He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself.
At the Passover supper in His last hours with the disciples, with no servant present and the disciples refusing from pride to take the servant's place while contending over greatness, He rose from the table, laid aside His outer garments, and girded Himself with a towel to wash their feet. Though one with God and fully conscious of His divine origin and authority, He laid aside His royal dignity to do a menial servant's work, and His infinite exaltation gave the service its significance without lessening His dignity. The act rebuked their pride and ambition and teaches that true greatness is humble, loving, unselfish ministry to others rather than seeking supremacy. It institutes footwashing as a consecrated ordinance for His followers to come before the Lord's Supper, because pride and strife unfit the heart for fellowship with Christ and for receiving the emblems of His body and blood. He washed all, beginning with Judas though betrayal was already in his heart, as a tender final appeal to repent and be cleansed, leaving an example of impartial, humble service to be copied, especially in searching the heart and confessing sin before communion.
Supper Setting and Details
He rises at the Passover supper, in the last evening and last hours with the disciples before offering Himself as a sacrifice for the world. It is the final week of trial, suffering, betrayal, humiliation and death, when He knows His hour has come to depart out of this world to the Father. He knows the Father has given all things into His hands, and that He has come from God and goes to God. Though betrayal is already in the heart of Judas, who has pledged to betray Him, His thoughts are centered on the disciples and the trial, separation and trials they will face afterward. He prepares them and comforts them before His suffering, having loved His own unto the end, and what He does begins the lesson He gives them in this final time together.
The disciples come to the supper with selfish hearts and tempers heated by contention, disputing who should be greatest and who should be accounted greatest in the promised kingdom. Satan makes a determined effort to arouse and press strife among them, and they yield to it. Their whispering contention is still fresh in their minds, leaving them unready to understand the solemn events ahead. Sorrow fills His heart as He sees them yielding, their spirit grieves Him, and He waits to see if their hearts will change.
Footwashing is the customary courtesy owed to guests after sandals are removed, and the pitcher and basin or bowl with the towel are ready. No servant is present, and the disciples are expected to serve one another. Wounded pride keeps each from taking the servant's place, none acts, and their silence shows refusal to humble themselves.
At that supper they recline on couches around the table rather than standing ready to leave as at the first Passover. Their reclining position leaves their feet at the outer edge of the couches, where one passing around the circle can wash them. Hearing their whisperings and seeing their flushed faces, without a word He rises from supper, lays aside His outer garments, takes a towel and girds Himself as if He were a servant to wash their feet.
Christ's Servant Humility
Though fully conscious of His divine authority, origin and divinity, the spotless Son of God, one with God and higher than the angels, laid aside His royal dignity with His outer garments and girded Himself to do a servant's lowly, menial work. His infinite exaltation gave the service its significance and did not lessen His dignity, for His humble service was His exaltation. By taking the servant's place He took the form of a servant and fully identified Himself with humanity.
He did this in enduring divine love for His own unto the end, as a final token of love, stooping to serve His followers rather than contending for honor or position. He did it in pity while His soul was pressed under a severe load they could not enter into, knowing His hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, yet loving them to the end while their childish jealousies and passions were hurting their own souls. He waited a little to see if their hearts would change from contention and selfishness that made washing one another's feet seem a despised act fit only for servants, then performed the lowly act Himself.
The act rebuked their dispute over greatness and their pride, for without a word at their whisperings and flushed faces He rose as if He had been a servant to wash their feet. His action opened their eyes, astonishing them and filling them with bitter shame, humiliation, mortification and conscience-stricken conviction, showing them themselves in altogether a new light and what they needed. They would remember the experience as long as life lasted, and it would scourge them with conviction after His death. The same goodness, humility and love broke the disciples, leaving them subdued and broken, while for a moment it thrilled even the betrayer with an impulse to confess before he braced himself against light and fought away.
