John 13

John 13:1-17

Section 1. (John 13:1-17.)With all power His, and faithful to those given Him, He maintains them in righteousness. The order of Scripture is a point of special importance. So we shall find it here. Grace reigns through righteousness. Righteousness must be maintained or God, who in all His acts must be consistent with himself, cannot give way to the love which is in His nature. This is seen in the Cross, but it remains a principle in all God’s dealings with His people. We “call on Him as Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work” (1 Peter 1:17).

The Father’s character must be maintained with His own children; and they must be taught to act in conformity with it. Our “Advocate with the Father” also is “Jesus Christ the righteous,” One who can no more forget righteousness than He can forget the people He has redeemed. It is not, of course, as Advocate we see Him here; because plainly it is not with the Father that we see Him, but with His people. Yet He is anticipatively the Risen and Ascended One, with all things given into His hands. It is in this character He acts, in a love that cannot give up its objects, and which recognizes it as a first necessity for them that they should be conformed to His nature and ways. They are to have part with Him; but what does this involve as to those in such a place of defilement as this world is, and with so great susceptibility to defilement in it? His action in view of all this is quite easy of interpretation, spite of the many who have seen in it only a lesson of humility, and indeed the institution of an ordinance to remind of this. But the Lord Himself assures us that there is a deeper meaning than this, for Peter certainly knew what the Lord was doing, if there were no more than this; but the Lord says that at present he did not know; but that he should know afterwards. The doing to others by the disciples as He had done to them would necessarily depend also upon their knowledge of what He had done; which, if it were to receive spiritual interpretation, would make what was enjoined on them to be of a similar character. But Christ’s cleansing of His Church is, as the apostle tells us, with washing of water by the Word (Ephesians 5:26); and this at once throws light on the deeper meaning. It is as we well know, only as so cleansed that we can, as the Lord says to Peter again, “have part with Him.” Thus all is as clear as can be. No ordinance could accomplish this; and we immediately perceive the primary importance of this for all that follows. Communion itself -which is “part with Him,” -fruitfulness, testimony, must all depend upon this. Jesus rises therefore from supper, not when it was ended, as the common version represents, but while it was going on, leaving the place of communion, as if this were interrupted, until His necessary work for them should renew it once more. He rises therefore from supper, and girds Himself for a fresh service. His sacrificial work is over; the shedding of blood is no more needed, but only the washing of water; and here also not the “bath of regeneration,” (Titus 3:5), but simply, as He presently points out to Peter, the washing of the feet. It is defilement contracted in the walk that is in question; and He puts Himself at their feet to wash them. As of old Jehovah could say to Israel, “Thou hast made Me to serve with thy sins, “(Isaiah 43:24,) so may He still say to us; but His unchangeable love is equal to all possible demands upon it. Notice here that all His disciples need it, and that thus He invites us all today to put our feet into His hands continually, that they may be cleansed according to His thought of what is cleanness, who alone is capable of judging according to the perfect standard of the sanctuary, of which He is indeed Himself the Light. And again notice what is involved in this: for it makes clear that the Lord’s significant action here does not simply point out to us the remedy for that defilement of which we may be conscious, while of course it does apply in the fullest way to this. The principle goes much further; for there is, as we all must be aware, a sad possibility of unconscious defilement and thus of slipping unawares out of communion with God; while conscience gives no sign of what is wrong, and may thus mislead us as to our condition. It cannot be too fully impressed upon our minds that conscience is not the standard of right and wrong, but the word of God alone is that. The testimony of the Word itself is, that “If a soul sin, and commit any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the Lord, though he wist it not, yet is he guilty, and shall bear his iniquity” (Leviticus 5:17). For who can truthfully say that he was necessarily ignorant of what the word of God declares? But even where the thing is clear, conscience may be dull and indifferent. The common sights and sounds with which the world is full tend insensibly to dull us; the dust with which the air is full settles upon the mirror, we know not how, and it gives no more the clear witness that it did so short a time since: we need therefore continual recourse to Him whom the Psalmist invoked: “Search me O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me” (Psalms 139:23-24). Ah! what incompetent judges are we in our own case! and how thankful may we be to have such an One as is here before us to judge our case for us! It is involved in this, that we come into His hands, not for mere settlement of this matter or that; we do not say to Him, “Search out this or that,” but, “Search me;” and thus, if we are perfectly honest in it, we are inviting the light to be poured into all the dark corners and crannies of our lives and hearts: we are with Him without reserve, -for self-judgment indeed, but as He manifests us to ourselves and thus enables us. If there has been conscious failure, the mere confession of it is not the whole matter, perhaps not the half of it. Many from a misapplication of the apostle’s words,* “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,” (1 John 1:9,) would make this a light and easy method of settling old scores which leaves them ever more lightly to be run up again. Others with a more serious but a legal spirit, are left groaning over their inability to determine how far they have fulfilled a condition which they cannot treat so lightly. Neither of these realize that the real remedy given by the apostle, “If any one sin,” is the blessed Advocate with the Father, who here, as the necessary result of His being this, Himself assumes the responsibility of cleansing us after His own manner, that communion may be restored. Confession is not washing, and His words are, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me.” Washing is more than forgiveness. There is the searching out by the Word of the matter as in the Presence of God; where the steps which led into the evil come into review, as well as the end they led to, and the foundation of all is judged: so that the hold of the sin is broken for the sinner.

