The Last Word

Wallace Benn

• Publisher: Christian Focus Publication
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781845509460

1

The Last Demonstration

Chapter 1

A picture of the love of Jesus
(John 13:1-11)

In London, where I used to live, I am sure that if I were to stop individuals on the street and ask them the relevance of Christianity, they would answer something like this: ‘Christianity is boring. It simply encourages people to try hard, and deny themselves fun in life.’ Many see Christianity as a system by which a person pulls up his or her own moral bootlaces and, in doing so, misses out on the very best in life. Sadly it is true that our churches can reinforce this impression, for they can be loveless and cold places.

In this chapter I intend to disprove this assertion. Hopefully we will discover how to prevent our Christian life becoming dull and legalistic, and we shall see how the Lord wants us to live. His words show the world who his followers are.

In the third part of the first verse (verse 1c), John tells us that Jesus displayed to them the full extent of his love. You may have a version which says, ‘he loved them to the end’. It can be translated like that, but it is probably better to take it in a qualitative way, as does the New International Version: ‘he showed them the full extent of his love’. Jesus displayed his love for them to its full degree. Or to put it another way ‘he showed them the lengths to which his love would go’.

It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.

²The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. ³Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; ⁴so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel round his waist. ⁵After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped round him.

⁶He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’

⁷Jesus replied, ‘You do not realise now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’

⁸‘No,’ said Peter, ‘you shall never wash my feet.’

Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.’

⁹‘Then, Lord,’ Simon Peter replied, ‘not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!’

¹⁰Jesus answered, ‘A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.’ ¹¹For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean (John 13:1-11).

For a full grasp of the general background to this display of the love of Jesus, we need to look back to some other incidents recorded by John.

First, there is growing hostility from the Pharisees, with a threat to the very life of Jesus through their plotting: ‘They kept looking for Jesus, and as they stood in the temple area, they asked one another, “What do you think? Isn’t he coming to the Feast at all?” But the chief priests and Pharisees had given orders that if anyone found out where Jesus was, he should report it so that they might arrest him’ (11:56-57).

Second, there is the incident in the house of Martha and Mary, a home that Jesus loved to visit. Mary took a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. Though she was criticised, Jesus answered: ‘Leave her alone ... It was meant that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial’ (12:7). There was a consciousness in Jesus that the time had come, that hour for which he had entered into the world: his death on our behalf.

Third, the incident of the Gentiles seeking him acts as a trigger that makes Jesus recognise the hour (12:23). He explains this in verse 24: ‘I tell you the truth, unless an ear of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.’ In 12:32, Jesus says: ‘But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself,’ to which John adds, ‘He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.’ How does Jesus react to the impending event? ‘Right now I am storm-tossed. And what am I going to say? “Father, get me out of this?” No, this is why I came in the first place. I’ll say, “Father, put your glory on display”’ (12:27-28, The Message).

The immediate background

Having set the scene, John very carefully fills in the immediate background. It was just before the Passover Feast. John has already recorded that when John the Baptist saw Jesus come to him for baptism, he said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’ (1:29). Every Jew knew what that meant.

The Passover was the time of remembrance of God’s great Old Covenant event of deliverance and redemption from Egypt (Exodus 12). It was the event which, par excellence, constituted Israel as the people of God; and it was a time that was associated with a lamb. At the Exodus a pure lamb had been killed and its blood put on the doorposts, so that the angel of death might pass over those who trusted in God’s command. It was, then, a remembrance of the great Passover, of God’s deliverance of his people from judgment, bringing them out of Egypt, and setting them on the route to the Promised Land. It was remembered each subsequent year, in obedience to God’s command; and they would eat a roasted lamb as a memorial and celebration of their deliverance.

So John very poignantly fills in the immediate background of this display of the love of Jesus which prefigured his Cross, as being the Passover event. God’s timing, as ever, was immaculate.

Then the other immediate background detail is described: the betrayal of Judas Iscariot. ‘The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus’ (13:2).

John is telling us something that is both very startling and also extremely important. Jesus’ leaving of this world, by his death, to go to the Father, was the key event that displayed his love and brought glory to God the Father. Look at verse 31: ‘When Judas had gone, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him.” ’ The crucifixion and death of the Lord Jesus is that which supremely brings glory to Jesus, and to God the Father as well. We might suppose that something else would bring greater glory to Jesus; but no, John explains, very clearly, that it is the laying down of Jesus’ life which brings glory to God.

The meaning of his love

Even though his ministry was misunderstood by the crowd who thought of him as a political Messiah, Jesus wanted the disciples to understand his love for them. The disciples needed to understand that the king who had been announced in the triumphal entry into Jerusalem (12:13), the person whom they had begun to see was the Messiah, God’s unique Son, the one for whom they had left all, was in reality the Servant King, the Suffering Servant predicted by Isaiah (Isaiah 42:1-4; 52:13-53:12).

In this acted parable of the foot-washing (for that is what it is, an acted parable), we see displayed the inner motive of the Cross of Christ. It is, if you like, John’s equivalent of Philippians 2.

