John 13:10

John 13:10

The Bathed must yet be Cleansed

Even he that has plunged into the love of Christ and Christ's law, will yet soil his feet as he walks through the world, and will need perpetually to be washed as the disciples were washed on the evening of the Last Supper. In the text our Lord declared that He would wash the defilement of the feet in the ways of the world, and not merely cleanse once for all, but ever renew the cleansing as it was needed.

I. It is the sin which remains on the conscience that withers and destroys all religious life. It is the sin which, whether great or small in itself, we will not repent of; it is the sin which we are too proud to set right, that really keeps us from our Saviour. To be defeated in the spiritual warfare is a serious matter; but to keep away from the voice of the Captain, to be unwilling to fight any more, to be too much ashamed or too proud to come back and submit to His will, this is worse than all defeats. But meanwhile our Lord knows full well that we shall often be taken in all manner of faults, and He is ready to cleanse us the moment we come back to Him. If we have been separated from Him for ever so little, His heart goes out to meet us the moment we return. As the father met the prodigal son, so our Lord sees us and welcomes us when we are yet a great way off.

II. It is the readiness of repentance that marks the childlike character. Little children are easily led away, but they are easily made sorry, and easily are they brought to seek forgiveness from offended parents. And this is one of the ways in which Christians are to resemble little children. It is readiness of repentance which marks the loving temper. The self-contained, cold character feels no need of forgiveness. Such an one cannot bear to accept forgiveness, but always desires to earn it. But the loving character knows that nothing earns forgiveness so surely, so truly, as seeking for it, and all other earning should follow, not precede. If you have done wrong, know that this wrong-doing will not quench the smoking flax, but that delay in coming to Christ will. Know this, and know too that instant repentance brings you instant forgiveness; nay, more than forgiveness, love and approval and help from the Lord of all power and might.

Bishop Temple, Rugby Sermons,2nd series, p. 116.

Whom does Christ pronounce Clean?

Consider what it was in our Lord's Apostles that made Him say to them that, with one exception, they were all clean.

I. It certainly was not because they were free from sin altogether. The Gospels contain many instances of faults, even amongst the most eminent of their number, which prove quite clearly that they were far from perfect. There were marks of ambition, of violence, of worldly-mindedness in their characters, which on different occasions drew forth our Lord's reproof. But yet He calls them clean, because as he said to them that very same evening, "Ye are they who have continued with Me" in my temptations. They were men who when many others had gone back and walked no more with Him, and when they themselves did not understand aright those words of their Lord which had given so much offence, yet replied to Him when He asked them, "Will ye also go away?" "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." He calls them clean therefore, because their faith in Him had not failed; but they had continued with Him in all His temptations, and loved Him better than any other service.

II. If this is the case then, we may think at first sight that we too are all clean, because our faith in Christ has never failed us, and we have continued in His service ever since we were born. And so, indeed, we might think justly if our notions of faith were the same as those of the Scripture. But many of us cannot be said, like the Apostles, to have continued with Christ in His temptations, for we have never known what it is to struggle against temptation for Christ's sake. We have never made it our deliberate choice to abide with Him, let who would forsake Him, because we were sure that He had the words of eternal life. However much then we may be called Christians, and however little we have ever doubted the fact of Christ's life and death, we cannot on that account lay claim to that true and lively faith which Christ saw in His eleven disciples, and for which He did not hesitate to pronounce them to be "clean every whit." We are not clean, indeed, too many of us; but that Gospel which is preached unto us holds out to every one of the children of men who need it, a fountain for sin and for uncleanness, a means whereby our sins, though scarlet, may be made as white as snow, and we, like the Apostles, may stand in the sight of God as "clean every whit."

T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. ii., p. 127.

References: John 13:10. Expositor,2nd series, vol. iv., p. 146; D. Fraser, Metaphors of the Gospels,p. 391. Joh 13:12-14. J. H. Thorn, Laws of Life after the Mind of Christ,3rd series, p. 316. John 13:12. Expository Sermons on the New Testament,p. 120. John 13:12. A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve,p. 351.