JOHN 13
FER Public ministry is all over. The hour had come when He should depart out of the world — the time for public ministry was over, and the fact that the hour had come makes it evident, I think.
Ques You refer to the Lord’s [p. 247] own ministry?
FER Yes; you must expect, from this point, to get a new line of instruction.
Ques I suppose chapter 12: 44 gives you the last of Christ’s public ministry?
FER Yes; it is a kind of closing word. The Lord has the last word, in that sense.
Rem What we get here as to the Supper is given rather differently in the other gospels.
FER Yes; John presents it in a different light.
Rem It seems here that the Lord is more occupied with the subjective work in them.
FER Yes; that is the character all through John. The teaching all through John is on the subjective side, because it is all life.
Rem Now a new kind of teaching is coming out, because He is going out of the world, back to the Father?
FER Yes, I think so. Things were to be on wholly new ground, not now in connection with His presence here, but on wholly new ground as being with the Father. In the previous chapter you get, “Now is the judgment of this world” — things have come to an issue, and the Holy Spirit can convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Any testimony therefore that God presents to man down here must be for the purpose of leading souls out of the world.
Rem Though we are still in the world, yet a way is made for us out of the world.
FER Yes, that is it. Light is come in to deliver people morally out of the world. The great point now is that God speaks to man on the ground of resurrection. He addresses Himself now to man apart from the question of sin, or the flesh, and the necessary answer to that is, that if you are to have to say to God it must be apart from sin and the flesh too. Well, what have you got for this world? If you can divest a man of sin and the flesh, what has he got? There is [p. 248] nothing left of him for this world. Therefore it seems to me that the fact of the light of God coming in is to bring deliverance to man — it is the necessary consequence of it, and the more the light comes home, the more really deliverance is appreciated.
Ques I could not enjoy the light as a natural man?
FER No, you could not. I do not say that the light may not have the effect of exercising people, but you could not enjoy it. You can only enjoy it in the fact of being apart from what God is apart from. You could not possibly enjoy the light and yet sanction things from which God is apart. If God has to say to people apart from sin and the flesh, you could not enjoy that light if you were indulging sin and the flesh, you must be apart from that.
Ques Standing in favour is quite another ground?
FER Oh, yes; another ground entirely. A man who wants to sanction sin and the flesh could not enjoy the light of God when God presents Himself apart from it.
Ques Is not the object of deliverance in Romans that I might enjoy the light; but then there is a further deliverance?
FER Yes; that you might have a place with God, in the reality of what God is in Himself, that is a further step. You are to be associated with Christ in the consciousness of that, not simply in the light of God. That carries you further.
Ques Does not that put you in the circle of His interests here?
FER Yes, that is further still. You must have been in to Him before you can come out for Him; you come out from Him for His interests here. That is further on still, in a way.
Ques You get both of these things in John?
FER Yes; in chapter 14 you are in with Him, and in chapter 16 you come out.
Ques Do you go in at all in [p. 249] Romans 8?
FER Oh, no; the point there is that the Spirit has, in a way, displaced the flesh.
Rem You go in to Him while down here.
FER Yes. This chapter is rather what is preparatory to it, it shows you what is an absolute necessity before you can have part with Christ.
Ques What is that, to have part with Him?
FER Well, you have here the idea of purification — you must have your feet washed before you can have part with Christ. The service of Christ is indispensable if we are to have part with Him.
Ques Would you at all connect this with Numbers 19 — the red heifer?
FER Yes, I think so; only here it is to bring you under the sense of your obligation to one another, the Lord puts it in that way. He sets them an example, and puts them under an obligation to follow His example, “Ye also ought to wash one another’s feet”. At the present time Christ does not wash our feet directly, but mediately.
Ques. Through His own?
FER Yes; I think that is the idea of it. He did it here really to give them an example, but He puts us under the obligation to do it one for the other. “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them”.
Ques What is meant by “washed all over”?
FER Well, that is a work we could not possibly do for one another. Even if we have grace to wash one another’s feet, it is really Christ who does it, only He does it mediately. For instance, if I had grace to wash your feet, it would be Christ doing it, but He does it in that sense through me, or through you.
Ques Is the obligation much fulfilled?
