Jesus Washing His Disciples’ Feet

Jesus Washing His Disciples' Feet

DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, JANUARY 29, 1865,

BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"Then He came to Simon Peter: and Peter said unto Him, Lord, do You
wash my feet?" John 13:6.

OUR Savior had so steadfastly set His face towards the awful sufferings
of His passion that when they actually approached He was not in the
slightest degree disturbed or disconcerted. If you were perfectly aware
that tomorrow morning, after a night of terrible agony, you would be
led forth to a cruel and ignominious death you would probably feel like
men distracted with terrible apprehensions. At any rate, if through
Divine Grace you were able to be calm and peaceful, your mind would
scarcely be in a fit state to minister consolation to others, or to
conceive new methods of instruction for your friends.

But behold your Lord and Master! It is eventide of the same night in
which He was betrayed. He foreknows that the bloody sweat within an
hour or two will crimson all His flesh. He is well aware that he who is
eating bread with Him will that night betray Him. He foresees that He
must feel the Roman scourge and be the victim of Jewish slander. He
knows right well that He must bear all the wrath of God on the behalf
of His people. And yet He sits at supper. He feasts as if no unusual
cloud were lowering. And when the supper is over His inventive mind is
fully at work with admirable plans of instruction for His disciples and
among the rest He takes off His upper garment.

He wraps Himself about the loins with a towel. He goes to them as they
are reclining at full length around the table and coming behind them He
begins to wash the feet of first one, and then another! What blessed
calmness of mind! What hallowed serenity of spirit! O that our hearts
were equally fixed on God in our days of trial and grief! Without
question we may go further and take most solemn notice that there was
in the near approach of death a joy in Jesus' heart into which no
stranger could enter.

Now was about to be accomplished that which He had longed for. Did He
not say, "I have a Baptism to be baptized with and how am I straitened
till it is accomplished. With desire have I desired to eat this
Passover with you before I die"? Did this account for His giving out a
hymn of praise on that doleful night? "After supper they sang a hymn."
Did that account for His adding these remarkable words–"Now is the Son
of Man glorified and God is glorified in Him"? Did His joy in the
prospect of what He was about to accomplish for His people swell to the
very highest just about the time when the fountains of the depths of
His griefs were about to be broken up and His spirit to be flooded in
agony as He cried, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death"?

O to know His joy–the joy of loving even unto death! Let us come at
once to the teaching of the Savior and let it be surrounded with an
unusual interest because of the fact that it is His dying teaching. Let
us see Him as He girds Himself with the towel, remembering that He was
soon to be girt with the bands of death! Let us see Him, I say, with a
more profound interest because He is just upon the verge of these
terrible depths where all the waves and billows of Jehovah's justice
dashed over Him.

His sermon beginning, "Let not your heart be troubled," is His swan
song. These are the last drops of His life that He is now spending–at
the supper table you have the wine which He keeps until now. As we see
Him washing His disciples' feet we shall discover choice love worthy of
the last solemn hour of departure. We shall take the text in four ways.
First here is matter for enquiry, "Lord, do You wash my feet?"
Secondly, here is matter for admiration–"Lord, do You wash my feet?"
Thirdly, here is matter for gratitude. Fourthly, here is matter for
imitation.

I. HERE IS MATTER FOR ENQUIRY. We know that the Savior washed the feet
of Peter, but does He wash our feet, also? We do not expect, of course,
the literal transaction to take place. But is there anything in the
conduct of Christ now analogous to His washing Peter's feet when on
earth? He has washed all Believers, once and for all, in His most
precious blood.

But of this we do not speak this morning. Cleansing, as before the bar
of justice, is completely accomplished forever for all the chosen by
the great blood-shedding upon Calvary. That is a matter of the past–a
thing for which to bless God for all eternity. "We are clean, through
Jesus' blood we are clean." But here is another kind of washing–not of
the entire man, but of the feet only. Not with blood, but with
water–not in the fountain filled from the Savior's veins–but in a
basin filled with water. Does our Lord Jesus do anything of this kind
now? Doe He do anything so humbling to Himself and yet so needful for
us?

