Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                   Chapter Thirteen

                                                                                                                                              Verses 1-15

When Jesus realized that His time had come for Him to make His sacrifice and return to His Father, He turned from preaching the gospel to the lost, and He began to directly minister to His disciples. Jesus had a lot to teach His disciples so that they would be able to write their gospels and epistles and prophecies for the instruction of His followers during the Church Age. Jesus loved His disciples to the end of His earthly ministry, and His Spirit will love His Church until the end of the Church Age, and God will love His entire recreation of the world and of all humanity into eternity. Romans 8:35-39; Revelation 21:1-5.

John records Jesus' teachings of His disciples after their supper had ended, and Judas Iscariot had already left, up to verse 15. This can only mean that Judas Iscariot was not present when Jesus washed His disciples' feet. After verse 15, John returns to Jesus' teachings of all of His true disciples during the last supper after Judas Iscariot had left.  

John desired to relate Christ's message about how His Spirit will sanctify and purify His Church until Christ returns to Rapture His Church before he related how that God will excommunicate unbelievers who have joined His Church. God will provide a great feast for His Church immediately following His Rapture of His Church, and it may well be that God will not excommunicate unbelievers from His Church until this feast. Matthew 7:21-23; Matthew 24:48-51.

For this reason, John related first about the method God will use to sanctify and purify His true believers during the Church Age. Jesus taught His disciples that He had already completely cleansed them of all sins and evil except for Judas Iscariot who had already left. John 13:10. In His teaching, Jesus referred to His shed blood which had completely cleansed His disciples' souls and spirits of all their sins and evil, but He had left their flesh, represented by their feet, with the ability to sin as they walked through a wicked world. God is eternal and that means that Christ can send His Spirit with His shed blood into the past from His cross to cleanse and forgive just as He can send His blood into the future. With their fleshly natures still able to sin, Jesus' followers would pick up dirt from the world as they walked through it and sometimes would yield to its temptations. Romans 7:18. But Jesus so thoroughly cleanses sin and evil from the souls and spirits of His believers with His shed blood that their souls and spirits can never sin again. I John 3:9. For their fleshly sins, Jesus' true believers would need to be washed in the water that Jesus shed on the cross as they daily repented of those sins. Jesus washed His disciples' feet to symbolize their need to be daily cleansed with the water of His Word. I John 1:8-9. But even those backsliders who fail to daily repent, Christ will thoroughly wash with the water of His Word in the Rapture of His Church. Ephesians 5:25-27. Christ may have to punish them by temporarily consigning their souls and spirits to the regions of death to make sure that they repent so that Christ can take them to Heaven. Matthew 5:25-26; Matthew 18:32-35.