His humble service teaches that true greatness is humble, loving, unselfish ministry and devotion to serving others rather than seeking supremacy or the highest place. The chapter stands as a lesson in humility and consecrated service against striving for the highest position, in contrast to ambition and betrayal. While the disciples sought the highest place in the promised kingdom, Christ took the place of a servant, showing that people in the highest positions should practice humility. By serving even His betrayer He set a personal example of unselfish ministry, not seeking supremacy.
By girding Himself with a towel He showed constant ministry to the needy, sorrowful and distressed, fully identified with humanity. He came to cleanse the heart from sin, and accepting His work of purification is not humiliating Him but receiving His provision with gratitude and serving Him earnestly. Though highest of all and higher than the angels, He humbled Himself and took humanity so He could represent humanity in the heavenly courts as High Priest. His meekness and humility became especially marked as He neared His ascension to the Father.
Ordinance Before Communion
Rising from supper to lay aside outer garments and gird with a towel made footwashing a consecrated religious ordinance for followers, not merely the hospitality custom of washing dusty travelers' feet. It was instituted as a simple, last ordinance in connection with the last supper just prior to the Lord's Supper and shortly before death. It replaced the ancient Jewish rites and ceremonies, which lost all virtue when type met antitype in Himself as the great and only efficacious offering for the sins of the world and the authority and foundation of all ordinances pointing to Him. It frees disciples from the cares and burdens of those rites and disentangles them from ceremonies that the reception of the Gospel made of no force, so that to continue them would be an insult to Jehovah.
The ordinance is to come before communion and precede partaking of the emblems of His death, because pride, conflict and desire for supremacy prevent fellowship with Christ and readiness to receive the symbols of His body and blood. When these ordinances are celebrated Christ is sacredly present with great interest. He leads each participant to feel the pulse of conscience, awakens understanding of the lessons symbolized, revives memory, convicts of sin, and receives penitential offerings. It speaks less to intellectual capacity than to the heart, meeting the moral and spiritual nature, teaching that brother is not to exalt himself above brother and showing the danger of disunion and strife in which the health and holy activity of the soul are involved. Eating His body and drinking His blood means not merely partaking at the sacramental service but daily partaking of the bread of life that alone satisfies soul-hunger by receiving His Word and doing His will.
The order is washing first, and afterward eating the broken bread to represent His broken body and drinking the juice of the vine to represent His spilled blood. The service tests and proves loyalty. It is to be practiced after humble confessions and kept together with the Lord's Supper, and keeping it does a good work that leaves those who take part highly gratified. Remembering the action requires searching the heart, confessing cherished sins, rejecting self-exaltation for severe self-censure and humiliation, and putting away selfishness, evil speaking and evil thinking.
It is a plain duty laid down to be done as He did, as exactly as possible and followed literally. It is to be practiced more frequently together with partaking of the Lord's Supper, and its performance keeps people humble and separate from the world and keeps them from backsliding like the nominal churches. The observance is solemn and profitable, producing humbling before God with weeping and rejoicing that is long remembered, and it can be a solemn, deeply moving occasion belonging with earnest, appropriate speaking when the bread is broken. It must be done understandingly and not made a tedious ceremony.
It is to be done only among believers apart from unbelievers, for He first held it with His disciples apart and separate from the wicked, and doing it in the midst of unbelievers brings reproach on the cause. Men are to wash men's feet and women to wash women's feet, then all join afterward in the washing, for a man has no business washing a woman's feet and the practice of men and women washing each other's feet is not right. There is no example for brethren to wash sisters' feet, though those holding the earlier view taught that sisters washing the feet of brethren is according to gospel order. Shepherds must move understandingly and carefully in following this example, introducing it into new places where people are uninformed or prejudiced through former teachers with carefulness and wisdom in a proper time and manner to avoid confusion.
Patient Love to Betrayer
He rose to wash the feet of all the disciples, and Judas was included, indeed taken first, though Judas had already pledged to betray Him, had agreed to do it, had sold Him for thirty pieces of silver, and was concealing his plan even while partaking at the table. The preparation itself was part of the ministry to the betrayer, for laying aside the outer garments and taking the towel readied a tender service that embraced even one who had made himself a channel of darkness. No one was singled out for special favor, service, or honor in that rising and girding, but all were served alike.