FER Well, I do not know, but I am rather afraid comparatively little. We are very much more prone to descant upon one another’s deficiencies than to try and remove them. It is a very easy thing to make one another’s failures a subject of talk, instead of [p. 250] being under the obligation to seek to remove them.
Rem And you would have the sense that it was a pleasure to Him to do so.
FER Yes.
Ques In Numbers it was the office of one who was clean?
FER Yes; he would not attempt to do it if he were not clean himself.
Ques What is the connection of verse 3?
FER I think it gives us a complete view of the ground on which the Lord acts. The Father gives all things into His hand, it is like the end of chapter 3, “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things [to be] in his hand” — everything is put on that ground. You see the greatness of Christ. The great stumbling-block with infidels is as to how God can put Himself in relation with a man down here; they only look at God in the light of creation, and it is a great stumbling-block to them how God can put Himself in communication with a man down here; but then they only judge from themselves. They betray themselves because they judge everything according to man — just what a man would do if he were under the circumstances, which is a thing impossible to conceive of.
Ques Is there any significance, do you think, in the Lord’s action being connected with the Supper?
FER Well, He rises from the Supper — the expression is really, “supper being about” — He rises from the Supper; rising is significant in that way, He breaks up all that association, it broke up the meal, and all that character of association in which Christ had been with them down here. Then He takes another attitude with regard to them.
Ques Are there not two things that come out in the chapter, the Supper, and then the “devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot ... to betray him”?
FER Yes; and He anticipates it. The very fact of Satan having put it into one heart to betray Him broke up the circle. When once treachery came into that little circle, it was entirely broken up. I was pointing it out in connection with Joseph’s brethren, it is very striking in their case; before they denied Joseph they were powerful as a company, but afterwards they became weak. Here treachery had come into the circle, and in the hour of His betrayal they “all forsook him and fled”.
I think the significance of His rising from supper is that all that order of things was broken up, and He takes another attitude in regard to them. Then the truth comes in, the necessity of our being maintained in moral cleanness down here. This chapter is only preparatory; but, in regard to the wilderness, you must be maintained in moral cleanness if you are to be with God. He came “from God, and went to God”, and if you are to follow Him, you must be maintained in moral cleanness down here.
Ques Is that His priestly service?
FER No, not exactly; because you get the two things coming in in Numbers, the priesthood and the water of purification — you must have both. I think you get the subjective side here — more the water of purification.
Ques “Clean every whit” — is that new birth?
FER It goes farther than new birth; it is the effect of the truth upon you. It would, of course, include it, but it carries you on beyond it. I think a man “clean every whit” is a man really formed in the divine nature where the word has taken effect, and a man is formed by the light — it is then that he is clean every whit. Of course a Christian, as far as the work of God is concerned, is already clean in the very nature of the thing — what is born of God cannot commit sin.
Rem He says of them, “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken”. He does not say through the blood or through death.
FER Oh, no; the Spirit of God uses the testimony of God to form you in that testimony; the word of God may be the testimony of His love; but then the Spirit of God forms you in that testimony, in the divine nature. “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us”, etc. It is really by God’s testimony, in the death of Christ, that the Holy Spirit brings home to you the light of God’s love, and then He forms you by that; a man is clean by the word, he is formed in the divine nature by the word.
Ques Is there not a similarity between this and Ephesians 5, “that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word”?
FER Yes, in that sense. But there it looks at the thing in its completeness, not in detail as here. Here it is the obligation to wash one another’s feet, but there it is simply and purely what Christ does.
Ques And the word is the only pure water?
FER Yes. As to the water of purification, you remember it was mingled with the ashes of the red heifer; they were laid by in a clean place, and then running water was put to them, and that constituted the water of purification.
Ques How would you distinguish between that and the laver?
FER I think the washing at the laver was more connected with the condition on which they could approach to God. It is a necessity and condition of approach to God that you must be dead from the world, washed from the filth of the world. The teaching of the laver is more that to me, like “your bodies washed with pure water”. It is purification from the world, but that is not quite the idea here; it is not being washed from that system, as with the laver, but here it is more a question of detail, and [p. 253] proper Christian care for one another. You seek, instead of dwelling on defects, to accept your obligations to remove them. I think it is a great thing for us to accept our obligation to serve one another. It was really putting the disciples, in a kind of way, in His own place. He had taken the place Himself, He did not put upon them what He did not do Himself; but He takes the place Himself, and puts upon them the obligation to do as He had done. He did it first Himself, so that they could never say He had put upon them what He did not do Himself.
