Secondary Significance of the Passage

Recap of Primary Significance and Introduction to Secondary Significance

0:06 Now let us turn together to the 13th chapter of the Gospel of John.

0:13 Those of you who were here last Lord's Day will anticipate that that's where we would be this morning. John chapter 13.

0:30 And I shall read in your hearing verses 1 through 17.

0:37 Now before the feast of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own that were in the world, he loved them unto the end. And during supper, 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 came forth from God and goes unto God, rises from supper and lays aside, his garments, and he took a towel and girded himself.

1:22 Then he pours water into the basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded. So he comes to Simon Peter. And he said unto him, Lord, do you wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do you do not know now, but you shall understand.

1:48 Hereafter Peter saith unto him, You shall never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I do not wash you, you have no part with me. Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus saith to him, He that is bathed, he who has a tub bath, needs not save to have a sponger.

2:19 He that is bathed, he who has a tub bath, needs not save to have a sponger. He that is bathed, he who has a tub bath, needs not save to have a sponger. But is clean, every wit, and you are clean, but not all. For he knew him that should betray him, therefore he said, You are not all clean.

2:36 So when he had washed their feet and 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...

2:51 And so I am. If I then, the Lord and the 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. Truly, truly, I say unto you, a servant, a slave, is not greater than his Lord, neither one that is sent greater than he that sent him.

3:21 Amen. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. Well, let us again pray and ask the help of God the Holy Spirit as we come to the study of His Word. Our Father, just the reading of this passage again astounds us as we read the record of our Lord Jesus, fully conscious of who He was, where He came from, where He was going, taking the role of the common despot, a prized house slave, doing the thing that His proud disciples refused to do.

4:05 And we confess that too much of them is in us. And we pray that the contemplation of His act would by the ministry of the Spirit go to work in fresh and in great measures upon all of the disciple-like pride that is yet unmortified within our hearts. Have dealings. Have dealings with us, Lord.

4:29 We've not come to just increase our Bible knowledge. You know, Lord, that I've not labored in the study and that I'm not prepared to labor in preaching simply to fill heads with more Bible facts. Oh, God, have dealings with us. Have deep, lasting dealings with our hearts.

4:50 We plead for Your glory and for our good through our Lord Jesus. Amen. Amen.

5:03 Amen. Amen. On Lord's Day morning, we considered the first eleven verses of this passage read in your hearing. And we considered them under the title to which I gave to the message.

5:15 And this was the title, Jesus, the Savior of the Towel and the Basin. And after opening up the first three verses of the passage which underscore the various components of the setting of this astounding act of our Lord, we then looked at John's, John's detailed description of the actual act of Jesus washing the feet of His disciples. And I trust it became clear to you as we studied the passage that our Lord was deliberately performing this act as a physical parable of His saving work about to be accomplished on the cross.

5:57 The words of verse seven make it clear that Jesus is very conscious that He's doing something that right now the disciples cannot understand. What I'm doing you do not know now, but you shall understand hereafter, or more literally, after these things. And that language is again and again pointing to the fact that much of what our Lord said and did was veiled to the disciples until after. Gethsemane, Gabbatha, Golgotha, the garden tombs,

6:38 the upper room, the descent of the Spirit. And then they understood much of what Jesus had said and done which hitherto was veiled to them. And Jesus is conscious that what He is doing has as its primary significance something that they cannot, they will not understand in the immediate setting, but they will understand with clarity hereafter. And furthermore, we know that it is pointing to something beyond this mere act of humility by the insistence of Jesus and the exposition of that insistence in verse eight.

7:21 If I do not wash you, you have no part with me. If all that was involved was Jesus demonstrating His humility, there would be many opportunities. There had been to demonstrate it. The greatest one yet lay before Him.

7:36 But He is determined to have embedded in the minds of the disciples this parable of His own redemptive work that if they are to be His, they must be willing to embrace Him as the Savior of the towel and of the basin. They must come to understand and then embody in their proclamation of the gospel that the only Savior of sinners becomes the Savior when sinners are humbled to the point where they are willing for Christ to wash them, where they are willing for incarnate deity,

8:17 immolated, spat upon, bruised, bloody, broken upon a cross to be the only hope of their cleansing from sin and acceptance with God. Because of these things I stated that the primary significance of the foot washing is to teach us the great lesson of the nature of the saving work of Jesus. And that's why He used such strong language, except I wash you. I must wash you myself.

8:54 I must wash you in the way of my own humiliation. Even unto the death of the cross. And the essence then of saving faith is our willingness to submit to Jesus the Savior of the towel and of the basin. And that's the great stumbling block for some of you sitting here even this morning.

9:20 If only we had a quote gospel that told you do this, do that, you would line up to embrace it. But the only gospel that told you that all we preach is you must come to a Savior with the towel and the basin. In the scandal of the cross is your only hope of life and salvation. But now this morning we come to what I'm calling the secondary significance of the act of Jesus washing of the disciples' feet.

The Disciples as a Society of the Towel and Basin

9:50 If the primary significance of the incident is to convey the message that Jesus is the Savior of the towel and of the basin, then the secondary significance of the incident is to convey the truth that the disciples of Jesus are made into a society of the towel and of the basin. The Savior who saves by the towel and the basin is through His saving work gathering a society who will in their relationship to one another

10:32 be a society of the towel and of the basin. In other words, what Jesus does redemptively, uniquely and exclusively in cleansing His own from sin, now becomes a pattern of what His disciples do non-redemptively, but really and continuously in their relationship to one another. That's why He can say, I have left you an example that you should do as I have done to you.