We have a conspicuous example of the Lord’s dealing with a soul for restoration in the history, soon to be given us, of Simon Peter. Not without significance is it, that the very one who resists the Lord’s proffered service to him (however his motive may plead in his excuse) is the one who becomes in his failure the example of cleansing such as is before us in figure here.
How the need we have of Him is emphasized all through Scripture! and how good and wholesome to be thus made to keep close to Him for all the length of our journey! Is it a hardship to be thus in continual company with Him? Look at Him here, and answer! He is at our very feet to wash them! And what His action here secures is that we should have part with Him. Is not all the misery of our lives but the result of losing sight of Him?

When Israel entered their promised land, Jehovah went with them. There was given them continual access to Him, for guidance in every emergency that could arise. They seem to have interpreted this in such a way that they would not burden the Lord with too many of their matters. It was plain enough to them that Ai was so small a city that but a small number of them would be competent to take it. They tried that, and at little Ai found their first defeat. Israel had sinned; but it was hidden from them.

How then were they responsible for that? Ah! they had followed their own thoughts, and had taken no counsel of the Lord. They did the same in the matter of the Gibeonites, and again the enemy succeeded against them. Now “these timings were our types;” only the battle is for us a spiritual one: not therefore less arduous. How we need His cleansing grace, that we may be such as He can show Himself for in the day of conflict; that we may obtain possession of that land which is (in the fullest sense) our “part with Him!” If it be restoration that is needed, how comforting the knowledge of the truth that nothing can shut us out of His Presence, if indeed our heartfelt desire is to be there; that we are welcome, just as we are, not needing any whole or partial cleansing to entitle us to come in at a door which is never closed against us. For indeed, if we did need this, we could never find it: His word is, -not, if thou art not washed, -but, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me.” Thus of necessity the first step to be taken is to come back to Him, from whom to have got away is the first and saddest failure. If we come back, it is, of course, to put ourselves into His hands, that He may discover to us our need, and meet it with His grace. None but Himself can meet it. In the glory of His Presence the heart is softened, while the conscience is aroused. While He does not upbraid, truth in the inward parts is re-established, and power is found in the very consciousness of weakness, and confidence in the wreck of all self-trust. We have all this brought out in the story of Peter, which for its importance the Spirit of God has given us at length; we shall not, for this reason, dwell more upon it in this place. Peter, when he learns that it is to have part with Christ that his feet are to be washed, goes immediately, after his ardent manner, to the opposite extreme. “Lord,” he says, “not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.” The Lord answers him, “He that is bathed needeth not, save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit.” The “washing of regeneration,” the cleansing which is effected in new birth, never needs to be repeated. Spite of all that tends to destroy it in this world, the effect is an indelible one. “Whosoever is born of God,” says the same apostle who records this in his first epistle, “doth not commit” -or rather, “practise” -“sin; for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin” -be sinning -“because he is born of God.” In how many ways we are reminded of the unfailing character of God’s precious grace! The love that has laid hold upon us for eternal glory is not going to be defeated in what it has taken in hand to do. The washing of the feet can be repeated indefinitely, but not the bathing of the whole person. The bathed person may defile his feet by walking, but nothing more. Only the feet need cleansing to be wholly clean. The Lord now exhorts His disciples to imitate His example. They called Him Teacher: let this lowly grace of His then be their instruction. They called Him Lord: let them obey His command. He, their Teacher and Lord, had washed their feet: they might well wash one another’s feet. Plainly it was no mere ceremony that he was proposing for their imitation, but the meeting of a deep spiritual need, as love alone could meet it. In a scene of defilement such as the world is, alluring even time hearts of disciples from their Lord, be it theirs to recover and cleanse those who were being drawn away by its allurements. Mere judgment of the evil would not do this, however righteous. Love alone has power to draw, and Christ must be the One drawn to or there is no restoration.

