyond the control of God. In fact, having made his decision, he is compelled to cooperate with God. You see, the religious rulers didn’t want to arrest Jesus and crucify Him while the crowds were there during the feast. They wanted to wait until the feast was over. But our Lord tells him to go now and do it quickly. So Judas must go out and tell the leaders that he has been found out, and they must move quickly.

John 13:28

No one at the table even suspected that Judas was the betrayer.

John 13:29

Notice that our Lord did not beg for support. They had a treasury, and they carried on their business in a businesslike way. It also tells us that the Lord did not feed them miraculously. They had to go and buy food. They were not some “far out” group. Judas was the treasurer. There is always a temptation in the handling of moneywhich is equally true today. At the Passover season donations were given to the poor; so the disciples thought this may have been what the Lord asked him to do with the money.

John 13:30

Notice also that when Judas went out, it was night. Friend, it was eternal night for Judas. It was the Devil’s day, and the Devil’s day is always like the darkness that descended on Egypt. This man walked out into eternal night. What God does, He does slowly. What the Devil does, he does quickly. The Devil must move fast because his days are limited. God has all eternity to accomplish His purposes. Often we fail to understand that. There is now a change in the room. Judas is gone, and our Lord begins to talk to these men. They are frightened. The shadow of the Cross is over that little group in the Upper Room. Now our Lord attempts to lift these men from the low plane to the high plane; from the here-and-now to the hereafter; from the material to the eternal; from that which is secular to that which is spiritual. Although Simon Peter interrupts Him, I think Jesus’ discourse begins right here and goes on into chapter 14.

John 13:31

The Lord Jesus is now moving into the spiritual realm. The Son of Man is going to be glorified, and this will be accomplished through His death and resurrection. From the human side the Cross looks like shame and defeat, but God is glorified in Him because the salvation of the world will be wrought through the Cross.

John 13:33

Judas is gone now so He can address them as His little children. He is going to the Cross, and no one can go to the Cross as He did. He suffered alone, and there is a suffering of Christ which you and I cannot fully comprehend.

John 13:34

Now He gives to them a new commandment. Some folk would seem to think that He said, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if you are fundamental in the faith.” Now friend, I believe in being fundamental in the faith, I believe in the inerrancy of the Word of God, in the verbal, plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, in the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe that He died on the Cross for the expiation of sin; that He died a substitutionary, vicarious death for the sins of the world. I believe He was raised bodily and ascended back into heaven and that He is coming personally to take His church out of the world. But I want to say this, and I want to say it very carefully: believing those things does not convince the unsaved world outside. The world is dying for just a little love. Jesus says that His disciples are to be known for their love. When I was a boy, my dad died and I went to work to support my mother and sister; so I stayed with two aunts and a bachelor uncle. One aunt was a Baptist and the other a Presbyterian. My uncle was an unbeliever and a beer drinker. Every Sunday he would get up just in time for the noon meal. For dinner every Sunday we heard all the Baptist dirt and the Presbyterian dirt. Years later, when my uncle was in the hospital, one of my aunts wept and asked me, “Vernon, why doesn’t he come to Christ?” I almost told her.

Friend, may I say, we do not win the lost by being Christian cannibals. “But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another” (Gal_5:15). This is the type of thing that is turning the unsaved away from the church today. This is the reason they don’t come in to hear the gospel. They hear the gossip before they can hear the gospel! Do you realize that the most important commandment for a Christian is not to witness, not to serve, but to love other believers? Tertullian writes that the Roman government was disturbed about the early church. Christians were increasing in number by leaps and bounds. Because they wouldn’t take even a pinch of incense and put it before the image of the emperor, the Romans felt they might be disloyal. Spies went into the Christian gathering and came back with a report something like this: “These Christians are very strange people. They meet together in an empty room to worship. They do not have an image.

They speak of One by the name of Jesus, who is absent, but whom they seem to be expecting at any time. And my, how they love Him and how they love one another.” Now if spies came from an atheistic government to see whether Christianity is genuine and they came to your church, what would be the verdict? Would they go back to report how these Christians love each other?

John 13:36

Here is a man who is close to all of us. I believe that if you are a child of God, you would never sell out Jesus as Judas did. The Devil does not have control of you, because the Spirit of God dwells in you. But there isn’t a one of us who would not do what Simon Peter did. His problem was not that Satan was in his heart but that he had confidence in his own flesh. I believe that is the problem for all of us. Peter really loved the Lord. Peter was ready to defend the Lord. Yet the Lord must treat Peter as a juvenile. He is always blunderingI don’t believe this man reached mental and spiritual maturity until the Day of Pentecost. The only things he heard of all that Jesus had said was that Jesus was going away. He reacts like a child who says, “Where are you going, Daddy? I want to go, too.” His first question is, “Lord, whither goest thou?” His second is, “Lord, why cannot I follow thee now?” When Jesus answered him, “Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards,” the only thing that Peter heard was the “now.” He is like a child who asks for a cookie. When the mother says he cannot have the cookie now but must wait until after dinner, the child seizes on the “now.” He wants the cookie now. He doesn’t want to wait until after dinner. Peter’s love for and loyalty to Jesus was sincere. He wanted to follow the Lord wherever He was going. When he said, “I will lay down my life for thy sake,” he meant every word of it. He attempted to fight for his Lord, and he cut off the servant’s ear. (The reason he got his ear was because he was a fisherman and not a swordsman. He was aiming for his head.) When the Lord told Peter that he would deny Him three times before the cock would crow, it was already dark, and he just couldn’t believe he would deny his Lord before the dawn. What a lesson there is here for us. Peter was overconfident in himself. We should learn from this that we should have no confidence in the flesh. Paul says, “…when I am weak, then am I strong” (2Co_12:10). Do you recognize your weakness or do you think you are strong? Someone asked Dwight L. Moody, “Do you have grace enough to die for Jesus?” He answered, “No, He hasn’t asked me to do that. But if He asks me to, I know He will give me the grace to do it.” That is the answer. Our own flesh is weak, but God will supply our every need.