IV. Jesus’ Self-Revelation to the Disciples (13:1–17:26)

In the next five chapters Jesus speaks again, this time to his disciples after a last meal in Jerusalem, preparing them for his departure from the world. His discourse in two parts (13:36–14:31 and 15:1–16:33) overcomes the scandal of his departure with promises of his return and of the coming of the Advocate, or Spirit of truth, bringing joy, peace, and answered prayer. This time the transition to the next major section (comparable to the earlier transitions at 3:31–36 and 12:44–50) is longer, taking the form of Jesus’ prayer to the Father (17:1–26), spoken as if in private, with the disciples no longer present. In this way the stage is set for the chain of events leading to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection (chapters 18–21).

A. Jesus at Supper (13:1–20)

1Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come that he should be taken out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2And while supper was going on, the devil having already put it into the heart so that Judas Iscariot of Simon might hand him over, 3knowing that the Father had given him all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, 4he rises from the supper and lays his garments down, and, taking a towel, girded himself. 5Then he pours water into the basin, and he began to wash the feet of the disciples and wipe with the towel with which he was girded. 6So he comes to Simon Peter, [who] says to him, “You, Lord, are washing my feet?” 7Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” 8Peter says to him, “You shall never ever wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” 9Simon Peter says to him, “Lord, not my feet only, but also the hands and the head!” 10Jesus says to him, “The person who has bathed does not have need to wash, except for the feet, but is clean all over, and you men are clean—but not all of you.” 11For he knew the one who was handing him over. That is why he said that “You are not all clean.”

12So, when he had washed their feet, he took his garments and reclined again. He said to them, “Do you understand what I have done for you? 13You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and you say well, for I am. 14So now that I, the Teacher and the Lord, washed your feet, you too ought to wash each other’s feet. 15For I have given you an example, so that just as I did for you, you too might do. 16Amen, amen, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his lord, nor is a messenger greater than the person who sent him. 17Now that you understand these things, blessed are you if you do them. 18I am not speaking about all of you. I know which ones I chose. But the Scripture must be fulfilled, ‘The one who eats my bread lifted up his heel against me.’ 19From now on I tell you before it happens, so that when it happens you might believe that I am. 20Amen, amen, I say to you, the person who receives whomever I send receives me, and the person who receives me receives the One who sent me.”

A new major section of the Gospel of John begins with two breathless sentences (v. 1 and vv. 2–4), gathering up a number of themes both from what has preceded and what follows, in order to set the stage for a dramatic action on Jesus’ part. These themes involve Jesus “knowing”1 certain things in advance: first, “that his hour had come that he should be taken out of this world to the Father” (v. 1), and second, “that the Father had given him all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God” (v. 3). These were things already evident to the reader (see 3:35; 7:29, 33; 8:42), as was the thought that Judas would “hand him over” (v. 2) and that Jesus knew that as well (see 6:64, 71; 12:4).2 But what the reader has not heard before is the explicit statement that he “loved”3 his own who were “in the world” (v. 1b). It is his love which he now demonstrates by a specific loving act. He rises from supper, takes off his garment, girds himself with a towel, and washes the disciples’ feet (vv. 4–5). In response to Simon Peter’s protest, he explains why he must wash their feet, and only their feet (not the whole body), in the same breath hinting at what Judas will do by reminding them, “You are not all clean” (vv. 6–11). Then he puts his garment back on, takes his place again at the table (v. 12b), explaining his action as an example to his disciples (vv. 12–17), that they ought to “wash each other’s feet” (v. 14). After this he cites a biblical text warning of possible betrayal or treachery (vv. 18–19). Finally, he articulates again the notion of agency (see 12:44–45), applying it both to the disciples as his agents (in that they follow his example), and to himself as agent of the Father who sent him (v. 20).

1 The first verse serves as a kind of heading to the whole chapter, if not to the whole of chapters 13–17. The two participles, “knowing” and “having loved,” set the stage for the main verb of the sentence, “he loved,” calling attention to what he will do next (see vv. 4–5). The notice that this was “before the festival of the Passover” implies “just before” the Passover was to start, updating earlier notices that “the Passover of the Jews was near” (11:55), that it was “six days before the Passover” (12:1), and then “the next day” (12:12). Jesus has by now gone into hiding (12:36, 44–50), and we are still not told where he is, only that he “knew” what was coming and that he “loved” his disciples. That he knew “his hour had come” is evident because he has said so (12:23, 27). His knowledge that this would mean being “taken out of this world to the Father” is almost as explicit, for he told the Pharisees, “Yet a short time I am with you, and I go to the One who sent me” (7:33), reminded his disciples that “the poor you always have with you, but me you do not always have” (12:8), and at the end told the crowd, “Yet a short time the Light is in you” (12:35).

What he has not said before, and what the Gospel writer has never quite told us explicitly, is that he “loved” his disciples, or that viewed them as “his own.”4 We have heard that God “loved” the world (3:16), that the Father “loves” the Son (3:35; 5:20), that the disciples were the Father’s gift to the Son (6:37, 39), that Jesus “chose” them (6:70) and valued them as “greater than all things” (10:29), even that he “loved” certain individuals (Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, 11:5), but never in so many words that he “loved” his disciples as a group. Perhaps most important was the notice that he “chose” them (6:70), for, as we have seen, “love” in the Gospel of John is often a matter of choice or preference (see, for example, 3:19; 12:43). Jesus’ love for his disciples (“the Twelve” in particular) has been expressed in the first half of the Gospel in his choice of them as “his own,” signaled metaphorically by the image of “the shepherd of the sheep” summoning “his own sheep” by name and leading them out of the courtyard (10:3). The expressions “his own sheep” and “all his own” (10:4) in that passage, and “his own” in the present one, stand in apparent contrast to the principle stated in the beginning that Jesus “came to what was his own, and his own5 did not receive him” (1:11). Yet that negative verdict, as we have seen, was immediately qualified by the notice that some of “his own” did in fact “receive him” (1:12), evidently because it was “given” to them to do so (see 3:27; 6:65). It is “his own” in this sense who now claim Jesus’ attention—and his love.6

The text makes two things clear: first, that Jesus had “loved his own” all along, and, second, that he (now) “loved them to the end.” “To the end”7 can be either temporal (as the translation implies) or qualitative (“to the utmost,” or to the greatest extent possible). Both nuances fit the context, and both may well be intended.8 Yet the obvious contrast between Jesus being about to be taken “out of this world” and his disciples being still “in the world” suggests that a separation is imminent. This, together with the explicit statement that “his hour had come,” suggests that the temporal meaning, “to the end,” or “to the very last, is primary.9 Jesus would love his disciples right up to the moment he was to be taken from them—as he will shortly demonstrate.

2 The second sentence is much longer (vv. 2–4), and begins the narrative proper in that it concludes by describing a specific action of Jesus (v. 4).10 Having set the time “before the festival of the Passover” (v. 1), the writer now sets the occasion (although very vaguely) as “while supper was going on” (v. 2).11 What supper? Where? We are not told. Obviously if this is “before the festival of the Passover,” it is not the Passover meal. In contrast to the supper at Bethany (12:2), no circumstances are given. It is relegated to a subordinate clause.

The next subordinate clause does give “circumstances” of sorts, but they are not the kind that would have been visible to an observer at the scene: “the devil having already put it into the heart so that Judas Iscariot of Simon12 might hand him over.” This is something only an omniscient narrator could know, building on Jesus’ remark long before in Galilee that “one of you is ‘the devil’ ” (6:70). As the text stands,13 it is unclear into whose heart the devil put the idea14 that Judas would “hand over” Jesus—into Judas’s heart, or into his own (that is, that the devil “made up his mind” that Judas would hand Jesus over). While the notion of putting something into one’s heart (in the sense of deciding or making up one’s mind) is attested in Hebrew and in biblical Greek,15 it seems odd that the writer would explore the thought processes of the devil!

Whichever is meant, the point is the same: Judas will fulfill the devil’s purpose. The notice here anticipates the comment later in the chapter (“after the morsel”) that “then Satan entered into him” (v. 27). Far from contradicting the latter,16 “already” underscores the inevitability of what Judas will shortly do. “Already” does not mean “just now,” but takes us back to a time well before the supper even began. This may be a tacit acknowledgement that Judas’s plans with the Jewish authorities were already in place, as we are explicitly told in the other Gospels (see Mk 14:10–11//Mt 26:14–16//Lk 22:3–6).17 Within John’s Gospel itself, the notice takes us back to when Jesus first identified Judas as “the devil” (6:70), calling him “the devil” because he would be the devil’s agent and fulfill the devil’s purpose. Here the writer confirms that the devil’s purpose was indeed that Judas would “hand over” Jesus to the authorities, and, finally (v. 27), we will see him beginning to do exactly that. As we have seen, “hand over”18 is, in itself, a neutral term (see 6:64, 71; 12:4), but now it is identified explicitly as the devil’s own purpose, to that extent justifying the more common translation as “betray,” and the common designation of Judas as “the betrayer” or “traitor.”

