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Joh_13:20. And for the furtherance and confirmation of this your fidelity in the faith, which, in spite of the treason arising from your midst, must not vacillate, I say to you, that ye may confidently go forward to meet your calling as my ambassadors (Joh_20:21). The high and blessed position of my ambassadors remains so unimpaired, that whoever accepts them accepts me, etc. The more, however, that Jesus could not but apprehend a disheartening impression from the treason on the rest of the disciples, the more earnestly ( ἀμὴν , ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμ .) does He introduce this encouragement. Comp. Calvin: Christ would “offendiculo mederi;” and Grotius: “ostendit ministeria ipsis injuncta non caritura suis solatiis.” The antithesis of the treason to the dignity of the apostolic circle (Hilgenfeld) He certainly does not mean to assert, so self-evident was this antithesis. But neither do the words serve to confirm the πιστεύσ ., ὅτι ἐγώ εἰμι (Ebrard); to this the first half of the verse is not appropriate, in which, indeed, Godet, without any justification, would wish to give to the simple ἐάν τινα the limiting sense: He among you, who is really my ambassador. Further: to join Joh_13:20 with Joh_13:16-17 (Lampe, Storr, Klee, Maier, Hengstenberg, comp. Brückner) is an arbitrary construction, which Kuinoel aggravates by explaining the words as a gloss from Mat_10:40, added to Joh_13:16, and which subsequently entered the text in the wrong place, as Lücke also has revived the suspicion of a gloss (from Luk_9:48). The absence of connection, employed by Strauss as an argument against the originality, is external, but not in the sequence of the thought itself; and besides, the emotion and agitation of Jesus are here to be taken into consideration. Only in view of the manifest identity of the saying with that of Mat_10:40, we are not to explain it in an essentially different sense (Luthardt explains of the sending of those needing the ministry of love to the disciples). But to drag in here the dispute about rank, which Luk_22:24 ff. places after the supper (Baeumlein), is groundless, and of no use in the way of explanation.
NOTE.
The story of the feet-washing, Joh_13:1-20,—after 13 retschneider, Fritzsche, and Strauss had rejected it as a mythical invention, whilst Weisse had recognised only individual portions in it as genuine,—has been justly defended by Schweizer, p. 164 ff., in conformity with its stamp of truth and originality, which throughout indicates the eye-witness; in opposition to which, Baur can only recognise a free formation out of synoptical material (see on Joh_13:2-5) in the service of the idea, as also Hilgenfeld, comp. Scholten. The non-mention of the occurrence in the Synoptics is explained from the fact that with them the situation is quite different, and the main point is the institution of the Supper.