I. A MARVELLOUS LOVE: that of Christ for His own. Marvellous in respect of
1. Its time.
(1) Before the feast of the Passover, when His thoughts might have been occupied with its memories.
(2) Before His departure, when He might have been absorbed in the contemplation of death or the heaven beyond.
(3) Before His exaltation, when the vision of the coming glory might have fixed His Spirit’s eye.
2. Its intensity--“unto the end.”
(1) To the uttermost, or in the highest degree, with a love passing knowledge (Eph_3:19), which many waters (of affliction) could not quench, nor floods (of sorrow) drown (Son_8:9).
(2) To the latest moment of His life, with a love which, as it had been without beginning, so also would it be without end (Jer_31:8).
(3) At the last, surpassing every previous demonstration and stooping even unto death for its objects (Joh_15:13; 1Jn_3:16; Rom_5:8).
3. Its reason. While He was departing from, they were remaining in the world, exposed to the enmity and evil He was escaping. The thought of their feebleness and defencelessness, and their sufferings and imperfections, added fuel to the fire of His affection (Heb_4:15).
II. A MARVELLOUS DEED (Joh_13:5). An act of
1. Amazing condescension, considering
(1) Its nature--the work of a slave (1Sa_25:41).
(2) His dignity--the Incarnate Son, conscious of His heavenly origin and destiny (Joh_13:3), on the eve of grasping the sceptre of the universe Mat_28:18).
(3) The objects--frail and erring men and one of them a traitor. Had Christ been only man He would have spurned Judas: being God, He loved him and even washed his feet.
2. Sublime significance. Symbolic
(1) Of Christ’s self-abasement who, in order to effect the spiritual cleansing of His people, laid aside the form of God, assumed the garment of humanity, and poured His purifying blood from the cross (Php_2:7-8; 1Jn_1:7).
(2) Of the working of regeneration through which sin’s defilement is removed (Eph_5:26; Tit_3:5).
(3) Of the daily cleansing which the renewed need (Psa_51:7; 1Jn_1:9).
III. A MARVELLOUS OBLIGATION (verses 14, 15). Christ’s example calls His disciples to
1. Personal humility. If the Lord and Master could stoop and wash the feet of a Judas, it ill became them to be puffed up with thoughts of their own greatness (Rom_12:3; Luk_22:27; Mat_9:29; 1Pe_5:5).
2. Loving service. Not that Christ instituted a new religious service. The Pope is Christ’s ape rather than His imitator. Christ’s example is to be followed spiritually in ministering to necessity and practising Christian kindness (Joh_15:17; Mat_25:34-40; Rom_12:9-10, Gal_5:13-14; Gal_5:22; Gal_6:2; Eph_5:2; 1Ti_5:10).
3. Brotherly forgiveness. Christ had washed and therefore forgiven them; they were to practise the charity which covers a multitude of sins Mat_6:12; Mar_11:28; Luk_17:3-4; Eph_4:32; Col_3:13).
Learn
1. The supreme Divinity of Christ.
2. The diabolical depravity of the fallen heart.
3. The imperfections of even Christ’s followers.
4. The absolute necessity of Christ as a Saviour.
5. Christ’s perfect knowledge of men.
6. The duty of taking Christ as our example.
7. Obedience the royal road to happiness. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)
Jesus knew that His hour was come
Christ’s knowledge
I. Its FULNESS.
II. Its SOURCES.
III. Its USES. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)
Christ’s hour
I. SO LONG CONTEMPLATED.
II. SO FULL OF SUFFERINGS.
III. SO FULL OF RESPONSIBILITY. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)
Christ’s death
I. HE HAD A DIVINE PRESENTIMENT OF THE EXACT TIME OF HIS DEATH. “When Jesus knew” etc. All men know that they must die sooner or later. This throws a shade v on the whole path of life, but the exact time is in mercy hidden from us. But Christ knew His hour from the first, and instead of endeavouring to avoid it comes forth to meet it. What mere man would have done this? And with such heroic calmness!
II. HE HAD A GLORIOUS VIEW OF THE NATURE OF HIS DEATH.
1. It was a departure from this world. With the exception of the beauties and blessings of the earth, everything in the world must have been repugnant to Him. It was a world of rebels against the government of His Father, of enemies against Himself. To Him it must have been what the cell is to the prisoner or the lazaretto to the healthy. To leave such a scene could not have been a matter for regret, but rather of desire. May not every good man look on death thus? What is there in the human world to interest him?
2. It was a going to the Father, where
(1) He would get the highest approbation of His work.
(2) He would enjoy the sublimest fellowship. So with the Christian.
III. HE HAD A SUBLIME MOTIVE FOR MEETING WITH HIS DEATH. Love for His own, i.e., all who in every land and age consecrate themselves to God, whose they are. This love continues
1. To the end of every man’s existence.
2. To the end of the mediatorial system. Nay, will it ever have an end? Never in essence, but in achievement. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
A great and solemn hour
1. It was the hour of His departure. “Jesus knew that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto His Father.” Such was His death, even though it was the death of the Cross, “a departure.”
2. It was the hour of His love. If He rejoiced in the thought of departing to be with the Father, there was also a strain upon His heart at the thought of leaving His disciples, whom, “having loved as His own in the world, He loved to the end,” that is, “to the uttermost.”
3. It was the hour of His betrayal. What a frightful contrast is here l In this hour, when His Divine heart was swelling nigh unto bursting with the intensity and vehemence of His love, there was one of their number whose heart was filled with a devilish purpose of betrayal.
4. It was the hour of His supreme and sublime self-consciousness--“Knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He came forth from God, and was going back to God.”
5. The hour of His lowly service to His disciples. (G. F. Pentecost.)
That He should depart out of this world unto the Father.--He came from God, and yet not leaving Him, and He goeth to God not leaving us. (St. Bernard.)
Having loved His own which were in the world
The Divine love
1. It is not strange that the hour of departure should be the hour of quickened affection. When the child leaves home, father and mother seem more dear than before. And had this been the Saviour’s home, and those around Him His relations, it would not have been strange that He should have felt more strongly for them than at any previous time.
