The Lord commissions His disciples to pass the torch of the legacy of grace. John 13:10-16

John 13:1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.

 

John 13:2And during supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him,

 

John 13:3Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God, and was going back to God,

 

John 13:4 rose from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself about.

 

John 13:5 Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.

 

John 13:6 And so He came to Simon Peter. He said to Him, "Lord, do You wash my feet?"

 

John 13:7 Jesus answered and said to him, "What I do you do not realize now, but you shall understand hereafter."

 

         

Peter’s statement would be commended by many because of its sincerity—“You are not going to wash my feet Lord.” Sincere people are always stupid and always wrong.

 

Sincerity is not a part of the Christian way of life, it is a façade of human viewpoint. There is no virtue in sincerity. Bible doctrine produces something greater than the hypocrisy of sincerity. Peter is very sincere, he wants to do the right thing. However again, sincerity is no substitute for knowledge of doctrine or for GAPing it. Sincerity is no substitute for doctrine in the right lobe, for the ECS, and for the discernment of the supergrace life. Sincerity never accomplishes the will of God.

 

John 13:8 Peter said to Him, "Never shall You wash my feet!" Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me."

 

Peter uses a double negative with an aorist tense, which is as strong a negative that anyone can say.

           

“you have no part with Me” - meroj [meros], which means business, partnership, function; which is fellowship. “If I don’t wash your feet you have no business in association with me.” The principle He is emphasising is that rebound precedes fellowship and therefore the correct function of metabolizing doctrine.

 

John 13:9 Simon Peter said to Him, "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head."

 

Peter again is sincere, but very wrong and ignorant. Once he has understood that this washing is necessary to be in partnership with the Lord, though he doesn’t fully comprehend what that partnership means, through his desire to be with the Lord, his love for the Lord, and possibly his competition with the other disciples, he now wants more than the foot washing.

 

One is either in fellowship with the Lord or out of fellowship. He is either 100% spiritual or 100 % carnal. Peter thinks he can have more partnership with the Lord, but no such thing exists. Once you are a partner with the Lord, i.e. in fellowship with Him, then you are 100% a partner. There is no 110%.

 

John 13:10 Jesus said to him, "He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you."

 

“He who has bathed” - the perfect passive participle of louw[louo] which means to wash the entire body, to take a bath. Perfect tense: once saved, always saved. Passive voice: the believer receives salvation. He receives the bath, as it were, at the point of salvation. The participle sets up a concept. The entire body is washed once—“He having been washed.”

 

The principle: Saved once; rebound many times.

 

“but is clean” - present active indicative of e)imi[eimi] with the predicate nominative singular kaqoroj[kathoros = clean] and the adverb o(loj[holos] which means all over.

 

Then the Lord confirms for them that they are eternally saved through faith in Him by saying, “and you are clean” - present indicative of e)imi, plus kaqaroj: you keep on being clean. That is eternal salvation.

 

With one exception, “but not all” - there is one exception and this refers to Judas Iscariot. This message is not for him. In the analogy, the others came with dirty feet but Judas came without a bath. I’m sure he took a bath, but he never took a spiritual bath through faith in Christ. In other words, Judas is unsaved and therefore this particular message and all the messages in the upper room discourse are not pertinent to Judas at all.

 

John 13:11 For He knew the one who was betraying Him; for this reason He said, "Not all of you are clean."

 

Though He knew Judas was betraying Him, He loved Judas to the end and would still offer salvation to him two more times before Judas left the upper room.

 

John 13:12 And so when He had washed their feet, and taken His garments, and reclined at the table again, He said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you?

 

Jesus had taken off His outer garment to wash their feet. This is analogous to the cross where He was stripped naked and upon the cross provided eternal salvation as well as the power of the rebound technique.

 

Now He puts His outer garment back on. This is analogous to the resurrection.

 

And then He reclines at the table. This is analogous to His session. Now that He is seated at the right hand of the Father, the Father can do something He was not able to do before, and that is to open the heavens to reveal the mystery doctrine for the Church that was kept hidden from all past human history.

 

In the upper room, which everyone finally having clean feet, and Jesus able to relax with them, He begins this communication. He cannot communicate all of it since the HS is not given yet.

 

He asks them if they have understood, but He doesn’t wait for them to answer because He is sure that they don’t understand. And so He begins to explain.

 

Because of the rejection of Him by Israel and because of their faith in Him and willingness to follow Him to this point He begins to give the greatest doctrine the world has ever known.

 

When the Lord is finally seated at the right hand of God, then all of it will be given and recorded in the NT - the greatest doctrine ever known in human or angelic history.

 

John 13:13 "You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am.

