What is God's Love? (John 13:1-38)

John 13:1-38; Key Verse: Jn 13:15

"I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you."

What is God's love? The theme of my sermon is: "God's love is to show you what you should do." God's love is not just a romantic good feeling in our heart. Rather, God's love through Christ has real practical expression in our life. The five parts of this sermon are:

1. The Manner of Love (Jn 13:1-5)...is foot washing. How Jesus showed us his love.
   
2. The Necessity of Love (Jn 13:6-11)...is cleansing. Why Jesus has to "wash" us.
   
3. The Imperative of Love (Jn 13:12-17)...is to do as Jesus did. What Jesus wants us to do.
   
4. The Pain of Love (Jn 13:18-30)...is to love a betrayer. When love cuts to the heart.
   
5. The Glory of Love (Jn 13:31-38)...is to love God. Who love is ultimately directed toward.

All you need is love. Love is the biggest theme and topic of all time and through out human history, as the Beatles sang, "All You Need Is Love" written by John Lennon in 1967. Paul McCartney sang "Silly Love Songs": "You'd think that people would have had enough of silly love songs. But I look around me and I see it isn't so. Some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs. And what's wrong with that?" We humans can never get enough of love. But what is love like?

The closest approximation of God's love is parental love. Perhaps, the closest approximation of God's love is a parent's love for their child. When my daughter gave birth to her first son, Timothy Lewis Herman, on Thanksgiving day 2012, I witnessed the sheer joy and love of motherhood. Holding her son and looking at him, she said, "I am so happy just to take care of him all day and do nothing else." When he grows up she surely wants nothing but the very best for him, and she would teach and show him all that she can because of her love for him. I am simply expressing what all moms and dads want for their kids: to grow healthy, to be successful, to have good friends, to marry well, and to make their parents so proud of them. God's love for us is all of this and more.

What was Jesus' last practical display of love before he died? On his very last night before he died, what could Jesus do to show most clearly to his disciples whom he loved just how much he loved them? If you knew the last day of your life, what would be the most important thing that you do or tell someone you love? Give them some money? Promise them a happy and successful life? Hug and kiss them tightly with tears? In Jn 13:1ff, Jesus would show his disciples whom he loved "the full extent of his love" (Jn 13:1b; NIV 1984). The 2011 NIV says, "Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end." How would you love someone to the end with the full extent of your love? This sermon is not a comprehensive verse by verse/word by word exegesis, but an overview of how Jesus showed his full extent of love for those he loved.

I. The Manner of Love (Jn 13:1-5)

God is love. Jn 13:1. "It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end." What does "to the end" mean? It means that Jesus loved them to the very end of his life. It presupposes that they way Jesus displays his unflagging love for his own disciples is in the cross immediately ahead, and in the act of self-abasing love, the foot washing, that anticipates the cross. The primary attribute of God is that "God is love" (1 Jn 4:8,16). All that God expresses to us, and allows to happen to us--even some horrible things that we do not comprehend--comes from the unchanging attribute that God is love. Jesus could show his friends no greater love than to lay down his life for them (Jn 15:13). Thus, one who does not know or understand that Jesus died for them, would not know or understand the full extent of love.

The manifold expression of love. This passage clearly shows the love of Jesus. But it also shows other matchless attributes of Jesus:

• The humility of Jesus (see below), for he served others in spite of who he was by condescending himself more than anyone else ever did.
• The endurance of Jesus, for he served others in spite of what he was going through by genuinely thinking of and considering the needs and comforts of others.
  

What do you do with knowledge? Jn 1:3. "Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God." Knowledge puffs up (1 Cor 8:1). Absolute power corrupts absolutely. With such power, status and knowledge at his disposal, we might expect Jesus to defeat the devil in an immediate confrontation, and to devastate Judas who had already prompted him (Jn 1:2) with an unstoppable blast of divine wrath. Instead, he washes his disciples' feet (Jn 13:4-5), including the feet of the betrayer.

