Washing the disciples' feet: the hour, the servant and the new commandment

The Gospel of John names no author. Its closing verses say the disciple whom Jesus loved bore witness and wrote these things (21:24), and in this chapter that disciple appears for the first time by that title, reclining beside Jesus at the table (13:23). From the second century the church identified him as John the son of Zebedee, a view D. A. Carson and many others hold. Richard Bauckham argues for John the Elder, another eyewitness, and others for a Johannine community that edited the book. The usual date is about AD 85 to 95, with some arguing for an earlier one. John wrote so that readers might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and have life in his name (20:31). With chapter 13 the Gospel turns from the Book of Signs, the public ministry, to what is often called the Book of Glory, the private teaching of Jesus to his disciples and his passion and resurrection.

All four Gospels tell of a last meal, but John tells it differently. The Synoptic Gospels record how Jesus took bread and the cup and gave them to his disciples (Mark 14:22-25; Matthew 26:26-29; Luke 22:14-20; compare 1 Corinthians 11:23-26). John has no account of that institution. He gives instead the washing of the feet, the farewell discourse of chapters 14 to 17, and the prediction of betrayal and denial, which the Synoptics also report. How the Gospels relate is the synoptic problem. Most scholars think Mark was written first and used by Matthew and Luke with a sayings source, and some think John knew one or more of them; a minority prefer other solutions.

There is also a question of dating. John says that this was 'just before the Passover Feast' (13:1) and that the Jews who took Jesus to Pilate on the next morning would not enter the governor's headquarters in order to be able to eat the Passover (18:28), while the Synoptic Gospels describe the meal as the Passover itself (Mark 14:12-16). Scholars have proposed several solutions. Some hold that Jesus ate the Passover a day early, whether by a different calendar or by his own authority. Some argue that John's 'Passover' in 18:28 means the whole festival, including the meals eaten on the following day. Others think John has arranged his chronology to show Jesus dying at the hour when the Passover lambs were slain (19:14, 36), and that the Synoptic meal is a Passover meal in its own way. None has won general agreement.

John 13 begins with a long single sentence of narrator's comment (13:1-3) that tells the reader what Jesus knew: his hour had come, the Father had given all things into his hands, and he had come from God and was going to God. Everything in the chapter must be read with this in view. The washing is not the act of a man who has lost control of events but of one who knows he holds all authority and chooses to serve. John also tells us, before the action, that the devil had already put betrayal into the heart of Judas (13:2). The reader is allowed to see both the plan of the Father and the plot of the enemy, and Jesus does not ignore either.

The washing carries two meanings that Jesus himself gives. In 13:6-11 it is a sign of the cleansing that only he can give; without it Peter has no part with him. In 13:12-17 it is an example of service that the disciples must follow. Interpretation fails if either is dropped. Jesus says that Peter will understand later (13:7), which points to the cross as the key to the first meaning.

The chapter also depends on John's usual device of double meaning. 'He loved them to the very end' (13:1) can mean to the final moment, and also to the uttermost, and the word used (telos) shares a root with the verb in Jesus' cry 'It is finished' (19:30). The verbs for laying aside the garments and taking them again (13:4, 12) are the same as those used for laying down and taking up his life in 10:17-18, a link that may be intended.

Verses 1–5

'It was now just before the Passover Feast, and Jesus knew that His hour had come to leave this world and return to the Father.' The hour is the time of his death and exaltation, to which the Gospel has pointed since Cana (2:4). Having loved his own who were in the world, 'He loved them to the very end.' John then says that the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas to betray him, and that Jesus knew that the Father had delivered all things into his hands. So 'He got up from the supper, laid aside His outer garments, and wrapped a towel around His waist.' He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and dry them with the towel. In the ancient world guests' feet were washed on arrival, usually by the guests themselves or by a slave. Jewish sources suggest that even a Hebrew slave was not to be required to do it, and Abigail's offer to wash the feet of David's servants is a picture of humility (1 Samuel 25:41). Luke records a dispute on the same night about who was greatest, and Jesus' word that he is among them as one who serves (Luke 22:24-27).

Verses 6–11

When he comes to Simon Peter, Peter asks, 'Lord, are You going to wash my feet?' Jesus replies that he does not understand now but will later. Peter says, 'Never shall You wash my feet!' and Jesus answers, 'Unless I wash you, you have no part with Me.' Peter then asks for his hands and his head as well. Jesus answers that whoever has bathed needs only to wash his feet, and that they are clean, 'though not all of you.' The text distinguishes bathing (louo) from washing (nipto), and a few ancient manuscripts omit the words 'except for his feet'. A long line of interpreters reads the bath as the once-for-all cleansing Jesus gives, and the foot washing as the daily renewal of fellowship. Others read the foot washing itself as the sign of his cleansing death. John explains that Jesus knew who would betray him, and that is why he said not all were clean.

