Is foot-washing for today?

The full consciousness of His glory, with thoughts of His people, is given as the ground of our Lord's gracious act. About to depart out of the world, leaving His own in it amid the dangers to which they were exposed, longing for communion with Himself, His love leads Him to stoop to serve them in this lowly way. Formalism loses the blessing of our Lord's act here by a literal imitation of an act which was not instituted for permanent observance. We find abundant reference to baptism and the Lord's Supper in the book of Acts and in the Epistles, for instance but the washing of the feet is not spoken of in the same way. This, in addition to its evident symbolic character, should suffice to guard us from a misunderstanding of this simple act. When Peter objects to His taking this lowly service, our Lord's reply shows its spiritual, symbolic character, "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter."

The simple and evident teaching is that as we go through a world full of defilement we need to be kept in communion with the Lord. Salvation is assured once for all. The new nature has been imparted. This our Lord declares in explanation of His act: "He that is washed (bathed) needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit." The cleansing of the ways, and not the cleansing of the soul, is evidently before us. Thus, as we know in advance, there is no contradiction between the eternal security of the child of God and his constant need for the cleansing of his ways. Not only is our Lord's symbolical act in washing His disciples' feet dwelt upon, but His command is that we should do the same toward one another. How much we need to drink into His spirit in order that we may serve one another in this lowly way! Alas, much that goes under the name of washing one another's feet is using a rod rather than bowing in lowly service.

Verse 7 is clear proof that the Lord was not intending by His example a mere literal washing of feet to be thereafter carried on by the disciples, but something more important, of which feet-washing is typical. For this speaks of the application of the word of God to the details of our walk through a defiling world (Eph. 5:26). Contact with defilement requires contact with the word, if the defilement is to be removed, and who is more gentle and thorough than the Lord Jesus in applying that word?

For it was not simply to inculcate a lesson of humility that the Lord Jesus Christ washed the feet of the apostles that evening. It is true, for the Lord told them, that they were to learn from it a lesson of humility, as, resuming His place at the table, He said, "If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you" (John 13:14-15). All must understand that He here sets us an example to stoop to lowly service on behalf of other Christians. Peter's exclamation, "Lord, dost thou wash my feet?" tells us what he thought of the act; and his unhesitating assertion, "Thou shalt never wash my feet," shows clearly the light in which he viewed the matter. The Lord's humility is apparent, and His reasoning about it cogent. He has stooped in a way and measure impossible to us. He, our Lord and Master, has stooped to serve His disciples. They may well stoop to serve one another. For if they thus minister to one another, who may often need a similar service to be rendered to them, they can only do it as first taught by Him, who, never requiring such service Himself, set them the example on the night of His betrayal.

The Lord now exhorts His disciples to imitate His example. They called Him Teacher: let this lowly grace of His then be their instruction. They called Him Lord: let them obey His command. He, their Teacher and Lord, had washed their feet: they might well wash one another's feet. Plainly it was no mere ceremony that he was proposing for their imitation, but the meeting of a deep spiritual need, as love alone could meet it. In a scene of defilement such as the world is, alluring even time hearts of disciples from their Lord, be it theirs to recover and cleanse those who were being drawn away by its allurements. Mere judgment of the evil would not do this, however righteous. Love alone has power to draw, and Christ must be the One drawn to or there is no restoration. How strangely do those who confess themselves debtors wholly to a Saviour's grace yet deal with one another on the totally opposite principle of law. He that would cleanse another's feet must be at his feet to cleanse them. The soul that has fallen into sin has done so because it has got away from the Source of holiness and strength. It is of small service to judge for such their sin; that is only the sign of how far they have departed. They need with this the confirmation to them of that grace which alone breaks the dominion of sin (Rom. 6:14). People seem as if they argued as to failing Christians, that grace has failed with them, and now government, as they would say, must have its course. Now government is the government of grace. "Grace reigns through righteousness;" the government is a Father's government; while He truly "judges according to every man's work." God's electing love has pledged even, as to Abraham, (Gen. 15:17,) the "smoking furnace" to do His work. He may thus permit Issachar, become time world's drudge for hire (Gen. 49:15), to gall his shoulder with the yoke of a hard service. A child of God may thus be allowed to eat of the fruit of his own ways, that he may learn, in the only way that he himself has rendered possible, the perfection of the ways of God. It is a painful method but a self-chosen one; and plainly through all grace is working, — governing. We can never oppose, for the child of God, His government to His grace. All through, His path is light; and it could not be grace that did not conform to this.