2. On the other hand, when for purposes of health, business, or pleasure one has long been an exile, and the day comes for return, although he has made pleasant acquaintances, yet the thought of home swallows up every other. Applying this, who can imagine the vision that arose before Jesus at this hour? The infinitude of His power was to be restored, and the companionships He had known from eternity. Yet at this hour it is said that “having loved,” etc.
3. This is wonderful. For consider what the disciples were. If Christ had dwelt in the accomplishments of the heavenly land, what must they have seemed to Him? Not one had any extraordinary endowment except John, and none save he and Peter and James have left any record except their names. Had Christ selected heroes like Luther, Melanchthon, Hampden, Sidney, Washington, or geniuses like Dante, Shakespeare, or Goethe, we can imagine how, surrounded by the greatest natures, He should have suffered at parting from them. But these were men with not only no royalty of endowment, but selfish, prejudiced, ambitious, and mean. And yet taking them with all their imperfections which the glory to which He was departing threw into bolder relief, having loved them He loved them unto the end.
4. It is plain that Divine love includes other elements than those usually imagined. It is not strange that God loves loveliness. We do that. But who of us loves that which is unlovely? This is what God does. But it does not follow that this love is not more qualified with growing excellency than without it. It is that kind of love which a parent feels toward children who are not in themselves attractive. Parental love, however it may grow, is what we feel by reason of what is in us, not of what is in our children. The newborn babe has neither thought, love, nor power of expression; and yet there is in the mother that which loves it with an intensity which is like life itself. So there is in the Divine nature a power of sympathizing with things at the lowest and poorest.
5. In this simple thought we find the world’s hope and comfort. You may dismiss from your minds, if you can, all who are not your near relations; but I cannot. It is a burden on my soul what becomes of the vast multitudes of Africa, Asia, and of our great cities who crawl like vermin in and out of dens of vice and poverty. The only light on this problem comes from the fact that there is a God who loves things that are not lovable.
6. This universality of the Divine sympathy interprets the declaration, “God so loved the world,” etc. His affection for a world lying in brutality and wickedness was such that He gave what was most precious to Him to redeem it. Men think that this obliterates the motives to right. Not so. Is there any feeling in the parent’s mind stronger than this: that the beloved child shall grow out of nothingness into largeness and beauty? And God aims to purify and exalt and enrich human nature. He loves men without reason in them, but with infinite reason in Himself. His love is not simply good nature. It is intensely earnest and just, and suffering flows from it. There is nothing lovable in us at first, but under the fructifying influence of the Divine soul working on ours, germ after germ begins to develop into something lovable; and the Divine complacency takes hold of us as we rise to higher love and perfection.
7. What a consolation this representation presents to those who are battling with their imperfections. (H. W. Beecher.)
Christ’s love to His own
I. THE LOVE OF CHRIST IS A PERSONAL LOVE.
1. This personal love is not to be contrasted with, although it is to be distinguished from, His love of the whole world. Without supposing the universal love that pities misery everywhere, we cannot make our way to a personal love. You cannot be sure of a love that passes by great multitudes.
2. This personal love is just the application of the general love to the person. It is not merely that the individual believes in that general love and appropriates just so much to himself as he needs, but that in that very appropriation he practically increases the love of Christ to himself. His love to Christ makes Christ’s love to him a love of complacency and friendship.
3. The belief of this is the turning point of life. When a man can say, “He loved me and gave Himself for me,” he has passed or is passing from darkness into light. His destiny is solved. Not to believe that assurance so solemnly and affectingly given, is to be without the comfort of the blessed gospel, to abide under wrath.
4. It is either wrath or love. There is no explaining it away or shading it off. Come to Christ, believe the gospel, you are in love. Stay away from Him, distrust His gospel, leave it lying there unopened, untouched, as you would some printed circular you don’t care to be troubled with, and the whole world is full of wrath. It darkens and embitters your whole life. Just say this and believe it, for it is true, “He loved me,” etc.; and then you are out of wrath into love, you leave the ranks of His enemies, you enter among “His own.”
II. CHRIST LOVES HIS OWN UNTO THE END, i.e., to the end of His own life. In proof of which, here at the very end is a most thoughtful, touching instance of His intense desire to do them a good that would last long after He was away.
1. He was going into great suffering. No agitation, no depression, no entering into the sorrow before the time; but this calm, beautiful action of feet washing which they might recall forever as an overwhelming proof of the endurance of His love to His own.
2. He was going into great glory. Work all done. Suffering nearly finished. Home now to God! What then? A great elation of spirit and a corresponding forgetfulness of these common persons and these inferior things? No; but the washing of the disciples’ feet! A yearning, enfolding love of “His own” unto the end. No trial of love could be more searching, more complete, than is furnished by those two great things, both so near--the suffering and the glory.
Application
1. You who are “His own,” it concerns you much to believe that He will “love you unto the end.” Why should He not?
(1) Even His own great suffering could not cast a shade between the loving Master and the trembling disciple when He was here. And now there is no suffering to come between you and Him.
(2) And as to the glory of His heavenly life, even now when throned and crowned and worshipped by ten thousand times ten thousand, the joy that is dearer to Him than all this is that which He wins yet down here when He seeks and finds the sheep that was lost. We think poorly of Him if we suffer ourselves to think of Him as enjoying heaven yonder while we suffer and die.
(3) And as for your unworthiness, you were unworthy when He began to deal with you, and you have been unworthy every day since, and you are now, and He knows all this. Having loved His own with an unbought, uncaused love from the beginning, and thus far along their individual histories, He will love them so, and no otherwise, unto the end. (A. Raleigh, D. D.)
Christ’s love for His own
I. THE RELATION--“His own.” This relation is formed by Himself. “To them gave He power to become the sons of God.” It is not, therefore, from a mere profession of religion. “Ye are clean; but not all.” There were persons endued with miraculous powers who nevertheless were not “His own,” and to whom Christ will say, “I never knew you.”
II. THE POSITION “in the world.” It is one of
1. Trial. You are exposed to a position of sorrow, and struggling, and conflict. Here is something that will try you. What influence has the world had on your spirit and conduct? If you are called on to suffer, is there the language of Eli: “It is the Lord; let Him do what seemeth good unto Him”? or obstinacy and rebellion?
