13:31-38 The Approaching Farewell, Peter’s Denial Foretold

13 The Last Supper Conversations with the Disciples

13:1

Transition

13:1 forms a clear transition to a new section of the Gospel. Chs. 11 and 12 increasing lead into the Passion narrative, especially from 12:23 on, and here the narrative reaches the meal on the evening prior to the day of Jesus’ death. The focus is, at last, on Jesus’ relation to his disciples, in regard to both what is about to happen (ch. 13) and the time following his departure (chs. 14–17). Thus, as in the Synoptics, the meal referred to in 13:2 is the opening act of the story of Jesus’ death (see the comments on 13:2ff.), but, unlike the Synoptics, John has five chapters of Jesus’ farewell conversations with his disciples during the meal. These conversations are, in ch. 13, occasioned first by the footwashing and then by the identification and dismissal of the betrayer. But they continue and come to focus (chs. 14–17) on Jesus’ departure and the time thereafter. These chapters, as Jesus’ testament to his disciples, form a clearly distinct whole in the Gospel, the composition of which again calls for further discussion. Only in 18:1 does the narrative of Jesus’ death, begun in 13:1, continue.

13:1-3 provides a double introduction, which is given a solemn tone by its shaping in two parallel sentences. Here the Evangelist indicates the framework within which he wants us to interpret this entire story, beginning with the footwashing. A number of the Gospel’s themes reach their point of culmination in ch. 13.¹ The two parts of this introduction have been seen as proof that various redactors have been at work here. But however closely connected the two parts are, the import of vs. 1 is broader than that of vss. 2f.: the first sentence (“having loved … he loved them to the end”) relates to the whole of Jesus’ suffering and death, which is about to be described, while “Jesus, knowing …” in vs. 3 relates especially to the last meal, referring to it as a symbolic overture to and anticipation of the chain of events announced in vs. 1.

“Before the feast of the Passover” resumes the story interrupted in 12:37-40; the repeated reference to the approaching feast (cf. 11:55; 12:1) now indicates that the story has entered its decisive phase.² Although the sentence construction is somewhat unclear, the reference to the feast is clearly not intended to date Jesus’ love for his disciples to the time before the Passover³ but to point to Jesus’ foreknowledge of what awaits him at the Passover. When we are told next that he (then) “loved his own to the end,” the reference is only to the fullness of Jesus’ love as it manifested itself from that moment:⁴ it was love to the last breath and love in its highest intensity.⁵

The dominant thought in this overture is that of the Son sent by the Father into the world and now returning to him. The Son is the focus of the Passion story, the one into whose hands the Father has given all things. He knows his own “hour.” He is not caught by surprise or driven off course by it; for him it is rather the sign to take the initiative, to break through the boundaries of this world, and thus to return to the place he came from and to the Father who sent him. A grander opening of the story of Jesus’ death is hardly imaginable.

At the same time—and this is no less remarkable for an understanding of the Johannine Passion story—13:1 places all that follows in the perspective of Jesus’ love for his own. This is all the more striking because until now Jesus’ love has not been so emphatically identified as the fundamental motive for his actions. That it always has been cannot be doubted (cf. ch. 10). Still, it is the Passion story of which this love is the great theme; there it is seen as the progressive and cumulative motive, that is, as love to the end and to the limit. Though this motive of love does not compete with the motive of glory—one can speak of the glory and power of Jesus’ love in his suffering and death—it does significantly qualify it.

Some have thought that in John’s Gospel Jesus’ glory receives so much stress, including in the Passion story, that the Gospel can hardly be said to be free of a kind of Docetism, that is, that Jesus’ suffering is not real suffering in John, that the cross is not Jesus’ humiliation but only his exaltation, and that therefore his “going out of this world” consisted merely in a triumphal departure to where he was before.⁶ But this is a one-sided rendering of the concept of glory, one that sharply curtails the meaning of the Gospel as a whole and of its Passion story in particular. Precisely when Jesus knows that his hour has come and when he becomes more acutely conscious of his departure out of this world, his love goes out, as never before, to “his own who are in the world.” His hour was also their hour, the hour of decision for them as well. Soteriology—Jesus’ death—is completely joined with christology—with glory—and gives that glory its ambivalence (as we have pointed out)⁷ as elevation onto the cross, as the ascent of him who desended to the very depths of this world (cf. 3:13).⁸

The story that follows, the footwashing, is characteristic and revelatory of this complex of themes in vss. 1-3.