11:12 Not an example in my unique, exclusive, redemptive work, the foot washing connected with my humbling in the cross that lies before me, but in terms of my work and my willingness to take the place of a common servant to meet a present need that you have. I have left an example and my work of redemption, exclusively, uniquely mine, sets the pattern for the way you, my people, are to relate one to another. To put it yet another way, all whose feet are washed

11:55 by the Jesus of the towel and the basin are given their own towel and basin with which to wash one another's feet. Can I state it any more simply? Have you been washed by the Jesus of the towel and the basin? Then as the fruit of that washing He has bequeathed to you a towel and a basin with which to wash one another's feet.

The Position Resumed by Jesus

12:26 So let us consider then, verses 12 to 17, under this heading, as we've looked at Jesus, the Savior of the towel and the basin, we consider the followers of Jesus a society of the towel and of the basin. And we're going to work through the passage under four headings. First of all, the position resumed by Jesus. This is where John starts, verse 12a.

12:54 So, when He had washed their feet, and taken His garments, and sat down again. What we have here is what you experience when someone has a home movie and they take you through an incident and then they reverse it. Perhaps the incident is Dad is sitting out on the back lawn reading a magazine. And one of his kids comes up and throws some cold water on him and he gets up and chases the kid around the yard.

13:23 Then you stop the video and you reverse it. And from running away, and from running around, back to where the water was on him, back to Dad sitting on his garden swing. Well, that's what John does. He was an eyewitness.

13:38 And it struck John in all the details with respect to how Jesus came to the place of washing the feet. He is careful to describe a reversal of that activity. The setting begins with the low-lying table like a coffee table, a large, large coffee table in our setting. A low table.

13:58 Each of the disciples is reclining on a mat, resting on one elbow, reclining at the table. That was the fashion and the pattern in that particular cultural setting. He very carefully describes that Jesus pushes himself away from the large, probably U-shaped coffee table. Sorry that I've blown a hole into Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper.

14:24 It was not a nice, big, elongated table with everyone sitting upright like we would. No, they were reclining in that setting. And John carefully describes that Jesus removes himself from that particular circle of association, goes over, picks up the towel, the apron-like towel, takes the basin, then begins to wash their feet one by one. Now John says he resumes the posture in which he was found before the foot washing.

14:54 When he had washed his feet, washed their feet, and taken his garments, he undid the apron-like towel, and I cannot conceive of our Lord just throwing it anywhere. Can you? The one who, before he left his tomb, folded his head napkin, placed it neatly in the tomb. I cannot picture my Lord Jesus taking off the apron towel and throwing it for somebody else to do him service, to pick it up and put it where it belonged.

15:30 Do you hear me, husbands? Your dirty socks and your dirty underwear, thrown anywhere, are sending out a message. My wife is my servant, consistent with his role as servant. Jesus would not make someone else take the role of a servant to take care of the dirty towel.

15:55 I'm sure he folded it and put it right where the person who had lent that room and made the preparations had put it. And he didn't just plop the basin anywhere, he put it where it belonged, thereby saying, I am still in the posture of the servant. Then he takes his outer garment, and then he goes back to his place at the table. There, once again, by his body language, indicating that he is among his own again, in his role as, we shall see, as teacher and as Lord.

16:38 He has set aside the outward accouterments of this act of servitude with the towel and with the basin. For reasons that I think will become very clear, the position resumed by Jesus is compatible with the message that Jesus wants to convey to his disciples. In other words, our Lord Jesus was never indifferent to his body language. We convey thought and dispositions by our body language.

The Question Asked by Jesus

17:16 Jesus conveyed by the body language of a slave with the towel and the basin the great reality that he was to humble himself becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Now by his body language he resumes the place among them of their recognized teacher and Lord. Now then we come, secondly, to the question asked by Jesus to introduce the secondary lesson of the foot washing. We've looked at the position resumed by Jesus, 12a, now 12b, the question asked by Jesus

18:01 to introduce the secondary lesson of the foot washing. Look at it. When he had washed their feet and taken his garments and sat down again, he said unto them, Do you know what I have done to you? Do you know what I have done to you?

18:21 Do you perceive the significance of what I have just done in the area that you can and ought to grasp here and now? What he says in this question does not negate his affirmation in verse 7. What I am doing you do not know, you cannot know, you will not know until after these things. It will take the cross, the resurrection, and the descent of the Spirit for them to understand that all of their messianic hopes in a Messiah who would come to exert his saving power

19:04 in a way of physical, carnal, material, political triumph, those were all skewed. It will take Gethsemane and Tabitha and Golgotha and the garden tomb in the upper room before they understand and can say with Paul, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord is not negating that. The fundamental lesson of what I am doing, you will not know until after these things.

19:33 But now I want to ask you, do you perceive what I have done? There is something that you can and ought to know here and now. Have you grasped it? Have you guys internalized the realities that have transpired before your eyes?

19:52 We all came in from the walk from Bethany in which we all got dusty, dirty feet. You are all good Palestinian Jews and you know that no decent Palestinian Jew sits down to a meal after he has trekked a while on the dirty roads without having his feet washed. You all saw the towel. You all saw the basin.

