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Bible Notes - Tabernacle Commentaries
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John 13:4
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Why is the washing of feet taking place now when they have started the supper? It was left out evidently. It did not happen when it should have happened. When the disciples trooped up the stairs which would have been outside the building, up to the upper room and filed in, nobody undertook the washing of feet. They looked around; there was no servant, so no one did it. Now the Lord will do it himself. ‘He rises from supper,’ verse four, ‘laid aside his garment,’ as the servant would have done, his outer garment that would be, leaving on no doubt his inner garment. ‘And took a towel and girded himself.’ The purpose of the towel was not so much as an item of clothing, but it was in order to wipe the feet when he washed them, as the narrative goes on to tell us.
Application
They needed this example. In fact, in Luke’s Gospel, and in Matthew and Mark, we read that just before this happens and they went into the upper room, they had been arguing about who would be the greatest among them. So perhaps they were all a bit heady when they went into that room, dreaming of greatness in the court of the conqueror Messiah. And Christ brings them down to earth. I will now do what none of you have done, you were too high and mighty. I will do it. And he demonstrates his humiliation at the same time.
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