John 13:9 Commentary and Bible Study

Now in verse nine we see the natural preacher in Peter. In a few days almost, weeks, he is going to be the first preacher of the Christian church. He is going to preach the brilliant – of course, it is under inspiration – the brilliant Pentecostal sermon, and the preacher is in him to some degree even naturally. He changes his mind with alacrity and so he should. ‘Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.’ That is a sermon in the making. It happens to be misplaced; it is going to be corrected, but it is a good sermon. ‘Lord, you are washing my feet. I understand that. You have got to wash my walk, for with my feet I make contact with the ground and the soil and the dirt of this world. I can see the illustration.’ Actually he has got it wrong but his mind is working like the mind of a preacher. I need to be washed from contamination with the earth and my steps need to be directed. ‘But not just my feet,’ says the preacher in him, ‘my hands, my deeds, and my head, my thinking and my planning.’ He has got it in a flash, the three-fold illustration of the Christian believer. It happens to be out of place here, but he has cottoned on to it. He has got three points to a message. I need my feet, my hands and my head washed.No, says the Lord to him, but you are on the wrong track. ‘Jesus said unto him, He that is washed’ – to help our understanding today we would say, he who has bathed, he who has taken a bath – ‘needeth not save to wash his feet,’ to make sure he is every whit clean. The illustration which is lurking here that the Lord has in mind is salvation and sanctification in the symbol of washing. The washing of feet symbolises Calvary, cleansing from sin, justification before God, acceptance. You are now converted, you are justified, your sins are forgiven. But your feet come in contact daily with the ground, the ground of the world, and you need to be sanctified and forgiven daily sin. The distinction here is between salvation which Peter has already received and sanctification which he needs on a daily basis.Peter will have to postpone his three-point sermon till another occasion. ‘But is clean very whit: and ye are clean.’ How do we know this symbolising spiritual cleansing? Well, the end of verse ten – ‘But not all,’ not all. Judas was not clean. ‘For he knew who should betray him.’ So you see there the spiritual meaning, one had not been forgiven, one had not been cleansed. We view the disciples now as saved men, even before they fully understand how it will be done by Calvary’s cross, but they are dependent upon the Lord.