One of the most precious pictures of the meek and lowly Lamb of God, Jesus the Christ, the One with all power and authority in the universe, is found in John 13:1-17. Here, Jesus, who was willingly continuing on the Father’s path for Him of giving His very lifeblood to purchase eternal life for those who would surrender to Him and follow Him, demonstrates the radical, sacrificial love that marks His reign over the hearts of men. He was not reluctant as He took a towel and put it around His waist to position Himself for the most humble and servile of tasks—that of washing His disciples’ feet the night before His death on the cross. In fact, in this task He, “longed to show them the full measure of His love,” The Passion Translation records.^[1] He knew He was breaking through the sense of hierarchy that in the world’s  social, political and religious thinking determined greatness. The culture was marked by a pecking order—the enemy’s hierarchy on earth, a hierarchy that came into being as the curse fell in the Garden of Eden and man was subject to satan’s order. This demonic hierarchy is in the way of the rule of God’s kingdom of love. 

Jesus knew He was the Lord of the galaxies as John 13:3 records, “Now Jesus was fully aware that the Father had placed all things under His control, for He had come from God and was about to go back to be with Him.”^[2] It was out of this position as Lord of all that Jesus demonstrated the necessity of humility before love can flow.  He astonished Peter in His willingness to stoop down and cleanse the defiled feet of His followers and dry them with the towel. He performed a task that a bondslave would do. He explained to Peter the deeper meaning of what He was doing. First, He was serving them and not lording it over them. He was caring for his men. Peter vocerifously objected to having the Messiah go so low. The Lord responded, “But Peter, if you don’t allow Me to wash your feet, then you will not be able to share life with me.”^[3] Jesus went on to straighten Peter out as Peter then proffered his hands and his head for washing. A cleansing had already taken place through His teachings during the years together so only the feet needed a bath. John 15:3 reveals, “The words I have spoken over you have already cleansed you.”^[4]  The Recovery Bible note 2 to John 13:5 explains well the sign of footwashing:

In (John) chapters 1-12, life came and brought forth the church, composed of the regenerated ones. In their spirit the regenerated ones are in God and in the heavenlies ( or spiritual realm), but in their body they are still living in the flesh and walking on the earth. Through their contact with earthly things they often become dirty. This frustrates their fellowship with the Lord and with one another. Hence there is the need for the washing with the Holy Spirit, the word, and (supernatural) life. This is the washing away of their dirtiness that their fellowship with the Lord and with one another may be maintained; …^[5]

 The meaning for disciples is that He serves us in great lowliness by the removing of darkness in our souls as our walks reveal the unclean. James writes, “But if there is bitter jealousy or competition hiding in your heart, then don’t deny it and try to compensate for it by boasting and being phony. For that has nothing to do with God’s heavenly wisdom but can best be described as the wisdom of this world, both selfish and devilish.”^[6] Jesus washes all of those who belong to Him. He does this through His touch upon us. Christ speaks to us in our spirits and also releases light on the Word as we let it read us. Jesus is the Word made flesh, and as we subject ourselves to the washing with water by the Word, He makes clean and whole the defects. Jesus Christ is devoted to His church. He died for her, “sacrificing Himself to make her pure and holy, cleansing her through the showering of the pure water of the Word of God. All that He does in the church is designed to make her a mature church for His pleasure, until she becomes a source of praise to Him—”glorious and radiant, beautiful and holy, without fault or flaw,” Ephesians 5:25-27 declares.^[7] The Lord “nourishes and cherishes” the church with His attentions—His ministrations verse 29 says.^[8]

After finishing the washing, Jesus returns to eye-level with His ones to talk with them and to us face-to-face. Fellowship is restored after cleansing. He explains that they have regarded Him as teacher and Lord, one high above them, and that this is true, but then He goes on to say that He reigns without hierarchy through voluntarily going low to serve them. “Now do for each other what I have just done for you,” the Lord instructs in John 13:17, “and you will experience a life of happiness enriched with untold blessings.”^[9] You will experience transcendent agape love, He is saying. You will overcome the world’s pecking order and experience heavenly realities on earth as you minister the written Word and the prophetic heart of God.  Those who are at the top are servants of all who operate in union with the Godhead out of His mind, heart, and will. They are those who let the Lord be their very life. They know who they are as sons of God after the image of the Pattern Son. 