2. Danger. You are exposed
(1) To innumerable adversaries. “Your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about,” etc.
(2) To great temptations. How many run well for a time and afterwards fall short!
III. THE AFFECTION--“having loved.” If your position is to be a test of your affection for Christ, what a proof it will be of His affection for you! What evidence of love will you ask at His hands? What can He do more than He has done? “Greater love hath no man than this,” etc.
IV. THE ADHESION--“unto the end.” Can you say this of any human affection? Can the child calculate on the affection of the parent, the most durable of all, to the end? “Can a woman forget her sucking child?…Yea, she may forget; yet will I not forget.” There is no unchangeable love but His because there is no unchangeable being but God. “I have loved thee with an everlasting love,” etc. (W. Bengo Collyer, D. D.)
Christ’s love of His own
The Saviour has a treasure of immortal spirits who are not in the world. Angels and spirits of the just made perfect are all His own--a multitude which no man can number. This verse, however, shows the relationship of Jesus to His faithful followers who “are in the world.” The disciples were no monopolists of Christ’s love. The lapse of time may change the tense, but it does not change the sense of this gracious text.
I. THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS ARE CALLED BY A PECULIARLY ENDEARING NAME--‘‘His own.” All things are His own. “All souls are Mine,” even the rebellious and unthankful. Here, however, the words imply a relationship of the dearest and closest kind. A true mother has a sympathy for all children; but there is a singular depth in her words, as she looks into the eyes of the darling of her heart, and says, “My own!” The gift in the hand of a child is enhanced when it is understood to be his “very own.” With such intense affection and delight does Christ regard His people. He constantly challenges them as “My brethren,” “My sheep,” “My friends,” and emphatically, “Mine.” They are His own
1. As the purchase of His blood. They had sold themselves for nought, were sold under sin. Christ was their Redeemer. He gave His life a ransom for them, and they are become His purchased possession. “He justly claims us for ‘His own,’” etc.
2. By willing personal surrender. This is an all-essential endorsement of His claim. The price of his freedom may be proffered to the slave, but if he will not accept it he is still in bonds. Christ hath purchased all souls. Yet it needs the assent of their understanding, and the consent of their will, in order to bind them to Him by the special tie and to make them peculiarly His own.
3. They bear the name, seal, and image of the Saviour.
4. As the gift of the Father, the reward of His mediatorial work. In chap. 17, we see how the Saviour gathered strength and comfort from the thought of their prospective possession. “Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me.”
II. THE TEMPORARY POSITION OF CHRIST’S OWN! “In the world.” When a sinner is converted and all is safe for heaven, how desirable it seems that he should be removed out of the world. Let him be taken away from the evil to come that he may never run the hazard of losing so rich a prize. Amid the troubles of life the Christian pilgrim is often tempted to say, “Oh that I had the wings of a dove,” etc. But the Lord keeps “His own” in the world
1. For their own sake. Eternal life is the gift of God unmerited and free; yet the Christian’s future will be largely influenced by the tone and character of his life on earth. According to his spiritual growth, his moral victories, his love and sacrifice and service, will be the fulness of the glory which shall be revealed.
2. For the Saviour’s sake. The world holds Him in dishonour, and gives His glory to another. Christians are in the world to represent the Saviour! “The glory which Thou hast given Me! have given them, that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me.”
3. For the world’s sake. The world cannot spare them. Its only hope lies in the element of godliness which is slowly leavening it more and more. “Ye are the salt of the earth.”
III. THE SAVIOUR’S UNCHANGING LOVE FOR HIS OWN. “He loved them to the end.” These disciples of His, from the day He called them, had been the objects of tenderest regard. They were full of faults and failings, were sadly slow of heart to receive the truth; yet in and through all He loved them. Now that the time is at hand when the bitter cup shall be lifted to His lips, His anxiety for their well-being is the foremost feeling of His heart. He pours into their ears the richest strains of comfort and consolation. “Let not your hearts be troubled,” etc. He promises them a Comforter, and bids them “be of good cheer.” In the garden, His gentle forbearance to the unwatchful three reveals the fixity and depth of His love. When the officers came, He wards His trembling disciples from the threatening crowd. Their desertion was a sharper pang than any made by jailer’s scourge or soldier’s spear. And yet it was quenchless love that “looked” on Peter. When He left the tomb, He gave the angel watchers a kindly message for His flock, and mentioned the penitent denier by name. And when at last they gathered round Him on the hill of Bethany, His latest movement was to lift His hands and bless them; His latest word a promise to be with them even to the end of the world; when a cloud received Him out of their sight, two angels stood before them to tell them that as they had seen Him ascend, so should He again descend, that He might receive them unto Himself! Afterwards, when seated at the right hand of God, Stephen’s cry for help brought Him to His feet! Do you wonder that when the aged apostle called up each look, tone, deed, and word that marked his Saviour’s later days, that with a gush of unrestrained devotion he should write, “Having loved His own,” etc.? Conclusion:
1. Believer, you are in the holy and the privileged succession.
(1) Christ loves you with an abiding love. Your memory bears grateful witness. Many an Ebenezer stands out and tells how His love came in the hour of your sorest need. Your backslidings have been many; your imperfections more, but His love hath endured through all. Be of good cheer. He will love you to the end, and draw closer and nearer as the end draws nigh.
(2) Seek a closer, more perfect union with your Saviour. Be “His own” entirely.
2. Sinner! you are not in this saving sense “His own.” Then whose are you? You are a servant of the devil, whose wages is death! Yet the Saviour loves you! Give Him your heart, then you shall be “His own.” (J. JacksonWray.)
Jesus loving His own that were in the world
For the inspired Evangelist not only specifies the precise date--“Before the feast of the Passover”--but he also mentions a particular fact of a moral nature, of the utmost importance, as giving us an insight into the Saviour’s mind: “When Jesus knew”--or Jesus knowing--“that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father,” etc. The idea plainly is, that just because He knew--not merely although, but just because He knew--that His hour was come, that He should leave this world, and that, consequently, His disciples would be left alone in it--as He had always previously loved them, so He now manifested His love in a very peculiar manner, corresponding to their necessities; and this, too, under the most affecting circumstances, and to the utmost extent.
