13 13:1Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2 13:2During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, 3 13:3Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 4 13:4rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. 5 13:5Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. 6 13:6He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” 7 13:7Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” 8 13:8Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” 9 13:9Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10 13:10Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.” 11 13:11For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
12 13:12When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? 13 13:13You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. 14 13:14If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 13:15For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. 16 13:16Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 13:17If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. 18 13:18I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled, ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.’ 19 13:19I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he. 20 13:20Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”
Jesus gives his disciples a preview of the cleansing he will accomplish for them on the cross as he washes their feet (John 13:1–11). He then calls his disciples to follow the example he has set by this humble act of service: as he has served them, so they are to serve one another (vv. 12–17). Jesus warns that one of his disciples will betray him, predicting this betrayal in order to strengthen the disciples’ faith in him when he is indeed betrayed (vv. 18–19). He concludes by declaring that whoever receives his apostles receives him, and whoever receives him receives the Father (v. 20).
John piles up indications of the significance and goodness of Jesus in verse 1. Passover is greatly significant across the OT, and at earlier Passovers in John’s Gospel Jesus cleansed the temple (2:13–22) and fed the multitudes (6:1–71). John has now brought his audience to the climactic Passover, the night on which Jesus will be betrayed, and this scene takes place before the meal that very night. Further, John has spoken of the heavenly origin and destination of Jesus, and he does so again in 13:1 when he specifies that the time has come for Jesus to leave the world and go to the Father. And to all these indicators of Jesus’ significance, John adds that Jesus has loved his people in the world and will now love them to the end.
In verse 2 John magnifies the goodness of Jesus by way of contrast. The cosmic spiritual significance of these events is brought out by John’s reference to the Devil’s putting it into the heart of Judas to betray Jesus. This note allows John to juxtapose his description of the best man who has ever lived (v. 1) with a description of the most evil instigator of the most treacherous act ever committed (v. 2). This sets the beauty of Christ in relief against the ugliness of evil.
John adds in verse 3 that Jesus was fully aware that the Father had “given all things into his hands”: Jesus is the supreme ruler of all creation. He is the High King of heaven and earth, the commander of the heavenly hosts, the holder of winds, calmer of storms, judge of the living and the dead, sovereign Lord of land and sea. All things are in his hands. At the end of verse 3, John restates the heavenly origin and destination of Jesus as he mentions that Jesus came from and was returning to God.
We have clear expectations for people who matter as much as Jesus, and those expectations do not include setting their hands to menial acts usually left to the lowest of servants. Against everything we expect, Jesus enacts an epitome of his whole life in verses 4–5. Just as Jesus laid aside his glory and took the form of a servant when he set out to obey unto death (cf. Phil. 2:5–11), so here Jesus laid aside his ordinary clothing, girded himself with a towel, and took up a washbasin. He then began to wash the feet of those who followed him. This was a world where air conditioning had not been invented, roads were not paved with concrete or asphalt, and shoes were not closed-toed. These were the smelly, dirty, grimy feet of men who walked everywhere they went, on roads covered in dust and animal waste.
In the interaction between Jesus and Peter in John 13:6–11, John shows that Jesus is concerned with something deeper than dirty feet. Jesus meets no objection until he reaches Peter, who finds it in himself to ask how Jesus could wash his feet (v. 6). Jesus hints at the symbolic significance of what he is doing as he tells Peter that, even though he does not understand now, he will later (v. 7), making the footwashing like other things the disciples could not understand until after the cross and resurrection.
Appalled that his Messiah, the king from David’s line, the best person he has ever known, would stoop to such a task, Peter asserts that he will never permit it (v. 8). At this point Peter is like Nicodemus, who thought Jesus was speaking of physical birth in chapter 3. Peter is like those in chapter 6, who thought Jesus was demanding that people literally eat his flesh and drink his blood. Peter does not understand because he is focused on the physical reality of the footwashing, failing to grasp its spiritual or symbolic significance. When Jesus replies that, if Peter will not be washed by him, Peter will have no part with him, Jesus communicates that the footwashing is the shadow, while the cleansing Jesus will accomplish on the cross is the substance.
Peter impulsively asserts that he wants his whole body washed by Jesus, not just his feet (13:9). Jesus replies that what Peter requests is unnecessary because the disciples are clean, with one exception (v. 10). John then explains that Jesus knew Judas would betray him, and as a result Jesus acknowledged that not every person whose feet he washed was clean (v. 11).
This connection between uncleanness and the abiding guilt Judas carries for his unrepentant sin further establishes the symbolic value of the footwashing. By washing the feet of his disciples, Jesus has given an enacted preview of what he will do for his people when he makes them clean through his death on the cross. Jesus, the greatest, will do for the world what it does not deserve. If anyone does not receive the cleansing Jesus provides, he has no part with Jesus. What Jesus does for his disciples will cleanse them completely.