Ques And that is, as you say, mediately now?
FER Yes; through you or through me.
Ques Could this service come in preventively, as well as restoratively?
FER I think it supposes the contraction of evil — I think it supposes a soil in a kind of way.
Ques Is it a question of sin, would you say?
FER Well, I suppose it might be anything that tends to defile down here — and it is not a very difficult thing to get under defiling influences. We are continually coming in contact with moral defilement.
Ques I suppose that even being in the company of Judas would have been sufficient to defile them?
FER Yes; you cannot be in bad company without being affected, you cannot read bad books, or even a passage out of a bad book, without being contaminated. You read a thing, and you feel even as you read it that you are being contaminated. I know that by one’s own experience. You read a thing almost by accident, and in the very reading of it you are defiled.
Ques Does this take in more than defilement?
FER No, I should hardly think so; washing indicates the removal of something, would you not think so?
Ques “He that is washed” — what is that?
FER Well, that is a general thought there.
“He that is bathed” — that indicates to me a person in whom the word has taken effect, and to whom it has brought deliverance.
Rem. Like the leper?
FER Yes; a person washed all over is a person dead to the world, but even in that place, as dead to the world, it is extremely possible that you may pick up some soil. You are never out of the wood while down here. But the point here is this, if you detect a soil in another, your obligation is to seek to remove it, it is that side of it here.
Ques Is it similar to Galatians, a brother “overtaken in a fault”?
FER Yes; I think you get the idea there, and it says, “Ye which are spiritual, restore such an one”.
Ques And the first practical necessity is the deepest humility?
FER Yes, I think it is. I think it would work in the sense that the Lord has not charged us to do what He has not done Himself. “If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet”, etc.
Ques And you could not get a greater example than the Lord Himself?
FER No; and it is wonderful grace that puts you in the Lord’s own place. It is not inconsistent with His greatness to stoop to wash their feet. His greatness is first brought out, but it is not inconsistent with that to wash their feet. And nothing, in that way, is inconsistent with love. Love delights in purity — divine love — and I do not think in that way that anything is inconsistent with love.
Rem And it delights to serve, too.
FER Yes, quite so.
Ques What would characterise our service for one another?
FER Well, this is not normal service, but abnormal, this service is consequent upon soil coming in.
[p. 255] Ques Would this be necessary if we were all walking in self-judgment?
FER I think it is impossible for a Christian to go through the world without contamination, and the Lord knew that.
Ques Is there no way of its being removed except through another?
FER There may no doubt be other ways, but here the Lord puts us under the obligation to remove it; you are not justified in taking no notice of it.
Rem In Numbers it supposes a man getting defiled by what he cannot avoid.
FER Yes; you go through the world, and you cannot help getting contaminated.
Ques Does the Lord never wash our feet?
FER Well, the Lord may do it, but you are under the obligation to do it. You would not try to do it in the meeting, although it might be done in the meeting without your knowing it.
Rem Then does “He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me” come in in that connection?
FER Yes; and that shows again that it is really the Lord, though He says, “whomsoever I send”.
Rem The important point is to make it our own shame.
FER Yes; that is the important point, the reproach of one belongs to us all, if we really consider it.
Ques Is the feet-washing always in view of “part with me”?
FER Yes; but you see how people love to expose others. If you consider men at all, you will find what a readiness there is to expose others. Look at all the papers that are written with an attempt to expose evil; what a spirit that is, it is totally opposed to the Spirit of Christ — there is nothing of the Spirit of Christ in that.
Ques How about things that are not known, would the Lord work directly in such [p. 256] a case?
FER Yes; but the point in this chapter is to put us under the obligation. He does something which is to be an example to them. The obligation which attaches to us is down here, the point being that we may have part with Him.
Ques Is it the line you get in Peter, love covering a multitude of sins?
FER Yes. I do not think we very much understand what it is to have part with Christ if we do not understand our obligation to serve one another.
Ques We are to serve all in love?
FER Yes.