3 Again, building up to a simple and straightforward description of Jesus’ actions at this supper (vv. 4–5), the Gospel writer reminds us of the full extent of what Jesus “knew.” The participle “knowing”19 echoes the same word in the chapter heading (v. 1), so as to frame the chapter’s first three verses. In the chapter heading, Jesus knew “that his hour had come that he should be taken out of this world to the Father” (v. 1); here he knew “that the Father had given him all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God” (v. 3). The second “knowing” confirms the first, while expanding its horizons to look at Jesus’ world-encompassing authority (see 3:35; 17:2), and at his origin from God no less than his destiny with God (see 16:28). The effect is to put the act of girding himself with a towel and washing the disciples’ feet (vv. 4–5) into a cosmic perspective by reminding us who it is who undertakes this simple act of service. It is not simply a host showing kindness to his guests, nor even an authority figure known as “Teacher” and “Lord” (v. 13), but it is One to whom “all things” have been given, One who is “from God,” and on his way back “to God.”20 And while there is no verifiable link between this passage (or the event it narrates) and Philippians 2:5–11, it is not difficult to see why interpreters have often viewed Jesus’ action here as a paradigm for “being in the form of God,” yet “taking the form of a slave” (2:6–7), only to be exalted again to Lordship over all things.

4 With the stage so elaborately set, what follows next becomes a kind of acted parable of what the Christian gospel—this Gospel in particular—is all about: “the Word” coming in human flesh (1:14), or “the good Shepherd” laying down his life and receiving it back again (10:17–18). The Gospel writer moves on, now with great economy of language, as the main verbs of a long sentence (vv. 2–4) finally make their appearance. Jesus “rises from the supper21 and lays his garments down, and, taking a towel, girded himself” (v. 4). When his work is done, he will reverse those actions: “So, when he had washed their feet, he took his garments and reclined again” (v. 12). Placed side by side, the two notices recall, even verbally, the “Shepherd” discourse, where Jesus said, “I lay down my life, that I might receive it back again” (10:17).22 In this way, all that comes between—the footwashing itself—hints at Jesus’ death for “his own” (v. 1), and his departure “to the Father” (v. 1) or “to God” (v. 3). In this way, the Gospel of John accomplishes with a narrative what Mark and Matthew accomplish with a pronouncement: “For even the Son of man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mk 10:45). Yet the writer is content to let the death of Jesus remain implicit here, just as it remained implicit in the account of Mary anointing Jesus’ feet at the earlier “supper” in Bethany (see 12:3–8). The narrative here bears comparison to the Bethany anointing in other ways as well, not least in its abruptness.23 Why does Jesus interrupt the meal (v. 2), instead of performing his act of service when the guests arrived (as a host might normally do), or at the beginning of the meal?24 In contrast to the anointing story, where no explanation was given of why Mary did what she did, the answer has been given here—somewhat mysteriously—in the first three verses. All the participles about what Jesus “knew,” how much he “loved,” and what the devil was up to combine to make the point that the moment for action came in the middle of the meal. There is a note of urgency here, as there is in much that will follow; for example, “What you do, do quickly” (v. 27); “Yet a short time I am with you” (v. 33); “Rise, let’s get out of here!” (14:31).

As for Jesus’ act of service itself, it is (as we have seen) as remarkable for its role reversal as Mary’s was for its extravagance. That it is by no means “normal” becomes evident both in Jesus’ comment to Peter (“What I am doing you do not know now,” v. 7) and in Peter’s instinctive reaction (v. 8). For a comparable role reversal, we must look to a Lukan parable, where Jesus exclaims, “Blessed are those slaves whom the lord will find watching when he comes. Amen, I say to you that he will gird himself and have them recline, and will come along and serve them” (Lk 12:37), or perhaps to Luke’s account of the last supper, where Jesus asks (without reference to his death), “Who is greater, the one who reclines or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines? But I am in your midst as the one who serves” (Lk 22:27). Any reader of Luke familiar with John’s Gospel might easily visualize Jesus in that passage washing the disciples’ feet. John’s Gospel instead uses the verb “to serve” only in connection with Jesus being “served” (see 12:2, 26), and describes Jesus’ own action not as generalized “serving,” but instead very concretely and ceremoniously, as “rising” from the table, “laying” aside his garments, “taking” a towel, and “girding” himself (as in Lk 12:37). Yet the effect is much the same. We are not explicitly told that Jesus “served,” but we are allowed to see him serving.

5 The sentence (vv. 2–4) has gone on long enough. Pausing for breath, the narrator continues, as we quickly learn what the towel was for: “Then he pours water into the basin, and he began to wash the feet of the disciples and wipe with the towel with which he was girded” (v. 5). In itself, the procedure was unremarkable. Footwashing by a host (if he was poor), or by the host’s slaves, was a gesture of hospitality. Slaves washed their masters’ feet after a journey, wives the feet of their husbands, disciples the feet of their teachers.25 If Jesus was in any sense the host of this “supper,” his action may not have been quite so extraordinary (despite Peter’s misgivings) as it is commonly represented. What was extraordinary, as we have seen, was the timing, and presumably the fact that Jesus had never done anything like this before.

6 Nothing is said of the washing of any of the disciples’ feet except Simon Peter’s. Whether Jesus came to him first, second, or last, in some sense Peter speaks for all the disciples (vv. 6–11), just as he did earlier when he said, “Lord, to whom shall we turn? You have words of life eternal, and we believe and we know that you are the Holy One of God” (6:68–69). He has not been heard from since, and all we are told now is that Jesus “comes to Simon Peter,” who “says to him, ‘You, Lord, are washing my feet?’ ” The placement of the personal pronouns accents each one, highlighting Peter’s incredulity; literally, “Lord, you? Of me?26 Washing the feet?”27 Clearly, Peter is scandalized. To him it is inappropriate that “the Holy One of God” should lower himself to perform such menial service for one so unworthy.

7 Jesus’ reply to Peter deserves close attention because it is his first utterance in this setting, the first since he promised that he had more to say (“so then the things I speak, just as the Father has told me, thus I speak,” 12:50). He takes no offense at Peter’s skepticism, but cautions him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand” (v. 7, my italics). Both “I” and “you” are emphatic, echoing (and perhaps gently mocking) Peter’s emphatic personal pronouns in addressing Jesus.28 “You” is singular, for Jesus is speaking to Peter alone even though his words apply just as well to all the disciples. Yet the comment is puzzling. What exactly does Peter “not understand now,” and how long “afterward,” or “after these things” will it be until he finally “understands”?29 The reader may recall the narrative aside at the triumphal entry, “These things his disciples did not understand at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about him and these things they did for him” (12:16; see also 2:22, “So, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that this was what he meant”). If these are the proper parallels,30 then what Peter does not understand is that Jesus is soon to be “taken out of this world to the Father,” and that when he has gone the meaning of what he has done will become clear—that is, that “having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (see v. 1). On such a reading, Peter seems to have less insight than the silent Mary of Bethany, whom Jesus credited with having kept her perfume “for the day of my burial,” because “me you do not always have” (12:7). Yet if Jesus had washed or anointed Mary’s feet instead of allowing her to anoint his, one has to wonder if her reaction might not have been the same as Peter’s. There is no way to know, but as the text stands, her silence is far more eloquent than Peter’s indignant question.

Another possibility is that “afterward” refers not solely to Jesus’ departure (or glorification as in 12:16, or resurrection as in 2:22), but to things closer at hand as well. A few verses later he will ask his disciples, “Do you understand what I have done for you?” (v. 12), and without waiting for an answer will explain to them their obligation to do for each other what he has just done for them (vv. 14–15), ending with a beatitude, “Now that you understand these things,31 blessed are you if you do them” (v. 17). Two chapters later, he will tell them, “I no longer say that you are slaves, because the slave does not know what his lord is doing, but I have said that you are friends, because everything I heard from my Father I made known to you” (15:15). Such texts suggest that “understanding” what Jesus has done—and will do—is a process, not something that comes in a magic moment of remembrance. There is more than one aspect to Jesus’ act of washing their feet, and they will not grasp it all at once. As we will see, in this Gospel the future, or “afterward,” has a way of imposing itself on the present (see 4:23; 5:25; 16:32), all the more now that Jesus’ final “hour” (v. 1) is under way.

8 Unwilling to wait for further illumination, Peter insists, “You shall never ever wash my feet!” (v. 8a). As in several other places, the combination of an emphatic negative32 with an expression meaning “forever”33 strengthens the assertion (in this case the denial) to the point of redundancy. All the other examples were on the lips of Jesus, promising eternal life,34 but on Peter’s lips they amount (though unintentionally) to a denial of life. Peter’s redundant “never ever” stands squarely against both the writer’s affirmation of Jesus’ love for his own “to the end” (v. 1), and Jesus’ promise of understanding “afterward” (v. 7). Jesus’ reply to Peter is equally blunt: “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me” (v. 8b). The “unless” clause recalls other such clauses in John’s Gospel (3:3, 5; 6:53; 8:24; 12:24) in which failure to accept what Jesus offers means failure to attain life or salvation. The expression “to have a part” or “a share”35 with someone is used negatively in Matthew and Luke, of “one’s part” being with either “the hypocrites” (Mt 24:51) or “the unfaithful” (Lk 12:46). In the book of Revelation, it is used both positively and negatively, as some have “a part in the first resurrection” (20:6), and others “in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” (21:8; compare 22:19).36 Quite simply, Jesus is telling Peter that refusing the love about to be displayed in the washing of his feet would simply prove that he was not one of Jesus’ “own who were in the world” (v. 1), but belonged instead to “the world” itself.37

9 Peter’s reply seems to take a comic turn, as he says, “Lord, not my feet only, but also the hands and the head!” (v. 9). If washing his feet will give him “a part” or “share” with Jesus in eternal life, how much more the cleansing of his whole body?38 On the face of it, it is difficult to tell whether Peter is being serious here, or ironic. Is he expressing his devotion to Jesus, or simply reducing the whole thing to an absurdity? We are reminded of Nicodemus, who replied to another of Jesus’ “unless” pronouncements by asking, “How can a person be born when he is old? Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?” (3:4). Or we might think of Peter himself in other Gospels who “did not know what he was saying” when at the transfiguration he proposed, “let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah” (Mk 9:5//Mt 16:4//Lk 9:33). The second is the more likely parallel. Throughout the Gospel tradition, Peter is known more for his naiveté than for irony. Mindless as it may be, his comment is probably sincere, and, more important, it gives Jesus the opportunity to make a point to all the disciples, and to the reader.