13:12–17 Jesus Sets the Example. Having washed his disciples’ feet in order to symbolize the way he will cleanse them by his death on the cross, Jesus goes on to instruct them that they are to serve one another as he has served them. This call is akin to his command to take up the cross and follow him (Matt. 16:24). Thus instructed by Jesus, the apostles will go on routinely to use the atoning death of Jesus as the pattern of Christian behavior (e.g., Phil. 2:5–11; 1 Pet. 2:21–25). Only the death of Jesus has atoning, cleansing power, but those who follow Jesus are to give their lives in service to others as he did. Only Jesus is the King who washes the feet of his disciples, but his disciples are to serve as he did.
Jesus begins to make this point as he dons his outer garments and returns to his place, asking the disciples if they understand what he has done (John 13:12). He goes on to acknowledge his role as their teacher and Lord (v. 13) before attacking pride and self-importance with his contention that if he as teacher and Lord has served them, then they ought to serve each other (v. 14). The argument is simple: if Jesus is not too important to serve them, then they are not too important to serve one another. Jesus does not think it too much to expect them to imitate him, as he makes plain that his conduct sets an example for the disciples to follow (v. 15).
The relative importance of the disciples as those sent from Jesus—his own apostles—does not exempt them from service, since Jesus himself, the master, teacher, and sender, has also served. Servants are not greater than their masters, messengers are not greater than those who send them, and the disciples are not greater than Jesus (v. 16). Those who both know and do what Jesus has taught will be blessed (v. 17).
With this instruction, Jesus has not established footwashing as a sacrament. Sacraments are means of grace Jesus instituted for the disciples to emulate and for the church to do as well. Jesus instituted baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and in the writings that constitute the rest of the NT, the apostles instruct the churches to continue baptizing and partaking of the Lord’s Supper. The apostles never instruct the churches to continue the practice of footwashing, though they do instruct the churches to be servant-hearted, indicating that what Jesus meant was for his followers to serve one another in all ways necessary. Footwashing is a symbolic act of service reflecting a heart willing to serve others according to their needs. That is what the action means when Jesus performs it and when Paul refers to it (1 Tim. 5:10).
13:18–20 Scripture Will Be Fulfilled. Having washed the feet of the disciples (13:1–11) and called them to follow his example (vv. 12–17), Jesus announces in verse 18 that the one who was not clean (vv. 10–11) would nevertheless do his part to fulfill Scripture. Just as Jesus had said that not all of them were clean (v. 10), now he says that he does not speak of all of them (v. 18). This seems to indicate that Judas is excluded from what Jesus has said about the blessing of doing as Jesus has instructed (vv. 12–17). The others will follow the example of Jesus and be blessed, but Judas will not do so.
The statement Jesus makes in verse 18 about knowing those whom he has chosen could be taken in two ways. On the one hand, Jesus has chosen those who will in fact keep his word, bear fruit (15:16), and not be lost (17:12). On the other hand, Jesus did choose to include Judas among the Twelve, and Jesus did so knowing that Judas was “the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled” (17:12). So he may mean that he knows what Judas will do.
Jesus quotes Psalm 41:9, and that one verse is meant to evoke the wider context of the psalm, which in turn evokes a wider theme across not only the Psalter but also the whole OT. This theme is the pattern of the righteous sufferer, the man who does what is right but suffers unjustly at the hands of the wicked until the Lord vindicates him. In Psalm 41 David presents himself as the righteous sufferer, like Joseph and Moses and others before him, and Jesus fulfills the pattern of this theme when Judas betrays him.
Jesus explains that he has predicted this to the disciples in order to increase their confidence and faith in him (John 13:19; cf. Isa. 48:5). He will make similar predictions in John 14:29 and 16:4, bolstering their faith in this final night with them before his death. Here in 13:19 Jesus says that when what he has described takes place, his disciples will “believe that I Am” (AT). This statement is very similar to what Jesus told the Jews in 8:24: “Unless you believe that I Am, you will die in your sins” (AT; cf. 8:28, 58). Jesus is in the process of fulfilling Scripture, and he tells his disciples about it before he does so—not only so that they will trust him, but also so that they will believe he is to be identified with the one who declared his name to be “I AM” (Ex. 3:14).
In keeping with his identity with the Father, Jesus again says that the one who receives him receives the one who sent him (John 13:20; cf. 12:44). Furthermore, those who reject the followers of Jesus also reject Jesus himself. Jesus hereby forges a connection between himself and his disciples parallel to the connection between himself and his Father: the one who receives the one Jesus sends receives Jesus, just as the one who receives Jesus receives the one who sent him—the Father.
1 Some manuscripts omit except for his feet
2 The Greek words for you in this verse are plural
3 Or bondservant, or slave (for the contextual rendering of the Greek word doulos, see ESV Preface)
4 Greek But in order that the Scripture may be fulfilled