John 13:5, commentary and pictures

On the last evening before His death at the last Passover supper, He rose from the table, laid aside His outer garments, girded Himself with a towel like a servant, poured water into a basin and with His own hands washed and wiped the soiled feet of the disciples. Though He was one with God and the highest of all, He veiled His divinity in humanity and took the form of a servant, and the stoop did not lessen His dignity but gave the act grace and significance. The silent service was a rebuke to their selfish contention for greatness that shamed them into new self-knowledge, showing that true greatness is loving service and humility rather than status. He washed every one including Judas, whom He knew had sold Him for thirty pieces of silver, giving no rebuke or exposure but a final appeal of love to move him to repentance and cleansing, which Judas resisted and hardened his heart against. He made the act a consecrated ordinance to be ever repeated by His followers, observed before the Lord's Supper, to cleanse the heart from pride and sin, put away discord and selfishness, and join hearts in humility, love and unity with Christ and one another.

Setting and Actions Described

The washing belongs to the last week, in the upper chamber on the last evening before death at the last Passover supper, in the last hours before offering Himself as sacrifice. It was final instruction and comfort to prepare the disciples for trial and separation from Him, for betrayal and rejection, while He faced the cross and anticipated suffering and humiliation and knew they would soon have to withstand temptation without Him. It came near the hour of departing to the Father and ascending.

The Passover guests reclined on couches around the table with their feet at the outer edge, so one passing around outside the circle could wash them. Pitcher, bowl and towel stood ready for footwashing, but the disciples came selfish and unprepared, with tempers heated by contention and disputing who should be greatest. Satan was working to arouse strife, and each, wounded by pride and ambition, refused to take the servant's place, despising it as servants' work fit only to be looked down upon. There were whisperings and flushed faces, and He let the matter linger to give their hearts a chance to change.

Without argument or word He rose from supper, laid aside His outer garments, and girded Himself with a towel like a servant. He poured water into a basin and stooped to the menial work, and with His own hands bathed their soiled feet, washing and wiping and drying them with the towel wherewith He was girded, beginning the silent act of humble service.

Done as He ate the Passover with His disciples, the act put an end to the sacrifices that had been offered for four thousand years. In place of the national festival He instituted a memorial of feet washing and the sacramental supper to be observed by His followers through all time and in every country, who should ever repeat His act. It was a simple, last-established ordinance given in connection with the last supper to disentangle the disciples from ancient Jewish rites and ceremonies they had counted essential but which the gospel made of no force. Those rites lost all virtue because type was meeting antitype in Himself as the authority and foundation of all ordinances pointing to Him as the only efficacious offering for the sins of the world, so that to continue them would insult Jehovah.

Humility and Service Taught

Though fully conscious of His divinity, authority, infinite exaltation and equality with God as one with God who thought it not robbery to be equal with God, He took the form of a servant and washed and dried the disciples' feet. He who was the highest of all and the highest of angels concealed His divinity in a garb of humanity with a prepared body of flesh, taking not even the nature of angels but human nature to fully identify His interest with humanity. By that stooping He qualified to represent the race in the heavenly courts and to be not only its representative but its Advocate and High Priest who can be touched with the feelings of human infirmities. The stoop did not lessen His dignity but gave the service grace and significance, and He performed this ministry to give a lesson in humility and an unforgettable example to all the human family.

The washing expressed undiminished, tender, enduring divine love unto the end as one of His last acts on earth and a final token of love and lesson in humility. His care for them remained foremost even while His soul was pressed under a severe load none could share and He faced the cross and knew they would soon have to withstand temptation without Him. He served them as He walked and talked with them, including Judas whom He knew would betray Him, and His treatment of them is a model of patience toward those at fault. The act reveals the self-humbling love of the pure spotless Lamb of God who gave Himself as the great sacrifice for humanity, teaching followers to serve one another rather than contend for honor or position and to count others better than themselves.

Without argument or word the silent act was the greatest rebuke, springing from pity and enduring divine love. After each had refused out of wounded pride to perform the customary service, His taking the servant's place exposed their selfish pride, opened their eyes to their conduct, and showed them themselves in a new light. It astonished them and filled them with shame, bitter shame and humiliation and mortification too deep for speech, revealing the pride in their hearts despite Peter's protest and giving a new awareness of themselves and a lesson remembered for life as long as life lasted. The memory would scourge them after His death as sufficient punishment, while their childish jealousies and passions were hurting their own souls. It showed that loving service and true humility, not status or self-importance, constitute greatness and obey God's law of service and unselfish ministry.