Foot washing is seemingly unnecessary, stunning and shocking. Doubtless the disciples would have been happy to wash Jesus' feet. But they could not conceive of washing one another's feet. Some Jews reserved foot washing only to Gentile slaves, or women and children and pupils. The reluctance of Jesus' disciples to volunteer for such a task is culturally understandable. Also, there is no instance in either Jewish or Greco-Roman sources of a superior washing the feet of an inferior. But here Jesus reverses the roles. His act of humility is as unnecessary as it is stunning, and is simultaneously a display of love (Jn 13:1b), a symbol of saving clensing (Jn 13:6-9), and a model of Christian conduct (Jn 1:12-17).

The humility of God. When Jesus "took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist" (Jn 13:4), he adopted the dress of a menial slave, dress that was looked down upon in both Jewish and Gentile circles. As Jesus "poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him" (Jn 13:5), he demonstrated his claim that "I am among you as one who serves" (Lk 22:27; cf. Mk 10:45). Jesus who was "in very nature God...made himself nothing" (Phil 2:6-7). Indeed, Jesus "became obedient to death - even death on a cross!" (Phip 2:8) The matchless self-emptying of the eternal Son, the eternal Word exchanges the form of God for the form of a servant. Jesus dons our flesh and goes open-eyed to the cross so that his deity is revealed in our flesh, supremely at the moment of greatest weakness and greatest service.

What does foot washing mean practically? Why does God want to wash our feet? There are many things to say. But there are two things that God's love expressed as foot washing clearly are not:

• It is not tolerance. Modern people think of love as accepting all the practices and beliefs of everyone. It is to not get angry with others in the name of tolerance. But real love is engagement; it is washing feet. In Jesus' day, people's feet were dirty, infected and cut. Loving them would involve washing them, which would hurt. Rebecca Pippert, Christian speaker and author, said,
• “We tend to be taken aback by the thought that God could be angry. How can a deity who is perfect and loving ever be angry?...We take pride in our tolerance of the excesses of others. So what is God's problem?... But love detests what destroys the beloved. Real love stands against the deception, the lie, the sin that destroys. Nearly a century ago the theologian E.H. Glifford wrote: 'Human love here offers a true analogy: the more a father loves his son, the more he hates in him the drunkard, the liar, the traitor.'... Anger isn't the opposite of love. Hate is, and the final form of hate is indifference... How can a good God forgive bad people without compromising himself? Does he just play fast and loose with the facts? 'Oh, never mind...boys will be boys'. Try telling that to a survivor of the Cambodian 'killing fields' or to someone who lost an entire family in the Holocaust. No. To be truly good one has to be outraged by evil and implacably hostile to injustice.” If God loves you, He will hate the evil in you. The more God loves you, the angrier He may get with you.
  
• It is not just romance. We think of love as being attracted. Attraction may not just be toward physical attributes. We are also attracted to someone for their success, intellect, brilliance, abilities. But the essence of love is foot washing and service, not a feeling of attraction. Today, "I love you," means "You make me feel good." But love as foot washing is to serve others in spite of their lack of attractiveness.
  

II. The Necessity of Love (Jn 13:6-11)

The disciples do not understand that the foot washing refers to the cross. Doubtless all the disciples were extremely embarrassed by what Jesus was doing. For most of them, their embarrassment bred beleaguered uncomfortable silence. But for Peter, he had to object indignantly, spluttering in astonishment and incomprehension, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" (Jn 13:6) But Jesus expects him to submit to the washing in faith, even though the disciples cannot yet understand that the one whom they venerate as the Messiah must go to the cross (Jn 13:7). What they will later understand does not refer to the foot washing, but to the passion to which the foot washing points. After Jesus' death/exaltation, and certainly after the descent of the Spirit, they will understand.

