Before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus and the disciples gather for a supper, and when it ends Jesus proceeds to wash the disciples' feet. Peter protests Christ doing this and then when the reason is explained, he wants to be washed all over. Dr. Sproul explains all these passages in their relationship to the cross, baptism and, the need for cleaning of the feet.

This morning we will continue our study of the gospel of Saint John, as we move to the thirteenth chapter of that gospel. I remind you that chapter 13 begins five chapters of gospel narrative that focus our attention on the events that took place in the upper room, right before the death of Christ. This morning I will be reading from John 13:1–17. I ask the congregation to stand for the reading of the gospel:

Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.

And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. Then He came to Simon Peter. And Peter said to Him, “Lord, are You washing my feet?”

Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.”

Peter said to Him, “You shall never wash my feet!”

Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.”

Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!”

Jesus said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.” For He knew who would betray Him; therefore He said, “You are not all clean.”

So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

He who has ears to hear the Word of God, let him hear. Let us pray.

Father, as we turn our attention to this glorious text that we have just heard, we pray that through the presence and the power of the Holy Ghost we will come to a proper understanding of it, to the end that we may be edified and Your Son may be glorified. For we ask it in His name. Amen. You may be seated.

A Degrading Task

For almost three weeks now, I have been able to do very little except watch the war in Iraq. I am rapidly becoming an expert on this war because I have watched it every day, all day. I have seen some amazing footage, particularly this week, of the jubilation of the people of Iraq when the forty-foot statue of Saddam Hussein was torn from its moorings and dragged through the streets. You may have seen pictures of children riding on the head of the statue, as if it were a sled.

What specifically caught my notice was the way in which the people of Iraq used their shoes or sandals to pound against these statues and posters that were still being displayed in Baghdad. The commentators explained to us the significance of that particular activity among Arab people: To take off one’s shoe and use it to beat upon another person or a person’s image was to show the lowest possible form of contempt for that person.

As I looked at the war from a distance, I was reminded of this week’s text, wherein our Lord was involved in the act of washing the feet of His disciples. He stooped to that point of lowliness, to their uncovered, filthy feet, and engaged in this ritual of cleansing.

Before we look at the text itself, let me comment that in antiquity, the washing of a person’s feet by another was considered such a low, degrading, menial task that it was reserved for slaves. Even within Israel, if a Jewish person had a Jewish slave, the slave owner was not permitted to require his Jewish slave to engage in such an action as the washing of his master’s feet. Only a gentile slave could be required to do such a menial task. That Jesus Himself undertakes this task in the week we call “holy” is filled with theological and ethical significance for us. Let us heed the words John gives us.

He tells us that this activity takes place before the feast of Passover. Without going into all the technical details, one of the most ferocious problems we have in biblical studies is understanding the relationship between John’s gospel and the Synoptic Gospels with respect to the timing of events during Holy Week, and whether there were two different calendars in view. We do not know for sure, and I am not going to spend time on that technical problem; it is more suitable for one of our adult classes rather than the sermon on Sunday morning.

We are not sure if the meal referred to at the beginning of John 13 was in fact a Passover celebration. I do not think that it was. I think it was an evening meal before the actual Passover meal. In any case, in the setting we are given here in John’s gospel, it is what takes place that is most important for us.

The Shadow of the Cross

We are told, “Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” Briefly, we must understand that this action was done in the shadow of the cross.

We have talked much in recent weeks about the hour of Christ, and how the hour of His appointed death is at hand. We cannot properly understand the significance of this foot-washing episode apart from its context in the shadow of the cross.

Before John describes this, he gives us the editorial comment that “He loved His own that were in the world, even to the end.” In the weeks to come, we will be eavesdropping on Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer, in which He says to the Father, in effect, “I do not pray for everyone in the world, but I pray for those whom You have given Me out of the world.” As Jesus prepares to lay down His life, He is preparing to give an atonement not for the whole world, but for His own, whom the Father has given Him.

If the atonement were for the whole world, then everyone would be saved, but the Scriptures make it clear that not everyone is saved. Jesus is now ready to lay down His life for His sheep, and John tells us that He loved the ones the Father gave Him out of the world, and He manifests this love to the very end. That also gives us a hint as to the significance of what is about to take place.

Christ’s Humiliation

Verse 2: “And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself.”