We answer, yes, He does. And, first, does not the Savior perform an
action parallel with this when He watches over the temporal affairs of
His people? You know, Beloved, that not a hair of your head falls to
the ground without His care. In all your afflictions He is afflicted,
and as the Angel of God's Presence, He saves you and carries you. Your
most trifling trouble may be taken in prayer to Christ and spread
before Him with as much certainty of deliverance as when Hezekiah
spread Sennacherib's letter before the Lord–for Jesus waits to be
gracious to His own. In every transaction we should adore the
providential care of our great Shepherd and Friend for the government
is upon His shoulders.

Now, when Jesus thus superintends your mean affairs, looks to your
family troubles and bears your household cares, saying unto you, "Cast
all your care on Me, for I care for you," is He not, in effect, doing
for you what He did for Peter? Is He not washing your feet–for He is
caring for your lowest part and minding the poor dust-stained body. O
King of Glory, the stars would not make a crown worthy of You! The
tempest is but a poor chariot for Your Glory and the winds are but slow
coursers to be harnessed to Your cart. And yet You stoop from all this
greatness to observe man, who is less than a worm! To observe me–less
than the least of all Your saints–and to care for me as a mother cares
for her child!

It is even so! He does do it–He does, in this sense, wash His people's
feet! When Jesus Christ puts away from us day by day our daily
infirmities and sins, does He not wash our feet? Last night, when you
bowed the knee, you could not help confessing that there had been much
in the week's transactions which was not worthy of your standing and
profession. And even tonight, when the engagements of this day are
over, you will have to mourn that you foolishly committed the very sins
which you repented of weeks ago.

You will have to admit that you have fallen again into the very sloughs
of folly and sin from which special Grace delivered you long ago. And
yet Jesus Christ will have great patience with you! He will hear your
confession of sin! He will say, "I will, be you clean." He will again
apply the blood of sprinkling–He will speak peace to your conscience
and remove every spot. Oh, it is a great act of eternal love when
Christ, once and for all absolves the sinner, takes him from under the
dominion of the Law and puts him into the family of God! But what
long-suffering and patience there is when the Savior, with much
long-suffering, bears the daily follies of the recipient of so much
mercy! Day by day and hour by hour He puts away the constant sin of the
erring but yet beloved child!

To dry up a flood of sin is something marvelous–but to endure the
constant dropping of daily sins–to bear with that constant weary
trying of patience, this is Divine, indeed! To blot out the whole of
sin like a thick cloud is a great and matchless power, as well as
Grace–but to remove the mist of every morning and the damp of every
night–oh, this is condescension! I wish I could describe it–it is
condescension well imaged in the washing of Peter's feet. Consider
again. Our poor prayers which are very much the feet of our soul–since
with them we climb to Heaven, with them we run after God–our poor
prayers always need washing!

It is oftentimes easier, Brothers and Sisters, to do a thing over at
once than it is to mend and patch up a work which has been badly done
by others. Then what patience it must require in Christ's case to take
my poor, imperfect and polluted prayers and make them fit to be
presented before His Father's face! There are His own prayers for me–I
thank Him for them–for they prevail. But I cannot help also blessing
Him that He should take my prayers and put them into the censer and
offer them before His Father's face–for I am certain that before they
can have been fit to offer they must have experienced a deal of
washing.

John tells us that He offers "the prayers of saints"–this is humbling
Himself, indeed! Oh, how much of redundancy must have been taken away
from our petitions when we have asked for what we ought not to have
desired! How much of omission must have been made up when we have
forgotten to ask for the things which we most needed! How much of
unbelief He must take out of our prayers! How much coldness, deadness
of heart! How much formality, wandering of thought! O how much holy
life and unction, holy faith and holy joy, must the dear Redeemer
infuse into our supplications before they are fit to come up before the
ears of the Lord God of Hosts! Yes, in patiently bearing with my
prayers He does daily wash my feet.

