Jesus answered and said to him, What I do thou dost not know now, but thou shalt know hereafter.
Peter had just recoiled at the sight of his Master kneeling with a basin. The Lord's reply does not explain the act. It delays it. Two small words carry the weight: "now" and "afterward." What was hidden in this washing, and when would Peter see it?
Many read the foot-washing as Jesus modelling lowliness. But He told Peter to wait for the meaning. The lowliness was the one thing Peter could already see.
To Peter it was unthinkable that the Lord of glory should stoop to wash those wayward feet. So his first words are protest mixed with surprise: "Lord, do you wash my feet?" The Lord answers, "What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand." So we learn that the disciples could not then discern the spiritual meaning of the Lord's act. Later, when the Spirit has come, everything will be plain. Clearly, then, this service was not what people often say. It was not a lesson in humility taught by an act of supreme humility on the Lord's part. Peter would not need to wait for a later day to see the humility of the act. His own words show that the Lord's humility was uppermost in his thoughts at that moment.
The Greek behind the verse uses two different words for knowing. The ESV renders both as "understand." One writer keeps them apart, because the shift from one word to the other is the point.
But the gentle Lord answered him in fullness of grace: "What I am doing you do not know (οἶδας) just now, but you will know (γνώσῃ) afterwards." Was this not a serious but compassionate hint to Peter, if he had been in the mood to learn? He should have gathered from the Lord's words, even if he did not at once bow to His act, that there was a meaning worthy of Him. He thought it due to the Father, in truest and lowliest love to the children, to wash their feet. He should have gathered more than this: what he did not know of himself then, he was to learn afterwards. I take it this means after His rejection and death, resurrection and ascension, when the Holy Spirit would be given to guide them into all the truth.
The delay had an end point. Writers tie it to the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Only when the Holy Spirit came down was there the spiritual understanding to learn the meaning of this action. All through the Lord's life people misunderstood His words. Until a person has the Holy Spirit, there will never be knowledge of the mind and ways of God. Having life does not mean having power and understanding. The possession of the Holy Spirit marks the difference between believers now and those of past times.
Because that day has come, the meaning is open to us. One writer notes that the Spirit has come to guide into all truth, so "the time to which the Lord referred has arrived." Asking what the Lord meant is not prying into mysteries beyond a believer's reach (C. E. Stuart).
So what was there to see? Commentators point beyond that evening to a service the Lord carries on now.
The Lord's action here is deeply symbolic. To take from it only the lesson of humility is, I do not hesitate to say, to miss the point of the teaching. We see it must have a deeper character by reading from verse 7 to verse 10. It is essential to having part with Christ. It is, in fact, the Lord's present service in the Father's presence for His people in this world.
Peter did not learn this as theory. A time came when he knew it in reality.
And all this shows us that forgiveness is one thing. Communion with Christ, as the object that fills our hearts, is quite another... Mark His ways of love with Peter. "What I am doing you do not understand now," Jesus had said, "but afterward you will understand." The time had come when Peter should know the action of the washing of the Word in the reality of its blessing. He should also welcome the love of Jesus that stooped to do it.
The same words meet us when life makes no sense.
What weighty words! "Now" and "Afterwards"! How much we all need to remember them! Often "now" is wrapped in darkness we cannot see through. We cannot explain our Father's dealings at all... We are wholly taken up with "now." Dark, unbelieving reasonings fill our minds. Then those precious words fall on the ear in a still small voice: "What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand."
- Not humility. Peter could already see the Lord stooping. If that were the whole lesson, the Lord would not have told him to wait.
- Peter's "now." He saw the act but not its meaning. The gap was real.
- The "afterward." The Holy Spirit came, and the gap closed. Life in Christ alone does not supply that understanding.
- The meaning. The washing pictures the Lord's present service for His people from the Father's presence. It is essential to having part with Him.
- Your "now." When you cannot explain what God is doing, the same words hold. Darkness belongs to "now." Light belongs to "afterward."