20:19 You all looked at one another wondering which one would be willing to take the role of the common soul or the slave. None of you did it. None of you expected I would, but I did it. The fundamental significance of what I did you will not know now, but you will know hereafter.

20:36 But there is a lesson you can know now and you ought to know now. Have you grasped it? Have you absorbed it? Has it broken in upon your proud dull souls what I have done to you?

20:51 The question asked by Jesus is asked to introduce his articulation of this secondary lesson of the foot washing. And let me say just briefly by way of an aside, such questions as Jesus posed are meant to stimulate mental activity. And that's why any good preacher will ask you questions. We can be floating along mentally in the exposition of the word, but when someone says, look, stop, do you grasp this?

21:22 Do you see this? Do you understand this? The question is meant to be a mental stimulator. It's meant to be a prod to mental laziness and to our constant tendency to non-reflection.

21:36 One of the tragedies of sin is it's made us both mentally lazy and non-reflective. We don't like to stop and think and reflect. It's part of the curse of our media crazed age. All of the technology meant to just overload us with input so that to shut it all down and think takes a conscious Herculean effort.

22:07 And the Lord is saying, shut it all down and think. We've all beheld our Lord last Lord's Day. We've seen Him with the towel in the basin. Have you understood the significance of that?

22:20 Not only in its redemptive significance, but in its significance for becoming part of the society of the towel in the basin. Have you connected the dots? You kids know, when you were small, mom and dad got you little books of dot pictures. They had a bunch of dots.

22:42 And you'd connect them with a pencil and then you'd see the picture. Well, as you get older, you see your mom and dad can look at that. They don't need to connect the dots and they can see the picture. Jesus is saying, have you connected the dots in your own mind?

22:54 Do you see the picture? Or do you just see some dots? Saw you reclining. I went over.

23:00 I took the towel. Yeah, yeah, I see all the dots. But do you see the picture? Jesus says.

23:04 Do you perceive what I've done to you? That's the question asked by Jesus to introduce the secondary lesson. So, we've looked at the position resumed by Jesus. He's back, dressed normally, postured normally at the low-lying table, reclining with the twelve.

The Explanation Given by Jesus: Their Relationship to Him

23:23 The question asked by Jesus, now we come to the heart of our exposition, the explanation given by Jesus. The explanation given by Jesus concerning the secondary lesson of the foot washing. Verses 13 through 16. Now, as I labored over the passage, I came to the decision that I was not going to give it artificial subheads.

23:47 Now, you note takers, you don't like that. And I'm glad you don't. Because I'm going to say, don't take notes. Listen to me when I'm preaching.

23:55 Engage me while I'm preaching. And if I say anything worthwhile, you'll remember it. If I don't, having it in your notes won't do you any good. All right?

24:03 No, I'm dead serious. I have earned a reputation for having clear outlines that it's easy to take notes. And I hope that's not a bad reputation. But the older I get, the more I'm persuaded that this passion to have everything neatly can keep us from feeling the flow of the passage that we're dealing with.

24:22 And so, though I'm not going to stand up here and say, stop taking notes down there and stop taking notes down there. I would urge you to perhaps reconsider the benefit of taking notes. Maybe take your notes after and whatever you remember that's worthwhile keeping, then write it down to save it. All right?

24:37 If it ain't worthwhile writing it down to save it, it probably ain't worthwhile writing it down, period. But that, again, is just a little aside. So, we're going to work through it without nice, neat subheadings. Not because I could not have tacked some on, but I did not feel it would be in the best interest of helping us to feel the weight, the cumulative weight of how the Lord deals with us with this issue as He gives His explanation of this secondary lesson of the foot washing.

25:03 Now, the first thing our Lord does is to bring into sharp focus the nature of their relationship to Him and how it is legitimately expressed. He's asking them, do you understand what I've done? If you haven't, let's start here. Let's start with what you all know.

25:23 And that is the nature of my relationship to you yours to me and how it is tangibly expressed. Look at verse 13. You call me teacher and Lord, and you say, well, for so I am. Now, when He says, you call me, uses a present tense verb, you are calling me.

25:45 You are using vocables that when you address me directly or when you speak of me to others, you do so with two distinct titles. You call me teacher and you call me Lord. And there are clear examples in the New Testament, a number of them in the book of John, where they actually address Him as teacher or they refer to Him as teacher. The teacher is calling for you.

26:13 Teacher, will you this? Why this? Why not that? So when the Lord says, you call me teacher and Lord, He is saying, you both address me with these two titles and you refer to me in reference to others with respect to these two titles.

26:33 Now, what did they embody? They must have had distinctive meaning because the Lord commends them that what they are saying accords with reality. You say, well, for indeed, that is precisely what I am to you. I am teacher and I am Lord.

26:52 Well, the first word teacher is, the Greek word that would have in the Aramaic been used to say rabbi. And what was the significance of that? Turn back to John 1 in verse 38. We could turn to a number of passages in John, but we will start with this one.

27:15 And Jesus turned and beheld them following and said unto them, What are you seeking? And they said unto Him, Rabbi, which is to say being interpreted, Teacher, where are you abiding? So when we say, Rabbi, Teacher, are synonymous, one with the overtones of Aramaic, the other of Greek, we are not imposing that on the text. And when we look at all of the usages in Scripture and the usages in secular literature of that time, we come to this conclusion.