Think again. Jesus makes our works acceptable. These may be compared to
the soul's feet. It is by the feet that a man expresses his
activity–the walk of a Christian–by this we mean the good works which
the Christian performs for his Master. But look at our works! If Christ
would simply throw all our good works into a heap and let them rot,
that would be most deserving of them. If He would take our almsgiving,
our preaching, our teaching of others, our prayers and thoughts and
works all together and just cast them into Tophet's fire–how dare we
complain? But instead of that He is not unrighteous to forget our work
of faith and labor of love, but counts that here His Father is
glorified in that we bear much fruit.

We remember to have heard of someone who made sugar out of old rags.
But then it was found that the sugar cost a great deal more than the
sugar was worth. The manufacture cost was more than the goods were
worth when produced. And judging from our point of view, this is
something like our works. Jesus Christ makes sweetness out of the poor
rags of our good works–surely I may say they cost Him more in the
manufacturing than ever the raw material could have been worth, or the
finished works themselves are worth, except in His esteem. Could He
not, if He pleased, convert men without our preaching? But He will not
do it! He would rather that they should be brought in by our imperfect
preaching and therefore He washes our preaching–He washes our feet!

Could He not save sinners without you, my Sister–without you, my
Brother? And yet He sets you longing after souls and opens your mouth
to speak a good word to them. And He accepts what you do! But oh, what
condescension is there! What tenderness, what Divine stooping from His
loftiness, that He should cleanse our works! It is more than He ever
did for angels! When an angel had defiled his service, He banished him
from Heaven. But with all the imperfection of our service, we expect
that in Christ we shall be welcomed into Heaven with the words, "Well
done, good and faithful servant."

If you want other instances of the familiar condescension of Christ,
let me remind you of how patiently He is content to suffer in His
people's sufferings. Not a pang shoots through that head of yours but
Jesus knows and feels it! Not a grief makes that bosom heave in which
Christ is not a partaker. "I will make all their bed in their
sickness." Oh, what a blessed text is that! As one old expositor says,
"Not merely make their pillow, but their bolster and their bed and make
all their bed, where their feet lie, where their head lies. All, all of
it. I will come and I will have such sympathy with them in their entire
grief, that from the beginning to the end of it I will make them happy
in the midst of grief through My Divine consolations." "I will make all
their bed in their sickness."

Have you not had choice manifestations from Christ in your worst
seasons–so exactly fitted to the peculiarity of your case–that you
did not know which to admire most, the love which visited you, or the
condescending care which so brought itself down to your case? He sat
down at your bedside and put His loving care so entirely into your
position that it felt as you felt and speak to you just the words which
your case required. The Lord Jesus loves His people so, that every day
He is washing their feet! Their poorest action He accepts. Their
deepest sorrow He feels. Their smallest wish He hears and their
greatest sin He forgives. He is still their servant as well as their
friend–still He takes the basin–still He wears the towel.

It is not only majestic deeds that He performs–as wearing the miter on
His brow and the precious jewels glittering on His breastplate! He
stands up to plead humbly, patiently–like a servant He goes about
among His people–washing His disciples' feet. I would to God I could
speak worthily on such a theme as this! But it is true, as your
experience must tell you, that, "He remembers our low estate, for His
mercy endures forever." Before I pass from this point, it is a matter
of enquiry for some here–"Lord, do You wash my feet?" Some of you are
not washed by Christ, for you live without thinking of Him. "I never
did any harm," says one, "that I know of." I will ask you another
question–what did you ever do for Christ? Can you answer that? You
must reply "I have done nothing for Him whatever."

Ah, then, if you have never been enabled to do anything for Him, I fear
it is because you have lived thoughtlessly, without a care for Him.
But, if He had ever washed your feet, you could not forget Him. And
little as it might be, yet you would have done something and you would
now be desiring to do more. Ah, my Hearers, some of you are so far from
ever having your feet washed daily that you have never been washed at
all! "There is a fountain filled with blood," but filled in vain, as
far as you are concerned. There is a Savior, but you are unsaved. There
is balm in Gilead, but you are not healed. There is a Physician there,
but you are still sick! There is life in Christ, but you are dead!