10 Jesus’ answer is still “to him,” that is, to Peter alone, but he then states a general principle (“The person who has bathed does not have need to wash, except for the feet, but is clean all over”), which he goes on to apply to “his own” who were present at the supper (“and you men39 are clean, but not all of you”). The meaning of the pronouncement hinges on a textual variant. A few ancient witnesses40 omit the entire phrase “except for the feet,”41 yielding a somewhat different thought: “The person who has bathed does not have need to wash, but is entirely clean.”42 Despite its weak attestation, this shorter reading has gained an impressive array of adherents.43 Their preference for it is based on two assumptions. First, it is assumed that the verbs for “bathed”44 and “wash”45 are synonymous, and not to be contrasted in any way.46 As Lindars puts it, “ ‘He who has washed does not need to wash, but is clean all over.’ In other words, there is no need to wash twice.”47 The phrase “except for the feet” only clouds the issue by implying that the person is not in fact “clean all over.”48 The second assumption is that Jesus’ act of washing the disciples’ feet is a decisive redemptive act (see v. 8, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me”), and therefore (in Barrett’s words) “not a secondary ‘washing’ subordinate to an initial ‘bath.’ ”49 By pointing to the same reality to which baptism points, redemption through the death of Jesus, footwashing becomes the Gospel of John’s equivalent of Christian baptism, for some perhaps solving the riddle of when and under what circumstances Jesus’ first disciples were baptized. From this, a kind of ambivalence toward the act of footwashing emerges. On the one hand, it is seen as primary and not secondary, essential to salvation, or so it would seem. But on the other, the outward act itself is dissolved into symbolism, turned into something other than what it is on the surface, the simple washing of feet.

How valid are these assumptions, and these conclusions drawn from the shorter reading? Are they sufficient to overturn the weight of manuscript evidence in favor of the longer reading?50 The difficulty with the notion that Jesus is pronouncing his disciples “clean” simply on the basis of the footwashing itself is the fact that as he speaks those words the footwashing is not yet complete! Peter has still not permitted Jesus to wash his feet, and we are not told how many of the other disciples (if any) have had their feet washed. Not until the notice is given, “So, when he had washed their feet, he took his garments and reclined again” (v. 12) do we learn that the footwashing is over. This suggests that Jesus’ disciples were “clean”51 not by virtue of the footwashing, but already before it began—in short, that a distinction is intended between “bathing” or taking a bath and “washing.”52 The former refers to bathing one’s whole body, and the latter to a partial washing, whether of the head, hands, or feet.53 Consequently, the phrase “except for the feet” is not only supported by stronger manuscript evidence, but is necessary to the logic of the pronouncement and the flow of the narrative. That Jesus is directly responding to Peter’s odd plea for a thorough washing of feet, hands and head (v. 9) is clear from the words “Jesus says to him” (v. 10), an expression little different from those used to introduce what he said to Peter before (vv. 7, 8b), and what Peter said to him (vv. 6, 8a). He simply continues the conversation, even while turning it toward the wider audience. Jesus replies to Peter not with a parable or proverb, but with an illustration from everyday life: “The person who has bathed”—whether at home or at a public bath—and then walked somewhere “does not have need to wash, except for the feet [which have picked up dust from the streets], but is clean all over.”54 Then he makes the application, not just to Peter but to all the disciples: “and you men are clean55—but not all of you.” They were “clean” even before the footwashing began, and consequently needed only to have their feet washed.

Was there a literal “bath” prior to the footwashing that made them “clean,” even “clean all over”? Baptism again comes to mind, because baptism seems to have been “about purification,”56 and because Jesus was said to have baptized quite successfully in Judea (3:22, 26), even “making and baptizing more disciples than John” (4:1). Yet Jesus says nothing of baptism here, nor does he even explicitly claim that his disciples have “bathed”—that belongs to the illustration, not the application. All he says is that they are “clean,” needing only the washing of their feet. What made them clean? The most plausible answer is found in the scene at Capernaum (6:60–71), where he had been “teaching in synagogue” (6:59). There he told his disciples, “The words I have spoken to you are spirit, and they are life” (6:63), yet “many” of them (6:60, 66) were offended and turned away. When he “said to the Twelve, ‘Do you want to go away too?’ ” Simon Peter spoke on their behalf, just as he does here: “Lord, to whom shall we turn? You have words of life eternal” (6:68), and declared their faith in him (v. 69). To this, Jesus replied, “Did I not choose you as the Twelve? And one of you is ‘the devil’ ” (6:70). Aside from the water and the basin, the scene matches the present one. The cast of characters was the same: Jesus, his disciples, Peter in particular, and in the background Judas, who “was going to hand him over” (6:71). As we have seen, the notice that Jesus “chose” his disciples (6:70) to be “the Twelve” was the clearest intimation up to now that he “loved his own who were in the world.” All that remained was to show that “he loved them to the end” (v. 1), and now he does just that by washing their feet. While nothing was said of water or of cleansing in the earlier passage, the “words” of Jesus as “spirit” and “life” (6:63), or as “life eternal” (6:68), surely hinted at the same realities to which the metaphor of water in this Gospel commonly points (see 3:5; 4:14; 7:39; 9:7). In any event, the link is confirmed two chapters later when Jesus will remind his disciples that “You are already clean,”57 not because of baptism nor even because of the footwashing, but “because of the word I have spoken to you” (15:3). While this “cleansing by the word” is doubtless viewed as an ongoing process in John’s Gospel, it seems to have had its beginning in the winnowing out of the doubtful and the consolidation of “the Twelve” at the synagogue in Capernaum. On that basis, Jesus is willing to pronounce his disciples “clean—but not all of you.”58

The last phrase, “but not all of you,”59 brings us up short. Exception is piled upon exception: first, “clean all over,” yet “except for the feet”; now “you men are clean,” yet “not all of you.” In keeping with what has just preceded, we might have expected “clean,” yet not “clean all over,” making allowance again for the need of footwashing. Instead, Jesus introduces a different word for “all,”60 moving the thought in a different direction by considering the disciples individually, and not just as a group. When this is done, the degree of cleanliness or purity is no longer the only issue. Now they must look at themselves—and each other—as individuals, with the question of individual purity in mind. The notion that a corporate unit (labeled earlier as “the Twelve”) is “clean” or “clean all over” is a mere abstraction unless the same is true of each person in its number. Jesus already warned of this (even more pointedly) when, in the same breath that he pronounced them “chosen,” and “the Twelve,” he immediately added, “and one of you is ‘the devil’ ” (6:70). They paid no attention then, and they are paying no attention now.

11 Again (just as in 6:71), a narrative aside alerts us that what Jesus has just said may have been intended as much for the reader as for the silent disciples: “For he knew61 the one who was handing him over. That is why he said that ‘You are not all clean.’ ” The comment itself echoes not so much 6:71, however (“He meant Judas of Simon Iscariot”) as 6:64: “For Jesus knew62 from the beginning who they are who do not believe, and who it is who will hand him over.” Once again, readers are reminded of Jesus’ knowledge of “what was in the person” (2:25), and in particular this special knowledge, shared with them repeatedly (in addition to 6:64 and 6:71, see 12:4, 6; 13:2) but still withheld from his disciples, about who would “hand him over.”

The narrative aside focuses attention on just the one exception to the notion that the disciples are “clean” (that is, on “Judas of Simon Iscariot,” v. 2), but in theory there could be more (again, see 6:64, where Jesus knew both those “who do not believe” and the one person “who will hand him over”). If the principle that “you men are clean—but not all of you” is applied beyond the immediacy of the supper at which Jesus washed the disciples’ feet—that is, to Christian communities familiar to the Gospel writer in his own time, then the exception, “but not all of you,” could have a wider application as well. Within the story of Jesus, there is only one Judas, but in the Christian communities as constituted in the Graeco-Roman world there could—and would—be others. This will be confirmed later on, when Jesus speaks of “every branch in me that does not bear fruit” being “taken away” (15:2), or “thrown out like the branch and withered” (15:6).

12 The narrative assumes that Peter, satisfied with Jesus’ answer (v. 10), allowed his feet to be washed, and that the other disciples did the same. “So, when he had washed their feet,” it continues, “he took his garments and reclined again” (v. 12a). He simply reverses his previous actions, taking up the garments he had laid down, and returning to his place at the table.63 Then he asks the disciples, “Do you understand what I have done for you?” (v. 12b). He already knows the answer. They do not understand, any more than Peter did (see v. 7, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand”). Therefore he will not wait for their reply, but will instead go on to explain, in the simplest terms possible, just “what I have done for you.”64 That at least will be a beginning.

13 Jesus continues, “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and you say well,65 for I am” (v. 13). The nouns are literally “the Teacher” and “the Lord,”66 but the clause cannot be translated “You call me the Teacher and the Lord” (indirect discourse), for this would require accusatives. Rather, the nouns are in the nominative case, which must therefore be understood as the nominative with the definite article used in place of a vocative for direct address.67 Yet it is a ceremonious, almost confessional, vocative,68 perhaps something closer to Thomas’s famous words of confession, “My Lord and my God!”69 (20:28). Almost from the Gospel’s beginning, Jesus’ disciples have in fact addressed him as “ ‘Rabbi’—which means teacher” (1:38),70 and as “Lord.”71 They also, on occasion, refer to him in the third person as “the Teacher” (11:28), and as “my Lord” (20:13) or “the Lord” (20:2, 13; 21:7, 12), to the point that even the Gospel writer within the narrative sometimes follows their example (see 6:23; 11:2).