How strangely do those who confess themselves debtors wholly to a Saviour’s grace yet deal with one another on the totally opposite principle of law. He that would cleanse another’s feet must be at his feet to cleanse them. The soul that has fallen into sin has done so because it has got away from the Source of holiness and strength. It is of small service to judge for such their sin; that is only the sign of how far they have departed. They need with this the confirmation to them of that grace which alone breaks the dominion of sin (Romans 6:14). People seem as if they argued as to failing Christians, that grace has failed with them, and now government, as they would say, must have its course.

Now government is the government of grace. “Grace reigns through righteousness;” the government is a Father’s government; while He truly “judges according to every man’s work.” God’s electing love has pledged even, as to Abraham, (Genesis 15:17,) the “smoking furnace” to do His work. He may thus permit Issachar, become time world’s drudge for hire (Genesis 49:15), to gall his shoulder with the yoke of a hard service.

A child of God may thus be allowed to eat of the fruit of his own ways, that he may learn, in the only way that he himself has rendered possible, the perfection of the ways of God. It is a painful method but a self-chosen one; and plainly through all grace is working, -governing. We can never oppose, for the child of God, His government to His grace. All through, His path is light; and it could not be grace that did not conform to this. Manifestly, therefore, this does not shut out from His Presence the soul that seeks Him; whatever may be the distance to which it has wandered from Him. It may unbelievingly think itself shut out; it may take the eating of the fruit of its own ways, to which it may still be compelled, as the evident proof of this, which it is not: David’s sin followed him all the rest of his life; but that in no wise set aside the fact of his full forgiveness. It should be evident that we can never merit or work our way into that glorious Presence by getting cleansed from whatever evil we may by our wandering from it have fallen into. The grace which alone could open the door still keeps the door open, and only there, at the hands of Christ Himself; can cleansing be obtained. As long as we are away, we shall still only “stumble and stray,” and therefore to be kept out would be to make all recovery impossible. But the weakening of faith by the evil course that has been pursued may indeed be a terrible hindrance; and here is a main point to be remembered by those who desire to have the happiness of which the Lord speaks, of doing to others that which He is doing so constantly for us, as far as it is possible for us to follow Him in it. We must remember that grace alone is the victorious breaker of sin’s bonds, and is thus the holiest thing possible: there needs no modification of it at any time, -no guarding it by the mixture with it of something else. That which is not holiness is not grace, and it is not to skin over an ulcer slightly to maintain God’s perfect grace for all that seek Him at any moment of time. Just on this very account, -because grace is sovereign, -there must be, of course, the soul’s full surrender to it; and this we must insist on. Christ cleanses after His manner: it must be full cleansing or not at all. As already said, we come near to put our feet in His hands: there is no other access at all, but for this purpose, -no possibility of having part with Him save as we submit ourselves to this. Christ must be “Teacher and Lord” absolutely, as He assures every one of His own. The terms of discipleship He has fully insisted on, and they never vary. Grace sovereign means Christ sovereign, and there is no other way. But with Him there is always, not simply light given, but strength ministered, -strength which is made perfect in our human weakness, -and a joy which is strength, -it is the atmosphere proper to it: “in Thy Presence fulness of joy.” Happy then are we if, knowing these things, we are found doing them. Abundance of need there is among the people of God for the ministry of such grace to the wandering and needy. It is the ministry of Christ Himself: there is no help, no restoration possible save as we can get them to Christ; and He, whatever the case may be, is all-sufficient. But we must pass on.

