FEET WASHING
J. G. Chalmers
John 13: 3–8, 12–15; 1 Timothy 5: 5, 10
This scripture in John 13 was referred to in the reading on Lord’s day and in reflecting on it I have been impressed with the greatness of the service of feet-washing and its importance in the mind of the Lord Jesus. It comes in in the final phase of His days here and at the threshold of these chapters in which He unfolds so much to His own as to the great thoughts of God. He could have instructed the disciples to do it, but the fact that He does it by way of example shows how important it is in His mind. Our brother prayed for good conditions in local assemblies, and the practice of this service of feet-washing is essential to good conditions amongst the saints. In performing this service what is in the mind of the Lord Jesus is that we might be freed from defilement that we gather in the wilderness during the course of fulfilling our righteous obligations, also that we may be refreshed in view of proceeding restfully and in liberty into what He speaks of as “part with me”, that is, part with Him in relation to all that is for the pleasure of God, and part with Him too in the sphere of testimony.
I do feel impressed with the importance of this service in the Lord’s mind. Indeed, I think it is safe to say that the Lord Jesus is the only Person recorded in Scripture who actually took water and
washed the feet of others. Men like Abraham, Lot, Laban, and the man over Joseph’s house all provided water for others to wash their own feet, and Abigail showed a delightful spirit, the spirit of Christ, when she said, “Let thy handmaid be a bondwoman to wash the feet of the servants of my lord” (1 Samuel 25: 41), but the Spirit does not record her actually doing it.
Then the woman in Luke 7 washed the feet of Jesus with tears.
As far as I can recall the Lord Himself is the only One whom the Spirit records as actually taking water and performing this service, and He gives it in great detail, which shows its greatness and importance. John would be affected by the greatness of Christ’s Person as he wrote these words—“Jesus, knowing that the Father had given him all things into his hands, and that he came out from God and was going to God”, also when he wrote the opening words of this gospel—“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. You can understand that his soul would be deeply moved as he thought,
‘That Person washed my feet’. The human mind would regard this as a very menial service, but, beloved brethren, it is a service that has been ennobled by the greatness of the Person who has set it on by way of example. This service is also great by reason of the greatness of the persons whose feet are being washed, the saints, the brethren of Christ, the sons of God.
How attractive this should make it to us! Jesus “lays aside his garments”. There is nothing official about it. Indeed, it is the service of a bondman, and the Lord Jesus has glorified the matter of bondmanship in “taking a bondman’s form”, Philippians.2: 7. The Hebrew bondman, that wonderful type of Christ, said distinctly, “I love my master, my wife, and my children”. Ah, dear brethren, it is the way that love would serve others, as Paul says, “By love serve one another”
(Galatians 5: 13), and the Lord is setting the matter on by way of example and not as a picture on the wall.
It is service by personal contact. John does not care for “paper and ink”, he prefers “mouth to mouth”, 2 John 12. It is a service in love in which we are to be impartial, for Jesus was impartial. He washed the feet of all the disciples. As He proceeds with this service, Peter objects, but it is not in mind to speak on that but of what the Lord Jesus says—“Unless I wash thee, thou hast not part with me”. In these chapters, John 13–17, the Lord unfolds great things, as also in His message in John 20: 17—“I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”. So He says, “If I therefore, the Lord and the Teacher, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet; for I have given you an example that, as I have done to you, ye should do also”. He has given the example, and His mind is that we should continue this service to one another as normal practice in the same way and same spirit during His absence. This makes for good assembly relations and conditions so that, in restfulness and liberty, we can enter upon and enjoy together our part with Christ in relation to the greatest and most precious things of God.
The scripture read in 1 Timothy 5: 5 relates to an individual, a widow indeed, but I wish to apply it to our present position publicly. The severe exercises we have been through and the sorrowful loss of numbers have brought home to us that our position publicly is what is described here as “a widow indeed”; not simply “a widow”, but “a widow indeed”. We are surrounded by a vast profession which bears the name of Christ but which is heartless as to Him and says in her heart, “I sit a queen, and I am not a widow”, Revelation 18: 7. As we think of this,
and the Lord’s holy feelings in regard of it, let us be exercised to be wholly free of every element of pretension, for it becomes us to bear the features of the “widow indeed” as set out in this verse—“left alone”; we have no outward resources or means of support, for Christ, our Husband, is absent. She “has put her hope in God”; we have no earth-bound prospect, our outlook is for the coming of Christ, and we await the glory of God. She “continues in supplications and prayers night and day”; we are to be marked by constant, sustained dependence on God in a world of independence of God, and in the midst of a lukewarm profession which assumes to have need of nothing (Revelation 3: 17).
Yet in the inside circle precious features are to operate in love, as we read in verse 10. The inside circle of John 13 to 17 is a wonderful thing, the circle of the saints where love is active and operative. In this circle the children are brought up, not left to grow up, but brought up.
They are protected, cherished, and nourished, as it says in the previous chapter, “nourished with the words of the faith and of the good teaching” (verse 6). What an environment for the young to be brought up in, where all that is of the world that crucified Christ is absolutely excluded and only what is of Christ promoted! Hospitality is to be exercised. It is a great privilege to entertain the saints, “the excellent”, of whom Christ says, “In them is all my delight” (Psalm 16: 3), and to use our means on the principle of stewardship in the practical support of the testimony.
Then the saints’ feet are to be washed. The very fact that numbers have been so reduced should cause us to value each other all the more and give us to see the importance of serving one another in love in the same spirit in which our Lord and
Teacher has set the example, with a view to our enjoying together our part with Christ. The presence of our brethren with us here these past few days has refreshed us, our feet have been washed, and on Lord’s day morning we enjoyed together our part with Christ in that realm where all subsists for the pleasure and glory of God, ‘in that world surpassing great’, as was expressed in the last hymn we sang. May we be encouraged to continue, as our normal practice, this service of love to one another, so that our part with Christ may be enjoyed together in a fuller way in these days of “widow indeed” character publicly.
Words in meeting for ministry, Lossiemouth
2 May 1978