14–15 From these titles, which Jesus accepts,72 he draws a conclusion: “So now that I, the Teacher and the Lord, washed your feet, you too ought to wash each other’s feet” (v. 14), adding by way of explanation, “For I have given you an example, so that just as I did for you, you too might do” (v. 15). The noun “example”73 and the repetition of “you too” make it clear that Jesus is calling on his disciples to do for each other exactly what he has done for them. The repetition of the verb “to do”—“just as I did” and “that you might do”—confirms that he is urging them to imitate not just his humble attitude, but the literal action of washing feet. Moreover, the present subjunctive, “might do,”74 in contrast to the aorist, “just as I did,” implies that he is urging them to continue to do repeatedly what he has done for them once and for all.

The language suggests either that footwashing was already the practice of Christian communities known to the writer of the Gospel, or that the writer is advocating the adoption of such a practice. The latter is perhaps more likely, given the Gospel’s omission of the institution of the Lord’s Supper, which would almost certainly have been practiced in the Johannine communities (see 6:52–58). Quite possibly the Gospel writer is urging the practice of footwashing, not as an independent third sacrament alongside baptism and the Lord’s Supper, but simply as an aspect of the eucharistic meal.75 It is difficult to be certain, given the Gospel writer’s reticence about sacraments generally.76 Nor should it be forgotten that the Gospel writer views Jesus as an example to his disciples on a rather wide front, not just with reference to the washing of feet. This is the case not only in connection with the “new command” to “love each other, just as I loved you” (v. 34; see also 15:12, 17), but in several passages in 1 John, with the same verb “ought” that is used here.77 For example, “The person who claims to remain in him ought himself to walk just as he walked” (1 Jn 2:6); “In this we know love, because he laid down his life for us, and we too ought to lay down our lives for the brothers” (1 Jn 3:16); “Beloved, if God so loved us, we too ought to love each other” (1 Jn 4:11). To imitate Jesus in a concrete, visible way by washing each other’s feet seems to have served as a sign of a broader commitment to imitate him in every area of life. What remains uncertain is whether or not the washing of feet was also intended to represent within the Christian community the mutual forgiveness of sins committed by believers after baptism. If so, it is never made explicit.78

16 Jesus continues with an “Amen, amen” formula, the eighteenth so far in the Gospel (the most recent being in 12:24). This time the formula seems to introduce not a series of pronouncements (as, for example, in 3:5, 11; 5:19, 25; 6:26, 32, 53; 8:34; 10:1, 7; 12:24), but a single unified pronouncement: “Amen, amen, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his lord, nor is a messenger79 greater than the person who sent him” (v. 16). The pronouncement, moreover (aside from the double “Amen, amen”), is not distinctly “Johannine” in character, but is quite similar to one found in Matthew: “A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his teacher, and the slave as his lord” (Mt 10:24–25a).80 Ironically, Matthew’s version of the saying admirably fits the context in John’s Gospel, given Jesus’ preceding reference to himself as both “the Teacher” and “the Lord” (vv. 13–14). But Matthew’s first clause (“A disciple is not above [or greater than] his teacher”) is nowhere to be found in our passage. Instead, we have an almost exact parallel to Matthew’s second clause (“a slave is not greater than his lord”), followed by another clause unparalleled in any other Gospel: “nor is a messenger greater than the person who sent him.”

What is Jesus’ point? In Matthew, it is quite clear: if Jesus encountered opposition and persecution, his disciples can expect to fare no better (see Mt 10:25b, “If they called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more those of the household?”). John’s Gospel makes exactly the same point two chapters later, where Jesus recalls the first part of the present saying (“a slave is not greater than his lord”), and draws from it the conclusion, “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you” (15:20). But here the application is different, simply reinforcing the argument from the greater to the lesser two verses earlier: “now that I, the Teacher and the Lord, washed your feet, you too ought to wash each other’s feet” (v. 14). That is, if the one greater is not ashamed to be a servant (even a “slave”) to his subordinates, why should they be ashamed to be servants to each other? Surely, Jesus insists, “a slave is not greater than his lord.” But instead of making the same point again, redundantly, by adding Matthew’s principle that “a disciple is not above the teacher” (Mt 10:24), he introduces a new thought: “nor is a messenger greater than the person who sent him.”

Surprisingly, this added clause, despite the more “Johannine” flavor of the phrase “the person who sent him,” does not appear to fit the context of the footwashing very well. Nothing has been said of a mission, or of the disciples being “sent” (at least not since 4:38, where it may have referred to their baptizing activity in Judea). While those gathered for supper have come to be traditionally known as “the apostles” (as in Lk 22:14), they are never called that in John’s Gospel. If anyone is “a messenger” or “apostle,” (see n. 79), it is Jesus. One need only recall his many references to “the One who sent me,” or “the Father who sent me.”81 That Jesus is not “greater” than the Father who sent him will become explicit later on (see 14:28). Still, it is doubtful that “messenger” (or “apostle”) here is anything more than a generic term for anyone “sent” as an agent or representative of someone else. As such it is applicable either to Jesus or his disciples. So far, Jesus is the “messenger” or “sent one” par excellence (1:6 and 4:38 being the only exceptions), but the parallel with the preceding clause, “a slave is not greater than his lord,” offers a hint that the disciples too are (or soon will be) “messengers,” with Jesus as “the person who sent them” (see v. 20; also 17:18; 20:21). In retrospect, this is perhaps inevitable in view of the introductory notice that while Jesus “knew that his hour had come that he should be taken out of this world,” those whom he called “his own” were still emphatically “in the world” (v. 1), with responsibilities to “the world” as well as to each other (this too becomes explicit later on; see 17:11, 15).

17 Ignoring for a moment the last clause, Jesus draws a conclusion from the “example” he has just given, and from the accompanying command to “do just as I did for you” (v. 15). “Now that you understand these things,” he tells his disciples, “blessed are you if you do them” (v. 17, italics added). There are two conditional clauses in this sentence, one a first-class condition presupposing reality (“Now that [literally “if”] you understand these things,”82 like “now that I … washed your feet,” in v. 15), and the other a future condition expressing what he presumes will happen (“if you do them”).83 The repetition of “do” (vv. 15, 17) makes it clear that Jesus is still insisting on the disciples’ obligation to “wash each other’s feet” (v. 14), just as in another Gospel he insists, “This do in remembrance of me” (Lk 22:19; compare 1 Cor 11:24–25). Here again (as in v. 15), the present subjunctive suggests that the disciples are to do repeatedly what Jesus has done for them once for all. To this, he attaches a beatitude, “blessed are you,”84 one of only two in the Gospel of John (one for “believing,” 20:29, and this one for “doing”). Matthew, by contrast, has thirteen beatitudes in all, and Luke fifteen (Mark has none). Of these, the closest parallel to the Gospel of John’s “Blessed are you if you do them” is one found almost word for word the same in Matthew and Luke: “Blessed is that slave whom his lord will find doing so when he comes” (Mt 24:46//Lk 12:43). The contrast between “that slave” and “his lord” evokes again the principle that “a slave is not greater than his lord” (see v. 16), and while the contexts in Luke and Matthew are different both from each other and from the present one, all three passages have in common the prospect of Jesus’ absence,85 and the need to prepare the disciples accordingly. While he is absent, they are “blessed” on one condition: in John’s Gospel “if they do” (v. 17) what Jesus has just commanded, that is, “wash each other’s feet” (v. 14), but more vaguely in Matthew and Luke, if a slave is found “doing so.”86 But “doing” what? Providing for the needs of his fellow slaves, not by the washing of feet to be sure, but by the daily provision of food (see Mt 24:45; Lk 12:42).87 Moreover, Luke’s version of the parable concludes, “That slave who knew his lord’s will, and did not get ready or do what was wanted will be beaten with many blows, but the one who did not know and did things that deserved a beating will be beaten with few blows. From everyone to whom much is given, much will be required of him, and from one to whom much has been entrusted, much will be demanded” (Lk 12:47–48). Such parallels give special force to Jesus’ words here in the Gospel of John, “Now that you understand these things, blessed are you if you do them.”

18 Jesus immediately qualifies the beatitude he has just pronounced: “I am not speaking about all of you. I know which ones88 I chose.” (v. 18a).89 At first glance he seems to contradict what he said earlier in Capernaum, “Did I not choose you as the Twelve?” (6:70), heightening the irony of the revelation that “one of you is ‘the devil’ ” (6:70). But it is simply another way of saying the same thing: the disciples are “chosen” corporately as “the Twelve,” but not all are individually chosen. Jesus is simply repeating in different words what he said a few verses earlier, “and you men are clean, but not all of you” (v. 10). Moreover, in saying, “I know90 which ones I chose,” he seems to confirm the Gospel writer’s narrative aside (“he knew the one who was handing him over,” v. 11). This time, however, there is no narrative aside, and Jesus does not mention Judas Iscariot either by name or as “the one who was handing him over.” Instead, he refers to a verse from the Psalms: “But the Scripture must be fulfilled [or, more literally, “that the Scripture might be fulfilled”],91 ‘The one who eats my bread92 lifted up his heel against me’ ” (v. 18b, from Ps 41:9 [40:10, LXX]).93 The quotation speaks of rebellion and open disdain on the part of a trusted friend or family member, exactly the opposite action and attitude from that represented in the washing of one another’s feet. The question for the reader is whether the narrative aside of verse 11 is somehow still in effect, so that Jesus must be understood as referring to Judas and Judas alone, or whether the fulfillment of the psalm should be understood in a wider framework. Such a framework is provided by the preceding “Amen, amen” pronouncement (v. 16), hinting (as we have seen) at an ongoing mission, and by another such pronouncement to follow (v. 20), confirming just such a mission.