The bronze serpent is lifted up but you are dying of the fiery
serpent's bite. One look at Jesus will save–but that look you have not
given–you are without God, without Christ, without hope and "strangers
from the commonwealth of Israel." May God the Holy Spirit visit you
with His quickening power and convince you of your sin this morning!
May He make you feel uneasy till you find Christ! May He give you a
hunger and a thirst after Him that will never be satisfied till you
clasp Him in your arms and say, "Christ is mine!"

I would to God that I had not to make this remark, but I must make it
in faithfulness to your souls. You are obliged to answer, "No, no, no.
The Lord Jesus has never washed my feet." But then send up the prayer,
"Lord, do it! Lord, do it now for Your love's sake."

II. Our text is, in the second place, MATTER FOR ADMIRATION and that,
too, in several respects. It is matter for admiration when we consider
the freeness of the deed. "Lord, do You wash my feet?" It is perfectly
wonderful that He should, for we have scarcely desired the mercy. If
you look the chapter through, you do not find that Peter asked Christ
to do it. Peter was lying down–he had just been eating at the
supper–he had no thought of Christ's washing his feet!

There was not one of the twelve that ever dreamed of such a thing! And
when the Lord began to wash the feet of one, the others did not say,
"Lord, come and do the same to me." No, it was unsolicited, unexpected!
He comes, without any prayers or supplications on their part and He
begins to wash their feet. Peter is surprised. It is great goodness on
Christ's part to do what we ask Him to do–to hear our prayers when we
really feel our need. But does He perform for us such menial, such
generous acts, as to wash our feet without being asked?

Oh, Beloved, if Christ did no more for us than we ask Him to do, we
should perish forever! For nine out of ten of the things which He gives
us, we never asked for! And what if I were to say that three out of
four of them we scarcely know that we want? We do not know our own
needs! We have a general view of our necessities, wholesale, as it
were–but our daily needs, our daily wants–who among us can know them?
Christ's sufferings are said, according to the Greek Liturgy, to have
had unknown depths–"Your unknown sufferings." Were not those unknown
sufferings endured for our unknown sins and to make a supply for our
unknown wants–that we might have that multitude of mercies which we
may style unknown mercies?

We should not only bless God for the mercies which we have known, but
for those which we have not known–for probably those make up the
larger proportion. You that are Christians, some of you who have been
believers in Christ ten or twenty years–have there not been many
nights on which you have gone to bed without any particular sense of
guilt and without any special intercession for peculiar cleansing? You
have forgotten to ask for the cleansing, but He has never forgotten to
give it! He has spontaneously washed your feet! You have risen in the
morning–you were not aware that any special danger would come to you
and you did not pray for special protection–but yet He knew it. And
unasked and unsought for He has followed you, held the shield over you
and kept you from danger.

He has washed your feet without your having desired it, or having known
that He had done it! Let His name be praised for this. These unsought
favors of unspeakable love, these perpetual mercies of unslumbering
carefulness–let them wake us now to gratitude and now may we exclaim
with wonder, "Lord, is it so? Do You always continue thus to wash my
feet?"

The next subject of wonder is the Glory of the Person. "Lord! King!
Master! God! Everlasting! Eternal! Almighty! King of Kings and Lord of
Lords! Do you–do YOU wash my feet? You call the stars by their names
and they shine by Your light! Mazzaroth comes forth in his season at
Your bidding! You guide Arcturus with his sons! The heavens are Yours!
The earth also is Yours! You sit upon the circle of the heavens and the
inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers– You hold the waters in the
hollow of Your hand, You mete out Heaven with Your span–Lord, do You
wash my feet?