Look how Paul, in that magnificent early Christian hymn, says exactly the same thing as John:

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father’ (Phil. 2:6-11).

So Jesus, when the evening meal was just being served, stepped down from the table, and took a towel and placed it around him. Perhaps he waited to see if anyone else would serve the needs of the others. When they did not, he performed the job of the lowliest servant: he served them. He laid aside his outer robe and wrapped a towel around his waist (13:4).

Here is a marvellous, poignant picture of what was about to happen on the Cross; Jesus, God’s Son, humbling himself and taking the very nature of a servant and being obedient unto death. He laid aside, like a garment, his rights to enjoy his place in heaven, and he came to earth to serve! Here was the Son of Man coming not to be served ‘but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many’ (Mark 10:45).

Very often, this incident in John 13 is perceived as a pattern of loving behaviour that Jesus gave to the disciples. Of course it is that! But before Jesus referred to his actions as a pattern for them to follow, he wanted them to understand the full extent of his love. ‘You do not realise now what I am doing, but later you will understand,’ he said to Peter (13:7).

Jesus was secure, as verse 3 tells us, in his relationship with his Father and in his Father’s purposes for him, and on that basis he came to carry out the plan of God and to die on the Cross. But he also wanted his disciples to understand his love for them and to appreciate it after the events of the Passion occurred. He wanted them to understand why he had stepped down from heaven and taken the nature of a servant and been obedient to death. That is why his conversation with Simon Peter is recorded here. It is a parable within a parable.

‘He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

‘Jesus replied, “You do not realise now what I am doing, but later you will understand”.

‘ “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”

‘Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me ” ’(13:6-8).

As has been well said: ‘Peter is humble enough to see the incongruity of Jesus’ actions, yet proud enough to dictate to his Master how he should behave.’ There was pride here in Peter. He sees the amazing nature of Jesus stepping down and doing what none of the rest of them were prepared to do for one another. He is astonished that Jesus the King would do the lowliest act of the lowliest servant. But there is pride when he says, ‘No, don’t wash me! Don’t do this!’

Jesus used this picture of his love to explain its reason and purpose. The reason he came to die was that his disciples would be cleansed from sin. He came so that everything which kept them from a relationship with God – their rebellion and wrongdoing – might be forgiven.

 When Jesus said to Peter, ‘Unless you are willing to allow me to wash you, you have no part in me,’ he intended Peter to understand that before he could serve Jesus, he needed the forgiveness and cleansing that Jesus came to procure by his death. If Peter refused it, he would have missed the point of Jesus’ whole mission. Jesus wanted his disciples to understand that without cleansing from sin, accomplished by his death, they could have no part with him.

The conversation with Peter goes on to explain that not only is salvation provided for by the love of Jesus, but so also is sanctification. Look at verse 10 where Jesus said to Peter: ‘A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.’ In other words, Jesus said, ‘I know that you have come to know me, and in the light of what I will do on the Cross, you are already clean. But I have also provided for your daily sanctification, your daily renewal. Since you have been brought into a relationship with me, and been cleansed and forgiven and before God are justified and set free, all you need is a daily washing.’

Feet are used by Jesus as a picture of his disciples’ daily contact with the world. All disciples have that which brings defilement, that causes problems, that leads to sin. Jesus says, ‘I have provided for that too. Though you are forgiven all your sins past, present and future, those things that daily become a cloud between you and the God who loves you, can be dealt with too. I have provided for your daily washing that you may become more like me.’ All this is implied in this action of the Lord Jesus.

Jesus wanted his disciples to be secure in the fact that not only has he loved them, but he will go on loving them. They were to be secure in his total provision for all that they needed for salvation and sanctification.

Let us apply this to ourselves. There is a key pattern here that Jesus wants us to understand. Before service for Christ, there needs to be a coming to him and a receiving from him. Before we can serve him, we need to come and receive from the hands of Jesus that which we could never gain for ourselves: God’s forgiveness, God’s cleansing and God’s new life.

There can be no joyful service for Jesus, without first receiving from him what he came to accomplish for us. There can be no concern to glorify God, unless we have seen and experienced God’s love. There will be no hardship endured in service for Christ, unless we are overjoyed with the grace and love of Christ for us. Priorities will get muddled and challenging service will be avoided. Service for Christ comes out of a deep gratitude for the love of Christ for us, and our love for him is first of all won by his love for us.

Several years ago the newspapers carried the story of two girls who were arrested and imprisoned on drug charges in Thailand. Both the Thai and British governments acknowledged the guilt of the women. But despite the acknowledged guilt, they received a royal pardon. The wonderful good news is that, despite our guilt, there is a royal pardon from God through his Son.

Some time ago, I was taking a weekend houseparty for another church. At the end of the weekend, a young man expressed his thanks to me. He said to me: ‘This weekend, I have learned something very important about Christian living. My Christian life had become simply a matter of duty, and I was becoming dry and dull. My motivation to serve Jesus and my love for him was low, and I was discouraged. I have seen by the grace of God this weekend that my problem was my moving away from the Cross.’