To have a part with Jesus absolutely requires washing, which symbolizes Christ's atoning, cleansing death. When Peter understandably and emphatically protests (Jn 13:8a), Jesus responds, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me” (Jn 13:8b). This means that unless the Lamb of God has taken away a person's sin (Jn 1:29), has washed that person, he or she can have "no part" with Jesus, which in Jewish thought can refer to participation in eschatological blessings (Mt 24:51; Rev 20:6, 22:19). Peter surely wanted to be linked with Jesus, even if he had not himself grasped that the basis of the cleansing foreshadowed by the washing of his feet lay ahead in the hideous ignominy of the barbarous cross. Thus, his unrestrained rejoinder: “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!” (Jn 13:9)

Though already saved once and for all through Christ, confession of sin is still necessary. The thought of Jn 13:10 is not dissimilar to John's first epistle addressed to Christians who have already believed (1 Jn 5:13) and received eternal life (1 Jn 2:25), where John insists that continuing confession of sin is necessary (1 Jn 1:9), as is continued dependence upon Jesus, who is the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 Jn 2:1,2).

The supreme display of Jesus' love for his own. The disciples were not yet aware that the foot washing points, in various ways, to spiritual cleansing based on Christ's death, and that the foot washing and Jesus' atoning death are the supreme displays of Jesus' love for his own (Jn 13:1b). The foot washing was shocking to the disciples, but not half as shocking as the notion of a Messiah who would die the hideous and shameful death of crucifixion, the death of the damned. But the two events -- the foot washing and the crucifixion -- are truly of a piece: the revered and exalted Messiah assumes the role of the despised servant for the good of others. This plus the notion of cleansing, explains why the foot washing can point so effectively to the cross.

III. The Imperative of Love (Jn 13:12-17)

Jesus wanted two things from his disciples through his foot washing. By asking, “Do you understand what I have done for you?” (Jn 13:12) what did Jesus want for his disciples through his shocking foot washing? Two things:

1. He wanted them to know that the foot washing points to his impending crucifixion and death that would cleanse them (Jn 1:29).
2. He wanted a fellowship of the cleansed that he is creating to be characterized by the same love (Jn 13:34-35).
   

After pointing to his atoning sacrifice through foot washing (Jn 13:6-8), Jesus proceeds to the exemplary nature of the foot washing in this part. By remembering Jesus' washing of them, he wanted the same self-abnegation for the sake of serving others. That means that the foot washing is almost bound to have exemplary significance, just as Christ's death, however unique, has exemplary force (Mk 10:35-45; Jn 12:24-26)

"Do as I have done for you." Whether or not his disciples understood, Jesus proceeds to explain what he has done by answering the question he asked in Jn 13:12. Jesus was indeed what they called him: "Teacher" and "Lord" (Jn 13:13). But now that Jesus, their Lord and Teacher, has washed his disciples' feet - an unthinkable act! - there is every reason why they "also should wash one another's feet" (Jn 13:14), and have no conceivable reason for refusing to do so. Jesus says, "I have set you an example" (Jn 13:15a). The word hypodeigma suggests both "example" and "pattern" (Heb 4:11, 8:5, 9:25; Jas 5:10; 2 Pet 2:6). "...that you should do as I have done for you" (Jn 13:15b).

Humility requires the lowering of oneself before another. To do what Jesus said requires humility - the lowering of oneself before another. But human pride always manifests itself in a stratified society by refusing to take the lower role. But Jesus did so. Now his disciples are told to follow his clear example and pattern. Any Christian zeal divorced from transparent humility sounds hollow, even pathetic.

Jesus did so, can you refuse? Jn 13:16 has often been poorly understood and explained (Mt 10:24; Lk 6:40; Jn 15:20). Here Jesus deepens the teacher/pupil contrast by introducing two other pairs: master/servant (slave) and superior (one who sends)/messenger (apostolos). The point of the aphorism in this context is painfully clear: no emissary has the right to think he is exempt from tasks cheerfully undertaken by the one who sent him, and no slave has the right to judge any menial task beneath him after his master has already performed it.