John 13:18-38

Section 2. (John 13:18-38.)The enemy’s work but adding glory to the humbled Son of man. The shadow of what He has just said deepens upon His soul. Of those with Him now, in the intimacy to which His love has admitted them, there is yet one to whom that love itself can add but deeper perdition. The enemy is there and at work, where divine love has brought Him, upon a path descending now to the utter darkness only to be relieved by the consciousness that it is indeed love’s errand that He is upon, and of the recompense that awaits it, -a “joy set before Him” for which “He endured the Cross, despising the shame.” As Seed of the woman, the conflict with Satan was part or His necessary work. By man whom he had overcome the adversary was to be overcome, and God vindicated in His latest creation-work. But the conditions of the conflict were far otherwise than at the beginning. Man, conquered in his strength, was to conquer in his weakness, cleaving, in the character which belongs to the creature and is his safeguard to maintain, to the might of God. Thus with the “heel” of His perfect Humanity He trod down the adversary; that heel bruised even to death in doing this. It was now the hour in which His assailant in the wilderness, then baffled and withdrawing for a season, would return as prince of this world with the power of the world behind him: and already had he found one of the chosen twelve, for the paltriest of bribes, willing to betray his Master.

From the buffeting of the storm so arising the rest must scatter from Him or be overthrown: to His very face another would deny Him; He must be stripped of what comfort the faithfulness of His few intimates could secure Him; one partial but sweet exception being shown us in this Gospel and in no other. But all is allowed for His fullest triumph. He is to be uniquely perfect, in a unique place, God Himself leaving Him, until the time in which, the demands of righteousness being fully met, He will be able to appear in His behalf.

1. With the sense then of what is before Him, He foretells the defection of Judas. This yet only accomplishes the Scripture. It was written: “He that eateth bread with Me hath lifted up his heel against Me.” His heel! the most contemptuous rejection possible: was it not such to sell the Lord of glory for the price of a slave? It was as if he would inflict upon Christ the serpent’s predicted doom! But it was all foreseen and announced, and He afresh announces it, that faith might be strengthened in the rest by that which would naturally most severely try them. By His choice of them alone they were secured; and He who had prayed for Peter, that his faith might not fail, was even now watching over the weak faith of the rest. Then He raises them up to fullest identification with Himself: “Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth Me: and he that receiveth Me receiveth Him that sent Me.” This is yet in the ears of Judas; which are dulling, however, into the hardened insensibility which only sin can produce. We are next called, for our instruction, to contemplate this tremendous spectacle, -to tread, as it were, the very antechamber of hell itself.
2. The Lord’s soul is troubled: He is not roused to anger, as we might well expect to find. He is the One who has said and sworn, “As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth;” and the tears wept over Jerusalem seem ready to flow over once more. In all that passes between the Lord and Judas in these last scenes, another and more powerful feeling keeps back the anger which the baseness of his awful traffic in the blood of his Master would naturally arouse: -the appalling sight of one over whom were gathering, as it were, beforehand the lurid shadows of the pit. What must it have been for Him to have to say, “One of you shall deliver Me up”? The other disciples seem scarcely to have imagined the possibility of real treachery on the part of one of their own number; for after Judas is distinctly pointed out, and the Lord dismisses him with the significant words, “What thou doest, do quickly,” not one of them thinks for what purpose he is gone out.