27:47 Here, I read the excellent summary by Donald Carson in commenting on this very verse in John 1. The two disciples of the Baptists begin their response with, Rabbi, the word literally means my great one, but was a common term of honor addressed by a student to his master, his teacher, as John's explanatory aside points out for the sake of Greek readers. By the end of the first century, the word became restricted to certain, quote, ordained teachers who had successfully completed an appropriate course of rabbinical instruction. But, at this point in the century, that is, when the Gospel of John was written,

28:29 there was apparently no official ordination. The title was used as a courtesy of honor applied by respectful people to those they recognized as public teachers of divine subject matter. It is commonly applied to Jesus, 149, 32, 431, 625, 92, 11a, even by Nicodemus. Remember he said, we know thou art a teacher, thou art a rabbi come from God.

29:01 And the disciples of John the Baptist addressed him as their teacher, as their rabbi. So, as Jesus begins to unpack the secondary significance of the foot washing, he says to his disciples in explaining that significance, have you really pondered the reality and the significance of the two titles by which you address me and by which you refer to me. You call me teacher. I am your rabbi.

29:35 I am the one to whom you have committed your understanding of the scriptures and of the things of God. You have embraced me as your teacher. Then he says, you call me Lord. Now the word Lord, the Greek word kurios, has a wide range of meaning and usage in the New Testament.

29:53 All the way from a mere title of respect, someone you respected, you might address as Lord, all the way up to nothing less than the divine title, wherefore God hath highly exalted him and given unto him the name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. And the word is used as a title with that full semantic range of usage in the New Testament, from a mere title of respect to nothing short than an attributing of deity

30:36 to the one who is called Lord. At this point in the understanding of the disciples, it was far beyond a mere title of respect. It may not yet have been a consistent understanding of who he is as Lord, co-equal with the Father, Jehovah incarnate. It's moving there, and it will settle there.

31:04 But it's somewhere perhaps a bit short of that, and one thing is clear, that in Jesus' use of it in relationship to them, he knows that they understand that the use of the word Lord takes the concept of teacher beyond mere mental instruction. That when they call him Lord, they are acknowledging that in his teaching as their rabbi, he has moral authority. That they are to render obedience to him as their master. Luke 6.46

31:42 Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? You see what Jesus is saying? If you're going to refer to me as Lord, do what the word Lord means in your present understanding. I'm the boss.

32:01 I call the shots. What I say, you're supposed to do. Again, in Matthew chapter 10, it becomes clear that this is within the range of their present understanding. A disciple, verse 24, Matthew 10, is not above his teacher nor a slave above his Lord.

32:21 It is enough for the disciple that he be as his teacher and the slave as his Lord. Here, Lord is set in apposition to a bond slave. There's a relationship of authority. One is the servant, one is the master.

32:36 Now, why have I taken all that time? Folks, I have to take the time so that we get inside the mind of our Lord Jesus and the mind of those disciples. Remember now, he's asked a question. Have you grasped what I've done to you?

32:52 Have you put the dots together and have you gotten the picture? If you haven't, here's where it begins. You've got to reflect upon the reality of what it is you say to me when you address me and the significance of that. You call me when addressing me, when referring to me, teacher and Lord.

33:12 And what does the Lord say? He says, you do well. Why? For so I am.

33:18 In other words, the titles and their significance accord with reality. They are not a violation of the ninth commandment. They are not reflecting something that is not or something that should not be. You say, well, it should be that way.

33:35 So I am. That's the way it is. It should be and that's the way it is. As they sit in that circle and they watch the Lord Jesus get up from the reclining position, take off his outer garment, take off and put on him the apron towel and pick up the basin, they would nudge one another and say, look what our teacher and our Lord is doing.

34:05 See? This is what our teacher and our Lord did. And our Lord approves of those names and titles and let me say again by way of an applicatory aside, it shows that Jesus Christ is concerned about names and titles and whether they reflect reality. You call me teacher and Lord, you do well.

34:32 Why? Because that accords with truth. For I am. Jesus does not look with pleasure upon calling human beings, peace and the Holy Father.

34:48 And in recent weeks, I have heard those titles ad nauseam. Do you know what a priest is? Look it up in the dictionary. You will find that a priest is, and I quote, a person whose function is to make sacrificial offering and perform other religious rites as an intermediary between deity and worshipers.

35:13 There is no priest since the coming of our high priest, but the priesthood of all believers. And no little part of Rome's folly is her insistence to use a title which should never be used of any. But Christ is our unique high priest and all believers as a priesthood unto God. The Holy Father.

35:37 Jesus uses that term in praying to God in John 17. Holy Father. It is blasphemous to hear it used of that man who is neither holy nor father. That means in this wretched, passionate, egalitarian age where people treat names and titles as though they are just the incrustations of a stuffy old age.

36:06 Let's get rid of them. Don't be conformed to this world. Jesus was conscious of his relationship and how that relationship was expressed in vocables and he said, you say well when your words reflect your acknowledgement that this is not an egalitarian bunch. I am among you as the rabbi, the teacher and the Lord and you use those titles when addressing me and referring to me and you do well.

36:40 With all the medical care my wife and I have needed in the past years it's been an eye opener to me. I make an appointment and I don't make the appointment under the name of reverend. I don't like that. I'm pastor to you people, other people.

