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Joh_13:14-15. It is not the act itself, but its moral essence, which, after His example, He enjoins upon them to exercise. This moral essence, however, consists not in lowly and ministering love generally, in which Jesus, by washing the feet of His disciples, desired to give them an example, but, as Joh_13:10 proves, in the ministering love which, in all self-denial and humility, is active for the moral purification and cleansing of others. As Jesus had just set forth this ministering love by His own example, when He, although their Lord and Master, performed on the persons of His disciples the servile duty of washing their feet,—as an emblem, however, of the efficacy of His love to purify them spiritually,—so ought they to wash one another’s feet; i.e. with the same self-denying love to be reciprocally serviceable to one another with a view to moral purification. The interpretation of the prescription ὀφείλετε , κ . τ . λ ., in the proper sense was not that of the apostolical age, but first arose at a later time, and was followed (first in the fourth century, comp. Ambrose, de sacram. Joh_3:1; Augustine, ad Januar. cp. 119) by the introduction of the washing of the feet of the baptized on Maundy Thursday, and other symbolical feet-washings (later also amongst the Mennonites and in the community of Brothers). 1Ti_5:10 contains the non-ritualistic reference to hospitality. The feet-washing by the Pope on Maundy Thursday is a result of the pretension to represent Christ, and as such, also, was strongly condemned by the Reformers. Justly, however, the church has not adopted the feet-washing into the number of the sacraments; for it is not the practice itself, but only the spiritual action, which it thoughtfully represents, that Jesus enjoined upon the disciples. And it is solely to this moral meaning that the promise in Joh_13:17 is attached; and hence the essential marks of the specific sacramental idea, corresponding to the essence of baptism and of the Supper—sacramental institution, promise, and collative force—are wanting to it. This in answer to Böhmer, in the Stud. u. Krit. 1850, p. 829 ff., who designates it an offence against Holy Scripture, that the Protestant church has not recognised the feet-washing as a sacrament, which, outside the Greek church,[128] it was explained to be by Bernard of Clairvaux (“Sacramentum remissionis peccatorum quotidianorwn”), without any permanent result. Baeumlein also expresses himself in favour of the maintenance of the practice as a legacy of Christ. But its essence is preserved, where the love, from which the practice flowed, abides. Nonnus aptly designates the καθὼς ἐγὼ , κ . τ . λ . as ἸΣΟΦΥῈς ΜΊΜΗΜΑ . The practice itself, moreover, cannot in truth be carried out either everywhere, or at all times, or by all, or on all.
ἘΓῺ … ΚΑῚ ὙΜΕῖς ] Argumentum a majori ad minus. The majus implied in ἐγώ is further, by means of the subjoined Ὁ ΚΎΡΙΟς Κ . Ὁ ΔΙΔΙΆΣΚ ., brought home with special force to the mind, and therefore, also, the principal moment, Ὁ ΚΎΡΙΟς (comp. Joh_13:16), is here moved forward.
ὑπόδειγμα ] Later expression, instead of the old ΠΑΡΆΔΕΙΓΜΑ . Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 12.
ἵνα , κ . τ . λ .] Design in setting the example: that, as I have done to you (“in genere actus,” Grotius), you also may do, namely, in ministering to one another in self-denying love for the removal of all sinful contamination, as I, for my part, have just figuratively fulfilled in your case, in the symbol of the feet-washing, this very ministering love directed to your moral purification.
[128] In which it has been preserved as a custom in monasteries.