The act was also His exaltation, and humility is not something to claim or merely talk about but an active principle rooted in awareness of God's great love and shown in how one acts. Those in the highest positions should be humble and speak simply, must not consider themselves superior to the humblest believer, and should serve one another rather than contend for honor or position, counting others better than themselves. The more closely followers resemble Jesus and the richer their character grows in Christian graces, like ripe grain bending under its burden, the less they will honor or exalt self and the more they will give glory to God's name instead. No one is to be singled out for special favor, service, or honor, since all are His purchased possession and He died just as truly for the poor and uneducated as for the most learned and those who think themselves greatest, for God's ways are not man's ways and His thoughts are not man's thoughts.

The foot washing was a type of His higher work of cleansing the heart from sin. Outward washing alone did not purify without yielding and submission, as seen in Judas whose heart was not purified because he had not yielded or submitted himself. Refusing the foot washing means refusing that cleansing and rejecting Christ, while true humility receives His work for purification with gratitude and leads to earnest service.

Judas and Final Appeal

He washed every disciple without exception, tenderly giving Judas a place at the table and including him in the service, though He alone knew his secret purpose to betray Him after pledging himself, twice agreeing to do it, and selling Him for thirty pieces of silver, and that he would leave the table to do the betrayer's work. He served Judas first and John last, stooping with His own hands to bathe soiled feet and wipe them with the towel. The inclusion of the betrayer was deliberate, not oversight, for He knew what Judas intended and still washed him.

The washing was a final appeal of love given while Judas still had opportunity to repent, bearing long with one increasingly out of harmony with truth in order to give him a chance to change. He spoke no word of rebuke and did not expose him, but showed goodness, humility and love to move him to shame, conviction and confession, to cast out Satan, and to offer the sinner opportunity to receive Him, repent and be cleansed from sin. That forbearance was a sample of His constant treatment of all the disciples through all His association with them.

Judas felt briefly the thrill and impulse to confess, yet resisted it, braced his soul against light and hardened his heart. He resented the servant role and wrongly took that humility as evidence Jesus could not be Israel's king, abandoning hopes of worldly honor in a temporal kingdom. He used his place beside Jesus at the supper to disguise his plans, and the scene marks where he resolved to disown and betray Christ, though the betrayal arrangements were not yet complete. After rejecting the appeal the feet that had been washed went out to do the betrayer's work, with Satan controlling his heart and mind as traitor and betrayer.

His treatment of Judas is a model of patience toward those at fault and demonstrates long patience with perverse human nature. It teaches not to carelessly separate from one in error or sin and leave that person exposed to temptation, but not to abandon them and to seek to keep them from temptation and further opposition to God, bearing patiently with false brethren. The example helped bring all but one of the twelve to repentance and shows He longs to cleanse every heart from sin.

Therefore no one is to be excluded from the service on suspicion of unworthiness, the ordinance is not to be deferred because some are judged unworthy, no person is to refuse it because another present is judged unworthy, and no person is to decide who may attend. Human beings cannot read hearts or the secrets of the soul nor reliably distinguish the sincere from the insincere or the tares from the wheat. Unseen heavenly witnesses including angels were present observing the washing and Judas's presence, and a Judas may at times be present eating and drinking to his own damnation until God manifests and purges him out, which warns against betraying the Lord as Judas did.

Ordinance for the Church

What took place with basin and towel was not ordinary hospitality for dusty feet but a consecrated religious service, a simple ordinance established last in connection with the last supper shortly before death and just prior to the Lord's Supper. It was instituted to be observed through all time and in every country to remember humility and service and to ever repeat the act, and it is observed before partaking of the emblems of death, with the circumstances of its observance recalling its institution. Done as the Passover was eaten, it put an end to the sacrifices offered for four thousand years and set in place of the national festival a memorial of feet washing and the sacramental supper, disentangling followers from ancient Jewish rites and ceremonies. Those rites lost all virtue because type was meeting antitype in Himself as the authority and foundation of all ordinances pointing to Him as the only efficacious offering for sin, so that to continue them would insult Jehovah.

The act is sacred, and God is sacredly near on every occasion with Christ Himself always present. It speaks less to intellectual capacity than to the heart and to the moral and spiritual nature. It gives a special season to feel the pulse of conscience, to understand the lessons symbolized, to revive memory, to be convicted of sin, and to receive penitential offerings. Its motive is to work by remembrance of what was done a state of feeling where no exaltation of one above another finds place, bringing brother to an understanding of his brother's feelings.

