WASHING OF FEET
OR
THE RITUAL FOR SIN AFTER CONVERSION
“If ye know these things, blessed are ye if ye do them.”
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1
“He that is bathed needeth not save to wash his feet” (John
13: 10). Baptism is the first and total bathing to
which the Saviour refers: it answers to the total uncleanness of man by
nature. It exhibits in a figure the
great and general forgiveness of past sin which is granted by the Father to all
that believe in Jesus. As though the
Saviour said:- The past is blotted out and forgiven
freely. But you have offended since that
day; and fresh sin has stained your conscience.
You need then a second and supplementary washing, that you may be wholly
clean. Such is the washing of your feet. The first washing was total; for sin entirely possessed you by
nature. This second washing is partial, as your sins now are occasional. You sinned willingly before, with head and
hand. You sin involuntarily now, as the
bather coming up from the bath unwillingly gathers on his feet the dust and
dirt that defile them. “That which I
do I allow not; for what I would that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.” “Now then it is no
more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” “The good that I
would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do” (Rom. 7: 15, 17, 19).
Thus, while the total defilement of man as a sinner is
set forth in the total immersion of the believer once for all; the partial and unwilling uncleanness
of the saint is set forth in
the second
and succeeding washing. It is intended to teach that daily sin
demands a daily cleansing, even after our old sins are purged and put
away. The intercession of Jesus to this end, and His ceaseless washing are continually needed.*
- ROBERT GOVETT.
* It is sometimes said, with careless boldness, that it was a
customary thing for the master to wash the guests’ feet, in eastern
countries. Not one instance of it can be
found in Scripture. The following are all the passages in
which the thing is spoken of. Abraham
and
* *
*
2
Our
Lord, having finished washing their feet, resumes his garments, sits down
again, and now addresses the disciples:- “Know ye what
I have done to you? Ye call me Teacher,
and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, have
washed your feet, YE ALSO OUGHT TO WASH ONE ANOTHER'S FEET. For I have given YOU AN EXAMPLE THAT YE ALSO SHOULD DO AS I
HAVE DONE TO YOU. ... If ye know these
things, blessed are ye if ye do them.”
How we can do them, without doing them, it is very difficult
to say. He has just asked His disciples
to do for one another now, that which He did for His disciples then. For two centuries Satan failed to succeed in leading away the disciples
from this ordinance. Nineteen hundred years have rolled round since
the night of the supper. The cycle of
time to be completed by the Second Advent will soon enable those who now “wash one
another’s feet” for
Jesus’ sake, to link up the circle of the past intervening
years with those Christians of the first centuries, and to stand with them on the
same ground to share in the “part with” Christ.
It is beautiful to see also in this instance the Old Testament
returning its borrowed light to the Scriptures of the New. In his delineation of the ceremonies in
connection with the consecration of the Priests, the Holy Ghost wrote by the
hand of Moses those commands which the God of Israel gave to
- CHAS. S. UTTING.
* *
*
3
So
important is the after-cleansing of the believer that our Lord has enshrined
the truth for ever in the loveliest of rites.
“He that is bathed,” He says (John 13:
10), “needeth not save to wash his feet, but
[if he do both] is clean every whit.” A bather, totally immersed, is completely
cleansed; but, coming up from river or seashore, his feet get soiled afresh: so,
after our total plunge, our complete immersion, in the pardon of God, our
perfect cleansing in the blood of Christ, we contract inevitable defilement in
our contact with earth, and need the washing of the walk. No apostle was omitted as perfect in
walk. “Our works may be compared to
the soul’s feet: the Church will never be so clean that it will
have no need of foot-washing” (Spurgeon). Coming up from the great pardon at conversion,
and coming up ritually out of the baptismal flood, we come up fully bathed,
spotlessly clean; for “ye were washed” (1 Cor. 6: 2): but now, over even apostles’ feet, our High Priest has to
stoop in tender ablution and absolution of post-baptismal sin. “Justification must
be followed by sanctification” (Lange).
So [believers’] baptism is the first portrayal by ritual; “arise, and be
baptized, and wash away thy sins” (Acts 22: 16): our Lord now institutes a supplementary rite [for regenerate believers only] to portray the covering of post-conversion
sin; “I have washed your feet.”
