John 13:9-11 9Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed has no need to wash except for his feet but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not everyone.” 11For he knew the one who was going to betray him; on account of that, he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
In a third exchange, Peter reversed course and went all in, wanting a complete washing. It is unlikely that he still understood what he was saying. However, his statement pointed him in the direction of complete consecration. Jesus did not want part of Peter but all of him, but Peter did not understand this in a spiritual sense. His impulsiveness was a foreshadowing of what he needed to do spiritually. Jesus responds to Peter in verse 10 with two different but related ideas. The first part points to the physical aspect of being washed, but there is a possible spiritual application. When people take a bath, they clean their whole body. In Israel at that time, after a bath, the feet were the part that got quickly dirty as people walked on the dusty roads. They would only then just need to wash their feet and they would be all clean. Jesus applied this image to the disciples who had been made spiritually clean. They believed in Jesus, though their faith lacked full understanding, which would require experiencing the cross-event.
The second part of Jesus’ response indicates that one of the disciples was not clean. There was one in the group who did not have the faith of the rest. At this point, the disciples would not have understood this statement to be about betrayal. In verse 11, John, as the narrator, adds a brief explanation of why Jesus made the last comment. Judas’ betrayal indicated he was not part of the clean ones. His future actions were done because the devil had entered him and stopped faith and spiritual growth. Whether Judas ever had faith is not the point. He followed Jesus for many years, so there must have been at least some hope, which is what starts the growth of faith. But something derailed his faith resulting in him being stained by sin.
Jesus’ foot washing represented the removal of sin and its replacement with faith. The eleven disciples were on the right path, but Judas was stained with sin. This story confirms the many other passages in John that urge readers to believe in Jesus by submitting to what he wants to do in each of our lives by cleansing away sin and replacing it with the hope of eternal life.
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