The Body of Christ, the Feet of Christ

 

The feet washing of John 13 leads us into the Holy of Holies of John 17, our perfected unity and oneness in the Holy Trinity, bathing in the glory of our Father and Lord Jesus – resulting in an ultimate declaration to the world and all creation that the Father sent the Son and loved us as He has loved the Son (John 17:20 – 26). We might say that Revelation chapters 21 and 22 are the outworking of John 17; just as we might say that John chapters 13 – 16 lead us up and into John 17. We might also say that John chapters 1 – 12 lead us from the Incarnation to the INCARNATION of chapters 13 – 21, meaning that the grain of wheat falling into the ground is bringing forth much fruit (Jn. 12:24).

 

In Ephesians 1:3 – 12, as in Colossians 1:9 – 20, Paul gives us an eternal cosmic perspective, a perspective which the author of Hebrews 11 emphasizes is a characteristic of godly faith – faith which is always and ever “looking unto Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2) and which touches and lives in the communion of the saints (Hebrews 12:18 – 24).

 

In Ephesians 2:11 – 22 and 4:1 – 16 we have portrayals of the Temple of God, One New Man, and the Body of Christ; then in Ephesians 5:22 – 32 we have the image of the Bridegroom and the Bride – these are ever present cosmic eternal realities that are transcendent in Christ, spanning heaven and earth and time and space as we sit in the heavenlies in Him (Eph. 2:6).

 

Then we have this statement in 1 Cor. 12:12, “For even as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.” Is it any wonder Paul writes like this? For Jesus said to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” (Acts 9:4). That is, to touch the members of the Body is to touch the Head of the Body.

 

And this, my friends, is what the feet washing of John 13 is about, it is about washing the feet of the Body of Christ – the Body which is “the fulness of Him who fills all in all” (Eph. 1:23b). These are the feet beneath which the Father has put “all things in subjection” (Eph. 1:22).

 

These are the feet of Psalm 110:1, the feet of Joshua 1:3 (can we hear the Father speaking to the Son?), the feet of Isaiah 60:13 and 14, the feet of Isaiah 52:7; Zech. 14:4; Mal. 4:3; Psa. 8:6…and more.

 

The feet are those parts of the Body that have contact with earth, and while the Body has been fully bathed in the Word and blood and water, while the Body has been fully sanctified and consecrated unto God our Father (Hebrews 10:10 – 14), those of us on pilgrimage on earth, throughout our generations, need our feet washed.

 

Hence we have both our continual cleansing (1 Jn. 1:7) and our specific confession (1 Jn. 1:9) of sins. Hence we have the washing of water with the word (Eph. 5:26). Hence we have feet washing, speaking the Word of cleansing, affirming forgiveness, speaking the Word of justification and sanctification and of glorification to one another in Christ (Rom. 8:29 – 30).

 

Visualize the Body of Christ, the communion of saints. If we conceive of this Body spatially, we see the Head in the heavens and the feet on earth. All that which is beyond the dust of earth need not be cleansed again for it does not have contact with the earth, but we in the here and now, we who are on the earth – O how we need our daily and continual cleansing and refreshing – for while we have been fully bathed in Christ Jesus, we nevertheless walk in the dust of the earth.

 

And this means that when we wash feet, when we touch our brother or sister with water and towel, that we are touching so much more than the physical feet of a brother or sister (as holy as that person and that touch indeed is in Christ!) – but we are also touching the feet of the Body of Christ – the feet of the transcendent and indwelling Christ.

 

Jesus’ teaching in the Upper Room of the indwelling Trinity, of our union with the Trinity and with one another in the Trinity, and the subsequent coming of God to live in His Temple at Pentecost, lead us to this holy awareness.

 

Is it any wonder that Jesus said, “What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter”? (Jn. 13:7)