No servant is present to wash the dust off the disciples’ feet before the meal, and not one of the twelve will lower himself to do it — they have spent the walk to this room arguing about which of them is the greatest. So Jesus gets up from the table, ties a towel around His waist, and does it Himself. Before the night is over He will identify His own betrayer to his face, hand him the bread that seals it, and watch him walk out into the dark. Then, alone with the eleven who are left, He gives them one command to carry everything else He has ever taught them: love one another, the way I have loved you.
A study in John 13 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 27 min read
He Began To Wash The Disciples’ Feet
“Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. … He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself. After that he poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded.”
John 13:1, 4-5
“At a feast it was customary for a servant to wash the feet of the guests, and on this occasion preparation had been made for the service. The pitcher, the basin, and the towel were there, in readiness for the feet washing; but no servant was present, and it was the disciples’ part to perform it. But each of the disciples, yielding to wounded pride, determined not to act the part of a servant. … Then He, the divine Teacher, rose from the table. Laying aside the outer garment that would have impeded His movements, He took a towel, and girded Himself.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 644
Twelve grown men sit in a room with a job that needs doing and let it sit undone rather than be the one who stoops to do it. Jesus ends the standoff by taking the lowest job in the room for Himself.
“Then cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.”
John 13:6-8
“The service which Peter refused was the type of a higher cleansing. Christ had come to wash the heart from the stain of sin. In refusing to allow Christ to wash his feet, Peter was refusing the higher cleansing included in the lower. He was really rejecting his Lord.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 646
Peter’s refusal sounds like humility. It is actually the opposite — a way of setting the terms on which he will let Jesus love him, rather than simply receiving it.
“Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all. For he knew who should betray him; therefore said he, Ye are not all clean.”
John 13:9-11
“He had washed the feet of Judas, but the heart had not been yielded to Him. It was not purified. … He washed the feet of His betrayer.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 649
Jesus already knows exactly who will hand Him over to be killed within hours, and kneels down in front of that man’s feet anyway, with the same towel and the same basin as everyone else’s.
Ye Also Ought To Wash One Another’s Feet
“So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, 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.”
John 13:12-15
“Of so much consequence did He regard it, that He Himself, One equal with God, acted as servant to His disciples. While they were contending for the highest place, He to whom every knee shall bow, He whom the angels of glory count it honor to serve, bowed down to wash the feet of those who called Him Lord.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 649
This is the same Person this whole Gospel opened by naming as the Word who made everything that exists, and He is on His knees with a basin of dirty water, in front of the very men still arguing over rank.
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.”
John 13:16-17
“Christ was here instituting a religious service. By the act of our Lord this humiliating ceremony was made a consecrated ordinance. It was to be observed by the disciples, that they might ever keep in mind His lessons of humility and service.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 650
This was never only a lesson for one evening. Jesus turns His own humiliation into a standing practice, so that no generation of His followers could forget what leadership is actually supposed to look like.
“I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me. Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.”
John 13:18-20
Even the warning about the betrayal is given for a purpose past itself — so that when it happens exactly as foretold, the disciples’ faith would be strengthened rather than shattered by it.
One Of You Shall Betray Me
“When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake. Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved.”
John 13:21-23
“But they saw that Christ appeared greatly troubled. A cloud settled over them all, a premonition of some dreadful calamity, the nature of which they did not understand. … As they realized the import of His words, and remembered how true His sayings were, fear and self-distrust seized them. They began to search their own hearts to see if one thought against their Master were harbored there.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 654
Not one disciple points a finger at anyone else. Every one of them turns the question inward first, which says something honest about how thin the line felt to men who genuinely loved Him.
“Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.”
John 13:26-27
“John in deep distress at last inquired, ‘Lord, who is it?’ And Jesus answered, ‘He that dippeth his hand with Me in the dish, the same shall betray Me. The Son of man goeth as it is written of Him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born.’”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 654
The sop is an ordinary gesture of hospitality, a host honoring a guest at his own table. Judas receives it, and in that same instant chooses to become what Jesus has just called him.
“Now no man at the table knew for what intent he spake this unto him. For some of them thought, because Judas had the bag, that Jesus had said unto him, Buy those things that we have need of against the feast; or, that he should give something to the poor. He then having received the sop went immediately out: and it was night.”
John 13:28-30
“And it was night” is one of the shortest, heaviest sentences John ever writes. Judas walks out of the light of that room into a darkness that is not only about the hour.
A New Commandment I Give Unto You
“Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him. Little children, yet a little while I am with you.”
John 13:31-33
“Then addressing them by the endearing term, ‘Little children,’ He said, ‘Yet a little while I am with you.’ … Fear fell upon them. They pressed close about the Saviour.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 662
The moment the traitor is gone, the tenderness in the room becomes visible again. Judas’s absence, not his presence, is what finally makes room for what Jesus most wants to say.
“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
John 13:34-35
“In this last meeting with His disciples, the great desire which Christ expressed for them was that they might love one another as He had loved them. Again and again He spoke of this. ‘These things I command you,’ He said repeatedly, ‘that ye love one another.’ His very first injunction when alone with them in the upper chamber was, ‘A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.’”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 677
Loving one another was never a new idea — Moses had already commanded it centuries earlier. What is new is the standard: not as you love yourself, but as I have just knelt at your feet and loved you, with the cross still ahead of Me.
“Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards. Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake. Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice.”
John 13:36-38
“When Peter said he would follow his Lord to prison and to death, he meant it, every word of it; but he did not know himself. Hidden in his heart were elements of evil that circumstances would fan into life. … The Saviour saw in him a self-love and assurance that would overbear even his love for Christ.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 673
Peter’s promise and his failure are both sincere. He is not a hypocrite that night, only a man who trusts his own resolve more than he understands how badly it will be tested before morning — and Jesus, who has just finished washing his feet, already knows exactly how the night will end for him.
