Holiness: Jesus and Peter (13:6-11)
As Peter watched the Lord wash his friends’ feet, he became more and more disturbed and could not understand what He was doing. As you read the life of Christ in the Gospels, you cannot help but notice how Peter often spoke impulsively out of his ignorance and had to be corrected by Jesus. Peter opposed Jesus going to the cross (Matt. 16:21-23), and he tried to manage our Lord’s affairs at the Transfiguration (Matt. 17:1-8). He expressed the faith of the disciples (John 6:66-71) without realizing that one of the number was a traitor.
The word translated “wash” in John 13:5-6, 8, 12, and 14 is niptø and means “to wash a part of the body.” But the word translated “washed” in John 13:10 is louø and means “to bathe all over.” The distinction is important, for Jesus was trying to teach His disciples the importance of a holy walk.
When the sinner trusts the Savior, he is “bathed all over” and his sins are washed away and forgiven (see 1 Cor. 6:9-11; Titus 3:3-7; and Rev. 1:5). “And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more” (Heb. 10:17). However, as the believer walks in this world, it is easy to become defiled. He does not need to be bathed all over again; he simply needs to have that defilement cleansed away. God promises to cleanse us when we confess our sins to Him (1 John 1:9).
But why is it so important that we “keep our feet clean”? Because if we are defiled, we cannot have communion with our Lord. “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me” (John 13:8). The word translated “part” is meros, and it carries the meaning here of “participation, having a share in someone or something.” When God “bathes us all over” in salvation, He brings about our union with Christ, and that is a settled relationship that cannot change. (The verb wash in John 13:10 is in the perfect tense. It is settled once and for all.) However, our communion with Christ depends on our keeping ourselves “unspotted from the world” (James 1:27). If we permit unconfessed sin in our lives, we hinder our walk with the Lord, and that is when we need to have our feet washed.
This basic truth of Christian living is beautifully illustrated in the Old Testament priesthood. When the priest was consecrated, he was bathed all over (Ex. 29:4), and that experience was never repeated. However, during his daily ministry, he became defiled, so it was necessary that he wash his hands and feet at the brass laver in the courtyard (Ex. 30:18-21). Only then could he enter the holy place and trim the lamps, eat the holy bread, or burn the incense.
The Lord cleanses us through the blood of Christ, that is, His work on the cross (1 John 1:5-10), and through the application of His Word to our lives (Ps. 119:9; John 15:3; Eph. 5:25-26). The “water of the Word” can keep our hearts and minds clean so that we will avoid the pollutions of this world. But if we do sin, we have a loving Advocate in glory who will hear our prayers of confession and forgive us (1 John 2:1-2).
Peter did not understand what his Lord was doing, but instead of waiting for an explanation, he impulsively tried to tell the Lord what to do. There is a strong double negative in John 13:8. The Greek scholar Kenneth Wuest translated Peter’s statement, “You shall by no means wash my feet, no, never” (wuest). Peter really meant it! Then when he discovered that to refuse the Lord would mean to lose the Lord’s fellowship, he went in the opposite direction and asked for a complete bath!
We can learn an important lesson from Peter: Don’t question the Lord’s will or work, and don’t try to change it. He knows what He is doing. Peter had a difficult time accepting Christ’s ministry to him because Peter was not yet ready to minister to the other disciples. It takes humility and grace to serve others, but it also takes humility and grace to allow others to serve us. The beautiful thing about a submissive spirit is that it can both give and receive to the glory of God.
John was careful to point out that Peter and Judas were in a different relationship with Jesus. Yes, Jesus washed Judas’s feet! But it did Judas no good because he had not been bathed all over. Some people teach that Judas was a saved man who sinned away his salvation, but that is not what Jesus said. Our Lord made it very clear that Judas had never been cleansed from his sins and was an unbeliever (John 6:64-71).
It is a wonderful thing to deepen your fellowship with the Lord. The important thing is to be honest with Him and with ourselves and keep our feet clean.