When You were on earth You tread the waters–the depths knew You and
were like marble beneath Your feet. You frightened grim Death himself,
for Lazarus came forth at Your bidding from the shades of the grave!
Fevers knew You– leprosy, paralysis, epilepsy–all diseases understood
their Master's voice and fled at Your bidding. The winds were hushed at
Your will–even the devils were subject to You! Though You were veiled
in manhood Your creatures perceived Your greatness! Angels ministered
unto You and the heavens were opened unto You. And do You wash my feet?

my Brothers and Sisters, meditate on this! It is far more a theme for
thought than for speech. He whom the angels worship takes a towel and
girds Himself! Hark to the song, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of
Sabaoth! Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of Your Glory. All
the earth does worship You, You eternal Son of the Father." "Lord, do
You wash my feet?" Oh, think of this, spiritual men and women! Think
till your hearts melt with love! No one else could cleanse us. The
infinite God must take away the infinite blackness and filth of His
people's sins! What a stoop is here!

Let us lift up our eyes and wonder! Let us lift up our voices and
praise His name that He should ever wash our feet! Change again the
word. Observe the lowliness of the office. "Lord, do You wash my feet?"
Here comes a traveler who has journeyed far. He is very weary. There is
much dust upon his sandals and his feet are stained with travel. As
soon as he treads the threshold of the hospitable house–a black slave,
a servant, a hired servant–takes off his sandals, brings a basin, a
pitcher full of water and begins to pour the water upon his feet,
having first unloosed the latchets of his shoes and taken them off.

The host does not stoop to this office! It is not the part of a master
to wash feet! It is servile, menial, humiliating work. Yet this, which
was the lowest of all offices in the East, is that which the Savior
undertakes! Not in fiction and metaphor, but in reality, for every one
of us! "Lord, do You wash my feet? To wash my head, Lord, is very
gracious. To purge my mind from evil thoughts is very loving. To wash
my hands, to take my heart and make that clean is very
conde-scending–but do You absolutely do a slave's work and wash my
feet? Lord, will You take the meanest part of me and wash that? I know
You have said You will sanctify my spirit and my soul–there is much
there–but will You sanctify my body, too? My feet, the lowest part of
the man, the meanest part? Are You not content to leave spot or wrinkle
upon me anywhere and therefore do You humble Yourself to the meanest,
basest, lowest action of all–to wash my feet?"

Truly, Beloved, this is subject of wonder! And yet the wonder is
excelled if you remember that He shared a slave's death, as well as a
slave's life. A slave's life–when He washed our feet! A slave's
death–when they sold Him for thirty pieces of silver and afterwards
pierced His hands and His feet. I put this deed of love in contrast.
Conceive Him now in the highest heavens, with the keys of Heaven and
earth and Hell swinging at His side. He is holding the silver scepter
by which He governs all creation–can you imagine Him as every knee
bows and every tongue confesses that He is Lord to the glory of God the
Father? And yet He, that same One, comes down from the grandeur of
Heaven and the splendor of infinite honor and He washes, absolutely
washes, in a slave's garb and after a menial manner, the feet of His
disciples!

Oh, that we felt a tender admiration worthy of this miracle of love!
Once again, there is a note of wonder if you lay the stress upon the
word "my"–"Lord, do you wash my feet?" Perhaps to some of you this
will be the greatest marvel of all–the unworthiness of the object of
this washing. "Do you wash my feet?" You have favored me with more
mercies than the most of men! You have overwhelmed me with Your
bounties. And yet my heart is hard towards You–I am often unbelieving,
forgetful, slothful, careless. You might well cast me away forever!
Because of my ingratitude You might well say, "Depart, I will have no
more to do with you–I have had enough of patience. I cannot endure
your ill manners!" Yet do You, Lord, absolutely condescend to wash my
feet?

"Here You have displayed Yourself more gloriously than ever–Your Grace
has out-Graced itself." Thus would the preacher speak and he thinks he
hears you follow him. "Lord," you say, "I once cursed You to Your face.
There was a time when Your holy day was my best day of business–when
Your House was a place which I abhorred! Your Book was unread. My knee
was never bent to You–I boasted of my own righteousness! I was a
sinner black and filthy–and do You wash my feet?!"

