John 13:4-5 - Exposition

Commentators differ as to the motive which induced our Lord to perform this menial act, to adopt the gesture, girding, and duties of the δοῦλος , to divest himself of his ἱμάτια or upper garments, and to appear and veritably to act as a slave. Strauss regards it as a mythical representation of one of our Lord's discourses on humility. Lange, with much pertinence, believes it to correspond to the pain, which he manifested, at the very last Supper, with the unseemly contest for pre-eminence among the apostles (cf. Luke 22:27 , "Whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? I am among you as he that serveth"). Others, like Meyer, see no such reference, and require the presence of no such motive. It is remarkable that at such a season this dispute could have arisen at all. I-laving undoubtedly broken out on more than one occasion, our Lord chose the midst of this feast, when we learn from other sources there was such an outbreak, for this emphatic revelation of the royalty of service. Wunsche says that both "before" and "alter" the Passover festival it was customary, in order to demonstrate the equality and liberty of the guests, to practice mutual interchanges of the ordinary menial service of hand-washing . In this verse every sentence is a distinct picture. He riseth from the supper, and layeth down his upper garments, and when he had taken a towel, he girded himself (Edersheim and Wunsche both give proof that the Talmud repeatedly Grecizes the word here rendered "towel," λέντιον , "linen cloth," by the word lentith or alentith ) after the fashion of the humblest slave; then he poureth water into the washing-basin ( νιπτῆρα ), the article of furniture in the room (" Nihil ministerii omittit ," says Grotius. Thus he discharges every part of the duty, while the disciples wonder at the new revelation). And he began to wash the feet of the disciples, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded. Westcott refers to the rabbinic commentators on Ezekiel 16:9 , " Among men, the slave washes his master, but with God it is not so ." So then the inversion of all human social relations forced on John's mind the deep truth that we are here face to face with the Divine—with the Divine-human. John here strains his words to give some conception of what passed in his own mind when he saw our Lord's face, and witnessed this great revelation of his character. Though this evangelist did not record the " Transfiguration, " there were moments in Christ's history which produced a still pro-founder impression upon him, and in which he veritably saw the glory of the Only Begotten of God in his Master's form. On this occasion the highest conception of his Divine Personality, origin, and destiny, was blended with the deepest descent of the Lord's entire humanity to the level of weakness , pollution, and sin. The greatest manifestation of God was in the revelation of the exceeding limits, the infinite depth, which love could compass. We may see a little farther on what were the special steps our Lord took to give this sense of love " to the uttermost" on the part of him to whom all the universe had been entrusted, who had come from, and was going back to, the Father.