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)

 

 

But You Are Clean

 

“He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean…” (John 13:10a).

 

What does Jesus mean, “…and you are clean…”?

 

Let’s observe that this cleansing took place prior to Jesus’ crucifixion, death, and resurrection. I point this out not to explain it, but simply to remind us that the transcendence of the slain Lamb is indeed transcendent, that is, it radiates through and beyond and into dimensions that dwarf our chronological thinking and experience. Even when God shows us a door open in heaven, and says to us, “Come up here,” (Rev. 4:1) our propensity is to remain on the first floor of our house and not venture into the unknown, even when that unknown is in Jesus Christ.

 

A bit later in the Upper Room Jesus says, “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” (Jn. 15:3). Jesus says this when teaching us about the Vine and the branches; we cannot bear fruit unless we abide in Him, and apart from Him we can do nothing. There is a connection, a dynamic, between abiding in Christ and His Word, and between cleansing in Christ and His Word – for after all, Jesus Christ is the Word of God (John 1:1). Our redemption and cleansing and restoration and abiding in Him is redemption and cleansing and restoration and abiding in His Word – not a “word” of ink and paper or electronic images, but rather the living Word of God in Christ.

 

Again, we touch the transcendent in Christ and it is more than we can comprehend, but it is not more than we can experience in Him, for after all, God has made us coheirs with Christ – Jesus Christ is our inheritance and our ever-present life.

 

The Word which Jesus has been speaking to His disciples has been doing a cleansing work within them, it has been bathing them, washing the bodies of their souls, purifying their minds. Now to be sure, as we considered in the previous reflection, their actions will shortly tell us another story, for they will desert Him and deny Him – but things are not as they appear to be, for what Jesus has worked within them is stronger than their momentary fears and desire for self-preservation. Therefore, Jesus can say, “Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You; for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they have believed that You sent Me.” (Jn. 17:7 – 8).

 

What else can we learn about this cleansing with the Word? Consider Paul’s teaching to the Ephesians (5:25 – 27):

 

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.”

 

Here again we see Christ washing His People with His Word. But do we also see His People washing one another with His Word? Do we also see ourselves following Jesus’ sacramental example in John 13, in the washing of feet?

 

In the context of Ephesians 5:25 – 27 we do indeed see feet washing with the Word, for in 5:18 – 21 we read that we are to be filled with the Spirit, and “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord…and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.”

 

Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs are to be songs of the Word, songs expressing the Word (unlike so many of our songs today). Perhaps we see this clearer in what Paul wrote to the Colossians (3:14 – 16):

 

“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”

 

As Jesus cleanses us with the washing of water by the Word, in Him we wash one another’s feet with that same Word. Jesus alone gives us our bath in totality and finality, “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet” (Jn. 13:10), but we are called in Him to continue the washing, the cleansing, the giving of the Word to one another as His body.

 

This brings us back to the question we asked in earlier reflections, “What does the washing of feet in the Upper Room mean?” Recall that Jesus says, “What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter” (Jn. 13:7). The washing of feet is about so much more than servant leadership, it is an invitation and calling into the koinonia of the Trinity in which we sacramentally wash one another’s feet with the Living and Abiding Word of God, in which we renew one another in Christ as we mutually live in Him – the Word.

 

(Also, please see Psalm 19:7 – 14 for a description of how the Word works within us, as well, of course, Hebrews 4:12-13).

 

But, is this our experience of church life? Are Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3 the norm? O dear friends, how we cheapen 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12 and Ephesians 4:11 – 16 with gift assessments, substituting the things of the natural man for the Spirit of God (see 1 Cor. 1:17 – 2:16). And let’s make no mistake, there are some gift assessments that take its users into things of darkness and self-absorption.

 

Show me a church living in the Word, in the expression of the above Bible passages, and then I will ask you, “Do these people really need such and such gift assessment?” For let me assure you that without living in the Word, no gift assessment will make dry bones live. And let me also assure you, than when Christ is the Head of the Body, and the Body is living organically in Him, that Christ is well able to lead us in the things of the Holy Spirit and into places beyond our imaginations.

 

The Holy Spirit and the Body of Christ are where gifts and callings are recognized and confirmed, forged in relationships, worked out in the ebb and flow of church life – in highs and lows, in sorrows and in joys, in victories and defeats, in seasons of faith and those of uncertainty.

 

O the glory of sacramental feet washing!

 

But there is more to this than what we’ve touched upon, we’ll attempt to go farther out and further in as we continue to look at feet washing in the next reflection in this series.