I. The OBJECTS of this love are described, in the first instance, more generally as being “His own.” It is true, indeed, that, in one sense, all things are His own, as being their Creator and Preserver--all things, from the highest archangel to the meanest insect that crawls upon the ground. But His people are His own in a sense peculiar to themselves. But the objects of this love are described not only as His own, but more particularly as His own that were in the world. Jesus had many of “His own” that were now in glory; and doubtless these were objects of peculiar complacency and delight. Oh! see them in their white robes, as they shine so bright! But still the precious truth for us is, that it was His own that were in the world that He is here said to have loved. And why were they singled out from the rest? Why, but because of the peculiar difficulties and dangers to which they were exposed. Ask that tender-hearted mother, which of her many children recurs oftenest to her memory--those of them who are safe at home under the parental roof, or the one that is far away at sea? Jesus was now to depart out of the world, but they were to be left in it; and therefore His heart turned in love towards them. But without dwelling further on this idea here, is it not a most delightful and encouraging truth, that, though Jesus is now in glory, yet He still regards His own that are in the world with peculiar care suited to their circumstances and necessities? But methinks I hear someone say, “Alas! I feel that I am in the world, not only because of the sins of others, but because I sin myself; because I have ‘a body of death’ within me, and often it breaks out in word and action.” Yes, indeed, but Jesus loves His own that are in the world still; He sees and knows all the sin and imperfection, that you have to contend against, and yet He loves His own notwithstanding. “But, oh!” says someone, “my case is of a different kind still: I have come hither today, burdened with a heavy heart.” It may be that it is some dear relative that is sick, and apparently near to death. All this proves that you are still in a world of sorrow. But then Jesus loves His own still, and looks down upon them with ever watchful eye.
II. But I come now, in the second place, to mention SOME OF THOSE WAYS IN WHICH JESUS HAD ALWAYS PREVIOUSLY MANIFESTED HIS LOVE TO THEM.
1. See, for example, how having once chosen them in His love, He ever afterwards proved His love by continual companionship with them.
2. See, too, how tenderly, how graciously He instructed them. His instructions were always very simple, because He loved them so well. His love was stronger than their unbelief and ignorance.
3. See, moreover, how ready He was to sympathize with them, and to render them every kind of assistance. Whenever they were in trouble, He was their willing and able Friend.
4. And, oh, with what patience did He bear with them in all their weakness and infirmities!
III. But what I wish you specially to notice now is THE STEADFASTNESS OF THIS LOVE--ITS UNFAILING AND UNFLINCHING FAITHFULNESS, AS IN LIFE
SO ALSO IN DEATH. “He loved them unto the end”--not only to the end of life, but to the utmost extent, and under the most affecting circumstances. And if He thus loved them, in the view of the agonies of Gethsemane and the death of Calvary, think you does He now forget them--now that He has passed within the veil? Ah! no, it is impossible. But I must also add, if Jesus Christ loved His own unto the end, then surely they ought to persevere in their love to Him. But I have this also to say in closing, what misery must it be to be without such a Saviour! (C. Ross.)
Christ’s love unto the end
I. THERE WAS NOT MUCH IN THEM TO LOVE--YET HE LOVED THEM. I have no wish to disparage these early disciples. Everything betokens that most of them were what the narrative tells us--unlearned Galilean fishermen, who had been nurtured in the flee, clear air of Nature, and so they had to the end a sort of frankness about them which was very enjoyable. I think that was something in them which Jesus Christ appreciated. It must not be forgotten that there was also in them an unselfish readiness to endure sacrifice in the cause of Him who had charmed their hearts and excited the questioning wonder of their minds. Yet in spite of all this, what was there particularly in these men that one like Christ should find to love? I think of the sensitiveness of His nature, the gentleness of His disposition, the purity of His thought, the utter unselfishness of His purposes, the grandeur and sweep of His ideas, His conceptions of nature, of man, of God. What was there that Christ could perceive in these rude, uncultured, somewhat coarse men, men most limited in their thoughts, who had little of what we call spirituality in them to attract Him towards them? Yet He gave them His very heart; He loved them with a love that is simply matchless and astounding. Ah! doubtless He saw more in them to love than common eyes could possibly see. For the greatest natures always do discover beauties of character in the humblest which escape the observation of ordinary people. But look at the Divine side. See Him as the Incarnate Son of God, the Holy One, the Perfect, the Divine One, and how the wonder grows that He should have humbled Himself to associate on terms of generous love with the disciples! Why has Christ loved you--your heart, mind, soul? It is a fact; that you know. Why is it? Ah! that you cannot answer, I cannot answer, except we say, It is the nature of God to love, and the more weak, feeble, helpless, unworthy we are, the more compassionately does He bend to pour the fulness of His heart into our sinning lives.
II. THERE WAS MUCH IN THEM THAT TESTED HIS LOVE--YET HE LOVED THEM. It is not necessary to speak much of the trial that Christ’s first disciples were to Him over and over again. Quarrelling, petulance, scepticism, blindness of thought, cowardliness, treachery have no power to destroy that supreme love. How often we have stumbled at the revelations He has made, and, through a doubting spirit which we have encouraged, have asked foolish sceptical questions simply for the sake of asking them! How we have prayed for more light and clearer visions of God, when close at our side, all around us, have been manifestations of the Father! How, when asked to watch with and for Christ, we have pleaded weariness and slept!
III. THERE WAS A CONTINUOUS NEED OF HIS LOVE AND HE LOVED THEM UNTO THE END. Thus His life was a discipline of love to them, His death a sacrifice of love for them. (W. Braden.)
The great love of Christ for His own
as shown
I. IN THE DIVERSIONS IT HELD AT BAY.
1. The consciousness that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world. And knowing the fact, He also knew all the particulars of the tragic exode. The actual endurance could not be much worse than such a distinct anticipation of it as He had. And yet the tremendous pressure of this foresight did not divert Him from the most tender and considerate attention to those whom He was about to leave.
2. The consciousness that He was about to return to God. There was a joy set before Him for which He endured the cross, despising the shame. Yet such was His affection for His disciples, that not all the glories of heaven in the act of opening to receive Him, could for a moment disturb His warm and compassionate attentions to them.