That is significant. The meal is over, and Jesus takes off His robe. Jesus takes off His outer garments, His finery, if you will. If it were in the context of a modern feast, we would see a man taking off his suit coat, tie, and not only that but his shirt and pants. Then He takes a loincloth and wraps it around His waist because now He assumes the garb of a slave.

Let us back up for a moment. Let me read to you the words of the choral anthem we heard this morning, just to refresh your memory. The anthem is titled “On the Road to Jerusalem.”

On the road to Jerusalem slowly rides King Jesus.
People come to call His name, “Son of David, heal us.”
Down the ancient streets He rides, a donkey is His stallion.

No golden coach, no chariot bright brings Him to His kingdom.
Where is His chariot? Where is His robe of silk?
Where is His scepter? Where is His crown?
Where are the trumpets? How will He rule the land
If He comes as a Prince of Peace, and humble as a Lamb?

On the road to Jerusalem rides the Man of Sorrows.
“Save us, King,” the people cry. What will they cry tomorrow?

The author of that choral piece has captured the essence of what is going on here during Holy Week. Christ, who comes humbly into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, riding on a donkey, continues throughout Holy Week, embracing all the symbols of humiliation as He sets His face like a flint for the cross that is waiting for Him. So now, after this dinner, He strips Himself of His dignity. He empties Himself of His glory.

Is this not perfectly reminiscent of the kenotic hymn in Philippians 2? Paul says:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped [that is, not as something to be jealously guarded or tenaciously held on to], but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:5–11 ESV)

I have mentioned in other contexts that the nineteenth-century liberal theologians and twentieth-century “Death of God” theologians, looking at the kenotic passage of Philippians 2, said that this text refers to Christ stripping Himself of His deity when He came to earth, setting aside His divine attributes.

The great Princeton theologian B.B. Warfield said, “The only emptying this theory indicates is the emptying of the brains of the theologians who propose it.” God is immutable. God does not lay aside His deity when He becomes incarnate in the Son. Then what does Jesus do? Of what does He empty Himself?

We see it in this passage. Jesus empties Himself of His dignity. He empties Himself of the glory He enjoyed with His Father from all eternity. He laid aside His prerogatives as the second person of the Trinity, and according to the Nicene Creed, for the sake of us men and for our salvation, He descended from glory to lay down His life for us.

A Symbol of Cleansing

Usually, when we look at the washing of feet in the upper room, we see it merely as a moral lesson of humility. It is certainly that, as Jesus later explains to His disciples. He says essentially: “You don’t understand this now, but you will understand it; and I want you to continue to do this, one with another.” Jesus is giving a model or an example of humility to His disciples. But if we stop there and only focus on that dimension, we will miss the central point of what is happening.

Let me also say, by way of preface, that there are a handful of Christian communities throughout church history who have taken this text as the New Testament basis for the establishment of a sacrament called foot washing. Some of these communities regularly practice this ritual of foot washing. Once a year, in the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope takes a towel and a basin and washes the feet of the bishops.

We have these observances around us, but in church history, it has been generally understood that this is not a sacrament. Jesus is not instituting a sacrament to be repeated on a regular basis among the people of God, for this reason: The central significance of what is taking place here is part of the significance of baptism, which is the sacrament of entrance into the new covenant. We have seen it already in church this morning. We have seen the confirmation of baptism among some of our children today. Baptism signifies many things, but at the very heart of the symbolism of baptism is cleansing.

I like to tell a story of my mentor, John Gerstner, who, on one occasion, was invited to preach in a little country parish. When he arrived at the church, the elders met him at the door and said: “Dr. Gerstner, we forgot to tell you, but there’s a celebration of infant baptism here this morning. We wondered if you’d be willing to perform the sacrament.” He said, “I’d be honored to do it.”

The elders said, “Part of the ritual is a white rose that we pin on the gowns of the infants that are to be baptized. Would you please pin these white roses on the children before you baptize them?” Dr. Gerstner said: “Let me ask this first. What’s the significance of the white rose?” The elders said, “That signifies the infant’s innocence.”

Dr. Gerstner said: “Oh, I see. What’s the significance of the water?” The elders thought and responded, “Maybe we shouldn’t be using the white rose.” Not unless you put it after the water, if you want to use that symbolism at all.