Do we just say "amen" and not do anything? "Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them" (Jn 13:17). "These things" refer to Jn 13:14-15,16. There is a form of religious piety that utters a hearty "Amen!" to the most stringent demands of discipleship, but which rarely does anything about them. Jesus has already condemned those who hear his words but who fail to keep them (Jn 12:47-48; cf. 8:31). Now he emphasizes the truth, in line with a repeated stress in the Gospels (Mt 7:21-27; Mk 3:35; Lk 6:47-48) and elsewhere (Heb 12:14; Jas 1:22-25).

How can we obey? We can only when we realize what Jesus has done for us.

IV. The Pain of Love (Jn 13:18-30)

The best Christian experience without becoming a Christian. The story of Judas is always painful to recount. Doubtless when Jesus washed the disciples' feet he included the feet of Judas (Jn 13:5). It is easy to demonize Judas (Jn 13:2,10-11,27,30) without trying to learn from him. We say that Satan entered Judas (Jn 13:27). But Jesus had also rebuked Peter, "Get behind me, Satan" (Mt 16:23). What can we learn about Judas? Washed by Jesus Judas may have been; cleansed he was not (Jn 6:63-64). Clearly no rite, even if performed by Jesus himself, ensures spiritual cleansing. Judas had the best small group experience, the best preacher, the best moral example, the most incredible training anyone has ever had. All the disciples went out evangelizing, preaching and casting out demons. The Spirit of God used Judas' talents for the benefit of people around him. He had the most incredible input and output as a follower of Jesus, but he never became a Christian; he never became a child of God. What does this mean? The gospel never clicked with him. He never understood it. He did not perceive the full extent of Jesus' love for him (Jn 13:1b).

Rejecting God's love invites the devil. Without touching on Jesus prediction of his betrayal (Jn 13:18-26), let us proceed to Jesus giving Judas a piece of bread (Jn 13:26). What does this mean? It was Jesus' final gesture of supreme love for Judas (Jn 13:1b). How did Judas respond? Newbigin writes, "So the final gesture of affection precipitates the final surrender of Judas to the power of darkness. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has neither understood it nor mastered it." (The Light Has Come: An Exposition of the Fourth Gospel, p. 173, 1982.) Judas received the bread but not the love. Instead of breaking him and urging him to contrition, it hardened his resolve. "As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him" (Jn 13:27).

V. The Glory of Love (Jn 13:31-38)

Glory means the visible manifestation of God's self-disclosure. After Judas left, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once" (Jn 13:31-32). What is glory? Glory (doxa) is a word used to denote the visible manifestation of God's self-disclosure in a theophany (Ex 33:22; Dt 5:22), or even of the "glorious" status of God's people when He rises to save them (Isa 60:1). Thus, when God's people are aware of God's presence, they cry "Glory" (Ps 29:9), which shows how the word almost means "praise" (Jn 5:41). In the prologue of John's Gospel, glory or God's self-disclosure began not in a spectacular display of blinding light but in the matrix of human existence with the incarnation (Jn 1:14). Now Jesus brings to a climax this theme of glory. To John, it is clear that the supreme moment of divine self-disclosure, the greatest moment of displayed glory, was in the shame of the cross. "God is glorified in" (Jn 13:31,32) Jesus' temporal obedience, sacrifice, death, resurrection and exaltation -- one event; Jesus, "the Son of Man is glorified" in the same event, partly because by this event Jesus re-enters the glory he had with the Father before the Word became incarnate (Jn 1:14), before the world began (Jn 17:5, 24). The entire event displays the saving sovereignty of God, God's dawning kingdom.

Why is the new command? What should we do when we realize God's glory and self-disclosure? Jesus lays out what he expects of his disciples while he is away (Jn 13:33): “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jn 13:34-35).

Why is this command "new"?