The Lesson. — Now resuming His garments and His seat, He is once more the Master in the midst of His disciples. As that He addresses them all. "Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call Me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say to you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither is he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them" (12-17). Care for each other, and interest in each other, could be manifested by washing the feet — i.e. bringing the Word of God to bear on the other, if occasion call for it. Much wisdom and grace is surely needed for such a service to be rightly performed. Love, unchanging love, for His own moves the Lord to do it. Real love for another, and a true desire for his welfare, are needful for any of us to undertake such a work. And we do well to remember, that beside the washing there is the wiping. The service, when done, should be reckoned a service of the past; and the failure, which called for it, should then be buried, so as not to be cast up against the individual in the future. A lowly service it might seem; yet it was to be viewed as beneath none of them. If the Lord and Master would do it, the disciple, the Apostle, must not be above it.

The washing of the feet therefore is a service with which Christ is now occupied for us. If negligent — for which there is no cause, or excuse, or need — we defile our feet, are thereby rendered spiritually unfit to enter into God's presence; Christ thereupon cleanses us by the Word, so that our communion with our God and Father may be re-established.

Having resumed His garments, we find the Lord urging on His disciples to "do as I have done to you." "If I then your Lord and Master have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet" (John 13:14). That is 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. "If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them" (John 13:17). I think the secret of a good deal of want of happiness lies in this. We are not doing this. If we were more desirous, in the spirit of meekness, to take the spot off some erring child of God, we should know more what this means. 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.

“Ye also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14).

It is true that our Lord teaches us a lesson of humility by this lowly act, but it is also true that He gives it a spiritual significance. We are to wash one another’s feet, it is our duty, our obligation. “If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.” How can I do it? I can only do it as I walk in love; I can only do it as I keep clean myself; I can only do it as my affections are in activity; I must love in order to serve my brethren. Hence at the close of chapter 13 you get “This is My commandment, that ye love one another.” It cannot be done any other way; it cannot be done from a sense of duty—it is our duty, but it cannot be done from a sense of duty. I do not mean that we should do it merely from affection, because if we did it merely from affection, we might forget that it is the will of God for us. No, we are to do it in obedience, in the power of affection for one another produced by the Spirit of God.

When our Lord said, "I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you," He certainly did not mean that we should imitate Him in the mere preparations for that service, such as the "girding with the towel," and the "pouring water into the basin." Many show great aptitude for such preparations, but break down in the act of feet washing, because they spurn to kneel down to get at the brother's feet. They enter into his presence with an air which says, I have come to wash your feet. Such preparations resemble rather those of a barber than the humble service of a Christian feet-washing, and generally do more harm than good. A well-known servant of Christ has truly observed, "If I do not judge first in myself the flesh I see active in my brother (for the same exists in myself), I am not fit to wash his feet." If before going to a brother to wash his feet, I have been in the dust before the Lord, I shall appear little before my brother, and thus be able gently to remove the defilement.

Such was the Lord, such is the Lord, and such will be the Lord, in His unceasing service of love towards His saints; and He tells them to be His imitators. "If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet." He expects to see, among us on earth, the copy of that which He is doing for us in heaven. He is there daily washing our feet, bearing our need and meeting our defilements before the throne; and He would have us daily washing one another's feet, bearing one another's infirmities, and helping one another's joy, here on the footstool.

(Vv. 12-17). Having finished this service and resumed His seat at the table, the Lord gives us further instruction as to the service of feet-washing. While essentially His own service, yet it is one that He often carries out through the mediation of others. Thus we are put under the obligation, and given the privilege, of washing one another's feet. A blessed service, carried out, not by seeking to correct one another (however necessary at times), still less by finding fault with one another, but by ministering Christ to one another, for only a ministry of Christ will bring refreshment to a wearied soul. Years after the scene in the upper room the Apostle Paul will tell us that one of the qualifications of a godly widow is that she has washed the feet of saints (1 Tim. 5:10). This surely does not imply that she was simply a rebuker of evil, or a corrector of faults, but rather that she refreshed the drooping spirits of the saints by coming from Christ with a ministry of Christ.