John 13:1-11

ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

With reference to the individual words and phrases of John 13:1-11 the following suggestions may be offered:

1. The hour, which has been spoken of in the earlier part of the Gospel as not yet come, is here, as in John 12:23, referred to as already present. In connection with this fact, it may be noticed that, in the discourses of this last evening, Jesus seems often to speak as if the final moment were already past, and He was at the hour which immediately followed His death. 2. The fact of the absence of the article before δείπνου does not prove that the supper in question was not the Passover supper, but it is to be admitted that this fact is more easily accounted for if it was a supper on another evening. The word “necessarily,” which Godet uses, seems hardly to be justified.

3. Godet holds that εἰδώς of John 13:3 is not to be understood, with Meyer, Weiss and others, as meaning although He knew, but because He knew. It seems to the writer of this note that the view of Meyer, etc., is more probably correct. The greatness of the love manifested in this condescending act is shown in the fact that it was done when, on the one side, Jesus was conscious that Judas, who was one of the company, was resolved to betray Him, and, on the other, when He was assured that all things had been given to Him by the Father. Notwithstanding the presence of the traitor may we not also say: the contention among the apostles, which showed their earthly-mindedness and notwithstanding His knowledge that His work and His time of humiliation were ended and His glorification was at hand, He did this service of love. It was in this way that He taught most impressively and effectively the lesson of humility.

4. Westcott presses the distinction between ἐξῆλθεν ἀπὸ θεοῦ which is found here, and ἐξῆλθον ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ in John 8:42 the former marking separation, and the latter source. In his note on John 8:42 he calls attention to the same point, and also to the use of the verb with παρά as emphasizing the idea of the personal fellowship of the Father and the Son (John 16:27). The use of the three prepositions is, certainly, worthy of special notice, and the distinction in their meaning, as connected with the many indications of the union between the Son and the Father, points strongly towards, if indeed it does not prove, the correctness of Westcott's view of ἐξῆλθον ἐκ, as setting forth the true divinity of the Son. In the present verse the idea is rather of the mission of the Son than of His nature or origin He came from God, and is now going to Him, and, in connection with His accomplished work, the Father gives all things into His hands.

5. The position of Peter at the table and the question whether Jesus came to him first cannot be determined from John 13:6. John 13:24 would seem to show that he did not sit next to John, and also that he did not sit next to Jesus on the other side, but that he was at some other part of the table, where the indication by signs would be easier and more natural. If any inference can be drawn from the word ἔρχεται, it will be rather against than in favor of the idea that Jesus began with Peter.

6. The explanation which is given in the following verses shows that the words of Jesus addressed to Peter have a bearing upon the Christian life, and do not refer to a mere agreement in feeling at the moment. The act of Jesus, while teaching humility, also taught the need of cleansing the life from the remaining tendencies to evil; and the refusal to accept the act (as would be understood in the light of the higher knowledge, which would come with the spiritual revelation) was, in reality, the putting oneself outside of the true idea of that life. The words of John 13:10 suggest the thought of the passage in this view of it.

7. The turn of the thought in John 13:10 from the individual to the company is easily explained in connection with the deep impression of the approaching act of Judas, which all the Gospels show to have been resting on the mind of Jesus at this time. This turn of thought would scarcely have entered the mind of a later writer it belongs to the life of the remembered scene. The explanatory words of John 13:11 also point to an apostolic author, for, as Westcott remarks, these words are natural if the recollection of the writer “carries him back to the time when” they “arrested the attention before they were fully intelligible;” but “no one who had always been familiar with the whole history would have added them.”