1. The key to this "new command," which is immediately related to Jesus' foot washing, is "As I have loved you" (Jn 13:34) and "as I have done for you" (Jn 13:15). This command is new because the standard of comparison is Jesus' love (Jn 13:1b), which was just exemplified in the foot washing (Jn 13:4-5, 12-17). But since the foot washing points to his death (Jn 13:5-10), these disciples would in a few days begin to experience a standard of love they would explore throughout their pilgrimage.
2. It is a command designed to reflect the relationship of love that exists between the Father and the Son (Jn 8:29, 10:18, 12:49-50, 14:31, 15:10), designed to bring about amongst the members of the nascent messianic community the kind of unity that characterizes Jesus and his Father (Jn 17:21-23). The new command is threfore not only the obligation of the new covenant community to respond to the God who has loved them and redeemed them by the oblation of his Son, and their response to his gracious election which constituted them as his people, it is a privilege which, rightly loved out, proclaims the true God before a watching world (Jn 13:35). Orthodoxy without principial/elementary obedience to this characteristic/basic command of the new covenant is merely so much humbug.
   

Can we obey this new command? The more we recognize the depth of our own sin, the more we recognize the love of the Savior; the more we appreciate the love of the Savior, the higher his standard appears; the higher his standard appears, the more we recognize in our selfishness, our innate self-centeredness, the depth of our own sin. With a standard like this, no thoughtful believer can ever say, this side of the parousia, "I am perfectly keeping the basic stipulation of the new covenant."

How will others know that we are Christians? It is "by this" foot washing love (Jn 13:35). There is a remarkable testimony of Tertullian, writing about a century later than John. The pagans of his day marvelled at the love of the Christian fellowship, especially as it faced sometimes ferocious persecution: "See how they love one another!...how they are ready even to die for one another!"

Despite Peter's insistence on his undying loyalty, he would soon disown Jesus not once but three times (Jn 13:36-38). Despite his inability to do what he said, Peter should not be harshly judged, for he speaks out of confused devotion and a lack of self-knowledge. At this point in his pilgrimage, Peter's intentions and self-assessment vastly outstrip his strength. Nonetheless, three decades later, Peter would lay down his life and glorify God (Jn 21:18-19).

In summation, let us repeat that:

1. The Manner of Love (Jn 13:1-5)...is foot washing. This is how Jesus shows us his love.
   
2. The Necessity of Love (Jn 13:6-11)...is cleansing. This is why Jesus has to die in order to "wash" us.
   
3. The Imperative of Love (Jn 13:12-17)...is to do as Jesus did. This is what Jesus wants us to do as his disciples.
   
4. The Pain of Love (Jn 13:18-30)...is to love a betrayer. This is when love cuts us to the heart.
   
5. The Glory of Love (Jn 13:31-38)...is to love God. This is who love is ultimately directed toward.

No one just does what they are told. Even if they seemingly do so, they may do so for all the wrong reasons. We may love others, serve others, teach them the Bible, etc, to prove to ourselves that we can, and to show others that we are good Christians.

Questions:

1. What did Jesus know (Jn 13:1,3,11,18,38)? Knowing all this, what did he do, and why? (Jn 13:1b, 4-5)? What does this show about him?

2. How was the devil working (Jn 13:2, 27, 30)? What do you learn?

3. How did Peter respond to what Jesus did and why? (Jn 6,8a,9) What did Jesus teach him and the disciples in response (Jn 13:7,8b,10)? What do you learn from this (Jn 1:29; 15:3)?

4. What did Jesus want his disciples to understand and do (Jn 13:12-17; Php 2:5-8)?

5. What did Jesus want his disciples to know and why (Jn 13:18-30)? How did Jesus continue to love Judas (Jn 13:26)?

6. What is glory and why did Jesus talk about glory (Jn 13:31-33; 1:14, 12:23,28,31-32)? How is Jesus’ command a new command (Jn 13:34-35, 4-5, 12-17; 17:21-23; Dt 6:5; Lev 19:8)? What did Jesus know about Peter (Jn 13:36-38)?

*** Why is love the sign of Jesus’ disciples (Jn 13:35)? What can you learn about Jesus’ love for you (and others)?

References:

1. Carson, D.A. The Gospel According to John. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 1991. IV. Jesus' Self-Disclosure in His Cross and Exaltation (Jn 13:1-20:31), 455-487.
   
2. Keller, Timothy. The Love of Jesus (Jn 13:1-21). Sermon. Apr 26, 1998.
   

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