While extra-Biblical tradition is no basis whatever for our
faith or conduct, evidence that the acceptance of our Lord’s words as indicating
a rite is not an individual idiosyncrasy may justly be offered, on behalf of an
interpretation which, through ignorance of church history, may seem new-fangled
and peculiar. The Greek church has preserved it, together with immersion in baptism,
from the apostolic age. Of the four
so-called ‘doctors of the Church’ two - Ambrose and Augustine - taught and practised it, and in
the sub-apostolic age: “the ceremony (says Bingham’s Christian Antiquities)
was used
by some churches, but rejected by others.” As late as the fifth century Augustine says:- “Brethren perform this action one for another. Among some saints the custom exists not, but
they do it in heart; but much better and
more exact is it, beyond controversy, that it be done
by the hand.” Bernard, called ‘the
last of the Fathers’ is equally explicit:- “That we may
not doubt concerning the remission of daily sins, we have its sacrament - the Washing of Feet.” The Council of Toledo (A.D. 694) fixed an annual date when the feet of the newly baptized
were washed. Luther was not averse to it. Nor are the Moravians the only modern group to observe the
rite. One of the giant intellects of
modern days, foremost in the ranks of science – Faraday - was (with many an obscure disciple
through many ages and in many lands) a humble follower of this ritual of
ablution. “Many humble Christian societies have adopted
this view, and still we find that some devout people are earnest for it”
(C. Stanford, D.D.).
Peter’s impetuous blunders are used by the [Holy] Spirit to set
all in a radiant light. He says, “Lord, dost
thou wash my feet?” He does not see the cross in the
basin, nor the blood in the water. “Thou shalt never wash my feet.” Our Lord’s answer startlingly reveals our need
of the pardon of all sin, whether before conversion or after. “If I wash thee not” - if pardon does not touch you at all
- “thou hast no part WITH Me”*: without the great ablution, there is no life eternal; and without the partial ablution,
there is no REWARD at the judgment Seat: justification and
sanctification are both essential for a full participation with Christ. Christ does not say that, once washed, no kind
of washing can be needed again; nor does He say that, once soiled, no fresh
washing is possible. Peter, still
misunderstanding, now passes to the opposite extreme:-
“Lord, not my feet only, but also my
hands and my head.”* “Peter was thoughtlessly demanding
the repetition of his baptism” (Godet). Jesus again corrects the error. “He that is bathed needeth not save to
wash his feet.” “The foot needeth to be washed;
but the totality of the cleanness is not lost” (B. W. Newton). The first cleansing is total and
final, involving our whole nature, and, up to that moment, a perfect bath,
unrepeated and unrepeatable; justification is for ever; it is one
[correct
and scriptural regenerate believers’] baptism (Eph. 4: 5): but for sanctification, continual
and progressive, a partial cleansing is
required for partial sin.
* Thus a believer’s cleansing depends
wholly on his own consent to Christ’s action. This negatives B. W. Newton:-
“When they [all believers] enter their Father’s presence, each foot will have been
perfectly washed.” Numerous scriptures (such as Matt.
18: 35, Luke 12: 47, 2 Cor. 5: 10, Col. 3: 24-25, 1
John 2: 28, Rev. 3: 3, 16, etc.) make sure the shame of some disciples after the resurrection, when
a sharper chastisement will bring a belated repentance, and a cleansing that
will be final. Of one sin our Lord says:- “It shall not be forgiven him,
neither in this age, nor in that which is to come” (Matt. 12: 32): from which it may justly be
inferred that certain other sins (obviously of believers only) will require and
receive a future forgiveness in the Age that succeeds to this.
[* That is, “with Me” at all times
and in all places. Messiah’s
Judgment Seat will determine those, (from amongst His redeemed people), whose personal
righteousnesses will have allowed them to be ‘with’
Him in the “age” which is yet to come! Matt. 5: 10, 19, 20; 7: 21-23; Luke 22:
28-30; Rev. 19: 7, 8; 20: 4, etc.]
- D. M. PANTON.
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“Go ye therefore, and make disciples, baptizing them into the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them TO OBSERVE ALL THINGS WHATSOEVER I COMMANDED YOU: and lo, I am with you
all the days, even unto the consummation of the age:” Matt. 28: 19, 20, R.V., marginal reading.