Jesus directs a truth at their pride—that in them that would cause resistance to washing others feet. Such service should not be beneath them the Lord is saying when He states, “I speak to you timeless truth: a servant is not superior to his master, and an apostle is never greater than the one who sent him.”^[10]

The nature of the Creator is love. God is love in a giving of Himself to us. And in coming to earth to walk among us as the Son of God, Jesus raises those who open themselves to Him to the high rank of union and intimacy with the Godhead. Jesus gives us an identity though a new birth as a new race that frees us from the imprints of elitism or worthlessness we have suffered in the fallen earth. We are now given the place of being seated with Him in heavenly places and authority to bind the lies of the devil. We partake of the Divine nature as we feed on the promises of God and the Bread from heaven, the very Person of Jesus. His blood cleansing gives us bold access to His throne of grace for the empowerment from Him to obey Him. And to obey Him is to break through and overcome hierarchy. Jesus invites any who will to come, “next to the Father through union with Him.”^[11] He leaves us with the Counselor and Comforter—the Holy Spirit inside us who reveals Jesus and leads us into all truth. We are His bondservants as far as receiving from His hand and obeying Him as Lord and King. Nonetheless He confides in us His aims and very secrets, and He calls us, “His intimate friends.” 

The Lord even goes so far as to share His glory with us: “For the very glory you have given to me, I have given to them,” Jesus states of His disciples, “so that they will be joined together as one and experience the same unity that we enjoy.”^[12]  “You,” Jesus says of the Father, “live fully in Me and now I live fully in them so that they will experience perfect unity.”^[13] Jesus is still trying to reach the world He loves—the world He died for, by the demonstration that the Father loves each of His human children equally with “the same passionate love” He has for Jesus.^[14] Jesus, the Word says in John 15:9, loves us with the same love with which the Father loves Him. And the Lord has given us His commands to obey so that we will remain in His love. 

Jesus said in John 17:26, “I will continue to make You, the Father, more real to them, so that they may experience the same endless love that You, the Father have for Me.”^[15] The secret is that of heart response. The Amplified Classic puts it so well in John 14:21: “The person who has My commands and keeps them is the one who [really] loves Me; and whoever [really] loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I, [too] will love him and will show (reveal, manifest) Myself to him. [I will let Myself be clearly seen by him and make Myself real to him.]^[16]

We are called to be expressions of the Godhead—actual compositions of Him or “letters of Christ.”^[17] God invites us all to the table as He washes our feet. We are to embrace the deliverance from hierarchal thinking He died to accomplish. There are varying functions among us, but in terms of worth, “We no longer see each other in our former state—Jew or non-Jew, rich or poor or enslaved or free, male or female, because we are all one through our union with Jesus Christ with no distinction among us.”^[18] The enemy’s injection of pride or love of position and status has no place. At the birth of the church in Acts, they so understood what God had instituted in bringing His kingdom, that they loved each other by donating their possessions to one another—to those in need. They embraced each other as brothers and sisters—family.

From Acts 2:45-47 in The Passion Translation come the words, “All the believers were in one fellowship as one body, and they shared with one another whatever they had. Out of generosity they even sold their assets to distribute the proceeds to those who were in need among them. Daily they met together in the temple courts and in one another’s homes to celebrate communion. They shared meals together with joyful hearts and tender humility. They were continually filled with praises to God, enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord kept adding to their number daily those who were coming to life.”^[19]  May the Lord deliver us from the demonic hierarchy of the world’s system. The first church had not a needy one among them. They demonstrated the nature of the God who gave all—the God who embraces us as intimates—by their having all things common. May we, at least, be souls with great sensitivity to those around us and take up all others in the Body as brothers.   

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Blessings in return—

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^[1] John 13:1 (TPT)

^[2] John 13:3 (TPT)

^[3] John 13:8 (TPT)

^[4] John 15:3 (TPT)

^[5] The Recovery Bible with notes by Witness Lee. John 13:5 note 2.

^[6] James 3:14-15 (TPT)

^[7] Ephesians 5:25-27 (TPT)

^[8] Ephesians 5:29 (TPT)

^[9] John 13:17 (TPT)

^[10] John 13:16 (TPT)

^[11] John 14:6 (TPT)

^[12] John 17:22 (TPT)

^[13] John 17:23 (TPT)

^[14] John 17:23 (TPT)

^[15] John 17:26 (TPT)

^[16] John 14:21 (AMPC)

^[17] 2 Corinthians 3:3 (MOUNCE)

^[18] Galatians 3:28 (TPT)

^[19] Acts 2:45-47 (TPT)