READINGS AND ADDRESSES ON SOME OF THE TEACHINGS OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN (5)
[p. 365] READINGS AND ADDRESSES ON SOME OF THE TEACHINGS OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN (5)
To get a right idea of the chapter you have to take into account all the conditions that came out in the first few verses. The world was to go on very much as it had done, but He was going to God, and there were those in the world whom He loved, and this chapter is occupied about them. An alliance is formed between Judas and the world to betray Him; this is very notable. It tallies somewhat with the harlot riding the beast in Revelation, and as a result there you get the marriage of the Lamb, and the bride has made herself ready — the principle is that the worst evil really, under God, brings in the greatest good — the worst evil is succeeded by the greatest good. So in this chapter where the alliance is seen between Judas and the world; at the close we get, “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him”; these are great and blessed results. You could not have anything more evil than the harlot riding the beast, but then you get the greatest good, namely, the marriage of the Lamb. As to the expression, “God shall also glorify him in himself” — Jesus is now glorified in God — He is hid, He is not publicly glorified yet, and as to the word “straightway”, He has not to await the time of public display, but He is now, at once, glorified in God.
Feet-washing is connected with the present position of Christ; it is necessary in this present time, when Christ is glorified in God. The world was ready to use Judas, but when he had served the world’s purpose, then the world cast him off; and so it will be with regard to the harlot. Feet-washing [p. 366] brings to light those that are really true, and the traitors are detected as Judas was. The real object of feet-washing is that we may have part with Christ, but at the same time we see all in this chapter interwoven with the detection of the traitor, Judas. We do not want those that are untrue to Christ in our midst.
For the length and weariness of the way we need feet-washing because of the scene we are in. The service would be accepted where there is a real desire to go forward. If you want to wash a person’s feet you must seek to refresh his spirit, and thus his feet will be washed, without, perhaps, your being aware that you have done so. If there is fidelity to Christ on the part of the saint, then the service would be accepted; but where there is not, it would be resented. If in our communications one with another we are taken up with Christ, then we refresh one another, and feet are washed.
The Lord did it as an example and in a formal way — He took a towel and girded Himself, etc. — but as an example that we should do it in a spiritual way. It answers more to the defilement of Numbers 19, where a man was defiled by a bone; we have death, that is, defilement, all around us in this wilderness scene, and feet-washing is connected with that sort of defilement; in the wilderness a man could not help touching a bone. The Lord puts us all under the obligation to do it to one another, and it would make a very great difference to us all if the obligation were accepted; what is unfaithful and untrue would be detected.
Fidelity to Christ is the thing for the moment; when He comes in glory there will not be the same test of fidelity as there is now in His absence. In this present day it is a great reproach to be true to Christ, but in the day of His glory it will not be so; hence today we are being tested as to our fidelity [p. 367] to Christ. The test today to the world is Christ as Head of every man, but to the saint the test is Christ as Head of His body the church, and how far the saint is faithful to Him in that place. But after all how important is the statement in verse 3. The Father has given all things into His hands. If we have to suffer a bit of reproach now, we are in the secret of that, that the Father has given all things into His hands; we are in the secret of that by the Comforter having come. “He shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you”.
Traitors will get in amongst us, as the apostle said to the Corinthians, “there must also be sects among you”, and where feet — washing goes on they will be exposed; this is incidental to the service. Individual fidelity to Christ is what is needed and then the company will be right. All turns really on individual fidelity to Christ; where there is that, then feet-washing will go on as it were unconsciously, and not with the idea of going in order to wash somebody’s feet.
One view of feet-washing is that His own may be kept in separation from the contamination of the world. We come together in assembly to meet one another in love in the unity of the Spirit, and in doing so we meet the Lord. Our relations one toward another are very important in coming together; our feelings one towards another must be right, or else we cannot be right with the Lord. Fidelity to Christ comes out largely in refusing this world’s system. I want to be a stranger and pilgrim here, true to Him, and so refuse the things of the world; we want to be here in the light of the glory of Christ, we want to have the consciousness that we are in Him and He in us. The life of the saint is with Christ in God.