John 13:10

John 13:10. Jesus saith to him, He that is bathed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all. The ground of the figurative language hardly needs explanation: he who has just been cleansed in the bath has only further to wash his feet as he proceeds from the bath to the banquet in order that he may sit down there wholly clean. Peter's words had shown that he did not fully understand he application of the figure, and that he did not see that the washing of more than the feet, which had alone been in a position to contract defilement, implied that the first cleansing had not been so thorough as it really was. It was necessary, therefore, in furtherance of his training at this time, to remind him that in faith and love he had already been made completely one with Jesus, and that all now required was not an entire renewal of that first cleansing, as if men were to be born a third as well as a second time, but a preserving of it in its completeness. This was to be effected by suffering Jesus now to cleanse away any stain that could be imparted by the work of the world, but no more. A right perception of the greatness of what Christ did for us when He first united us to Himself, is as necessary to a true following of His example of love and self-denial, as is a perception of the fact that, at every step of our progress, in every part of our continued work, we need to turn to Him for the spiritualising of our earthly thoughts, the elevation of our earthly aims, and the pardon of our shortcomings and sins. Peter and the apostles ought not to forget this. They had all been truly united to Jesus except one; and there is sadness in the way in which the words are added, ‘but not all.'