Most readers have assumed that the focus is solely on Judas, for two main reasons. First, Judas is undeniably the center of attention in the preceding narrative aside (v. 11) and in the drama that plays out in the section to follow (vv. 21–30). Second, the psalm quotation, “The one who eats my bread lifted up his heel against me,” is singular, not plural, and it is natural to take the singular as referring specifically to Judas. The quotation is widely believed to find at least a faint echo in Mark 14:18, where Jesus very explicitly predicts that “one of you will hand me over, the one eating with me.”94 The difficulty with the second of these arguments is that the Markan reference is so brief that nothing substantial can be made of it.95 The singular “one who eats my bread” may indeed refer to Judas, but as in the psalm itself the singular reference to one person may well invite generalization. More important, the notion that Jesus is referring solely and unequivocally to one of the disciples seated right there at the table makes it hard to explain why there is no immediate reaction from the disciples, as there is shortly afterward (v. 22), when he says explicitly, “Amen, amen, I say to you that one of you will hand me over” (v. 21). Why the apparent duplication? Why does Jesus find it necessary to predict Judas’s treachery twice?96 And how would the disciples have understood the psalmist’s words, “The one who eats my bread lifted up his heel against me”?

19 More specifically, how would those dire words be “fulfilled”? Jesus gives no direct answer, but claims that their fulfillment, when it comes, will only vindicate his authority: “From now on I tell you before it happens,97 so that when it happens you might believe that I am” (v. 19). His language suggests that the “fulfillment” he has in mind will come not (or at least not only) in a few seconds right there at the table (vv. 21–30), but in a rather more distant future. His pronouncement seems to belong with several others in the chapters to follow, warning the disciples of certain things ahead of time so that when they take place the disciples will “believe” (14:29) or at least “not be scandalized” (16:1), or simply “remember” what he told them (16:4) and “have peace” (16:32–33). The parallel with 14:29 is especially close (with verbal agreements in italics):

“From now on I tell you before it happens,98 so that when it happens you might believe that I am” (13:19).

“And now I have told you before it happens,99 so that when it happens you might believe” (14:29).

At the same time, the pronouncement evokes certain sayings of Jesus in the other Gospels in which he predicts what will happen after his departure in the course of the Christian mission. After a series of predictions about persecution and false prophets, he warns his disciples, “Watch out! I have told you everything ahead of time” (Mk 13:23; see also Mt 24:25). Conspicuous among the dangers to come are dissension within the believing community and hatred from without: “And brother will hand brother over to death,” Jesus warns, “and father hand over child, and children will rise against parents and will put them to death. And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake” (Mt 10:21–22//Mk 13:12–13). In the same chapter in Matthew (the chapter in which he says, “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his lord,” 10:24), Jesus issues other warnings about division within households: “For I have come to split up a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a bride [or daughter-in-law] against her mother-in-law—and a man’s enemies will be those of his household” (Mt 10:35–36; see also Lk 12:52–53).100 In John’s Gospel he addresses the same two issues: here, dissension and betrayal within the Christian community, and two chapters later the grim prospect being “hated” by the world (15:18–25). Each time, Jesus draws on the language of a psalm: there, “They hated me [ἐμίσησάν με] without cause” (15:25, from either Ps 35:19 or 69:4), where “they” refers to “the world” (see 15:18–19); here Psalm 41:9, where “the one who eats my bread” (v. 18) refers first to any anonymous member of a household, and only as an afterthought to Judas Iscariot (see v. 21). While it is impossible to know how the disciples would have heard these words of Jesus, it is more likely that they heard them in this way than as an explicit prediction of a betrayal by one of their number right then and there.

What sets Jesus’ pronouncement here apart from those in the synoptic Gospels is his claim that the fulfillment of his grim prophecy will actually vindicate his authority. The phrase “from now on”101 seems to imply that he is predicting a future event or situation well “before it happens,”102 with the intent that “when it happens103 you might believe that I am” (v. 19). His language is at least as applicable, possibly more so, to events after his death and resurrection as to an incident at the table only minutes later (that is, to vv. 21–30).104 The fulfillment of his prediction will serve as testimony to his disciples “that I am.”105 In the immediate context, “I am” could simply mean, “I am the one who speaks in this psalm” (like the “me” and the “I” and the “my” in the psalm citations in 2:17, 15:25, and 19:24 and 28). But more likely, the expression has a wider, more explicitly christological application, as it does elsewhere in the Gospel (see 4:26; 8:24, 28; and, above all, 8:58). The mention of a particular future moment of verification recalls 8:28 in particular, where Jesus told the Jewish authorities, “When you lift up the Son of man, then you will know that I am, and [that] on my own I do nothing, but just as the Father taught me, these things I speak.” To “the Jews” in that passage, Jesus would be vindicated as God’s agent by his death on the cross, and to his disciples here he will be vindicated, he says, precisely in his betrayal and in their own trials and dissension, simply by virtue of the fact that he was not taken by surprise, but predicted it all in advance.106 According to Deuteronomy, one of the tests of a true prophet was that his prophecies came to pass: “If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD,” said Moses, “does not take place or prove true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously” (Deut 18:22, NIV). Even God’s own authority is vindicated in the same way, for God can summon the nations, asking, “Which of them foretold this and proclaimed to us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses to prove they were right, so that others may hear and say, ‘It is true.’ You are my witnesses, declares the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he” (Isa 43:9–10a, NIV), and can claim, “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times what is still to come” (Isa 46:9–10a, NIV). Jesus presses in much the same way his own claim to know the future, and readers who remember him saying “before Abraham came to be, I am” (8:58) can scarcely mistake the import of his words. Like the God of Israel, he not only knows, but reveals himself, in things yet to come no less than in things past and present.

20 Jesus concludes his brief discourse with yet another “Amen, amen” pronouncement, the nineteenth in the Gospel: “Amen, amen, I say to you, the person who receives whomever I send receives me, and the person who receives me receives the One who sent me” (v. 20). The two clauses are not distinct, but are closely linked, with the second building immediately on the first. That is, the person who “receives” (or welcomes) the disciples and accepts their message actually “receives” (in faith) Jesus himself, and therefore God the Father, because Jesus represents the Father. Here the earlier hint that the notion of agency applies to the disciples no less than to Jesus (v. 16) becomes an explicit claim. The disciples, like Jesus, will be “sent,”107 and Jesus, like the Father, will take on the role of Sender. The notion that his disciples will act as his agents or messengers implies his absence—something the reader has known about at least from the beginning of the chapter (see vv. 1, 3), yet something of which the disciples have been—and continue to be—only dimly aware. The effect of the pronouncement is to place all of verses 18–20, and to some extent the whole of verses 12–20, in the framework of the disciples’ mission “in the world” (v. 1) and to the world after Jesus’ impending departure. Within that framework they have a responsibility both to “each other” (vv. 14–15) and those to whom they are “sent” (vv. 16, 20). Here (as in v. 16) the “Amen, amen” formula introduces a pronouncement found elsewhere in the Gospel tradition (see Mt 10:40; Lk 10:16), and it is tempting to many interpreters to view both sayings as parenthetical at best, or at worst as interpolations in John’s Gospel.108 Yet the vocabulary is thoroughly Johannine, and quite different from that of Matthew and Luke.109 One need only remember 12:44–45, “The person who believes in me believes not in me but in the One who sent me, and the person who sees me sees the One who sent me.”

If the two “Amen, amen” pronouncements are “interpolations,” they are the Gospel writer’s own interpolations, by no means parenthetical, but on the contrary crucial to the writer’s flow of thought. In the text as it stands, Jesus’ disciples are to be imitators of him in two ways: first, by doing for one another what Jesus has done for them (see vv. 14, 17), and second, by representing him as his agents in the world after his departure, so that what is done to them or for them is done to or for him, just as Jesus has represented the Father as the Father’s agent in the world. John’s Gospel has taken the notion of agency, intimated in Matthew and Luke, and made it the very foundation of both christology and ecclesiology. As we have seen, however, the response to Jesus as the Father’s agent can be negative as well as positive (see 5:23; 12:47–48), and the same will be true of the world’s response to the disciples as Jesus’ agents. Jesus gives no hint of a negative response here, only of the possibility of betrayal and treachery among the disciples themselves (vv. 18–19). But that other shoe will drop two chapters later (see 15:18–25).

B. The Departure of Judas (13:21–35)

21Having said these things, Jesus was shaken in the spirit, and he testified and said, “Amen, amen, I say to you that one of you will hand me over.” 22The disciples kept looking at each other, perplexed as to which one he meant. 23One of his disciples was reclining at Jesus’ side, one whom Jesus loved. 24So Simon Peter nods to this one to inquire who it might be that he meant. 25So, having leaned on Jesus’ breast like this, that one says to him, “Lord, who is it?” 26Jesus answers, “That one it is to whom I will dip the morsel and give to him.” Then, having dipped the morsel, he takes and gives to Judas of Simon Iscariot. 27And after the morsel, then Satan entered into that one. So Jesus says to him, “What you are doing, do quickly!” 28But none of those reclining found out for what reason he said this to him. 29For some thought, since Judas had the money box, that Jesus was saying to him, “Buy the things we have need of for the festival,” or that he should give something to the poor. 30So that one, having taken the morsel, went out immediately, and it was night.