II. IN THE REPULSIONS IT SURMOUNTED. There was much unworthiness and carnal crudeness in these men to repel the Saviour’s affection. They did not so love Him. A few hours and they all had deserted Him. That same night, one of the most devoted of them denied Him. Another of them was harbouring at the time the Satanic instigation to betray Him. And in the hearts of all of them worked a most unseemly jealousy and contention Luk_22:24). The Saviour had given them lesson after lesson on this point, and yet their miserable pride and selfishness had not been cured. How painful the contemplation I How disheartening and repellant to Him who had so loved them. And yet, the more unworthy they were of His love, the more intensely did it flame forth.
III. IS THE CONDESCENSION IT INDUCED. He into whose hands the Father had given all things, stooped to employ those hands in washing a traitor’s feet! Nor did He only take the menial’s attire and work, but, when Peter objected, Jesus set Himself to new efforts to meet new manifestations of disease. And even Judas, with all His known treachery, was not relinquished without the most faithful and tender endeavours to bring him to himself. And when the washing was finished, the Lord preached still another sermon on humility and the true Christian spirit.
IV. IN THE SACRAMENT IT ORDAINED. Though not given in the text, the other Evangelists have stated it in full (Mat_26:26-28). Herein is the great love of Christ manifest toward His own, that, on the very eve of His great passion, He appointed and left to them and us this perpetual legacy and memorial of His affection, in which He continually administers to all believing celebrants of this holy sacrament the very manna and bread of heaven, and incorporates His living Self with us as our salvation and our eternal life. (J. A. Seiss, D. D.)
The Method by which we become Christ’s own
His redemption is not a mere breaking of bonds in which we were enthralled. It is not as when one comes upon a wild animal caught in a snare, and undoes the snare, and lets the panting, struggling thing return to its wild liberty again; it is rather as if one not only delivered it from the snare, but likewise attached it to himself, and tamed it to His will, so that it becomes his own. (J. Culross, D. D.)
Christ’s transcendent love
The experiences of love are such sometimes, even in this life as to be an earnest, a blessed interpretation, of something more glorious yet to come. There is one thing which the New Testament is always in labour with, and which is never born, and that is, the conception of the greatness of the love of Christ to our souls. When all language is exhausted, when every one of its variations of figures and illustrations has been employed to set it forth, still it is never finished. Like music that transcends the scale of the instrument, it leaves the strain always unexpressed. The apostle, first in one key and then in another, tries all the melodies and harmonies of this Divine theme; but, after all, the love of Christ has never been told. The apostle declares that it is past understanding, and so it is; but there are elements of experience that teach us something of it; and there are moments in which we put these elements together, and get some sense of it. (H. W. Beecher.)
The love of the departing Christ
The text should perhaps read “to the uttermost”--expressing the depth and degree rather than the permanence of our Lord’s love. It is much to know that the emotions of these last moments did not interrupt Christ’s love. It is even more to know that in some sense they perfected it. So understood, the words explain for us the foot washing, the marvellous discourses, and the climax of all that High-Priestly prayer.
I. Look at that love as A LOVE WHICH, WAS NOT INTERRUPTED, BUT PERFECTED BY THE PROSPECT OF SEPARATION.
1. “He knew that His hour was come.” All His life was passed under the consciousness of a Divine necessity laid upon Him, to which He cheerfully yielded Himself. On His lips there are no words more significant, and few more frequent, than “I must!” And all through His life He declares Himself conscious of the hours which mark the several crises of His mission. No external power can coerce Him to any act till the hour come, or hinder Him from the act when it comes. And thus, at the last and supreme moment, to Him it dawned unquestionable and irrevocable. How did He meet it? “Father! save Me from this hour Yet for this cause came I unto this hour.” There is a strange, triumphant joy that blends with the shrinking that the decisive hour is at last come.
2. Mark, too, the form which the consciousness took. The agony, the shame, the mysterious burden of a world’s sins that were to be laid upon Him; all these elements are submerged in the one thought of leaving behind all the limitations, humiliations, and compelled association with evil which, like a burning brand laid upon a tender skin, was an hourly agony to Him, and soaring above them all, unto His own calm home, His habitation from eternity with the Father.
3. This marvellous consciousness is set forth here as the basis and the reason for a special tenderness, as He thought of the impending separation.
(1) Does this not help us to realize how truly flesh of our flesh, and bearing a heart thrilling with all innocent human emotions that Divine Saviour was? We, too, have known what it is to feel, because of approaching separation from dear ones, the need for a tenderer tenderness. At such moments the masks of use and wont drop away, and we are eager to find some word, to put our whole souls into some look, our whole strength into one clinging embrace that may express all our love, and may be a joy to two hearts forever after to remember. The Master knew that longing, and felt the pain of separation; and He, too, yielded to the human impulse which makes the thought of parting the key to unlock the hidden chambers of the most jealously-guarded heart, and let the shyest of its emotions come out for once into the daylight. So, “knowing that His hour was come, He loved them then unto the uttermost.”
(2) But amidst all the parting scenes that the world’s literature has enshrined, there are none that can be set by the side of this supreme and unique instance of self-oblivion. This Man who was susceptible of all human affections, and loved us with a love like our own human affection, had also more than a man’s heart to give, and gave us more, when, that He might comfort and sustain, He crushed down Himself and went to the Cross with words of tenderness and consolation and encouragement for others upon His lips.
(3) And if the prospect only sharpened and perfected His love, the reality has no power to do aught else. In the glory, when He reached it, He poured out the same loving heart; and today He looks down upon us with the same face that bent over that table, and the same love flows to us. “Knowing that He goes to the Father, He loves to the uttermost,” and being with the A LOVE WHICH IS FAITHFUL TO THE OBLIGATIONS OF ITS OWN PAST Father, He still so loves.
II. HAVING LOVED, HE LOVES. That is an argument that implies Divinity. About nothing human can we say because it has been therefore it shall be. Alas! we have to say the converse, because it has been, therefore it will cease to be. They tell us that the great sun itself, pouring out its rays exhausts its warmth, and were it not continually replenished must gradually, and even though continually replenished, will one day be a dead, cold mass of ashes. But this heart of Christ, which is the Sun of the World, shall endure after the sun is cold. He pours it out and there is none the less to give. “Thy mercy endureth forever.”