The inclusion of Judas was a tender final appeal of love and a final effort to reach him, offering him opportunity to receive Christ, repent, confess, and be cleansed from sin. With His own hands Christ bathed Judas's soiled feet and wiped them with the towel, bearing patiently with perverse character, giving no word of rebuke and not exposing him, while unseen heavenly witnesses were present. The same patience that bore with Judas bore with those at fault generally, making their faults the very occasion for service rather than a reason to abandon them or drive them toward temptation.
Judas did not heed the appeal but went out to betray Him. For a moment his heart was thrilled with an impulse to confess under the pressure of goodness, humility, and love meant to bring him to shame, conviction, and confession, then he braced himself against light and fought away from Jesus. He grew angry that Christ had done a servant's work, misread that humility as degradation, concluded Christ could not be Israel's king, felt his hopes for worldly honor in a temporal kingdom crushed, and decided to stop following Christ and betray Him. By contrast the other disciples were left ashamed, mortified, conscience-stricken, subdued and broken, with hearts drawn out to Jesus in deep earnest faith which works by love and purifies the soul, so that all but Judas were brought to repentance.
That example establishes impartial, selfless ministry to all as Christ's purchased possession, for He died just as truly for the poor and uneducated as for the most learned and those who think themselves greatest. No one who wishes to join the ordinance is to be excluded, and the service is not to be deferred because someone present is judged unworthy, since human beings cannot read hearts or distinguish the sincere from the insincere and cannot say who is worthy or who may attend. One in error is not to be carelessly separated, abandoned, or left exposed to temptation, for the erring are to be held and served with patient love whose ways and thoughts are higher than human ways and thoughts.
Following His Example
Rising from supper to lay aside His garments and gird Himself with a towel teaches humble service and consecrated service to be copied more perfectly by His followers. Near the end of His earthly ministry, while the disciples disputed who would be greatest, He took the servant's place to teach humility, and gospel ministers especially are to learn from it. Remembering that if He as Lord and Master washed feet they also ought to wash one another's feet, doing as He did to them, brings the soul to humility. Following His example in this ordinance of humility expels selfishness while fostering love, grace, and peace.
Through remembrance of what He did the ordinance brings about a state of feeling where no exaltation of one above another finds place, bringing brother to an understanding of the feelings of his brother. It joins hearts in oneness with Christ and with one another, in contrast to pride, self-sufficiency, contention and strife, and brings unity through humility and practical love. True humility is active, grows from awareness of God's love, and is lived rather than merely claimed or discussed, and His humble service was His exaltation, teaching that even those in the highest positions should practice humility. His disciples are not to consider themselves superior to even the humblest believer, but to show humble, impartial attention to others' needs regardless of station. The more closely followers resemble Him the less disposed they are to honor self.
Remembering His action requires searching the heart, confessing cherished sins, and rejecting thoughts of self-exaltation for severe self-censure and humiliation. It requires putting away selfishness, evil speaking and evil thinking, with evil surmisings, bitterness, self-esteem, self-seeking and seeking the highest place cleared away as believers are brought to the humility that washes a brother's feet. Kept as an ordinance before the Lord's Supper, it clears away misunderstandings and disunion, whose danger must be seen because the health and holy activity of the soul are involved. Eating His body and drinking His blood means not merely partaking at the sacramental service but daily partaking of the bread of life that alone satisfies soul-hunger by receiving His Word and doing His will.
The chapter rebukes the defilement of unkind talk, passing judgment, and self-assured conversation that hurts souls and spoils the work. That unheeded teaching calls for cleansing by the Holy Spirit so the lips are purified and counsels become a savor of life unto life instead of a savor of death unto death. His laying aside His garments connects with His exposed condition stripped to the waist as He stood before Pilate.