Washing of saints' feet and communion belong together in that order, first the washing and then broken bread to represent the broken body and juice of the vine to represent the spilled blood, kept together with breaking bread as the Lord's ordinances alongside the Lord's Supper after humble confessions. It is practiced by the church with the disciples gathered alone, separate entirely from the wicked and unbelievers, in private with believers only. To do them among unbelievers brings reproach upon the cause, so shepherds must move understandingly. The foot-washing ordinance practiced by the church is a solemn, profitable, memorable occasion that humbles altogether before God with weeping and rejoicing and brings deep gratification and does a good work upon hearts.

The example is to be followed as exactly as possible and practiced more frequently, keeping God's people humble and separate from the world and from backsliding like the nominal churches. The washing is to be done judiciously and understandingly and not made a tedious ceremony. It is to be introduced into new places with carefulness and wisdom in proper time and manner where people are uninformed about the example and teaching on this point and where prejudice exists from former trusted teachers, begun by example so that all heartily join even where it was never practiced before. In gospel order brethren wash the feet of brethren and sisters wash the feet of sisters and of brethren, but there is no order for brethren to wash the feet of sisters; a woman's feet are to be washed by a sister, not by any man, and men and women washing together is not right.

As Master and Lord washing feet, command was given to wash one another's feet and to do as had been done, giving an example to do as was done, with the servant not greater than his lord nor he that is sent greater than he that sent him, and happiness in knowing and doing these things. The ceremony tests and proves loyalty. It clears away misunderstandings, selfishness, esteeming self above brother, seeking the highest place, evil surmisings, bitterness over trifles, disunion and strife, bringing man down from self-exaltation to humility to wash his brother's feet, softening and subduing the soul, driving out selfishness, and rebuking pride, self-sufficiency, evil thinking, evil speaking and contention. It joins hearts in oneness and brings the Holy Spirit, love, grace and peace to contrite hearts. It prepares the heart for the Supper, since pride, discord and rivalry prevent fellowship and readiness, so the memorial of humiliation comes first, calling for searching the heart, confessing cherished sins, and putting away selfishness, evil speaking, evil thinking and self-exaltation in severe self-censure, humiliation and humility.

Call to Live Teaching

John 13:5 belongs to John 13-17, which plainly outline God's will for those who minister in word and doctrine and plainly express His will to be lived out in practical life. God means just what He says in every verse of these chapters, and ministers have the privilege and duty to believe every verse and live it out before fellow ministers. Those acquainted with present truth need conversion to understand the genuine missionary work taught there. The chapter is connected with Christ's prayer for unity and love, and living its instruction leads to unity with one another and with Christ.

His words in John 13 call for cleansing by the Holy Spirit from the defilement of unkind talk and passing judgment, cleansing of the lips that hurt souls and spoil God's work, and those words are not heeded by those handling strange fire. Near the end of His earthly ministry He humbled Himself as a servant by washing the feet of disciples who called Him Lord and Master, while they argued who would be greatest in the promised kingdom, and gave them a lasting lesson in humility. Ministers can learn from it by reflecting on His closing scenes and spirit of self-giving love. Its lesson should be studied carefully and prayerfully, leading to humble repentance, contrition, and complete dependence on God through Jesus Christ, and it also warns against betraying the Lord as Judas did.

His example teaches gospel ministers especially to humble themselves and serve others rather than strive for a higher position. Taking part in foot washing shows willingness to serve humbly, and the ordinance symbolizes the condition of the mind and heart. Humility is not something to claim or merely talk about; it is an active principle rooted in awareness of God's great love and shown in how one acts, so that people in the highest positions should be humble and speak simply. The ordinance was a simple, last-established ordinance in connection with the last supper to replace the cares and burdens of ancient Jewish rites and ceremonies, which lost all virtue because type was meeting antitype in Himself as the authority and foundation of all ordinances pointing to Him as the only efficacious offering for sin, to disentangle His disciples from rites they had counted essential but which the Gospel made of no force, so that to continue them would insult Jehovah. It speaks less to intellectual capacity than to the heart and to moral and spiritual nature, giving a special season when Christ Himself is always present to make participants feel the pulse of conscience, understand the lessons symbolized, revive memory, convict of sin, and receive penitential offerings, teaching that brother must not exalt himself above brother and showing the dangers of disunion and strife for the health and holy activity of the soul. Eating His body and drinking His blood means not only the sacramental service but daily partaking of the bread of life by receiving His Word and doing His will to satisfy soul-hunger.