They think perhaps of some unintentional disclosure, or at most of some break-down in weakness under too great a pressure; but a deliberate betrayal how can they imagine on the part of one who has been in His company? We recall naturally the words of the apostle afterwards, -the very one to whom the secret was communicated here, -as if they might account for the strange inability to comprehend what had been declared so plainly, -“He that sinneth hath not seen Him neither known Him.” True it is, Judas had never known the glory in the face of Jesus. What he had known we will not speculate upon; it needs not. So near, yet so far off; capable of casting out demons in Christ’s name, yet one to whom, on His side, Christ must say,I never knew you, -this is the plain and awful conjunction, challenging all hearts. “After the sop, Satan:” there is another terrible conjunction. The token of love becomes in its rejection that which hands over the unhappy man to the adversary of Christ. That morsel from the dish was, we may be sure, no mere sign for another, no semblance of a friendship that no more existed. On the side of Him who gave it, it was true, where all was true -the token of love that even yet would fain be received as that, and that could warm even a lifeless soul to life. If, still rejected, it should be death instead of life, this is but the necessary transformation which sin indulged produces in the most precious gifts of God. Love with its own wonder-working brings out of death life; in the nature of things, the opposite will produce the opposite. It is the one law, by which like produces like. And we have, in beautiful contrast here, the sweet assurance of how love welcomes where it is welcomed. The unnamed beloved disciple brought into the same view with Judas, -though we may elsewhere have his name revealed, -seems here to have given us a blank cheque, to which any other that desires may have leave -if he fulfil the conditions -to put in his name. Most certainly, here we find one whose love presses for recognition, and will never fail to answer to faith’s utmost claim upon Him. “Drink,” He says, “Yea, drink abundantly, O beloved!” How John has drunk in, his first epistle will bear witness for him. He is the apostle of love; -love that he has learned where one and all must learn it. “Hereby know we love, because He laid down His life for us.” “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” “Herein is love perfected with us, that we should have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is so are we in this world.” Thus John draws his arguments from where we all may draw them; but he has so abundantly drunk in, that the whole furniture of his epistle seems but the product of the assimilation of the words of Christ. Especially is this true of these last words before His being delivered up. But John’s style, the aspect in which he sees things, is just what we find in the Gospel.

All through you see his receptive character, -the man who leaned on the breast of Jesus; and thus he is the apostle of the divine nature and the life eternal; life, light, righteousness, love, -these are the themes of which he is never weary of speaking. And this is what so attracts the heart in John, -it is the heart of Christ that attracts us. Ah, it is this heart that seeks still vessels into which it may pour its fulness. And what we can appropriate we are still welcome to. Which is only to say, we are still welcome to lie on His bosom, as the beloved disciple did, and learn where he learned. 3. Out the traitor goes into the night, -a terrible night! but the heart of Jesus is relieved by his absence. He proceeds to enlarge upon the results of His Cross. The Son of man is to be glorified in it: is it not His glory today? God too, in every attribute, is glorified in Him. Where do we see God’s righteousness as in the Cross? Where has His love been manifest as there? A sinner taken to heaven by its means is made the righteousness of God in Him! the riches of the glory of His grace are told out to eternal ages. Sin, which might seem to have brought everything into question, has been by its means made the occasion of His brightest, fullest, most marvellous revelation! If God then has been so glorified in Him, He will respond by glorifying turn Him who has done this. He is taken up to the right hand of God and sits upon the Father’s throne. This is possible to Himself alone, and is so given, but the results for man are unspeakably great: a Man is in the nearest place to God that can be: God and man one in His Person! He does not follow this out here: in its fulness it waits for the interpreting Spirit. But this involved for the disciples His going away. As He had said to the Jews so now He says to them, He is going where they cannot come. They are not now to be with Him, going out and coming in, as through the blessed time just at an end; let them cling all the more to one another as His representatives, -representatives thus of His love to each and all. The duty of love would thus be as a new commandment with the new light of His life laid down for them shining upon it. So would men also recognize them as His disciples, -as having practically learned a lesson so divinely set. 4. Peter full of love which the Lord’s words have inflamed, but with no just estimate of himself, bursts out with the question, why cannot he follow Him now? If it were death that was before Him, he would follow Him through that, -was ready to lay down his life for Him. How little we think often in our well-meant zeal, of how much self-confidence may inhere in it and what it needs to follow the footsteps of Him who yet has left us an example to be followed! Peter was to be gratified in his desire when Christ should have prepared the way; and when he himself had learned by all the bitterness of failure his own incompetency. But how severe a teacher experience is! and how much might we escape of such necessity, if only we would learn from Scripture, -“profitable for correction and instruction in righteousness!” How good is God, to supply us with such a teacher! How we fill our path with sorrow by not submitting to it!