31So when he had gone out, Jesus says, “Now the Son of man is glorified, and God is glorified in him, 32and God will glorify him in him, and he will glorify him immediately. 33Children, yet a short time I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews that ‘Where I am going, you cannot come,’ so I say to you now. 34A new command I give you, that you love each other, just as I loved you, that you too love each other. 35By this they all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for each other.”

With his brief discourse (vv. 12–20) at an end, Jesus invokes the “Amen, amen” formula yet again (see vv. 16, 20), this time with deep emotion, as testimony to his disciples: “one of you will hand me over” (v. 21). This time his words provoke a strong reaction among them as they wonder to whom he can be referring (v. 22), and we are introduced to an anonymous disciple we have not met before—at least not as designated here—“one whom Jesus loved,” seated right beside Jesus (v. 23). Peter motions to him to find out from Jesus which one is meant, and he does so (vv. 24–26), but we are not told that he passed the information on to Peter, or anyone else. On the contrary, when Jesus tells Judas, “What you are doing, do quickly?” (v. 27), they do not understand that Judas has been singled out as the one who will “hand over” Jesus—to death as it turns out (vv. 28–29). Consequently when Judas goes out into the night (v. 30), only Jesus himself, the “one whom Jesus loved,” and the reader know the significance of what has just happened. The other disciples, no less than Judas, are in the dark.

Virtually the whole of verses 21–30 is seen and told through the eyes of this disciple “whom Jesus loved.” Novelist Reynolds Price has argued that much of John’s Gospel is in fact told in this way: “Hovering just at the edge of each event,” he writes, “or caught in its center, is the powerful sense of a pair of human eyes, so fixed in a lover’s rapt attention as to vanish nearly from our reading minds and leave us face-to-face with the act itself and the moving bodies.”1 His test is whether or not a third-person narrative can be easily changed to first person by a mere switching of certain pronouns. He tries to illustrate this with some brief examples drawn from 21:3–14, and implies (without much concrete evidence) that it works almost everywhere in the Gospel.2 This is extremely doubtful, yet 13:21–30 is one place where it does work rather well (better, perhaps, than in Price’s examples from chapter 21). So transformed (and somewhat shortened), our passage would read like this:

Jesus said, “Amen, amen, I say to you that one of you will hand me over.” We kept looking at each other, perplexed as to which one he meant. I was reclining at Jesus’ side. Simon Peter nods to me to inquire who it might be. So, having leaned on Jesus’ breast like this, I say to him, “Lord, who is it?” Jesus answers, “That one it is to whom I will dip the morsel and give to him.” Then, having dipped the morsel, he takes and gives to Judas. And after the morsel, then Satan entered into that one. So Jesus says to him, “What you are doing, do quickly!” But none of them found out for what reason he said this to him. Some thought, since Judas had the money box, that Jesus was saying to him, “Buy the things we have need of for the festival,” or that he should give something to the poor. So that one, having taken the morsel, went out immediately, and it was night.

As soon as Judas is gone, Jesus goes on to speak to the disciples openly of three things: his glorification (vv. 31–32), his imminent departure from the world (v. 33; compare vv. 1, 3), and mutual love (vv. 34–35; see vv. 1, 14). Nothing more is heard of the disciple “whom Jesus loved,” but these three programmatic themes will reappear in the next four chapters: first, and at considerable length, his departure (13:36–14:31); then all three in reverse order—mutual love (15:1–17) with its corollary of being hated by the world (15:18–16:4a), the departure again (16:4b–33), and, finally, Jesus’ glorification (17:1–26). Whether or not they are the dominant themes, or the key to the structure of those chapters (as I once argued)3 is another question altogether.

21 “Having said these things”4 terminates the preceding discourse (vv. 12–20), just as the same phrase terminates the much longer series of discourses that will shortly follow (see 18:1). It is as if Jesus pauses for breath before stating something even more immediate and portentous. It an emotional pause, for he is “shaken in the spirit,” just as he was at the tomb of Lazarus (see 11:33, 38). Nothing is said of anger here, yet the situation is similar to the extent that someone is present who should not be present. Jesus’ intent here is that that person must leave so that he can say what he has to say to his disciples in private, and in due course he does leave (v. 30). At the raising of Lazarus, as we have seen, Jesus seems to have been angry because he was forced to perform the miracle in public, and here too the issue may well be privacy. But instead of being angry, Jesus simply “testified and said, ‘Amen, amen I say to you that one of you will hand me over’ ” (v. 21).

For the twentieth time in the Gospel, and for the third time in fairly quick succession, Jesus invokes his characteristic formula, now with even greater immediacy and solemnity than it had a moment before (vv. 16, 20). The verb “testified” gives it greater solemnity, for Jesus’ “testimony” (as if in a court of law) is everywhere else in the Gospel directed toward “the world,” or “the Jews” or “the Pharisees” or “the crowd,” not toward his own disciples. He has been on trial, and has “testified” on his own behalf as part of that trial. It is not altogether clear, in fact, whether Jesus is here “testifying” to, or against, his disciples, for his words, “one of you5 will hand me over” (exactly as in Mk 14:18 and Mt 26:21), have an accusatory tone that we have heard only once before, when he told them, “one of you is ‘the devil’ ” (6:70). With such pointed words here, Jesus brings much closer to home the scriptural principle that “The one who eats my bread lifted up his heel against me” (v. 18). Not only is it true that “brother will hand brother over6 to death” in the course of the Christian mission (as in Mt 10:21 and Mk 13:12), but more specifically, “one of you will hand me over”7 (v. 21) right here and now (italics added). The notion that Jesus will be “handed over” by one of his disciples is old news to the reader, who has been reminded of it again and again (6:64, 71; 12:4; 13:2, 11), but here for the first time it comes on the lips of Jesus himself, and it draws an immediate reaction.

22 In sharp contrast to 6:70, where we were not told how the disciples responded to the revelation that “one of you is ‘the devil,’ ” here we learn that “The disciples kept looking at each other, perplexed8 as to which one he meant”9 (v. 22). But instead of asking him each in turn, “Is it I, Lord?” (see Mt 26:22; Mk 14:19), they remained silent,10 communicating at first only with their eyes.

23 At this tense moment, we are introduced for the first time to a character who will make four more cameo appearances in the Gospel (19:26; 20:2–8; 21:7, 20–23), and who will finally be identified as “the one who testifies about these things and who wrote these things” (20:24). “One of his disciples,” we are told, “was reclining at Jesus’ side, one whom Jesus loved”11 (v. 23). The phrase “one of his disciples,”12 coming right on the heels of Jesus’ prediction that “one of you [εἷς ἐξ ὑμῶν] will hand me over” (v. 21), could give the impression that this is none other than the disciple who will “hand over” Jesus to the authorities who were seeking his life. Such a thought would not be inconsistent with the notice that “Jesus loved” this man, and that he was “reclining at Jesus’ side,” for the implication of the text Jesus had just cited (v. 18) was that the betrayer would indeed be a trusted member of the household. A first-time reader could be momentarily teased (perhaps deliberately, to build suspense) into thinking this was the case, but any such impression will be quickly corrected. The “one whom Jesus loved” is not the man who will hand him over, but the one to whom Jesus reveals the identity of the one who will hand him over. His own identity, however, remains a secret. If he is himself the author (as 21:24 claims), the choice to remain anonymous is his own choice. Whoever he may be, this disciple’s defining moment is the present moment of discovery (see 21:20, where he is identified in relation to this very incident). And if he is the author, the inordinate authorial interest in Judas Iscariot (as evidenced in the narrative asides in 6:64, 71, 12:6, and 13:11, and in the narrative introduction in 13:2) is plausibly explained.

Still, the question persists: Who was this disciple? The question is not answerable from the passage here. Surely, the notice that he was “one whom Jesus loved” does not distinguish him from any of the others, for we have been told regarding them all that “having loved his own who were in the world,” Jesus “loved them to the end” (v. 1).13 Nor does the detail that he was “reclining at Jesus’ side” help very much. “At the side,”14 recalling Jesus’ own close relationship to the Father (see 1:18, “right beside the Father”),15 seems to express a relationship to Jesus which all his true disciples, not just one, would have enjoyed, at least in a spiritual sense.16

As to the actual seating arrangements at a meal around the table, little is known, only that “James and John, the sons of Zebedee” (or their mother) wanted the seats immediately on either side of Jesus “in your glory” (or “in your kingdom”), presumably at the end of the age (Mk 10:35–37; also Mt 20:20–21). Whether or not they wanted this because it was already the customary seating arrangement at shared meals is uncertain. Nor is it certain whether the future “glory” or “kingdom” was visualized as a banquet scene (as in Mk 14:25//Mt 26:29//Lk 22:18), or a throne room (as in Mt 19:28//Lk 22:30), or both. The traditional inference from the other Gospels has been that Peter, James, and John were viewed as a kind of inner circle of three among the twelve apostles (see, for example, Mk 9:2; 14:33), that this “beloved” disciple is distinguished from Peter (v. 24), and must therefore be either James or John, that he cannot be James because James was martyred early (Acts 12:2), and that he must therefore have been John the son of Zebedee.17 Such considerations, while intriguing and deserving of respect, are far from conclusive. This disciple whom Jesus is said to have “loved,” like a number of other significant characters in the Gospel,18 remains anonymous, and the reader has no choice but to respect his anonymity.