Peter says to him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, Unless I wash thee, thou hast not part with me.
Peter answers the towel and basin with a flat refusal, and the Lord's reply turns a lowly act into the one condition of fellowship with Him. His words "no share with me" raise a question every believer must settle: what is Christ washing, and what do we lose by refusing it?
Peter's "you shall never wash my feet" sounds like reverence, but it puts his own sense of fitness above his Master's judgment. One writer traces what Peter should have reasoned instead:
Now Peter ought to have said, "If the Lord stoops down to wash my feet, it must be because His love is concerned, His glory is concerned, the will of His God and Father is concerned, and, more than that, I need it." For all our needs only give occasion to bring out the Lord's grace and to show His glory. Who then would wish to be without that? So it is not a question of whether it suits me. I am sure I need it. The question is not whether it suits me, but whether it suits Him.
The Lord's wording matters. Older translations read "no part with me" where the ESV has "no share with me," and the point turns on the little word "with." He does not say Peter would have no part in Him. These are two different things:
Notice that the Lord does not say, part in Me. The service of feet-washing is precious, and yet it could never secure "part in Christ." That took the greater work of the Cross. Once accomplished, that work can never be repeated, and it has secured part in Christ for ever to every believer. Feet-washing is an earthly picture of a service that continues in heaven. That service lets believers on earth hold communion with Christ in heaven. For do not the Lord's words "part with Me" mean communion with Himself?
The reason for the basin is the road. What He began with water He continues by other means:
This assurance is solemn, and not for Peter only. It is for all who make light of the same gracious provision on His part, who forget or have never grasped their own need of it. The question is not so much about life as about fellowship — about a part with Christ rather than in Him, though the two cannot really be separated. Christ was going on high to God; Peter and the rest were still on earth, surrounded by defilements along the way. Christ would neither reduce His love to His own, nor treat their failures lightly. So the disciples' feet needed washing, since walking through the world soils them. And this is carried on by the word applied to the conscience by the Spirit. The believer bows, judges himself, and is cleansed in practice. His communion returns, and he can enjoy the things of Christ. He has part with Him.
The stress falls on the pronoun: if I wash you. He holds the basin, and this is not work we can do for ourselves:
Still the Lord waits on His own, girded, with the basin and towel, ready Himself to do the work so needed, so impossible to do for ourselves. "If I wash you not." So He expects, not clean feet, but feet to be cleansed; and the cleansing is what He has undertaken to perform, and we may safely — though not carelessly — leave it with Him.
Behind the whole scene stands His departure. He is not abandoning them; He is preparing them for the place He is entering:
In John 13 the Lord is sitting with the disciples as their companion in the world. He knew that the glory was His and that He was going to it. In the perfect holiness of His nature He says to Peter, "If I do not wash you, you have no part with me." I am going away, but I am not going to give you up. I must have you with me where I go, and dirty feet will not do for heaven.
Peter's mistake did not stay in the past. We repeat it whenever we hold the Word at arm's length:
Sadly, I fear that too often, like Peter, we resist the wholesome water of the Word — and with less excuse than he had. He might have pleaded that he did not know Christ's intention; we cannot. We know now that He would only shape us by it for deeper intimacy with Himself, for we are His own. But we love too well something He must detach us from. And yet it is Jesus who stoops to wash you! My brother, my sister, can you say to Him, "You shall never wash my feet"? Yet we say it in effect if we are afraid of the truth and try to turn its edge away from us and our ways.
- Part in Him — the Cross secured it once for all; that work never repeats and never fails.
- Part with Him — communion with Christ where He now is, and that is what the washing keeps open.
- His hand alone — the work is impossible for us; He does not wait for clean feet but undertakes the washing Himself.
- His instrument — the Word, applied to the conscience by the Spirit; we bow, judge ourselves, and communion returns.
- His purpose — He is going to glory and means to have us with Him; dirty feet will not do for heaven.