1 hear a Sister, with peculiar tenderness, say, "O Jesus, I would
gladly wash Your feet with my tears and wipe them with the hair of my
head, for I have been a sinner. And do You wash my feet?!" I think I
hear another say, "Lord, I once denied You. I made a profession of Your
faith, but in an evil hour I fell. I went into sin. I said, "I know not
the Man!" And do You wash my feet?! I hear another say, "Lord, You know
my private sins, my secret vices. I dare not tell into the ear of my
fellow creature the faults into which I have fallen! I am only fit to
be firewood in Hell-fire. There is nothing in me but what is not
damnable! I am altogether as an unclean thing! And do You wash my
feet?!"

Oh, you that are the people of God, cannot you all find some special
reason for wonder at this? There are some of you who are so poor that
even some of your own Christian brethren are wicked enough to be half
ashamed to own you! Yet Jesus Christ washes your feet! Your clothes
would not sell for sixpence and yet He washes your feet! You scarcely
have enough shoe leather to keep your feet from the cold and yet He
washes them! You have been laughed at and despised and ridiculed and
yet you have Christ to wash your feet!

The moment your name is mentioned there are some ready at once to
slander you and abuse you–yet so tenderly does Jesus love you that He
washes your foulest part. However, I must leave you to think–for I
cannot talk–I must leave you to think on such a precious passage as
this. Certainly the angels of Heaven will never leave off wondering how
it can be that their King, their Prince, their Leader, could so humble
Himself as to become a Servant of servants–to take the very meanest of
His people and declare that He will wash their feet–yes, and do it,
too.

One more subject for wonder. It is perfectly marvelous to remember that
Christ does so completely wash our feet. "Do You wash my feet, Lord?
Then there cannot be any filth on them. Do You wash my feet? Then they
must be clean. It cannot be that You could wash and yet filth remain."
When things are washed by careless servants, they need washing
again–but when they are washed by the loving hands of Jesus–washed by
Him who made Heaven and earth, surely they cannot be badly done! Come,
then, you that feel you have been sinning the last week–you that are
God's people, you that are resting on Christ but have a sense of guilt
upon your consciences and cannot get rid of it and are sighing and
crying–ask this question, "Lord, do You wash my feet? Then I will come
to You. I will come with my feet all filthy if there is such a bath as
this to be washed in.

"If my sins are returned to me and appear to remain upon my conscience,
if You wait, still, to wash me from present guilt and present
depravity, then here I am–as at the first I came, I come
again–nothing but Your merit do I rely upon! Nothing but Your love is
my confidence! I give myself up to You–take me as I am and wash me
clean." I say it is a subject for admiration, how thoroughly clean
Christ does wash His people, so that they can really cry, "There is no
spot nor wrinkle, nor any such thing, even upon my feet! I shall be
presented holy, unblamable and unreproveable in the sight of God,
through Jesus Christ my Lord."

III. Now we will turn from admiration to what may be more practical–to
GRATITUDE. I hope we already feel that Heaven-born flame glowing in our
souls. Here is matter for gratitude, then. I heard the other day of a
meeting for prayer at which my dear Brother Offord–who so marvelously
made confession of sin at our great Prayer Meeting in the first week of
January–was moved to make another confession. And he did so in such a
manner that the whole assembly was moved and there were audible sobs
and cries from God's people while they confessed their transgressions.

No sooner had he done so, than some Brother, wise above what is
written, rose in the assembly and said he thanked God he could not join
in the confession–his sins were all forgiven him and therefore he had
no sins to confess! He stood before God so accepted in Christ that he
had no sins whatever to make confession of. His prayer went far to
spoil the meeting and to grieve the people of God!