24 In three of the other four instances in which the disciple “whom Jesus loved” makes an appearance, he is seen with Simon Peter (20:2–8, 21:7, and 21:20–23), and the same is true here: “So Simon Peter nods to this one to inquire who it might be that he meant.” The silence (v. 22) is not broken.19 The expression “who it might be that he meant”20 (v. 24) echoes the implied but unspoken question “as to which one he meant” (v. 22).21 Peter signals with a mere nod of the head22 to his fellow disciple to ask the question that was on everyone’s mind.23 The silent gesture implies a rather close relationship between the two. Words were unnecessary. It also implies that Peter was probably not seated “at Jesus’ side”—that is, at his other side, across from the disciple “Jesus loved”—but further away, with that disciple (and perhaps others) between him and Jesus. In sharp contrast to what happens a few moments later (see vv. 36–37), Peter does not feel free to question Jesus directly, but quietly prompts the disciple “Jesus loved” to ask the question for him—and for all the disciples.

25 The question is finally asked, as the anonymous disciple “having leaned on Jesus’ breast like this, … says to him, ‘Lord, who is it?’ ” (v. 25). The reference to “leaning on Jesus’ breast” sounds strangely redundant after being told that he was already “reclining at Jesus’ side” (v. 23).24 The effect of the redundancy is to heighten the impression of intimacy between this disciple and Jesus, and therefore of the privacy and confidentiality of this particular exchange. The disciple “leans” on Jesus as if to whisper in his ear, and the expectation is that the answer will similarly be for his ears alone. The Gospel writer—identified finally as this very disciple (21:24)—adds to the intimacy by confiding to the reader that it went “like this,” as if performing or acting out (in this case) his own body language.25 “Lord, who is it?” the disciple asks—his only spoken lines in the entire Gospel until after Jesus’ resurrection, when he tells Peter by the lakeshore, “It is the Lord” (21:7).

26 Jesus “answers” immediately:26 “That one27 it is to whom I will dip the morsel and give to him,” and then without hesitation, “having dipped the morsel, he takes and gives28 to Judas of Simon Iscariot” (v. 26). Once again (as in vv. 22 and 24), verbal repetition carries the narrative forward, making the identification of Judas unmistakable. “The morsel”29 is a small piece of bread which Jesus dips in a sauce and offers to Judas, fulfilling the role of host and acting out in a specific setting the generalized prophecy he has just quoted, that “The one who eats my bread lifted up his heel against me” (v. 18, italics added).30 Offering “the morsel” was an act of hospitality that could hardly be refused. In this way Jesus maintains the initiative, in contrast to the Synoptics, where Judas’s own action of “dipping with me in the dish” is what triggers the identification (see Mk 14:20//Mt 26:23).31 All this is seen through the eyes of the disciple “whom Jesus loved” (v. 23). While Jesus’ action in giving the morsel to Judas may have been visible to all the disciples, the impression given is that they were not privy to the words that immediately preceded it, and therefore would not have seen it as the answer to their unspoken question about “which one he meant” (v. 22).

27 What happened next was not visible to anyone: “And after the morsel, then Satan entered into that one” (v. 27a). Who could have seen such a thing? How did the writer know? Only by resuming his role as omniscient narrator, the role he has adopted all along in his narrative asides and in his extraordinary introduction to the chapter (vv. 1–3), the same role Luke adopted in alerting his readers to what Judas was up to (see Lk 22:3, “Satan entered into Judas”).32 But here, as we have seen, the narrator is also an eyewitness, the one through whose eyes the story is told (see 21:20, 24). In which capacity (eyewitness or omniscient narrator) does he tell us that “after the morsel, then Satan entered into that one”? If he did not literally see Satan entering Judas’s body, what did he see? The answer comes only belatedly, and in a subordinate clause, “having taken the morsel,” just as Judas leaves the scene (v. 30). What he saw, evidently, was Judas receiving “the morsel” from Jesus’ hand, the completion of the transaction. “The morsel” becomes for him not a mere piece of bread, but a moment in time, an event of decisive import, prompting the odd expression “after the morsel,”33 which can only mean “after the passing of the morsel.”34 His conclusion that “Satan entered into that one” at just that moment is probably intended not as something immediately apparent to him on witnessing the transaction, but as something evident in retrospect, long after the fact, something for which the reader is by now more than amply prepared (see 6:70–71; 13:2).

Jesus then speaks again, no longer confidentially to the disciple he loved, but now to Judas, apparently within earshot of all: “What you are doing, do quickly!” (v. 27b). The urgency of those words is a corollary of the fact that Jesus’ “hour had come that he should be taken out of this world to the Father” (v. 1) and at the same time an anticipation of his warning to the disciples that “yet a short time I am with you” (v. 33). As far as Jesus is concerned, time is running out (see 9:4; 11:9–10; 12:35–36), and is not to be wasted (see 14:30–31; also Mk 14:41–42). Once “the hour has come,” events must (and will) move rapidly toward their inevitable conclusion. What Judas was “doing” was the very antithesis of what a disciple of Jesus should have been “doing” (vv. 15, 17), and the implication of Jesus’ words is that Judas is being dismissed. He must leave at once.

28–29 That everyone at the table heard what Jesus had said is clear from the notice that “none of those reclining found out for what reason he said this to him” (v. 28). The statement is, of course, not literally true. Jesus knew. Judas presumably knew. And the disciple “whom Jesus loved” must have known, by virtue of “the morsel,” that Jesus was referring to his imminent betrayal. So in saying “none of those reclining found out,” he is speaking as an eyewitness observer of all the other disciples gathered around the table.35 Obviously, he did not report back to Peter and the other disciples what he learned from Jesus. For whatever reason, he held his peace, and he will continue to do so through most of the rest of the Gospel. His silence remains a mystery at this point. In ascribing to the other disciples the erroneous theories that “since Judas had the money box, … Jesus was saying to him, ‘Buy the things we have need of for the festival,’ or that he should give something to the poor” (v. 29),36 it is unclear whether he is looking into their minds (as omniscient narrator) or simply passing along conjectures which they later put into words.

Their theories were reasonable enough (though wrong) in light of the earlier notice that Judas indeed “had the money box” (12:6). The first, moreover, about needs “for the festival,” stands as important evidence that the meal described here was not itself part of “the festival of the Passover” (v. 1). The second revisits Judas’s question (which any of them might have asked), “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” (12:5).37 Their conjectures are not inherently absurd (like Peter’s request for a full bath, v. 9), but simply the consequence of not having heard what Jesus had said privately to “the disciple whom he loved.” While it is odd (as interpreters have pointed out) that Judas would leave for either of those reasons so abruptly, and at night (v. 30),38 it is just as odd that he would leave in that way and at that time for any reason, including the real one. He does so, apparently, only because Jesus told him to.39 He has been dismissed—this in contrast to the other three Gospels, where he is never said to have exited by himself, separating himself from the other disciples only after the meal (see Mk 14:26//Mt 26:30) but before their arrival at Gethsemane (see Mk 14:43//Mt 26:47//Lk 22:47).

30 The impression of haste is confirmed when Judas, “having taken the morsel, went out immediately,40 and it was night” (v. 30). Both the adverb “immediately” and the mention of “night” imply a quick and abrupt departure. Earlier, Jesus warned his disciples that “Night is coming when no one can work” (9:4), yet assured them that at least a short time of daylight remained (see 11:9–10). Now, however, time is of the essence. “Night” is upon him and the other disciples, no less than upon Judas.41 The expression, “having taken the morsel,” belatedly confirms (as we have seen) what the “disciple whom Jesus loved” witnessed with his own eyes (v. 27). Here at the end of the account, it simply heightens the finality of Judas’s action, and his consequent departure. Yet despite the finality, there is much more to tell. Judas “went out” here, but it will be more than four chapters later before we read that “Jesus went out with his disciples” (18:1). And despite the press of time, Judas’s departure makes it possible for Jesus to speak to those other disciples at far greater length and with far greater openness than ever before.

31–32 Having shifted from discourse (vv. 12–20) to the narrative of Judas’s departure (vv. 21–30), the text now shifts back again to discourse. The transition is accomplished by the simple repetition of a verb: Judas “went out immediately” (v. 30), and “when he had gone out” (v. 31), Jesus began speaking again in the presence of the disciples but in an oracular vein, as if to no one in particular. “Now the Son of man is glorified,42 and God is glorified in him, and God will glorify himself in him,43 and he will immediately glorify him” (v. 32).44 The pronouncement echoes several others that Jesus made to his disciples in the first half of the Gospel: first, his claim that “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me” (8:54); second, his comment on learning of the sickness of Lazarus, that “This sickness is not toward death, but for the glory of God, so that through it the Son of God might be glorified” (11:4); finally his speech to Andrew and Philip on learning of the desire of certain Greeks to see him, beginning with “The hour has come that the Son of man might be glorified” (12:23) and ending with “Father, glorify your name” (12:28).

Two things emerge from these comparisons. First, “Son of God” (11:4) and “Son of man” (12:23) are used interchangeably, suggesting that the same is true here.45 More important, God is glorified precisely in and through the glorification of “the Son” (or “Son of man”), and this mutual glorification is the point that Jesus “now” drives home repeatedly. “Now” (v. 31) is pretty much equivalent to “the hour has come” (see 12:23, 27, 31; 13:1), but in the present context, “now” is the specific moment brought about by the departure of Judas (v. 30). “Now” Judas is gone, and Jesus announces to the gathered disciples his glorification, which is at the same time the glorification of God “in him.” It is a moment both present—by virtue of Judas’s departure, making Jesus’ death on the cross a certainty—and future, anticipating the literal event itself. To paraphrase: “the Son of man is glorified”—in his death; “and God is glorified in him”—that is, in his death; “and God will glorify him in him”—again, in his death;46 and he will immediately glorify him”—in that his death is imminent).