Ques “Thou shalt not suffer sin upon thy brother”, is it at all like that?
FER Yes; in your dealings with your brother there may be a kind of moral rebuke needed in order to bring his failure home to him, but it must be brought home to him, and here you are responsible for the removal of it.
Rem “Ye which are spiritual” — it supposes every one to be spiritual.
FER This is the proper character of a Christian. The more correct expression is, “ye being spiritual”; the apostle is speaking there, as he very often does speak, as to what they are properly. I would not say the washing would not sometimes take the form of a rebuke, to bring conviction, if it be needful.
Ques But it was not essential in the Lord’s case here?
FER Well, this was only a figure to teach them their moral obligation.
Ques Do you think He washed Judas’ feet?
FER I do not know, that is all left. It says, “After he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments” — it looks as if He had washed them all; but, after all, the action of the Lord in washing their feet was only figurative, as I have said.
Rem He was wounded in the house of [p. 257] His friends.
FER Yes; the Lord says that Himself: “He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me”. It is “mine own familiar friend”, as in Psalm 41.
Ques Is not “part with me” being able to take our place on His side?
FER Yes, I think so — “part with me” puts you there.
Rem And that is no doubt our highest privilege.
FER You could not have anything much greater. That is the wonderful thing that has come to pass. God has shown out His pleasure in Christ risen from the dead that man may be apart, entirely apart in life, from all that is contrary to Himself; that is what God has shown out in Christ risen — that is His pleasure. You are “risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead”. “Part with me” does not properly refer to heaven, any more than “risen with Christ” does. It is on that side, but still on the earth, I am with Him as on earth.
Ques Is there any link at all with the first verse?
FER Yes, a very great link; and that expresses very much what “part with me” is. You stand with Him apart from all that has been removed in His death, and the washing of the feet is that you may be perfectly consistent with it. It is heavenly ground.
Ques But morally greater than heaven in a way?
FER Yes, I think it is. It is wonderful, too, as the hymn puts it,
“In Him we stand, a heavenly band,
Where He Himself is gone” (12:2)
— that does not exactly mean heaven; it is similar to what we had last week, “where I am, there shall also my servant be”. He has gone on to heavenly ground, and we are one with Him there.
Ques Is it not like “the Son of man who is in heaven”? He was actually down here, and yet in the bosom of the Father.
FER I think it is a little difficult to prove such a thing by scriptures which apply strictly to Christ. When you think of Christ, He never left heaven in that sense. You have got another side to it, “In him all the fulness was pleased to dwell”, and that makes it extremely difficult to apply the expression to us. You have part with Him, and you are risen with Him, but that is all consequent upon God’s setting forth in Christ risen what His pleasure is, and that is, life out of death. When Christ was here after the flesh He was just as much in life as He was when risen, but He goes through death that man might be with Him in life out of death — on that footing.
Ques Why was Peter indignant that the Lord should wash his feet?
FER I think there was a good deal of Peter there; he did not at all apprehend that Peter had to go; he had not lost sight of Peter. He thought, of course, that it was derogatory to the Lord to wash his feet, but he did not know the obligation of love. It is a most difficult thing for a natural man to understand the obligation of love. Love has its own obligation, because it is love, and no natural man understands the obligation of love. No philosopher and no scientific man could possibly understand that love has its own obligation because it is love — that God is love. Peter did not understand that at all; but while it was right of him, in a way, to think it was beneath the Lord’s dignity to wash his feet, yet, if he had thought nothing about himself at all, he would have allowed the Lord to do what He pleased.
You get the perfection of love in the Lord. When God told Abraham to offer up Isaac He was teaching a most important and blessed lesson, that even Christ after the flesh must go. If God was to make Himself known to man, it must be outside of man, that is,
[p. 259] outside of death. That is the only way in which God could present Himself effectually to man. If God were to have to say to the flesh, what becomes of you and me? And therefore He wants you to learn the grace of God as entirely outside of sin in the flesh; you may be as much apart from sin in the flesh, as much delivered from it, as God is apart from it. He has condemned it.
Rem -He has had His way in regard to it?
FER Yes; and therefore He presents Himself to man apart from it, because Christ is risen. We believe on Him who “raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” — that is your justification.
Ques Does resurrection take you at all to heaven?