 

“Teacher” is the Greek word didaskaloj[didaskalos] which means teacher and is the same word used for the pastor/teacher.

 

“Lord” is kurioj[kurios] which means Lord and refers to His deity and authority.

 

Jesus Christ is the right pastor while He is on earth to these eleven apostles and He is now and ever has and will be their God/Lord/authority.

           

He confirms this by saying, “you are right or accurate for I am.”

 

The present active indicative of e)imi[eimi] often refers to the deity of Christ and here is refers to the eternal nature of the hypostatic union. He will always be the source of all doctrine and the Lord of all things, so this confirmation to the disciples is a solemn warning to listen carefully to what He is about to say.

 

This is so important to us. Every word of Scripture is God-breathed and therefore the doctrines of the pastor and God of us all. He is the word and the source of it all. All doctrine is pertinent to our glorification of Jesus Christ and so every time you are listening to doctrine you should understand its importance. Therefore, be filled with the Spirit and concentrate no matter what the doctrine is. Listen carefully. How you spend eternity depends 100% on the doctrine you have come to understand and transformed into wisdom by means of the Spirit.

 

John 13:14 If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.

 

Now obviously the command isn’t for them to go around literally washing one another’s feet or that of their future listeners.

 

When Christ washed their feet He was communicating doctrine to them. He communicated both eternal security and confession of personal sin and the doctrine of fellowship.

 

The command therefore is for them to communicate doctrine after the Lord is gone. This is why He uses these two titles for Himself. He is kurios and didaskalos. They cannot be kurios (Lord) but they must have authority to be a didaskalos - a teacher of doctrine.

 

This is a command to communicate doctrine and to do so with clean feet.

 

The basin of water now becomes a clear picture of a basin full of doctrine.

 

The Lord filled the basin with water and that represents all the years of filling His soul with doctrine. The command is for the disciples to do the same.

 

One cannot communicate doctrine without have a basin or soul full of doctrine. We never arrive to fullness, but there must be a certain depth of understanding of many doctrines before effective communication can exist. To the communicator, preparation is everything.

 

John 13:15 "For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you.

 

He gave all preachers right here, “an example.” This is a grace gift to the communicator as well as to his congregation. He graced us all out right here.

 

The word example is u(podeigma[hupodeigma] which means a model or a pattern. He set up a mould and we are never to get out of that mould—study and teach, study and teach….that is the function of the didaskaloj.

 

The word u(podeigmaprecludes the idea of a ritual here in terms of being a repeated pattern. The heritage of grace is perpetuated through the communication of Bible doctrine, and grace is passed from one generation to another because God raises up pastor-teachers to communicate Bible doctrine.

           

“that” introduces a purpose clause; “you should do as I did to you” - the present active subjunctive of poiew[poieo] is addressed to communicators.

 

The first generation of communicators were the apostles who were seated there, minus the apostle Paul who will fill in later.

 

The Lord communicated to them and in the near future God the HS will communicate more to them and then they, with the apostle Paul, will rise up other men to communicate the correct doctrine, and on and on has this pattern repeated itself for over 2000 years.

 

There will always be sowing by the Lord and so there will always be prepared men to communicate sound doctrine.

 

The principle of humility cannot be ignored here. The Lord took the position of a servant even though He had communicated His authority. His humility isn’t a false humility, nor does He allow the disciples to walk all over Him like some pastors do. His humility is found in one way - His willingness to study and teach.

 

Now that the command is given the Lord goes into five principles concerning foot washing.

 

John 13:16 Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master; neither is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him.

 

“slave” - douloj[doulos] refers to the disciple from the standpoint of his discipleship. He is a slave since by redemption he belongs to the Lord and is the property of the Lord.

 

This is a word of position in Christ. And by this position the believer belongs to Christ and is under the authority of Christ.

 

A disciple is a student under strict discipline. The English word discipline is taken from the same word as disciple. The disciple’s objective is to be under academic discipline and receive information.

 

However, to be a disciple or a disciplined student you have to choose to be so, which makes you a willing servant. If you are not a willing servant you are still a slave, and that is why you and I will give an account to the Lord, our Master, at the Rapture of the Church.

 

So although we sometimes use the words slave and servant interchangeably, there is a slight distinction.

 

Every believer is a slave. Servants are mature believers who willingly serve the Lord. In Israel, on the year of Jubilee, slaves were set free. However, a slave could choose to remain with his master as a willing servant. If he made this choice the master would put his ear against the door post and pierce it with an awl.

 

The doorpost signified that the willing servant was always allowed in the house and the pierced ear represented his positive volition to the commands of his master. To us this represents our willingness to approach the throne of grace boldly in prayer and in perception of doctrine and our positive volition to the commands of God in the Scripture.