13:2-38

The Final Meal

Much has been written about the origin and the literary and material unity of this story.⁹ It occurs only here in the Gospels. Those who deny to the Fourth Evangelist all independent knowledge of Jesus’ life trace this story to the tradition, whether oral or fixed in one or more written sources, on which the Evangelist is said to have been dependent for his Passion narrative. The narrative as we have it before us is further said to be the Johannine rendering of that tradition. But because evidence is lacking, discussion of this issue remains no more than a working with unknowns. Of more importance is the similarity, noted by many interpreters, between this narrative and certain pronouncements of Jesus in the story of the last meal in Lk. 22:24ff. There, too, Jesus admonishes his disciples not to elevate themselves above each other and makes himself an example of one who serves: “For who is greater, one seated at the table or one who serves? Is it not the one seated at the table? But I am among you as one who serves” (Lk. 22:27). This is all the more remarkable because the word “serve” expressly marks Jesus’ servanthood among his own as a slave’s service at table, as in Lk. 12:37; 17:8, where, as in Jn. 13:4, we also read of the servant at the table “girding himself.” Some therefore believe that Lk. 22:24ff. underlies the entire narrative of the footwashing.¹⁰ Most interpreters, however, reject such a genetic link.¹¹ The service at table that Jesus speaks of is not footwashing but waiting on guests (cf. Lk. 17:8; 12:37). The Johannine story has no reference to serving at table, and Jesus acts first and explains his action only later.¹² Accordingly, everything points rather to the presence of an original story of a footwashing during (or after) the meal (vs. 4), which was certainly unusual.

A more difficult question concerns the unity of the narrative: Do Jesus’ dispute with Peter (vss. 6ff.) and Jesus’ interpretation of the footwashing (vss. 12ff.) belong together? Many interpreters regard these two parts of the story as giving two different meanings to the footwashing (see further below).

Another preliminary question we cannot ignore at this point is that of the character and date of the meal mentioned in vs. 2, a question that coincides with the still unresolved controversy over the dating of Jesus’ death in the Fourth Gospel. It is certain that this meal occurred on the Thursday evening that preceded the day of Jesus’ death, Friday, and was therefore the meal that the Synoptic Gospels place on the eve of Jesus’ death. This is clear, despite all the differences between John and the Synoptics, from a compassion of Jn. 13:26; 18:30 with Mk. 14:18-21 par. and of Jn. 18:1 with Mk. 14:28 par. One may therefore assume that this meal was generally known in the tradition (cf. also 21:20, which mentions simply “the meal”). So what is at issue is not the day but the date of that day—“the most disputed calendric question in the N.T.”¹³

The Synoptics identify this meal with the Passover meal, held at the beginning of Nisan 15, what we would call the evening of Nisan 14, assuming that the day of Jesus’ death occurred on the first day of Passover. But John 13 does not call its meal a Passover meal, which is evidence enough for many interpreters that it could not have been the Passover meal and therefore that Jesus’ death on the following day did not occur on the Passover. Everything is said to have occurred a day earlier: the meal on the evening of Nisan 13 and Jesus’ death on the 14th, so that “only after Jesus’ body was in the tomb did sunset mark the opening of the feast when the Passover meal could be eaten.”¹⁴

This conclusion is by no means obvious from John 13 itself, which in fact supports the opposite view. We have noted that “before the feast of the Passover” in vs. 1 means that the concluding phase of Jesus’ earthly life was about to begin, with the celebration of the feast. “During supper” immediately follows in vs. 2, and it is natural to understand this as referring to the Passover meal.¹⁵ Admittedly the Evangelist does not mention the Passover meal in so many words, but this need not mean any more than that the viewpoint from which he intended to regard this farewell meal was not the Passover meal but the footwashing. The argument from silence cannot be decisive, especially because the story is marked by indirect references to the Passover meal: it was a festal meal taking place in Jerusalem at a late hour, and the disciples assumed that Judas went out to distribute alms, which was commonly done the night of Passover.¹⁶ John not only does not speak of this last meal as the Passover meal but also refrains from mentioning the institution of the Last Supper, which, according to the tradition (in the Synoptics and in 1 Co. 11:23), took place in the same night (“the night in which he was betrayed”). It is certainly likely that John knew of this institution and that in not mentioning it he was guided by other than negative considerations.¹⁷ What comes out in both “omissions” is John’s unique and characteristic purpose and manner of working, both as a transmitter of the tradition and as an Evangelist, that is, his selective use of the material available to him.¹⁸ In leaving out references to the Passover and the Last Supper, he clearly worked within the perspective from which, according to the opening verses of the chapter, he wanted his readers to see the significance of Jesus’ death, and he characteristically omitted what he could assume was generally known among his readers.¹⁹

While therefore ch. 13 does not argue against the meal there being the Passover, many interpreters nevertheless believe that chs. 18 and 19 clearly support the Nisan 14 dating of Jesus’ death and conclude that the meal is not intended to be the Passover. This support comes in the form of indirect historical references and theological indications.²⁰ Others even think that John, contrary to the tradition of Jesus’ death on Nisan 15, of which his own story clearly bears the marks, adapted the day of Jesus’ death to Nisan 14 for the sake of his own theology.²¹

For this viewpoint scholars appeal especially to 19:14: “Now it was the day of preparation of the Passover,²² about the sixth hour. He [Pilate] said to the Jews, ‘Here is your king!’ ” The first time indication is said to refer to the day before Passover, and “the sixth hour” is said to be a clear reference to noon on that day, the moment at which the priests killed the Passover lambs in the temple. This would be, on this understanding, an implicit statement that Jesus was slain as the lamb of God at just that time on the day preceding the great memorial feast of Israel’s liberation.