36:58 I'm not reverend. I don't carry any clerical duties. I don't carry any clerical collar, clerical glow. So I say, this is Mr. Albert Martin.

37:08 Birth date 4-11-34 so they know I'm an old geezer. I come in the office and some young twit who could be my granddaughter comes up to me and says, Al, the doctor's ready to see you. And I say, did your mama teach you no manners? Yeah, I tell you, it's been unbelievable.

37:29 Al, the doctor's ready to see you. And she thinks that she is somehow flattering me to call an old geezer by his first name, abbreviated. She even said, Albert. Abbreviates it.

37:46 Figures Albert must be Al. Next thing I know, next appointment will be, hey buddy, yo, doctor wants to see you. Yo, bro. You see, beneath that, dear people, something biblical and sacred is being eroded.

38:05 Not just an old funny-dutty notion. Jesus said, you call me Rabbi, teacher, and Lord and so I am. You do well. Have you noticed that when something is done by one of our deacons, it's not Chuck Davies, it's not Mike Worthing, it's Mr. Davies?

38:28 Mr. Worthing? Why? You as a congregation have recognized in them the deposit of gift and grace and have validated their call to a place of leadership.

38:37 And this is one of the ways we can show that we embrace that position when referring to them and speaking to them. And referring to them. Dear folks, don't treat these things lightly. They're in our Bibles.

38:54 Just as we saw last week, Jesus was offended when the common courtesies of that cultural setting were not given to him. When he came into the house of Simon the Pharisee, he said, I came in. You didn't anoint my head. You gave me no water to wash my feet.

39:12 I'm insulted. It's here in the text. A little throwaway. A little aside.

39:20 But it's there. And I could not pass on without underscoring it. Well, then having done this, that is, bring into sharp focus the nature of their relationship to him and his to theirs as expressed in how they spoke to him and referred to him, then the Lord underscores an inescapable conclusion or a logical deduction from the nature of this relationship captured in the two words. You call me teacher or rabbi and Lord.

The Explanation Given by Jesus: The Inescapable Conclusion

39:54 Now look what he does. Here we come now to verse 14. If I then. You've got an if-then relationship.

40:05 You've got a logical deduction. If I then, the Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. If I, then you. If-then.

40:23 In other words, the Lord says, if you're going to put the dots together, you've got to be a lay logician. You've got to be able to think in terms of if-then. You've got to be able to look at one set of facts and draw a proper conclusion from them. That's what our Lord is expecting.

40:46 And so this is precisely what he does. Now remember the historical and cultural setting. Superiors did not wash the feet of inferiors. Peers did not wash one another's feet.

41:02 Only the lowliest menial servitude was connected with feet washing. It would be your house slave who would do the work of foot washing. Now remember that. That's the cultural setting.

41:17 Now because of that, now because of this, none of these disciples took up the towel and the basin. They came into the room as I tried to picture it last week and no doubt, they saw the towel and the basin placed by their unnamed host in a place accessible, available. All the preparations had been made. That man understanding the local social customs and expectations would have made the preparation.

41:44 That's why Jesus didn't have to run out and find the basin and go out into the neighborhood and get a towel, apron. It was all there. The disciples no doubt saw it, walked by it, but said inwardly, no way, Jose. If I take up the towel and the basin, I'm saying I'm subservient to the rest of these guys and that ain't reality.

42:06 I'm one of them. I'm a peer with them. Certainly they would not have expected Jesus to do it. They were in relationship to him as pupil, pupil to teacher, as servant to Lord.

42:21 So they didn't expect him. So they just decided, we'll forego the foot washing. That's why it was so shocking to them. When Jesus, the superior, gets up and he takes the towel and he takes the basin and he washes their feet.

42:36 Now, because of this social structure, none of them took up the towel in the basin. None expected Jesus would, but he did. Now he says, if I, not your peer, and certainly not your inferior, if I, then, the Lord and the teacher, the one in the place of superior rank and authority and influence, if I, the superior, if I, the Lord and the teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. If the superior, stoops

43:20 to wash the feet of a bunch of peers, then the peers are now under solemn moral obligation to recognize they must be prepared to wash one another's feet as peers, especially when they would understand the primary significance because they would be peers who had all been gathered by their common, common washing in the blood of Jesus. In their common sinnerhood in Adam, they had become a company of the washed ones in the blood of Jesus,

44:02 a washing that could only be effective not by the temporary assumption of the role of a common slave, but by the permanent assumption of a true and real humanity in Mary's womb, by life in poverty, by liberty, and misunderstanding and opposition, culminating in the spittle, the jeering, the mockery, the brutality, the blackness, the darkness, the forsakenness of the cross. And they could not forget this. If I, the Lord and the Master, who has called you into a one another relationship,

44:45 if I have called you into that relationship in the virtue of my towel and basin, my unique, once for all, redemptive washing, surely you ought also to wash one another's feet. That is, I am not calling you to perform redemptive acts for one another, but to take the place of servants to one another in the face of the known needs of one another, to joyfully take up the towel and the basin, and to be so faithful and free from the cursed, idolatrous preoccupation with your own navel,

45:26 that you see the needs of others to which you can minister in humble service. If I, not your peer, but your superior, your teacher and your Lord, have taken the place and performed the function of a slave, you are now under solemn obligation to take the place and perform the function of a slave to one another. You see, this is bound up in the whole Hebrew concept of teacher and Lord, so different from our Western concept. Look at Matthew 10 and verse 25, and look at two texts

46:07 that shed tremendous light on why Jesus expected them to make this logical connection, this deduction. Look at Matthew 10, verse 25. A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his Lord. It is enough for the disciple, now notice, not that he think as his teacher.