FER As we were saying a few minutes ago, it is heavenly ground, although you are here upon earth; you belong to heaven. It is like the Lord during the forty days in which He tarried upon earth, before He ascended.
Ques But “raised us up together, and made us sit” really takes us to heaven?
FER Oh, yes; that is the act of God’s power.
Ques Being dead and risen with Christ, then, is not a question of our experience?
FER Well, it is that you are freed from the power of sin and the flesh, that is what “dead with Christ” means; but “risen together with Christ” is not experimental. I admit that I have often said otherwise, but it is perfectly clear to me now that it is just as much the pleasure of God that we are risen with Christ as that we are justified.
Ques And yet a man cannot have it except as having been through death?
FER A man must have drunk the bitter waters of Marah in that way; he must accept his own bitter portion.
[p. 260] Ques Has not the water some reference to the death of Christ?
FER The water, as I take it, has a reference to the water of purification made up with the ashes of the red heifer, and it has undoubtedly some reference to the death of Christ. This chapter is the great chapter of exposure, everything is exposed — I mean the character of things — everything is made bare in this chapter; Judas is exposed, and the weakness and faithlessness of Peter is brought to light. The Lord surveys everything in this chapter. He brings light to bear upon everything.
Rem “Happy are ye if ye do them” — you are happy in carrying out the will of the Lord.
FER Yes; your happiness lies not in having His words but in doing them. Happiness is not intelligence; the intelligent man may not be the happy man. I believe happiness lies in walking here in divine affections, and that is all the effect of light. Light is a most important thing; all affections in me are begotten by light.
Rem Happiness always has others in view.
FER Yes, it is in serving others, and in carrying out our obligation to others. Love seeks not its own.
Rem And so in one instance you get the expression, “The blessed God”. That conveys the thought.
FER Yes, it does.
Ques Might not that be translated the “happy God”?
FER Perhaps that is so, but it is an expression that grates on me. The word “blessed” is better. Words get a kind of meaning in human language, and become in that sense inapplicable to God. I think it is a most wonderful thing that this chapter is only the prelude to the instruction in chapter 14, that with all this in view the Lord could go on to what we have in chapter 14. With a perfect knowledge as to what they would meet down here in the world — the contamination [p. 261] and all that kind of thing — Satan already at work with Judas, and with a perfect knowledge of Peter’s weakness — with a perfect knowledge of everything, the Lord goes on to chapter 14. The only thing is to trust Christ, because everything else will fail.
Rem It was the night of His betrayal.
FER Yes; it was all betrayal; but what you get in this chapter abides.
Ques And you must not be surprised at the treachery inside?
FER No; there is still treachery to Christ, and where do you find it? You do not find it among the heathen, or even among the Jews, but in Christendom; “of your own selves”, that is where the perversion comes in.
The obligation to wash one another’s feet cannot be carried out except in divine love. No merely legal attempt at it, or anything of that sort, would be of any value. I do not want just to tell the man his fault, but I would serve him in love. In nine cases out of ten one would fear it is to get a bit of credit to yourself. If I tell you that you tell lies, it means that I do not tell lies, but love covers everything. If you are detected in a fault, well, after all, there is no fault into which you fall into which I also might fall, if I were tempted.
Rem You must first cast the beam out of your own eye before you can cast the mote out of your brother’s eye.
FER Yes; the beam of legality and self-righteousness; you must get rid of that or else there is no love. This chapter to me is a wonderful chapter in the survey which the Lord takes, in a kind of way, of the whole scheme of things down here, and all that His own were exposed to.
Ques Would you say the Lord was only engaged in their interests here?
FER Well, it reminds me of that expression in 2 Corinthians 5, “Whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God: or whether we be sober, it is for your cause”. He was sober for their cause here, and then brings them to chapter 14: 1, and there shows them that they really had where to turn. We so poorly understand the mind of God in regard to the saints. There must be no breach of moral propriety, but mere moral propriety is not the standard — the standard in this chapter is having part with Christ; everything that is inconsistent with that, unsuitable to that, is really condemned by the Lord.
Ques Chapter 14 answers to “part with me”?
FER Yes. The Lord says, “I will come to you”; you have the assembly there. This chapter is only preparatory.