III. A LOVE WHICH HAS SPECIAL TENDERNESS TOWARDS ITS OWN. These poor men, who, with all their errors, did cleave to Him; who, in some dim way, understood somewhat of His greatness and His sweetness--and do you and I do more?--were they to have no special place in His heart because in that heart the whole world lay? Surely, because the sun shines down upon dunghills and all impurities, that is no reason why it should not lie with special brightness on the polished mirror that reflects its lustre. Surely, because Christ loves the outcasts and the sinners, that is no reason why He should not bend with special tenderness over those who, loving Him, try to serve Him, and have set their whole hopes upon Him. The rainbow strides across the sky, but there is a rainbow in every little dew drop that hangs glistening on the blades of grass. And there is nothing sectional, narrow in the proclamation of a special tenderness of Christ towards His own, when you accompany with that truth this other, that all men are besought by Him to come into that circle of “His own,” and that only they themselves shut any men out therefrom. The whole world dwells in His love. But there is an inner chamber in which He discovers all His heart to those who find in that heart their heaven and their all. “He came to His own,” in the wider sense of the word, and “His own received Him not;” but also, “having loved His own He loved them unto the end.” There are textures and lines which can only absorb some of the rays of light in the spectrum; some that are only capable of taking, so to speak, the violet rays of judgment and of wrath, and some who open their hearts for the ruddy brightness at the other end of the line.
IV. A LOVE MADE SPECIALLY TENDER BY THE NECESSITIES AND THE DANGERS OF ITS FRIENDS. “Which were in the world.” We have, running through the discourses which follow, many allusions to His leaving His followers in circumstances of peculiar peril. “I come unto Thee, and am no more in the world, but these are in the world. Keep them through Thine own name.” The same contrast between the certain security of the Shepherd and the troubles of the flock seems to be in the text, and suggests a reason for the special tenderness with which He looked upon them. As a dying father on his deathbed may yearn over orphans that he is leaving defenceless, so Christ here is represented as conscious of an accession even to the tender longings of His heart when He thought of the loneliness and the dangers to which His followers were to be exposed. It seems a strange contrast between the emperor, sitting throned there between the purple curtains, and the poor athletes wrestling in the arena below. It seems strange to think that a loving Master has gone up into the mountain, and has left His disciples to toil in rowing on the stormy sea of life; but the contrast is only apparent. For you and I, if we love and trust Him, are with Him in the heavenly places even whilst we toil here, and He is with us, working with us even whilst He sitteth at the right hand of God. We may be sure of this, that that love ever increases its manifestations according to our deepening necessities. The darker the night the more lustrous the stars. The deeper, the narrower, the savager, the Alpine gorge, usually the fuller and the swifter the stream that runs through it. And the mere enemies and fears gather round about us the sweeter will be the accents of our Comforter’s voice, and the fuller will be the gifts of tenderness and grace with which He draws near to us. Our sorrows, dangers, necessities, are doors through which His love can come nigh. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The constancy of Christ’s love
A short time previous to the death of the Marchioness of Tavistock, and when she was preparing to go to Lisbon for the recovery of her health, a consultation of physicians was held at Bedford House; and one of the gentlemen present requested, while he felt her pulse, that she would open her hand. Her frequent refusals occasioned him to take the liberty of gently forcing the fingers asunder; when he perceived that she had kept her hand closed to conceal the miniature picture of the marquis. “Oh madam!” observed the physician, “my prescriptions must be useless, if your ladyship is determined to keep before your eyes an object which, although deservedly dear to you, serves only to confirm the violence of your illness.” The marchioness replied, “I have kept the picture, either in my bosom or my hand, ever since the death of my lamented lord; and thus I am determined to preserve it till I fortunately drop after him into the grave.” (Percy.)
The perfection of Christ’s love
The mother, wan and pale with incessant vigils by the bedside of a sick child; the fireman, maimed for life in bravely rescuing the inmates of a blazing house; the three hundred Spartans at Thermopylae; Howard, dying of fever caught in dungeons where he was fulfilling his noble purpose of succouring the oppressed and remembering the forgotten; the Moravian missionaries, who voluntarily incarcerated themselves in an African leper house (from which regress into the healthy world was impossible, and escape only to be effected through the gates of death) in order that they might preach the glad tidings to the lepers,--all these, and many other glorious instances of self-devotion, do but faintly shadow forth the love of Him who laid aside divine glory, and humbled himself to the death of the cross. (W. Baxendale.)
Christ’s an unchanging love
A noble rolling river has been flowing on for six thousand years watering the fields and slaking the thirst of a hundred generations, yet shows no signs of waste. The sun has melted the snows of so many winters, renewed the verdure of so many springs, painted the flowers of so many summers, and ripened the golden harvests of so many autumns, yet shines as brilliant as ever, his floods of light none the less full for centuries of boundless profusion. Yet these are but faint images of Christ’s love. For when the judgment flames have licked up that flowing stream and the light of that glorious sun shall be quenched in darkness, His love shall flow on throughout eternity. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
Love in the face of discouragement
I know a mother who has an idiot child. For it she gave up all society, almost everything, and devoted her whole life to it. “And now,” said she, “for fourteen years I have tended it and loved it and it does not even know me.” Amid all discouragements Christ’s love is patient and unwearying. (D. L. Moody.)
The changeless love of Christ
Earthly love is a brief and penurious stream, which only flows in spring, with a long summer drought. The change from a burning desert, treeless, springless, drear, to green fields and blooming orchards in June, is slight in comparison with that from the desert of this world’s affection to the garden of God, where there is perpetual, tropical luxuriance of blessed love. (H. W. Beecher.)
Uncertain friendship
Henry the Eighth used to come up the Thames to Chelsea to Sir Thomas More’s house, drop in to dinner, and walk afterwards in the garden, his arms about More’s neck. More’s son-in-law, Roper, records it with delight. But More knew just what all this was worth, and that his head would count with the king for nothing against a French city or citadel, say. It is not so with Christ. “Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them to the end.”