At the Passover supper in His last hours with the disciples, with no servant present and the disciples refusing from pride to take the servant's place while contending over greatness, He rose from the table, laid aside His outer garments, and girded Himself with a towel to wash their feet. Though one with God and fully conscious of His divine origin and authority, He laid aside His royal dignity to do a menial servant's work, and His infinite exaltation gave the service its significance without lessening His dignity. The act rebuked their pride and ambition and teaches that true greatness is humble, loving, unselfish ministry to others rather than seeking supremacy. It institutes footwashing as a consecrated ordinance for His followers to come before the Lord's Supper, because pride and strife unfit the heart for fellowship with Christ and for receiving the emblems of His body and blood. He washed all, beginning with Judas though betrayal was already in his heart, as a tender final appeal to repent and be cleansed, leaving an example of impartial, humble service to be copied, especially in searching the heart and confessing sin before communion.
Supper Setting and Details
He rises at the Passover supper, in the last evening and last hours with the disciples before offering Himself as a sacrifice for the world. It is the final week of trial, suffering, betrayal, humiliation and death, when He knows His hour has come to depart out of this world to the Father. He knows the Father has given all things into His hands, and that He has come from God and goes to God. Though betrayal is already in the heart of Judas, who has pledged to betray Him, His thoughts are centered on the disciples and the trial, separation and trials they will face afterward. He prepares them and comforts them before His suffering, having loved His own unto the end, and what He does begins the lesson He gives them in this final time together.
The disciples come to the supper with selfish hearts and tempers heated by contention, disputing who should be greatest and who should be accounted greatest in the promised kingdom. Satan makes a determined effort to arouse and press strife among them, and they yield to it. Their whispering contention is still fresh in their minds, leaving them unready to understand the solemn events ahead. Sorrow fills His heart as He sees them yielding, their spirit grieves Him, and He waits to see if their hearts will change.
Footwashing is the customary courtesy owed to guests after sandals are removed, and the pitcher and basin or bowl with the towel are ready. No servant is present, and the disciples are expected to serve one another. Wounded pride keeps each from taking the servant's place, none acts, and their silence shows refusal to humble themselves.
At that supper they recline on couches around the table rather than standing ready to leave as at the first Passover. Their reclining position leaves their feet at the outer edge of the couches, where one passing around the circle can wash them. Hearing their whisperings and seeing their flushed faces, without a word He rises from supper, lays aside His outer garments, takes a towel and girds Himself as if He were a servant to wash their feet.
Christ's Servant Humility
Though fully conscious of His divine authority, origin and divinity, the spotless Son of God, one with God and higher than the angels, laid aside His royal dignity with His outer garments and girded Himself to do a servant's lowly, menial work. His infinite exaltation gave the service its significance and did not lessen His dignity, for His humble service was His exaltation. By taking the servant's place He took the form of a servant and fully identified Himself with humanity.
He did this in enduring divine love for His own unto the end, as a final token of love, stooping to serve His followers rather than contending for honor or position. He did it in pity while His soul was pressed under a severe load they could not enter into, knowing His hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, yet loving them to the end while their childish jealousies and passions were hurting their own souls. He waited a little to see if their hearts would change from contention and selfishness that made washing one another's feet seem a despised act fit only for servants, then performed the lowly act Himself.
The act rebuked their dispute over greatness and their pride, for without a word at their whisperings and flushed faces He rose as if He had been a servant to wash their feet. His action opened their eyes, astonishing them and filling them with bitter shame, humiliation, mortification and conscience-stricken conviction, showing them themselves in altogether a new light and what they needed. They would remember the experience as long as life lasted, and it would scourge them with conviction after His death. The same goodness, humility and love broke the disciples, leaving them subdued and broken, while for a moment it thrilled even the betrayer with an impulse to confess before he braced himself against light and fought away.