46:37 The teacher does something more than transmit ideas from his head into his pupil's head. Jesus said, it is enough for the disciple that he be as his teacher, and the slave as his Lord. It is enough that he be, he be, he be, he be. The end of the impartation of the rabbi and teacher's knowledge was the reproduction of life.

47:12 Nothing less. Nothing less. Not the transmission of naked ideas. The transformation into the likeness of the teacher.

47:28 Another text that underscores it, excuse me, a little different language, Luke chapter 6 and verse 40. Luke chapter 6 and verse 40. The disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is perfected shall be as his teacher. Everyone when he is perfected shall be as his teacher.

47:58 Now in that framework, Jesus said, hey you guys, when you address me, you say rabbi, teacher, or you say Lord, when you speak of me to others, you say the teacher said, the rabbi said, the Lord said, and everyone knows to whom you are referring. But now remember, you my disciples, if I then, the rabbi, the teacher, and the Lord, in the context in which you know the pedagogy in Israel, is not the mere transference of notions, but it is conformity of life and character and conduct. If I did this, if you are truly my disciples

48:42 and I'm truly your rabbi, and if I'm truly your Lord and you are my servants, then surely you would feel the moral and ethical obligation that you wash one another's feet. He expected them to make the logical connection. Then, as though that's not enough, then he proceeds further to add more weight to the solemn duty by telling them that his conscious purpose in this act of foot washing was actually to give them a pattern or an example to follow. Look at verse 15.

The Explanation Given by Jesus: Example and Aphorism

49:26 For, and the word for, a little gar in the Greek is another logical connection, the Lord is piling up, his efforts to help them to see the connection of the dots. For, it's going to go on now, move into a different unit of thought. For, I have given you an example, a pattern, that you should do as I have done to you. If it doesn't click when I say, this is what you call me, and because you know the Hebrew concept of the teacher and the Lord, you ought to have assumed that if I did this as teacher and Lord, and it is enough for the pupil to be like his teacher, you should do it.

50:09 If that doesn't cause it to snap in your brain, let me go further and tell you what I've done. And you all watch me, bug-eyed and breathless as you saw me take the place of a servant. You know what I was doing? I was setting an example.

50:24 I was leaving a pattern for you to do this with your relationship or in your relationship one to another. Then he goes on to say, if all of this hasn't caused you to see the connection in the dots, I'm going to buttress this duty with an aphorism. An aphorism is a pithy, concise statement of a principle. And the Lord goes on to say, here's an aphorism used in other contexts in the history of the Gospels.

51:01 A servant is not greater than his Lord, neither one that is sent greater than him that sent him. If in your heart you're still fighting with your stinking pride, well, Lord Jesus, yes, we saw you wash our feet, but to wash one another's feet is to take the place of a common slave. It's to say my brother's needs are greater than my sense of pride and my preoccupation with what I want to do. There's an inconvenience with the towel in the basin.

51:31 He said if it still hasn't gotten through to you, I want to lay this aphorism before you. And it is this, the servant is not greater than his Lord. If I did not think it beneath my dignity to do it, who are you? The slave not greater than, I'm sorry, than the one who is being sent greater than the one who sent him.

51:51 And he introduces that unique concept that these are the apostles who will be sent forth and introduces this additional dimension of their relationship to him. And notice how he introduces it. With this double asseveration. Amen, amen.

52:07 Verily, verily, truly I, truly I say to you. Introduced only a relatively few times in the Gospels when our Lord is concerned to buttress what he's about to say with tremendous authority. And he says, verily, verily, I say unto you. And then he lays before them this aphorism.

52:31 So then, if you refuse to take the towel in the basin in your relationship one to another, you fly into the face of my example. You fly into the face of this great principle. You fly into the face of what you are calling me in the very nature of the teacher, pupil, servant, Lord relationship. And then the passage concludes in the fourth place with a peculiar blessing pronounced on those who embrace and fulfill this duty as a pattern of life.

The Peculiar Blessing for Obedience

53:09 A peculiar blessing pronounced on those who embrace and fulfill this duty as a pattern of life. And I say a pattern of life because the Lord uses a form of the verb, a present subjunctive. We could render it this way. If you have come to know and retain the knowledge of these things, a perfect tense, if you have come to know and retain the knowledge of these things, blessed are you if you may do them as a pattern of life.

53:40 And so the Lord says if the dots haven't quite come together, let me push your pencil and entice you, not with a warning of what will happen if you don't, but let me tease you into the way of obedience with a promised blessing. Isn't that amazing? He said you ought, it's your duty, and failing to do your duty is a negation of all you say about me and all you say with others with respect to me. And it's a negation of the logical deduction.

54:09 It's a negation of this common aphorism. And then he says if you yet need a nudging, let me nudge you, let me entice you, let me draw you with a special pronouncement of blessing. And so he says if you know these things, it's not the if of uncertainty. The little Greek particle could be translated since.

54:29 Here's a mother. Says to her son, look, son, it's raining. Take your raincoat and take your umbrella. Comes back in dripping wet later and she says, did you know it was raining?