I do occasionally meet with erring Brethren, who say, "I never make any
confession of sin." "I have prayed for months," said one to me, "and I
have never made any confession of sin. I believe all my sins are
forgiven and I have none to confess." Now, at the very first mention of
this, do you not feel shocked? The holy sensibilities of a child of God
suffer violence from the very thought of such absence of repentance! I
should have been surprised if I did not hold myself prepared to hear
any monstrosity from persons tinctured with the gall of Plymouth
Brethrenism. Concerning that sect, much as I love and respect many of
its members, I dare not say less than this–that God alone knows what
they will teach tomorrow!

They seem to be given up to the inventions of their own vainglorious
minds to concoct and devise delusions without number. They have one
mark of the Babylon which they profess to abhor–for mystery is written
on their very brow. I pray God to keep our young people from their
company, for their professions and pretences are such as might, if it
were possible, deceive the very elect! Gracious men I grant them to be,
but as to doctrine as mad as March hares and as perverse us bullocks
unaccustomed to the yoke! When I first heard this doctrine of not
confessing sins, I was startled. I felt as if I could have no more
communion with a man who could talk in that way. Go on your knees and
not confess sin? My dear Friends, I hope to die with this upon my lips,
"I have gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek Your servant, for I do not
forget Your Commandments."

I hold that I shall be out of Christ altogether when I reject
repentance and confession. I know that my sins are forgiven me! There
is no man in the world who preaches more than I do the doctrine that
Christ has forever made a full atonement for the sins of all His
people! But as to not making a confession of sin, God forbid these lips
should ever utter anything so unGospel-like, so un-Christlike! Let us
put this matter before you plainly. It is quite certain that those whom
Christ has washed in His precious blood need not make a confession of
sin as before God the Judge because they are no longer under God as
Judge. They are not ruled and governed upon the principle of Law at
all. Christ has forever taken away all their sins in a legal sense so
that no one can bring anything to their charge and they need not
confess where there is no one to accuse.

The blood of Jesus has set His people entirely away from the position
of prisoners under the Law. They do not stand where they can be
condemned. They are no longer culprits or criminals. They are taken
from under the dominion of the Judge. But what are God's people? Why
they are children and as long as God is their Father and they are
children, and imperfect children, nature teaches them that it is the
duty of children to make a confession to their Father. If my boy should
do anything amiss–God forbid it ever should be–but suppose it were
some petty theft, I might say, "My Child, as far as that theft is
concerned, no policeman shall take you. You shall not be taken before
the bar or put in prison for that. You are quite forgiven as far as
that is concerned."

I do not wish him to go before the magistrate and make a
confession–but then he has offended me, his father. And I, as his
father, expect him to confess the wrong that he has done to me and if
he does not, I chasten him, not by way of penal infliction–that is not
my part as a father, I have nothing to do with penalties to my
children–but by way of chastisement that he may be led to see his
fault, and may do it no more. No father who has his wits about him ever
chastens his child in the light of punishment for the offense itself.
No, he says, that is not my business–the offense must be punished by
God, or if it is an offense against the law of the land, by the law of
the land. When a father scourges, he does it for chastisement–for the
good of the person chastised–not as a vindication of law and order.

Now the Lord never chastens His people because of any sin in them in
order to punish them for their sin–He has punished Christ instead of
them–they are quite clear there. But now having become children, and
offending as children, ought they not every day to go before their
heavenly Father and confess the sin and acknowledge the iniquity? The
Divine Grace of God in the heart would teach us all that it should be
so. We daily offend as children. We offend, as we could not offend if
we were not children. I doubt my Father–I am guilty of a want of love
to Him, or obedience to Him. I offend as I could not offend if I were
not His child.

Supposing that this offense against my Father is not at once washed
away by the cleansing power of the Lord Jesus– what will be the
consequence of it? Why I shall get under the thralldom of bad habit. I
shall feel such defilement in my nature that I shall do it again and
again and again–what I had once done–till I get into the habit of
doing it. If I am not washed from these offenses against my Father, I
shall feel at a distance from Him. I shall begin to doubt His love to
me. I shall tremble at Him. Most likely I shall be afraid to pray to
Him–I shall get to be like the prodigal, who, while he was a child,
was yet far off from his father. If I am not washed, I shall very soon
have need to feel the rod and I shall have it.

