What was the significance of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples?

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 water poured into a basin (v. 5) is typically a sufficient quantity of the word of God for the present need (cf. Eph. 5:26): it is not to bathe them, nor to overwhelm them, but only to wash their feet. Without doubt too, it would be neither too hot nor too cold. Such washing of feet was common, of course, because of the use of sandals in walking through a country often dry and dusty. But for the Lord of glory to do this was a most striking and instructive humbling of Himself.

Peter, confident as to his own evaluation of the matter, evidently felt it too great a humiliation for the Lord, and refused to have his feet washed, in spite of the Lord's telling him that he did not understand at the time what the Lord was doing, but that he would know later (v. 8). Why did he not trust the Lord's words, instead of his own assumptions? This same question we may well ask ourselves sometimes.

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?

"Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me." Solemn assurance, not for Peter only, but for all who slight the same gracious provision on His part, who forget or have never apprehended their own need of it. It is a question not so much of life as of fellowship, of a part with Christ rather than in Him, though not really separable. Christ was going on high to God, Peter and the rest still on earth, and surrounded by defilements in the way. Christ would neither abate His love to His own, nor would He make light of their failures. Hence the need of washing the disciples' feet, apt to be soiled in walking through the world. And this is carried on by the word applied to the conscience by the Spirit. The believer bows, judges himself, and is practically cleansed. His communion is restored, and he can enjoy the things of Christ. He has part with Him.

They called Him Teacher and Lord, and He approves this, yet He Himself reverses the order of these (v. 14). Our viewpoint is too frequently that of making teaching the most important, with Lordship practically stemming from teaching. But Lordship is first, and in submission to His authority teaching is then of proper value and properly productive. Whether one understands or not, he should be fully subject to the Lord's authority. He had taught them by example, and they too ought to wash one another's feet.

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.

If we are hesitant to obey this word, then we need to be reminded that the servant is not greater than his Lord (v. 16). How vast an understatement is this! Yet in our pride we may too easily act as though we were greater than He! It is necessary that we have pressed upon us the fact that happiness lies, not in knowing merely, but in acting rightly upon that knowledge.

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.

He rose up from supper and having put aside his garments, girded Himself with a towel. In doing this He put aside His place as their Lord and Teacher and became a servant to each one. For one so revered by them to stoop down and perform so menial a task as washing their dirty feet was, indeed, a proof in itself of the love and tender feeling He had towards them. There was also demonstrated His willingness to go right down to the lowest level in order to meet their needs.

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.

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.

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.

"When then He washed their feet and took His garments and reclined again, He said to them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call Me the Teacher and the Lord, and ye say well, for I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet; for I have given you an example, that even as I did to you, ye should also do. Verily, verily I say to you, A bondman is not greater than his lord, nor yet an apostle greater than He that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do (or, practise) them."

Undoubtedly the humility of the Lord was beyond question in His washing the disciples' feet, and that He would have them cultivate it He had solemnly urged on them in the plainest terms, as we see in all the Synoptic Gospels. But then there is another and deeper instruction. It is the renewal of their defilements in walking through the world which is before His mind, now that He is about to leave them; and about this He would exercise their hearts by the question, "Know ye what I have done to you?" It is His way indeed to teach us afterwards the good He has already done us; and as we grow up to Him in the truth, we appreciate better what we understood253 but slightly at first. Grace instructs us, as well as acts on our behalf; and it is humbling to find out how little we have understood while its activity has never staid. But how good and strengthening it is to learn its ways and lessons!

The Lord next enforces what He had done by appealing to the titles they habitually gave Him. "Ye call Me the Teacher and the Lord; and ye say well, for I am:"254 One to obey as well as to instruct, as could not but be where His personal glory is known. If He then stooped in love to wash their feet, what did they not owe one another? It is not only that we should serve the Lord in the Gospel. "By this shall all men know," He says later on in this very chapter, "that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another." Here, however, it is a definite call, where we are apt most to fail, to share His grace in seeking the restoration of each other where failure has come in. On the one hand, it needs faith and self-denial and Divine affections. Indifference about it detects our own failure. But, on the other hand, the righteousness that censures another is as far as possible from washing the feet, resembling rather the scourge than the service of the towel and basin. And assuredly, if grace be needed to bear the washing, a far larger measure must be in action to wash the feet. Hence says the apostle, "Brethren, even if a man be overtaken in any fault, ye that are spiritual restore such an one in a spirit of meekness." (Gal. 6:1) Where flesh was judged, love could act more powerfully, and with deeper sense that all is of grace. Self is the greatest hindrance in dealing with another's trespass.

The service of love in every form is the mind which was in Christ. Hence He calls them here to weigh what they had first seen. "For I have given you an example that ye also should do even as I did to you. Verily, verily, I say to you, A bondman is not greater than his lord, nor an apostle greater than He that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them."255 The Lord knew the end from the beginning, and how soon His ministry would degenerate into a worldly institution, and become a title of pride, instead of being a work of faith and labour of love. Hence the need for His solemn formula, as a standing witness to all His own so prone in a world of vain show and selfishness to forget His word and wander from His way. But there His warning abides; to decline His service in washing the feet of His own is to set oneself above the Lord, and to claim a greater place than His Who sends even an Apostle. Oh, for the blessedness of doing as well as knowing these things! It is the fellowship of His love in one of its most intimate forms; and "love is of God, and every one that loveth hath been begotten of God and knoweth God." (1 John 4:7)