54:39 Yes, mom. Well, if you knew it was raining, why didn't you take your umbrella and your raincoat? The if is not an if of uncertainty. It's the if of certainty.

54:49 And that's what the Lord is saying. Since you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. If they become a pattern of life, if this foot-washing disposition becomes part and parcel of who and what you are. Now, when he said blessed are they, what did he mean?

55:08 Makarios. What does that mean? Well, some say it means perfectly happy. Yes, but perfectly happy can mean a guy's had a few beers and feels happy.

55:18 It's blessedness subjectively, but under the objective canopy of the covenant blessing of Almighty God. Blessed as a recipient of the privileges of the divine favor that's what it is to be blessed. To know that I'm under the canopy of divine favor. That my Savior is smiling.

55:40 That's blessedness from the divine objective perspective. Subjectively. That makes me a happy man. That makes me a happy man.

55:49 To know that the God who made me and the Savior who redeemed me smiles upon me because of the fruit of the working of His own grace within me. Listen to Lenski. The adjective, Makarios, is especially significant in this connection for it denotes the joy and the satisfaction arising from possessing and experiencing the divine favor in one or the other of its manifestations. Whereas he who thinks himself great feels disgraced by a menial task rendered to those beneath him, the true disciple of Jesus regards such a task as a great opportunity and reaps from it the feeling of joy and honor for the Lord's favor and commendation

56:34 rests upon him while engaged in such service. In this sense, Jesus says, blessed are you. I can never be more assured of the blessing of my Savior upon me than when I have the towel in the basin. That's what he's saying.

Observations and Applications: Foot Washing Ritual

56:50 That's what he's saying. Well, I've attempted to open up the passage now in the time that remains. A few observations and applications. First of all, there's a legitimate question.

57:02 That must be answered as a result of studying this passage. You asking the question? Many do. Should we engage in a physical ritual of foot washing?

57:16 Doesn't the text say, I've left you an example to do as I have done unto you. You ought to wash one another's feet. That's what the text says. That's what we ought to do.

57:27 Didn't Jesus say, make disciples, baptize them, teach them whatsoever things I commanded you? Yes. Did Jesus command them to wash one another's feet? Yes.

57:38 I.e., we ought to have a ritual of foot washing. You want to fight the logic?

57:44 Well, I say respectfully, I do respect those who are so determined to be obedient to Christ that they have added to baptism in the Lord's Supper a third ordinance of foot washing. I respect their desire to be meticulously obedient. I don't respect Rome's charade of imposing this once a year in conjunction with the Pope in the context that is so utterly foreign, utterly foreign to the Jesus of the basin in the tower. But why am I not seeking to persuade you all at this point in the exposition should we consider that?

58:23 Well, for two basic reasons. The text itself. Look at the text. Jesus said in verse 15, I've given you an example that you should do and the Greek construction could be used that would make it plain.

58:36 Do what I have done to you. But Jesus says that you should do as I've done to you. It is in the doing as not the doing what. And what was the doing as?

58:49 It was the Lord of glory taking the towel and the basin to minister to the needs of those whom he's about to redeem by the shedding of his blood. Now he says, you are to do as I have done to you. You are not artificially to engage in a culturally incompatible non-necessity of foot washing. You see, baptism and the Lord's Supper are supra-cultural.

59:18 They have significance in the world of stuff and things in every culture. Water used for cleansing, food and bread and the fruit of the vine for nourishment. They have a supra-cultural significance. They are adapted to all cultures in all ages.

59:35 This had a cultural limitation. Jesus is emphasizing by this concrete, specific thing the deeper principle illustrated supremely in his humbling himself unto death, even the death of the cross. And furthermore, the rest of scripture, there is not one indication that the disciples ever mandated, ever instituted. The only other reference to foot washing is one of the requirements for a widow to be put on the role of widows.

60:02 She must have been a woman who washed the disciples' feet. It was to be a distinguished wishing mark of her servant's heart. And if it were a common, ordinary experience of all believers, why would it be put as a specific indication of requirement to be put on the widow's role? So we don't practice it.

60:19 We don't believe there's biblical warrant. And thirdly, we are sensitive to the consensus of the church over the ages. And the majority of the people of God have not seen it as an ordinance. Therefore, I hope I've laid to rest this legitimate question.

Observations and Applications: Connection of Primary and Secondary Purposes

60:34 Now we come to something far more vital. There is a vital connecting connection and order between the primary and the secondary purposes of the act of foot washing which must never be separated. And I confess I've struggled before God saying, Lord, I don't know how to express this. I know it's got to be expressed.

60:59 And I wish I had another three, four hours to meditate, to wrestle, to try to come up with terminology that's stickable. And I say, there is a vital connection and order between the primary and secondary purposes of this act of foot washing which must never, never be separated. Look at the passage. Jesus, first of all, says in verse eight, if I do not wash you, you have no part with me.

61:29 Assuming that Peter and the other ten do embrace the washing of the feet of Jesus, for he says, you are clean, but not all. Judas never did, but the eleven did. It is only to those who have submitted to Jesus' washing of them to whom it is said you ought to wash one another's feet. And that connection and that order is absolutely crucial.