Death, in short, is what Jesus’ “glorification” is all about, and for his disciples his death means his departure from them and from the world. The writer intimated this at the very beginning of the chapter when he wrote that Jesus knew “his hour had come” (v. 1), an expression that seemed to imply the “hour” of his glorification (see 12:23, 27–28). Yet instead of his “hour to be glorified,” the writer calls it “his hour … that he should be taken out of this world to the Father” (v. 1), adding that “he had come from God and was going to God” (v. 3). The implication is that Jesus’ “glorification” (with its accompanying glorification of the Father) and his departure from the world take place at the same time and amount to the same thing. This will be confirmed in the next verse. The metaphor changes, but the reality to which it refers—death on the cross—is the same.

33 Jesus continues, now addressing his disciples very directly and personally: “Children, yet a short time I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews that ‘Where I am going, you cannot come,’ so I say to you now” (v. 33). Only here in the entire Gospel does he address them as “Children,”47 that is, as actual small children, not simply offspring. This is perhaps a corollary of their characterization earlier as “his own” (v. 2), whom he loved. The affectionate address softens the bad news, that “yet a short time I am with you,” that “You will seek me,” and that “Where I am going you cannot come.”

As Jesus reminds them, he said the very same thing “to the Jews,” and in fact his words are virtually identical to what he told the delegation from “the chief priests and Pharisees” at the Tent festival: “Yet a short time I am with you, and I am going to the One who sent me. You will seek me and you will not find, and where I am you cannot come” (7:33–34), words that puzzled them (7:35–36) and prompted them to report back, “No man ever spoke like that” (7:46).48 The only differences in wording are that here Jesus says nothing about “going to the One who sent me,” and that instead of “where I am you cannot come,” he says “Where I am going you cannot come.”49 He seems to be saying to his disciples that they are no better off than those Jewish authorities in that earlier scene, but hidden beneath that surface comparison lies a far deeper and more significant contrast. At the Tent festival, the authorities were “seeking” Jesus in order to arrest and kill him (see 5:18; 7:1, 19, 25, 30), but their threat against his life will be thwarted, for no one takes his life from him; as he says, “I lay it down on my own” (10:18). As far as they are concerned, Jesus’ departure will vindicate him against them, for he will go “to the One who sent him,” while they will “die in their sins” (see 8:21, 24). Here, by contrast, his disciples “will seek” him simply to be with him again, overcoming the pain of his absence. His imminent departure will not brand them as enemies, but only make them “orphans,” and that temporarily (see 14:18). All this will come out in a series of questions and answers (13:36–14:31), but for the moment the prospect is grim. What kind of “glory” is it that produces only sorrow? Even “the Jews” were told where Jesus was going—“to the One who sent me” (7:33)—even though they did not understand (see 7:35–36; 8:22).50 Here, by contrast, he does not tell his disciples where he is going, because, as far as they are concerned, there is far more to it than simply, “I am going to the One who sent me.” The reader knows where Jesus is going, but the disciples do not. The question, “Where are you going?” will be asked—and answered—more than once, with ever deepening implications.

34 The most important question raised by Jesus’ “glorification,” understood as his departure from the world, is that of the disciples’ responsibility in his absence. This he now states, in the simplest possible terms: “A new command51 I give you, that you love each other, just as I loved you, that you too love each other” (v. 34). This “new command” could be viewed as the Johannine equivalent of “the new covenant” instituted similarly at a last meal according to Luke and Paul (Lk 22:20; 1 Cor 11:25). All our literary witnesses, in fact (see Mk 14:24; Mt 26:28), agree that something decisive occurred at Jesus’ last meal with his disciples, something that determined how they would live, but the other sources connect that something to the church’s observance of the Lord’s Supper, while John’s Gospel connects it instead with the everyday life of Jesus’ disciples during his absence, particularly with their obligation to love and serve one another.

What makes the command “new”? Is it a new command replacing one or more older commands? Or a new command in addition to commands already familiar? Surely the latter. As we have seen, Jesus’ references earlier to “doing the truth” (3:21), “doing good things” (5:29), or “doing his will” (7:17; see also 9:31; 1 Jn 2:17), imply an understanding of right conduct based on the Hebrew Scriptures and commandments handed down from Moses. Jesus’ assumption all along has been that “if you believed Moses, you would believe me” (5:46). The acceptance of Jesus as God’s unique messenger and agent has been the evidence of faithfulness to the “will of God” revealed in those ancient commandments (see especially 7:17, where those who “choose to do his will” are the ones who “will know about the teaching, whether it is from God, or whether I speak on my own”). Moreover, Jesus from here on will speak of his “commands” (plural) three times (14:15, 21; 15:10), and of the love “command” (singular) only once (15:12).52 So we may not assume that the love command is the only command to be obeyed, much less that it is meant to replace (for example) the two great commands in the other three Gospels, love of God and love of neighbor (see Mk 12:28–34//Mt 22:34–40//Lk 10:25–28). If John’s Gospel knows of that tradition (as 14:15, 21, 23, and 31 may well suggest), this “new” love command is an additional one placed alongside the “great, and first” command and the “second, like it” (Mt 22:38–39), “new” in two ways. First, it focuses attention not on the “neighbor” (defined in the Synoptics so broadly as to include the enemy), but rather on the fellow believer or disciple, thus accenting love’s mutuality.53 Second, and perhaps more important, it bases the command very explicitly on Jesus’ love for “his own” disciples (v. 1), based in turn on the Father’s love for his Son (see 3:35; 5:20; 15:9).

The form of this “new” command—“just as I loved you, that you too love each other”—matches the form of Jesus’ stated “example” of footwashing—“so that just as I did for you, you too might do” (v. 15, italics added).54 While Jesus did not speak of the latter as a “command,” only as an obligation, something the disciples “ought” to do (v. 14), and are “blessed” for doing (v. 17), the similarity of structure is evident. Both pronouncements combine a “vertical,” one-way relationship (that is, from a Lord or King to subordinates) with a “horizontal,” two-way relationship (that is, a mutual relationship among peers). Jesus takes the initiative to love (and show his love for) his disciples. Nothing is said of their loving him first, or even in return, and they are not allowed to reciprocate by washing his feet. Instead, they extend his love to “each other,” whether specifically by washing each other’s feet (vv. 14–15), or more generally in the daily conduct of their lives (vv. 34–35). Such a structure, with its “vertical” and “horizontal” axis, can be seen not only here but in several other New Testament passages, whether the subject matter is mutual love (see 15:12; 1 Jn 3:16; 4:11; Eph 5:2), forgiveness (Eph 4:32; Col 3:13), or acceptance (Rom 15:7).

The parallel between the love command and the footwashing offers a possible answer to the question raised earlier, as to whether or not footwashing represented within the Christian communities the mutual forgiveness of sins committed after baptism, in the sense that believers actually “cleansed” each other as Jesus by his death had cleansed them once and for all. “Wash each other’s feet” could easily enough be heard as “Forgive each other, as I have forgiven you” (see Eph 4:32; Col 3:13; and compare Mt 6:14–15; 18:21–35; Mk 11:25;). But as we have seen, any such theory must remain only implicit, not explicit, as far as John’s Gospel is concerned. As I have stated elsewhere, “Just as John’s Gospel views Christian conversion and baptism positively as the giving of life rather than negatively as repentance from sin, so it views footwashing among believers positively as mutual love rather than negatively as mutual forgiveness of sins.”55 While the principle common in the ancient church that “love covers many sins” (see 1 Pet 4:8; Jas 5:20; 1 Clement 49.5; 2 Clement 16.4) may well have been a tacit presupposition of the Gospel writer, it never quite comes to the surface. Because John’s Gospel—in contrast to 1 John56—says little about the sins of believers, it says nothing explicitly about how such sins are forgiven, only about the responsibility of believers to “love each other.”

35 Jesus next reinforces the “new command” of mutual love with a promise: “By this they all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for each other”57 (v. 35), drawing together their responsibility to one another (see vv. 14–15) and their responsibility to the whole world as Jesus’ messengers (see vv. 16, 20). “They all” are all those who have the opportunity to observe the conduct of Jesus’ disciples in his absence, potentially at least everyone in the world. Jesus will spell out the point more eloquently later in his final prayer to the Father “that they might be perfected into one, so that the world might know that you sent me and loved them just as you loved me” (17:23).

Here, however, it should not be assumed that their status as Jesus’ “disciples” was an assured fixed relationship that they could afford to take for granted, and that only needed to be “made known” to the rest of the world. He has said elsewhere to another group, “If you remain in my word, you are truly my disciples” (8:31), and he will say again to this group, “In this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples” (15:8). Therefore, the likely meaning here is something like, “By this you will become my disciples—or prove to be my disciples—and everyone will know it.” With this, Jesus drives home the “new command” of love in the same way he drove home the command to wash each other’s feet, with a concluding conditional clause, “if you have love for each other” (italics added; compare v. 17, “Now that you understand these things, blessed are you if you do them”). The rest is up to those who call themselves “disciples.” Interestingly, Jesus’ disciples on the scene never respond directly either to the footwashing or the love command. John’s Gospel leaves that to the reader.