The Divine love does not fail when man fails
Mr. Slosh said: “A father teaching his child about the unchanging piety and love of God, said: ‘I knew a little boy who received a canary from a friend as a present. The bird seemed to fill that boy’s heart. He was intensely fond of it, and every morning he was delighted to listen to its singing. One morning no note proceeded from the cage. The bird was standing panting upon its perch, its feathers all ruffled. The little boy sat upon his chair and sobbed as if his heart would break.’ The lesson taught the little child was this--Do you think he loved the bird any less that morning when he could not sing? No, he loved it when it was joyfully singing on its perch, but he loved it that morning when it could not sing. When it sang it filled him with joy and delight, but when it was ill he loved it all the more though its condition caused him pain.” So, too, God loved us at all times.
The changeless Friend
So long as there is blossom on the trees, and boney in the blossom, the bees will frequent them in crowds, and fill the place with music; but when the blossom is over, and the honey is gone, the bees too will disappear. The same happens in the world with men. In the abode of fortune and pleasure friends will be found in plenty; but when fortune flies, they fly along with it. For this reason, let good men be advised to fly to Christ crucified, who never forsakes, in their distress, those who truly seek Him. (Gotthold.)
The faithfulness of Jesus
Consider these words
I. IN THEIR RELATION TO THE APOSTLES. The words “having loved His own,” are a brief but complete summary of the Saviour’s conduct. He loved them with a love of pity when He saw their lost estate, and He called them out of it to be His disciples; touched with a feeling of their infirmities He loved them with a tender and prudent affection, and sought to train and educate them, that they might be good soldiers of His cross; He loved them with a love of complacency as He walked and talked with them and found solace in their company. Even when He rebuked them He loved. On Tabor or in Gethsemane He loved His own; alone or in the crowd, in life and in death. Our Saviour’s faithfulness was
1. Most remarkable. He had selected persons who must have been but poor companions for one of so gigantic a mind and so large a heart.
(1) He must have been greatly shocked at their worldliness. He was thinking of the baptism wherewith He was to be baptized, but they were disputing which should be the greatest. When He warned them of an evil leaven, they thought of the loaves. Earthworms are miserable company for angels, moles but unhappy company for eagles, yet love made our great Master endure the society of His ignorant and carnal followers.
(2) Worse was the apparent impossibility of lifting them out of that low condition; for though never man spake as He spake, how little did they understand! “Have I been so long time with you,” etc. No teacher here could have had patience with such heavy intellects, but our Lord’s love remained, notwithstanding.
(3) When we love a person, we expect him to have some little sympathy in the great design and aim of our life; yet our Lord loved disciples who could not be brought to enter at all into the spirit which governed Him. Had they dared, they would rather have thwarted than assisted Him in His self-sacrificing mission. Still, this could not prevent Him from loving them unto the end.
(4) On one or two occasions certain of them were even guilty of impertinence. Peter took Him and began to rebuke Him. But after rebuking a temptation which was evidently Satanic, His affection to Peter remained unabated.
(3) That was a stern trial, too, when at a later period “all the disciples forsook Him and fled.” Carrying the text beyond its original position, Christ, who had loved His own, loved them to the end.
2. Christ proved His love
(1) By His continual companionship. You would not expect a master to find rest in the society of his scholars; and yet herein was love, that Jesus, passing by angels, and kings, and sages, chose for His companions unlettered men and women.
(2) By being always ready to instruct them, and His love is shown as clearly in what He kept back from them as in what He revealed. How loving to dwell so often upon the simpler truths, and the more practical precepts; it was as though a senior wrangler should sit down in the family and teach boys and girls their alphabet day after day.
(3) By rendering every kind of assistance. Whensoever they were in trouble, He was their willing and able friend--when the sea roared; when Peter’s wife’s mother was sick; when one of His dearest friends was dead and buried.
(4) By comforting them when He foresaw that they would be cast down; especially was this true at the period before His passion--when one would have thought He might have sought for comfort, He was busy distributing it.
(5) By constantly pleading for them. Ere the poison was injected by the old serpent, the antidote was at hand. “Satan hath desired,” etc.
(6) By washing their feet.
II. IN THEIR RELATION TO ALL HIS SAINTS. We read that our Lord “Came unto His own,” etc.
the word is neuter--his own things; but in this instance it is masculine--his own persons. A man may part with his own things; sell his own house, cattle, merchandise; but a man cannot part with his own when it relates to persons, his own child, wife, father. Our own relatives are real property, perpetual possession. Jesus has just such a property in His own people--they are forever near of kin to Him. These He “loved to the end.” The text opens three windows.
1. As to the past. He has loved His own people from of old; eternally. This everlasting love has a speciality about it. Our Lord has a general love of benevolence towards all His creatures; but He has a special place in His heart for His own peculiar ones.
(1) Jesus loved His people with a foresight of what they would be. He knew that “His own” would fall in Adam; that they would be hard to reclaim and difficult to retain; and yet He loved His own over the head of all their sins. On their highest Tabors He loves them, but equally as well in their Gethsemanes; when they wander, and when they come back.
(2) This love is more than a passion, it is a settled principle, not subject to changes like terrestrial things.
(3) This love has been attested by many deeds. By the fact that He stood surety for us when the covenant was made, and entered into stipulations on our behalf that He would fulfil the broken law, and offer satisfaction to the justice of God. In the fulness of time he took upon Himself our nature, lived a life of blameless service, died a death into which all the weight of Divine vengeance for sin was compressed. Now that He lives exalted in the highest heaven, He is still His people’s servant, interceding for them, representing them, preparing a place for them, and by His Spirit fetching them out from mankind, and preparing them for the place which He has prepared.
2. The second window looks out upon the present. “Which were in the world.” It does not seem an extraordinary thing that Jesus should love His own who are in heaven. Well may Jesus love them, for there is much beauty in them. But Jesus loves you working men that have to work with so many bad fellows, you tradesmen who have to go in among many who shock you, you good work girls, who meet with so many tempters. He sees your imperfection, He knows what you have to struggle with, and He loves you notwithstanding all. Again, as the sparks fly upwards, so were we born to trouble. But Jesus loves His own which are in this dolorous world: this is the balm of our griefs.