His humble service teaches that true greatness is humble, loving, unselfish ministry and devotion to serving others rather than seeking supremacy or the highest place. The chapter stands as a lesson in humility and consecrated service against striving for the highest position, in contrast to ambition and betrayal. While the disciples sought the highest place in the promised kingdom, Christ took the place of a servant, showing that people in the highest positions should practice humility. By serving even His betrayer He set a personal example of unselfish ministry, not seeking supremacy.
By girding Himself with a towel He showed constant ministry to the needy, sorrowful and distressed, fully identified with humanity. He came to cleanse the heart from sin, and accepting His work of purification is not humiliating Him but receiving His provision with gratitude and serving Him earnestly. Though highest of all and higher than the angels, He humbled Himself and took humanity so He could represent humanity in the heavenly courts as High Priest. His meekness and humility became especially marked as He neared His ascension to the Father.
Ordinance Before Communion
Rising from supper to lay aside outer garments and gird with a towel made footwashing a consecrated religious ordinance for followers, not merely the hospitality custom of washing dusty travelers' feet. It was instituted as a simple, last ordinance in connection with the last supper just prior to the Lord's Supper and shortly before death. It replaced the ancient Jewish rites and ceremonies, which lost all virtue when type met antitype in Himself as the great and only efficacious offering for the sins of the world and the authority and foundation of all ordinances pointing to Him. It frees disciples from the cares and burdens of those rites and disentangles them from ceremonies that the reception of the Gospel made of no force, so that to continue them would be an insult to Jehovah.
The ordinance is to come before communion and precede partaking of the emblems of His death, because pride, conflict and desire for supremacy prevent fellowship with Christ and readiness to receive the symbols of His body and blood. When these ordinances are celebrated Christ is sacredly present with great interest. He leads each participant to feel the pulse of conscience, awakens understanding of the lessons symbolized, revives memory, convicts of sin, and receives penitential offerings. It speaks less to intellectual capacity than to the heart, meeting the moral and spiritual nature, teaching that brother is not to exalt himself above brother and showing the danger of disunion and strife in which the health and holy activity of the soul are involved. Eating His body and drinking His blood means not merely partaking at the sacramental service but daily partaking of the bread of life that alone satisfies soul-hunger by receiving His Word and doing His will.
The order is washing first, and afterward eating the broken bread to represent His broken body and drinking the juice of the vine to represent His spilled blood. The service tests and proves loyalty. It is to be practiced after humble confessions and kept together with the Lord's Supper, and keeping it does a good work that leaves those who take part highly gratified. Remembering the action requires searching the heart, confessing cherished sins, rejecting self-exaltation for severe self-censure and humiliation, and putting away selfishness, evil speaking and evil thinking.
It is a plain duty laid down to be done as He did, as exactly as possible and followed literally. It is to be practiced more frequently together with partaking of the Lord's Supper, and its performance keeps people humble and separate from the world and keeps them from backsliding like the nominal churches. The observance is solemn and profitable, producing humbling before God with weeping and rejoicing that is long remembered, and it can be a solemn, deeply moving occasion belonging with earnest, appropriate speaking when the bread is broken. It must be done understandingly and not made a tedious ceremony.
It is to be done only among believers apart from unbelievers, for He first held it with His disciples apart and separate from the wicked, and doing it in the midst of unbelievers brings reproach on the cause. Men are to wash men's feet and women to wash women's feet, then all join afterward in the washing, for a man has no business washing a woman's feet and the practice of men and women washing each other's feet is not right. There is no example for brethren to wash sisters' feet, though those holding the earlier view taught that sisters washing the feet of brethren is according to gospel order. Shepherds must move understandingly and carefully in following this example, introducing it into new places where people are uninformed or prejudiced through former teachers with carefulness and wisdom in a proper time and manner to avoid confusion.
Patient Love to Betrayer
He rose to wash the feet of all the disciples, and Judas was included, indeed taken first, though Judas had already pledged to betray Him, had agreed to do it, had sold Him for thirty pieces of silver, and was concealing his plan even while partaking at the table. The preparation itself was part of the ministry to the betrayer, for laying aside the outer garments and taking the towel readied a tender service that embraced even one who had made himself a channel of darkness. No one was singled out for special favor, service, or honor in that rising and girding, but all were served alike.