But oh, Beloved, if the Lord Jesus Christ, day by day shall come to me
and wash my feet from these defilements of offenses against my Father,
why then I shall, to a great extent, escape the rod! I shall feel a
holy love to my Father! I shall walk in the light of His countenance! I
shall have joy and peace through believing and I shall go through my
Christian career, not only as saved, but as one enjoying present peace
in God through Jesus Christ my Lord! I think you can see the difference
between Christ putting away sin by blood and by water. I think you can
see the distinction between confessing sin as a culprit and confessing
sin as a child. And I think you can see how much gratitude you owe to
Christ, that after having once set you free from the Law, He, day by
day, as your Elder Brother, goes in before your Father's face and still
keeps you right before the Father.

And when there has been any defilement, or any wrong, He washes your
feet from it that you may still stand with peace in your conscience,
with joy in your heart, with love in your bosom and with the Father's
love shed abroad in you! Here is matter for gratitude–that having once
washed head and hands and feet with blood–He still does daily wash my
feet with water. For my part, I mean to keep on praying, "Forgive us
our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us." And it
shall always be my joy that, "if any man sin, we have an Advocate with
the Father," and, "the blood of Jesus Christ, God's dear Son, cleanses
us from all sin."

IV. The last point is MATTER FOR IMITATION. Does Jesus wash our feet?
Then we ought to wash one another's feet. Some of our Brethren, the
Scotch Baptists, were accustomed to wash the saints' feet literally. I
dare say it would not do some of the saints much harm. But still it
never was intended for us to carry out literally the example of the
Savior. There is a spiritual meaning here and what He means is this–if
there is any deed of kindness or love that we can do for the very
meanest and most obscure of God's people, we ought to be willing to do
it–to be servants to God's servants– to feel like Abigail did, when
she said to David, "Let your handmaid be a servant to wash the feet of
the servants of my Lord."

Abigail became David's wife–that is the true position of every
Christian–but yet she felt she was not worthy even to wash his
servants' feet. That must be our spirit. Do you know any poor bedridden
soul? Go and talk with that poor woman, or that poor man. Seek to take
comfort to that poor man's miserable lodgings. Do you know a Brother
who is rather angry in temper and he wants a kind word said to him and
someone says, "I will not speak to any such person as he is?" Do it–do
it, my dear Brothers and Sisters–go and wash his feet! Do you know one
who has gone astray? Someone says, "I would not like to be seen in
association with him." My dear Friend, you are spiritual–go and
restore such an one in the spirit of meekness.

Wash his feet! There is another riding the high horse–he is very, very
proud. One says, "I am not going to humble myself to him." My dear
Brother, go to him and wash his feet! Whenever there is a child of God
who has any defilement upon him and you are able to point it out and
rid him of it–submit to any degradation, put yourself in any
position– sooner than that child of God should be the subject of sin!
Especially let those who are highest among us seek to do the lowest
offices. "Whoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant."
Remember that Christ's way of rising is to go down. He descended, that
He might ascend. And so must we.

Let us count that forevermore it is our highest honor and our greatest
glory to lay aside all honor and all glory and to win honor and glory
out of shame and humiliation for Christ Jesus' sake. I believe this is
done in this Church. I hope we are as free as possible from the feeling
of caste–God deliver us from the last relic and remnant of it! You are
Brothers and Sisters in Christ! Love one another!

"Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted–but the
rich in that he is made low." You are Brothers and Sisters and one is
your Master, even Christ. Try to carry out, every one of you to your
utmost, the teaching of your Lord–that you should wash one another's
feet. You have an opportunity of doing it in the collection–for I
believe that these servants of God–these aged ministers, these
ministers who are in great poverty–need today that you should, by your
contributions, wash their feet.