He continued: ‘When I first became a Christian, I thought constantly about the Cross, but I felt as I went on that I had to understand other things. I did need to understand other things, but I have seen this weekend that I can never safely, as a believer, move away from the foot of the Cross. I need constantly to be there, to see the greatness of his love to me, and to bask in the wonder of it. Without this, my Christian life is bound to dry up!’ Wise words indeed that we neglect at our cost.

I once heard Jim Packer say: ‘All problems find their solution at Calvary.’ When I first heard him say this, I thought it must be an exaggeration. But the longer I have lived as a Christian, the more true I have seen his words to be. The love displayed at Calvary, and here foreshadowed in these verses by the humble foot-washing of Jesus, must cast its marvellous light over every area of our lives. Unless it does, our Christian lives will become dull and joyless. Duty which is so necessary, and the discipline that goes with it, will become lifeless and without adequate motivation. And our churches too will not display love.

Christianity is first of all a relationship of love to Jesus. His love for us is the only thing that can fuel our love for him, and anything we do for him. Too much Christian living is like Peter here: self-confident and proud about what we can do for Jesus. Peter needed to see, as do we, that only a grasp of the love of Christ will keep us going joyfully and prevent us making fools of ourselves!

Chapter 2

A pattern of love to follow
(John 13:12-17)

There are some humanists who admire the ethical teachings of Christianity and want to follow them, but do not want a relationship with the Lord Jesus. They would like to see the Christian faith shorn of its faith element.

But such an outlook is wrong. In this chapter, I hope to show why.

Jesus, having then showed his disciples the full extent of his love, proceeds to give them an example of how to love. After giving the disciples a dramatic parable of his love for them, Jesus now models a pattern of love for them to follow.

‘Do you understand what I have done for you?’ he asked them. ‘You call me “Teacher” and “Lord”, and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is the messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.’

They called Jesus by titles of respect – ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord’ – and he wanted them to see that they were not above their Master. The title ‘Lord’ can mean something like our ‘Sir’. But it was a title for Jesus that had special significance for the disciples, especially after his resurrection. It is ‘the name above every name’ (Phil. 2:9), and was the Greek word used to translate the word Yahweh in the Septuagint (the Greek version of the Old Testament). To affirm that Jesus is Lord is to affirm his deity and his right to be our Master. So Jesus is saying to them, ‘In the light of who I am, and what I am doing for you, I have a right to call you to follow me by imitating the pattern I have given you in the foot-washing.’

It is interesting that the word translated ‘messenger’ or ‘sent one’ (verse 16) is the word apostle. They were not to have too high an opinion of themselves! They were the Lord’s servants and as such must see that the essence of their position and calling is the privilege of imitating their Master by serving. Service is the basis of Christian ministry.

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. ‘Do you understand what I have done for you?’ he asked them.

¹³‘You call me “Teacher” and “Lord”, and rightly so, for that is what I am. ¹⁴ Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵ I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. ¹⁶ I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. ¹⁷Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them’ (John 13:12-17).

What a contrast here between the disciples, on the one hand, jockeying for position in the Kingdom of God, alert for and concerned about their own position, power and privileges (Luke 22:24-27), and, on the other hand, the King of the Kingdom who is not above humbly washing the feet of the disciples.

Here is an example of the kind of servants he wants; not those who stand on their dignity, but those who are willing to serve humbly! Here is exemplified what real love involves. It is not primarily a feeling, but an attitude that is willing to put the interests of the object of its love first.

Jesus, in this acted parable, has shown that he loves the disciples even unto death, and therefore wants them to begin a life of love not in word but in deed.

The word love has become debased in our society. Often to say ‘I love you’ means little more than to say ‘I want you to fulfil my needs’. It has become self-orientated and self-absorbed. What a challenge the pattern of love given by Jesus actually is!

To help us understand what is being taught here, let me ask six questions of the passage which I believe draw out its teaching very clearly.

1. How are we to love?

In those days, foot-washing was a courtesy offered to a guest. Remember that the streets then were not only dirty and dusty but also would have sewage in them. It was an act of kindness, if one invited someone for a...

Table of contents

• Testimonials
• About the Author
• Title
• Indicia
• Contents
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Section 1. The Last Demonstration
• 1. A picture of the love of Jesus (John 13:1-11)
• 2. A pattern of love to follow (John 13:12-17)
• 3. A perspective to remember (John 13:18-30)
• Section 2. The Last Question Time
• 4. Asking questions
• 5. 'Lord, where are you going?' (John 13:31-14:4)
• 6. 'How can we know the way?' (John 14:5-6)
• 7. 'Lord, show us the Father' (John 14:7-14)
• 8. 'Why show yourself to us and not to the world?' (John 14:22-24)
• Section 3. The Last Gift
• 9. The Holy Spirit (1) (John 14:15-31)
• 10. The Holy Spirit (2) (John 15:26-27; 16:5-16)
• Section 4. Last Perspectives
• 11. The last warning (John 15:1-17)
• 12. Living in the real world (John 15:18-27; 16:1-4, 17-33)
• 13. The last prayer (John 17)
• Section 5. Lasting Joy
• 14. Christian joy
• Postscript
• Bibliography
• Study Questions
• More Books from Christian Focus
• Christian Focus