3. The third window looks out to the future. “Unto the end.”
(1) To the utmost end of their unloveliness. Their sinfulness cannot travel so far but His love will travel beyond it; their unbelief even shall not be extended to so great a length but His faithfulness shall still be wider and broader than their unfaithfulness.
(2) To the end of all their needs. They may need more than this world can hold, and all that heaven can give, but Jesus will go to the end of all their necessities, and even beyond them, for He is “able to save to the uttermost.”
(3) To the end of their lives.
(4) To the end of His own life. Until the eternal God shall die, His love shall never depart from any one of His beloved. Conclusion: If Jesus Christ thus loves to the end
1. How ought we to persevere in our love to Him.
2. Let us not indulge the wicked thought that He will forsake us.
3. What a misery it must be to be without such a Saviour! (C. H.Spurgeon.)
And supper being ended.--The translation should probably be, “And it now becoming supper time.” As a matter of fact the supper was not ended (Joh_13:12; Joh_13:26); but they had already reclined, and were, as we say, ready for supper. (Archdeacon Watkins.)
Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands
The great gift
A gift
I. FROM THE SOVEREIGN OF ALL.
II. INCLUDING ALL THINGS.
III. TO THE SAVIOUR OF ALL. (S. S. Times.)
I. THE GIVER.
II. THE GIFT.
III. THE RECIPIENT. (S. S. Times.)
And that He was come from God and went to God
Extremes in Christ’s life
This sublime declaration is but the preface to what follows, and nothing more startling at first sight can be found in all literature.
I. CHRIST POSSESSED ALL THINGS, and yet He washed His disciples’ feet. What has the possession of boundless wealth to do with such menial service? We could imagine a Rothschild sweeping His own room, but would it occur to us to connect with that act, as a reason, the fact of his immense riches? The explanation lies in what this feet washing meant--the pardon and sanctification of Christ’s disciples through His atonement. To this “all things” were necessary, and the absence of one Divine prerogative would have marred the work. Christ required all wisdom, all justice, all power, all love, and all influence over the widest reach of human souls.
II. CHRIST CAME FROM GOD, and yet He washed His disciples’ feet--as wonderful a conjunction as the previous one. We could imagine an ambassador of the highest rank relieving his lacquey of some humble duty and discharging it himself--but we should hardly refer to his office for a reason. But Christ’s mission was expressly to do what the feet washing meant. His one motive for visiting this world was to cleanse and sanctify His disciples’ souls.
III. CHRIST WAS GOING TO GOD, and yet He washed His disciples’ feet--an equally strange conjunction. We can imagine a sovereign, just before his return from some distant province, rendering some humble but kindly service to a peasant, but we should never dream of saying that he did this because he was going to his capital. But Christ went to heaven because He had done that which was symbolized by the feet washing. He came for that purpose; that purpose being accomplished, there was no further reason for Him to stay. And in going He went to His rest and His reward. Lessons:
1. Christ’s work is an individual work, and shows the value of individual souls. Christ had all things, He came, He went for every man’s cleansing--for mine.
2. What is true of Christ is in a sense true of every disciple. God has given us all we have, time, talents, money, influence, etc.; we have come from God; we shall go to God--what for? The salvation of men. God has endowed us with ability for it, has sent us to do it, will hold us accountable for it at the great day.
3. The “knowledge” of all this should beget a due sense of the blessedness, dignity, and responsibility of Christian discipleship. (J. W. Burn.)
Christ’s mission
I. ITS ORIGIN--“from God.”
II. ITS QUALIFICATIONS--“all things.”
III. ITS DESTINY--“to God.” (J. W. Burn.)
He riseth from supper.--The minuteness with which every action of our Lord is related here is very Striking. No less than seven distinct things are named--rising, laying aside garments, taking a towel, girding Himself, pouring water into a bason, washing and wiping. This very particularity stamps the whole transaction with reality, and is the natural language of an astonished and admiring eyewitness. St. John saw the whole transaction. (Bp. Ryle.)
He poureth water into a bason and began to wash the disciples’ feet.
Jesus teaching humility
Christ taught humility by precept--“He that humbleth himself shall be exalted;” by metaphor, as in the parable of the Pharisee and Publican; by illustration, as when he set a little child in the midst; and, as here, by his own most blessed example. Note
I. HUMILITY IN ITS CHARACTERISTIC UNSELFISHNESS. Pride is essentially selfish; humility “seeketh not its own, but another’s good.” Where shall we find a more beautiful or touching example than that introduced by Joh_13:1?
II. THE DEEPEST HUMILITY IS CONSISTENT WITH THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE. Many Christians regard full assurance of salvation as having a tendency to spiritual pride. They are afraid to say “Jesus is mine, and I am His,” lest it should savour of presumption. There is a false assurance which founds itself upon feeling, or imagined revelations, rather than upon the testimony of the word of God, and which by its blatant self-assertion has tended to bring assurance into contempt. But where assurance is the result of a simple faith in the promises, it produces in the soul the fruits of genuine humility. Just when Jesus was at the zenith of spiritual exaltation (Joh_13:3), He bowed Himself to His lowly task.
III. TRUE HUMILITY EXPRESSES ITSELF NOT IN WORDS, BUT IN DEEDS. Our Lord uses no words of self-abasement. In majestic silence He proceeds with His lowly but loving task. There is a form of so-called humility which expends itself in words of idle self-depreciation. This never becomes so clamorous as when any humble service is to be rendered or any modest testimony borne. They are not presumptuous enough to make a public confession of Christ, to teach a Sabbath school class, to visit a family in poverty, etc. It is easy to see that this is a thin veil for self-indulgence and pride. True humility expresses itself not in unfavourable comparisons of ourselves with others, but in whole-hearted devotion to the interests of others. This was the humility of Him who, “though He was in the form of God,” etc.
IV. THE SERVICE WHICH TRUE HUMILITY RENDERS IS NOT SPECTACULAR AND SCENIC, BUT UNOBTRUSIVE AND HELPFUL. The simple rite of hospitality observed by our Lord became the occasion of many a splendid pageant in later days. But let him who would follow our Lord’s example not imagine that he can do so by a literal observance of a rite th
