Biblion Bible Commentary
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He Loved Them to the End
John 13:1-11
1 Now before the feast of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his time had come that he would depart from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. · WEB
Knowing everything had been given into his hands, he takes off his clothes and washes twenty-four feet.
Now before the feast of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his time had come that he would depart from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end John 13:1.
The verse is the hinge of the book. Twelve chapters of public signs are behind it; from here the doors are shut and the audience is eleven men and a traitor.
To the end means both to the last and to the uttermost — a limit in time and a limit in degree, and the chapters that follow use both.
Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he came from God and was going to God, arose from supper, and laid aside his outer garments John 13:3–4.
The grammar is the sermon. Three enormous clauses of knowledge — everything given into his hands, his origin, his destination — and the main verb they all lead to is that he got up and undressed.
Most people would need to be sure of far less before doing far more. He does the lowest job in the house from a position of total security, which is the only place such a thing can be done from without resentment.
He took a towel and wrapped a towel around his waist. Then he poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet John 13:4–5.
Foot-washing was necessary and it was slaves' work — specifically, in a Jewish household, work a Hebrew slave could not be compelled to do. There was a basin and a towel in that room and nobody had touched them, because to take them up was to declare yourself the least person present.
The other account of that evening records that they were arguing about which of them was greatest Luke 22:24. This is his answer to it, and he does not make it in words.
"Lord, do you wash my feet?" John 13:6. The word order in the Greek puts the two pronouns side by side — you, my — and that collision is the whole objection.
"You don't know what I am doing now, but you will understand later" John 13:7. The same postponement as at the temple and the entry John 2:22 John 12:16. This book keeps saying that the disciples understood afterward.
"You will never wash my feet!" John 13:8.
Peter's refusal is the strongest negative available, and it is offered as reverence. It is also, in its way, the last stand of a man who would rather be humbled than served — which is a harder thing to give up than pride.
"If I don't wash you, you have no part with me."
The answer raises the stakes past all proportion to feet, which tells the reader what the washing has become. Being served by him is not an optional courtesy; declining it is declining him.
"Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!" John 13:9. He swings to the opposite extreme in one verse, which is entirely in character, and it is still an attempt to set the terms.
"Someone who has bathed only needs to have his feet washed, but is completely clean" John 13:10.
The distinction is drawn from the customs of the day: a man bathed before going out to dinner and needed only his feet done on arrival. There is a washing that happens once and a washing that is repeated, and the second does not call the first into question.
"You are clean, but not all of you." And the exception is in the room with his feet washed like everybody else's.
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