Verses 12–17

After washing the feet he puts on his garments and asks, 'Do you know what I have done for you?' They call him Teacher and Lord, and rightly so. If he, Lord and Teacher, has washed their feet, they also should wash one another's feet. 'I have set you an example so that you should do as I have done for you.' No servant is greater than his master. 'If you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.'

Verses 18–20

Jesus says that he is not speaking of all of them, for he knows whom he has chosen. The betrayal is to fulfill the Scripture, 'The one who shares My bread has lifted up his heel against Me' (Psalm 41:9). In that psalm, David describes a close friend who ate his bread and turned on him, and many readers link it with David's betrayal by his counselor Ahithophel (2 Samuel 15:12; 16:23). Jesus says he tells them now, before it happens, so that they will believe 'that I am He'. Whoever receives the one he sends receives him, and whoever receives him receives the Father.

Verses 21–30

Jesus is troubled in spirit and says that one of them will betray him. The disciples look at each other. The disciple whom Jesus loved, reclining at his side, is asked by Peter to find out who it is, and Jesus answers, 'It is the one to whom I give this morsel after I have dipped it.' To hand a morsel to a guest was an act of honor, and he gives it to Judas. Satan enters Judas, and Jesus says, 'What you are about to do, do quickly.' None of the others understand; since Judas kept the money bag, they think he is being sent to buy something for the feast or to give to the poor. Judas takes the morsel and goes out, and John says he went out into the night. In the Synoptic accounts the betrayer's arrangement with the chief priests is told before the meal (Mark 14:10-11), and Luke too says Satan entered Judas (Luke 22:3).

Verses 31–35

When Judas has gone, Jesus says, 'Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him.' The cross is already under way, and John speaks of glory where the Synoptics speak of agony. He addresses the disciples as 'Little children', a term that appears only here in the Gospel but often in 1 John. He will be with them only a little while; where he is going they cannot come. 'A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also must love one another.' By this everyone will know that they are his disciples.

Verses 36–38

Peter asks where he is going and promises to lay down his life for him. Jesus asks whether he will lay down his life, and says that before the rooster crows Peter will have denied him three times. The prediction appears also in Mark 14:29-31 and Luke 22:31-34.

The chapter teaches the character of the cross before it is carried out. The Son who knows that all things are in his hands takes the form of a servant. Paul describes the same movement in Philippians 2:5-11: he who was in the form of God took the form of a servant, humbled himself and was obedient to death. The foot washing is an enacted version of that hymn.

It also teaches the doctrine of cleansing. Only Christ can cleanse; the disciple cannot cleanse himself and cannot refuse. Peter's refusal is as wrong as his over-eager request for more. Salvation is received from Christ and not achieved. The chapter places this next to the call to serve: the one who has been washed washes others.

The new commandment gives the church its distinguishing mark. The measure of love is Christ's love, the standard shown in the next chapters (15:12-13). John's First Letter returns to it repeatedly (1 John 2:7-8; 3:11, 23; 4:7-12). The command is given to the community of disciples and is for love 'one another'; the wider call to love enemies and neighbors stands elsewhere in the Gospels (Matthew 5:44; Luke 10:25-37).

This is Christ's own self-portrait before the cross. Knowing all things were in his hands (13:3), he lays aside his garments and stoops to serve, an enacted picture of the humbling he will complete on the cross. The Gospels show the same character in Mark 10:45, where the Son of Man comes not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many, and in Luke 22:27. The Servant of Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12 is the Old Testament background of such service, though John does not quote it here.

Jesus explicitly says that Judas's betrayal will fulfill Scripture (13:18, quoting Psalm 41:9), a fulfillment he names himself. David the king was betrayed by a friend, and the Son of David is betrayed in the same way. The psalm ends with the sufferer upheld and raised up (Psalm 41:10-12).

His words 'that I am He' (13:19) echo God's own self-naming in Isaiah 43:10, where the LORD says that his people may know and believe that 'I am He'. This is offered here as an echo, a pointer to the identity John has been declaring since 8:58. The knowledge that he is returning to God (13:3) and the declaration that the Son of Man is glorified (13:31) tie the foot washing to his exaltation: the one who serves is the one who reigns.