The inclusion of Judas was a tender final appeal of love and a final effort to reach him, offering him opportunity to receive Christ, repent, confess, and be cleansed from sin. With His own hands Christ bathed Judas's soiled feet and wiped them with the towel, bearing patiently with perverse character, giving no word of rebuke and not exposing him, while unseen heavenly witnesses were present. The same patience that bore with Judas bore with those at fault generally, making their faults the very occasion for service rather than a reason to abandon them or drive them toward temptation.
Judas did not heed the appeal but went out to betray Him. For a moment his heart was thrilled with an impulse to confess under the pressure of goodness, humility, and love meant to bring him to shame, conviction, and confession, then he braced himself against light and fought away from Jesus. He grew angry that Christ had done a servant's work, misread that humility as degradation, concluded Christ could not be Israel's king, felt his hopes for worldly honor in a temporal kingdom crushed, and decided to stop following Christ and betray Him. By contrast the other disciples were left ashamed, mortified, conscience-stricken, subdued and broken, with hearts drawn out to Jesus in deep earnest faith which works by love and purifies the soul, so that all but Judas were brought to repentance.
That example establishes impartial, selfless ministry to all as Christ's purchased possession, for He died just as truly for the poor and uneducated as for the most learned and those who think themselves greatest. No one who wishes to join the ordinance is to be excluded, and the service is not to be deferred because someone present is judged unworthy, since human beings cannot read hearts or distinguish the sincere from the insincere and cannot say who is worthy or who may attend. One in error is not to be carelessly separated, abandoned, or left exposed to temptation, for the erring are to be held and served with patient love whose ways and thoughts are higher than human ways and thoughts.
Following His Example
Rising from supper to lay aside His garments and gird Himself with a towel teaches humble service and consecrated service to be copied more perfectly by His followers. Near the end of His earthly ministry, while the disciples disputed who would be greatest, He took the servant's place to teach humility, and gospel ministers especially are to learn from it. Remembering that if He as Lord and Master washed feet they also ought to wash one another's feet, doing as He did to them, brings the soul to humility. Following His example in this ordinance of humility expels selfishness while fostering love, grace, and peace.
Through remembrance of what He did the ordinance brings about a state of feeling where no exaltation of one above another finds place, bringing brother to an understanding of the feelings of his brother. It joins hearts in oneness with Christ and with one another, in contrast to pride, self-sufficiency, contention and strife, and brings unity through humility and practical love. True humility is active, grows from awareness of God's love, and is lived rather than merely claimed or discussed, and His humble service was His exaltation, teaching that even those in the highest positions should practice humility. His disciples are not to consider themselves superior to even the humblest believer, but to show humble, impartial attention to others' needs regardless of station. The more closely followers resemble Him the less disposed they are to honor self.
Remembering His action requires searching the heart, confessing cherished sins, and rejecting thoughts of self-exaltation for severe self-censure and humiliation. It requires putting away selfishness, evil speaking and evil thinking, with evil surmisings, bitterness, self-esteem, self-seeking and seeking the highest place cleared away as believers are brought to the humility that washes a brother's feet. Kept as an ordinance before the Lord's Supper, it clears away misunderstandings and disunion, whose danger must be seen because the health and holy activity of the soul are involved. Eating His body and drinking His blood means not merely partaking at the sacramental service but daily partaking of the bread of life that alone satisfies soul-hunger by receiving His Word and doing His will.
The chapter rebukes the defilement of unkind talk, passing judgment, and self-assured conversation that hurts souls and spoils the work. That unheeded teaching calls for cleansing by the Holy Spirit so the lips are purified and counsels become a savor of life unto life instead of a savor of death unto death. His laying aside His garments connects with His exposed condition stripped to the waist as He stood before Pilate.