62:03 What is going to strike at the very nerve centers of your native self-serving, self-seeking indifference to the needs of others? Nothing but the cross of Christ applied to your own heart by the grace and power of the Spirit. It is only when you and I stand in the presence of incarnate deity, immolated, bruised, caked with his own blood, sunk beneath the darkness of the shrouded heavens, crying out, my God, my God,

62:47 why have you forsaken me? It is only when we sing and internalize that, that the root of our self-seeking, self-serving pride will be struck. That is the problem with some of you sitting here this morning. By a sight of an immolated savior, by whom alone you are washed.

63:20 That is your problem. That is why some of you are stinking, rotten, selfish husbands. If I were your wife, if I could find a smidgen of biblical evidence, I would have left you a long time ago. You never take up the towel, you never take up the Bible to tell them they ought to pick up the towel in the basin for you.

63:58 Except I wash you, you have no part with me. It is impossible for the human soul to have a sight of its utter wretchedness and the glory of God in the face of Christ the Lord. That is the answer to your question. You are not a servant of God.

64:42 You are a servant of God. You are a servant of God. You are a servant of God. You are a servant of God.

65:03 You are a seeker of the world. You do so because you want the good for the well. The 子 Thou with thee thyself hath no talent which you in grace? How am I to get out of this increasingly, or I should say, this remnant of encroaching self-centeredness? Paul tells us, let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus,

65:46 who being in the form of God thought not the being on an equality of God, the thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. You see, the person who has truly bowed in humility and said, Lord Jesus, wash me, and embraced the flesh-withing reality of salvation by the cross of Christ, he knows that where life was imparted, life is nurtured. And it's as we come daily for our sponge bath. Remember we saw last week, he that is washed doesn't need to have a tub bath again. Peter said, Lord, if I have no

66:27 part with you. Unless you wash me, if my hands are in my head, anything that is, Lord. He said, no, no, no. He that is washed, he that has the once-for-all bath, what Titus calls the washing of regeneration, has no need but to wash his feet, that is, sponge baths. But where do

66:46 you get your sponge bath? The same place you got your tub bath. It's from Jesus. And the Christian who's going to Jesus again and again for a sponge bath, he knows that his constant walk of cleansing is only effected by the Jesus of the towel and the basin. So

67:08 living in fellowship with the Jesus of the towel and the basin, more and more we imbibe the spirit of our blessed Lord, and we're more and more comfortable with the towel and with the basin. That's why I say there's a vital connection and an order between the primary and the secondary. The secondary purposes of the foot washing, which must never be overlooked, never separated. And then finally, by way of observation on the text, there is but one divine grace that will motivate us to live with the towel and the basin in our relationship to one another.

Observations and Applications: Motivation of Divine Love

67:50 There is but one divine grace that will motivate us to live with the towel and the basin in our relationship to one another. What moved Jesus? We saw it last week. Look at chapter 13, verse 1. Before the feast of

68:08 the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own that were in the world, he loved them unto the end. The chapter begins with apprising us that whatever follows is a manifestation of the indomitable love of Jesus. Now, it's interesting. We know the chapter divisions are not inspired, but it's nonetheless interesting. Do you know how this chapter comes to a conclusion or toward the end of

68:41 the chapter? Jesus says in John 13, 31, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another even as I have loved you, that you love one another by this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you have loved one to another. What grace throbbed in the soul of our Savior. That he was willing to take the tower and the basin. He loved his own. And it was out

69:07 of his own infinite love to his own that he was on his way to the cross and wants to give them a parable of that unique soul work of redemptive accomplishment that he was about to effect on their behalf. It was love that drove him to the cross, love that held him on the cross. And now he says, as I've done to you, you do. He's compelled by that same grace of holy love. And where does that love come from?

69:37 The fruit of the Spirit is love. We love because he first loved us. It is living in the climate of amazement and wonder in the face of his love. That we all with open face beholding as in a mirror of the glory of the Lord are transformed into that same image from one stage of glory to another. And that's why Galatians 5, 13 opened up to me in the preface.

70:02 In preparation for this brief series of messages like I've never seen it before. Galatians 5, 13. For you, brethren, were called for freedom. Only use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but through love. The Greek verb is do bond service to one another. Through

70:24 love take the role and fulfill the function of slaves to one another. Take the tower and the basin. What a difference our homes would reflect if everyone in that home that names the name of Christ came to each day saying, Lord Jesus, help me to gird on the towel and take up the basin. What would our Lord's days be like when we not only prayed, oh God, help me to come with clean hands and a pure heart. Help me to worship with enthusiasm and passion

71:00 and joy. Help me to be receptive to the word. But every Lord's day we said, oh Lord Jesus, as I go out the door. Help me to pick up the towel and the basin. Help me to have a keen eye to see someone who's

71:14 got dirty feet. Help me, Lord Jesus, to have a heart and an eye that leaps at the chance to take the towel and the basin. May God help us. May God help me that the Jesus who died because he took the towel and the basin will have in this church that society of the towel and the basin.

71:41 That he died to procure, which he said will be the validation of our discipleship before an onlooking world. Let's pray.

71:58 Our Father, what can we say when we have, as it were, peered into things too bright for our mortal eyes? But your word invites us to look, and we pray that the Holy Spirit will help us not only to look, but to understand and to receive and to respond. That we may know that blessing promised to those who, by your grace, take the towel and the basin in their relationship to one another. Whatever we have said that is obscured and in any way made foggy, the great realities, Lord, blow upon such things and bring them

72:39 to naught. May your truth, the pure truth of your word, find its lodgment in every heart. We ask this for our good and for your glory. Amen.