If I therefore, the Lord and the Teacher, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet;
Jesus has just washed His disciples' feet, and now He takes His seat at the table again. He turns what He did into a claim on them — but is He asking for a ceremony to repeat, or for a service His people owe each other for life?
The disciples had two regular titles for Him. He quotes them back, but not in the order they used, and one writer draws a lesson from the switch:
They called Him Teacher and Lord, and He approves this, yet He Himself reverses the order (v. 14). We too often treat teaching as the most important thing, as if His Lordship grew out of His teaching. But Lordship comes first. Once we submit to His authority, His teaching has its proper value and bears proper fruit.
Some have taken these words as setting up a ceremony to keep. One writer reads them differently, and gives his evidence:
Formalism loses the blessing of our Lord's act by copying it literally. He did not set it up as a lasting ceremony. Acts and the Epistles, for instance, speak often of baptism and the Lord's Supper, but they do not speak of the washing of feet in the same way. That, along with its clear symbolic character, should keep us from misunderstanding this simple act.
If the washing is symbolic, so is the duty. The service He hands over is the Word applied in grace to a believer who has gone wrong, and it asks something of the one who gives it:
We ought to be able and willing to help each other. It is not feet-washing to point out the fault of another. If you are going to wash another's feet, you must get down low enough yourself... We are still called to wash one another's feet, to apply the Word in grace to the conscience of an erring brother or sister who needs it. But to really do this we must be in the humility of Christ, so blessedly shown in this heart-touching scene.
There is also a question of timing. A person in need of the service himself is in no state to give it:
Notice in passing: when we ourselves need our feet washed to be restored, it is not the moment to try to wash our brothers' feet.
The danger is doing the right thing in the wrong spirit. Correction can look like this service and be its opposite:
If He then stooped in love to wash their feet, what did they not owe one another?... On the one hand, it needs faith and self-denial and divine affections. Indifference about it shows up our own failure. But on the other hand, the righteousness that condemns another is as far as possible from washing the feet. It looks more like the whip than the service of the towel and basin. And if grace is needed to bear the washing, far more of it must be at work to wash another's feet.
The duty never expires, because the Master never stopped the work. He carries it on from heaven, and He looks for the same care among His people on earth:
He expects to see, among us on earth, the copy of what He is doing for us in heaven. He is there daily washing our feet, bearing our need and dealing with our defilement before the throne. And He would have us daily washing one another's feet, bearing one another's weaknesses and helping one another's joy, here on earth, His footstool.
The Lord did not only wash; He wiped. One writer draws a practical rule from that second detail:
None of us can take up such a work without real love for the other person and a true desire for his good. And we do well to remember that beside the washing there is the wiping. Once the service is done, count it a thing of the past. Bury the failure that called for it, and never bring it up against the person again.
- Bow first. He puts Lord before Teacher. His teaching only bears fruit in those who submit to His authority.
- Stoop lower. He stooped in love, so what we owe Him we now owe each other. He still washes feet from heaven and looks for the same care on earth.
- Word, not rite. The service is the Word applied in grace to a believer's conscience, not a ceremony to repeat.
- Towel, not whip. Pointing out a fault is not feet-washing. Harsh criticism is the opposite of the basin, and not caring at all exposes our own failure.
- Wash, then wipe. Once the service is done, bury the failure. Never raise it against the person again.
for I have given you an example that, as I have done to you, ye should do also.
The night before the cross, Jesus rose from supper and took a towel. He washed the feet of His own disciples. Then He sat down again and told them why. His word "example" raises a question. Was He starting a ceremony? Or was He giving His disciples a lasting pattern of love that reaches far beyond a basin of water?
Everything here turns on who was doing the washing. One writer points to Peter's reaction:
The Lord Jesus Christ did not wash the feet of the apostles that evening simply to teach a lesson in humility. All must understand this: here He gives us an example of stooping to lowly service for other Christians. Peter's exclamation, "Lord, do you wash my feet?" tells us what he thought of the act... He has stooped in a way and to a degree impossible for us. He, our Lord and Master, has stooped to serve His disciples. They may well stoop to serve one another.
One writer settles the ceremony question from verse 7:
Verse 7 is clear proof that the Lord did not mean His disciples to keep up a merely literal washing of feet. He meant something more important, and feet-washing is a picture of it. It speaks of the word of God applied to the details of our walk through a defiling world (Ephesians 5:26). If the defilement is to go, contact with defilement needs contact with the word. And who is more gentle and thorough than the Lord Jesus in applying that word?
So the service He models is one Christians still owe each other daily:
This feet washing is the lowly ministry of applying the word of God to the need of one another's souls, for the cleansing or preservation from the defilement of our daily contacts with the world. We all need this restoring ministry, and we should all engage in it for the help of one another.
The verse does more than tell disciples what to do. It tells them how far. One writer notes how long Peter carried the memory of that night:
Peter never forgot it. Twenty-five years later, in his first letter, he urges his fellow disciples to be "clothed with humility" (1 Peter 5:5)... The apostle could never forget the sacred head bowed over his unworthy feet... The Lord Himself sets the measure and the standard: "just as I have done to you" (John 13:15). This goes beyond the golden rule. It gives us not merely an ethic but an Example to copy. My debt to Him is the measure of my debt to my brothers.
The manner matters as much as the act. Fault-finding can look like obedience and be its opposite:
Here is a definite call to share His grace in seeking each other's restoration where failure has come in. It comes at the very point where we are most likely to fail. On the one hand it needs faith, self-denial and divine affections. Indifference about it exposes our own failure. On the other hand, the righteousness that censures another is as far as possible from washing the feet. It looks like the whip, not the service of the towel and basin. And if grace is needed to receive the washing, far more must be at work to do the washing.
Another writer names why the person fell, and where the helper must be:
Anyone who wants to cleanse another's feet must be down at his feet to do it. The soul that has fallen into sin has fallen because it has got away from the Source of holiness and strength.
What He did with water that night, He continues now from glory:
When Christ was with His disciples in the world, He bore patiently with all their weaknesses, errors and defects. He did it so that He might intercede for them and remove from their hearts and minds everything that defiled them. And so in His glory Christ is always serving His people this way. He truly said, "You also ought to wash one another's feet." He meant it in the same way: bearing patiently with their ignorance, errors, weaknesses, defects, any defilement that clings to them.
To refuse this service is no small omission:
The Lord knew the end from the beginning. He knew how soon His ministry would sink into a worldly institution. It would become a title of pride instead of a work of faith and labour of love... To refuse His service of washing the feet of His own is to set oneself above the Lord. It is to claim a greater place than He who sends even an apostle.
The action had two halves, and we tend to remember only the first:
And we do well to remember that beside the washing there is the wiping. Once the service is done, we should count it a thing of the past. We should bury the failure that called for it, and never bring it up against the person later.
- He stooped — the Lord and Master stooped to serve His own. He went lower than we ever can, so we may well stoop for each other.
- He meant more than water — not a ceremony, but the word of God brought to bear on a fellow believer's walk.
- He set the measure — "just as I have done to you" gives not a rule to keep but a Person to copy. Your debt to Him measures your debt to others.
- He rules out the whip — censure is the whip, not the towel. Get down at your brother's feet, wash, then wipe, so the failure stays buried.
- He still does it — Christ serves His own from glory today. To refuse to join Him is to claim a place above His.