The water in baptism refers to cleansing, and the cleansing of baptism directs our attention to the supreme act of cleansing by which we are made clean in the sight of God—a cleansing effected not by water but by the blood of Christ in the atonement. Our baptism, as does the Lord’s Supper, looks backward to the cross, to that event by which we are made clean in the presence of God and our sins are remitted.

Crimson Sin upon Him

Often when one of our pastors gives the prayer of confession after the reading of the law and then announces the assurance of pardon in our liturgy, he will cite the passage from Isaiah where the prophet says to the people of Jerusalem:

“Come now, and let us reason together,”
Says the Lord,
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
They shall be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They will be as wool.” (Isa. 1:18)

You have heard that text from Isaiah, which so marvelously captures the essence of what is accomplished by the servant of Yahweh, the Suffering Servant of Israel, looking ahead to Christ, who takes the scarlet, crimson sin of our lives upon Himself at Calvary.

I had to hesitate before I said “Calvary” because all week I have been listening to television commentators calling the cavalry “Calvary,” and I did not want to call Calvary “the cavalry.” But if ever the cavalry came to rescue us, it was at Calvary, where our Lord performed the ultimate act of cleansing. Our baptism looks backward to that.

This rite of foot washing that Jesus performs in the upper room is looking ahead. He teaches that it is tied to the cleansing that is about to take place. It is far more than just giving His disciples an example of what humility looks like.

Perfection of Cleansing

Let me take a few minutes to look at the text. I am moving slowly today, but we will try to get around that. We read that Jesus poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. Peter objects. He says, in effect: “Lord, are you going to wash my feet? That’s not right. You’re the Lord; I’m the disciple. This isn’t proper.” Jesus says, “What I’m doing you don’t understand, but you will later.” Peter says: “Never! You will never wash my feet.”

You know, this is the second papal encyclical from the first pope of the Roman Catholic Church. The first one was at Caesarea Philippi when Jesus announced that He was going to Jerusalem to die, and Peter said, “That will never be!” So that one was not infallible, and here is the second one: Peter says, “You’ll never wash my feet!”

Listen to how Jesus answers Peter. Jesus does not say, “Simon, you impetuous, rash person.” He does not say: “Simon, you just watch Me. I am going to wash your feet.” Rather, He puts it this way: “You don’t want Me to wash your feet? I won’t touch your feet. But unless I wash your feet, you have no part with Me.” And now Simon says: “My hands, my head, whatever it takes. Wash any part of me you want to wash.”

We can transfer that warning of Jesus to each one of us, because anyone who is not washed by Christ will have no part with Him in the Father’s house. That is why Jesus is preparing His disciples for the cleansing that makes it possible for those soiled by human sin and transgression to be the blessed and to be the ones to whom the Lord will not impute iniquity. Jesus is pointing them to the perfection of the cleansing to come, so that everyone who is cleansed by the cross participates in the kingdom of Christ.

I have said this many times because it is a theme repeated on the lips of Jesus throughout these final weeks, and now the final days and hours, of His life. He says, essentially, “Unless you’re willing to participate in My humiliation, you have no part in My exaltation.” As I have said until you may be tired of hearing it, our baptism is a sign not simply of our being raised with Christ, but also of our being buried with Christ. We join Him in His humiliation, or we have no part in Him.

We Shall Be Clean

Jesus says to Simon, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean.” In the ancient world, when you took a bath, you were clean until you walked outside, where dust would get on your bare feet or your open sandals. You could keep the rest of your body clean, but your feet would get dirty quickly. That was why there was a ritual of cleansing the feet without having to take a complete bath.

Jesus says, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean.” The symbolism here, the irony of what Jesus is saying, is this: “When I wash your feet, I make you clean all over.” One touch of the cleansing power of Christ cleanses us from all sin.

Then Jesus warns that one was there who would betray Him. He says, therefore, “You are not all clean.” But He went ahead and washed their feet, and presumably even washed the feet of Judas. But He did so not without the warning that the cleansing He was referring to would not apply to every one of them.

Our Lord prepares us for His betrayal. On Maundy Thursday, our church bulletin will announce a text from the Gethsemane experience, but I have decided to change my mind. I am going to continue with John 13 on Thursday evening, where we have the record of Judas’ betrayal of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray.

Speak the word, O God, and we shall be clean. We thank You not only for the water but for the blood by which our sins are washed away. I thank You for this marvelous episode of teaching that our Master gave to His disciples and to us. Help us to grasp its significance now and forevermore. Amen.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.