The main objection to this interpretation, however, is that “preparation” (παρασκευή) is a technical term for the day preceding the sabbath, also called “the day before the sabbath” (Mk. 15:42). It is used absolutely in Jn. 19:31 and with “of the Jews” in 19:42. Use of it for the day before Passover is not known.²³ Therefore the phrase in 19:14 must refer to the “preparation” before the sabbath at Passover and not to the day preceding Passover—especially since 19:31 calls the sabbath following this day of preparation a “great day,”²⁴ in accord with a rabbinical custom of calling a sabbath falling on Nisan 16 “the great sabbath” since on that day the firstfruits were presented (cf. Lv. 23:11). Thus we have another indirect but important argument that the day of Jesus’ death was Nisan 15, the first day of Passover.²⁵

Consequently there is no ground whatever for the view that the Evangelist, in the precise time reference in 19:14, was implicitly (“theologically”) saying that Jesus was the true Passover lamb, a view that is in any case improbable because in the entire context not a word is said about such an interpretation of Jesus’ death.²⁶ The point of this time reference is, rather, that precisely on this Friday of Passover, the day of Israel’s historic liberation, Pilate mockingly confronted the Jews with Jesus’ kingship, just as in 18:39, using the same title, he attempted to release Jesus as a political favor, something he customarily did “at the Passover.”

In light of all this, therefore, the appeal to 18:28, which many regard as the clearest argument that John followed a unique dating of the crucifixion, can no longer be regarded as decisive. This verse by itself, and in view of texts like Mk. 14:12, 14; Lk. 22:15, does seem to refer to eating the Passover lamb on the evening of the same day, in which case 13:2 would have to refer to another meal. Many interpreters even think that no other interpretation is possible.²⁷ But even some who argue for a unique Johannine dating concede that “eating the Passover,” though usually understood in this way, can also, when the context suggests it, be taken in a broader sense, as referring to a festive meal on the day(s) following Passover itself.²⁸ Taking all the data in John 13, 18, and 19 together, one can only say, in my opinion, that the context does suggest this broader sense and that in any case 18:28 is not an incontrovertible veto of the Johannine dating of Jesus’ death on Nisan 15.²⁹

What position one takes with regard to this continuing issue is unimportant for the interpretation of the pericope before.³⁰ The key to the pericope is, rather, as stated above, the entirely unique manner in which the Evangelist delivers his story of the last meal and frames it within the whole of his Gospel.

13:2-11

The Footwashing

2-3 As the story of the footwashing begins, the situation is described in three ways: First, “during the meal.” The Evangelist refrains from more precisely describing this meal although, as we have seen, the time reference in vs. 1 and a number of indirect indications clearly point, in our opinion, to the Passover meal. In any case this was the last meal of Jesus with his disciples and the setting for his “final” words to them—“final” in more than one sense. As such it was to enter history as “the” meal (21:20) and as “the night when he took bread and was betrayed” (cf. 1 Co. 11:23).

Second, “the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot,³¹ Simon’s son, to betray him.” Jesus’ departure from this world (vs. 1) was also the hour of his great contest with “the ruler of this world” (see the comments on 12:31), which now had to be fought to the finish (cf. 14:30). In this respect as well there is now no longer any delay. The devil had already taken position, deep in the intimate circle of Jesus’ disciples, in the heart of Judas Iscariot, by nudging him to the decision to “betray” Jesus. How he would do this is sufficiently well known and not described here, but the word used is the key word in the entire Passion narrative for Jesus’ being “handed over into human hands.” Here it is the demonic starting point in the process that pervades the entire story from start to finish as a chain of faithlessness.³²

Third, Jesus’ knowledge is here expressed a second time (cf. vs. 1), “that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God.” When the decisive hour came he knew what he had to do, as the one who came from and returned to God, by taking into his hands the task the Father had authorized him to perform: laying down his life and taking it up again (cf. 10:17). The initiative to accomplish this was now for him to take.

4-5 The first thing that strikes us in this connection is that Jesus’ care and attention is now focused above all on his disciples, “his own” (vs. 1), whom he, in “departing from this world” (vs. 4), had to leave behind in the world. All the conversations in the following chapters are devoted to this coming time, but in the symbolic action of the footwashing he first lays down the foundation on which alone their future fellowship as the church in the world could rest.

The gradual unfolding of the setting in the the subordinate clause and participial clause in vss. 2 and 3, then finally the verbs of the main clause, “he rose from the meal and laid aside his garments,” suggest something of a turning point. Most interpreters correctly see in this statement and in Jesus’ replacement of his garments in vs. 12 an allusion to the repeated use of the same words in 10:17, 18. Jesus lays aside his garments to take on the slave’s job of footwashing, which is then described in detail: he girds himself with a towel, pours water into a basin, and washes the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel. But there is also in his conduct an element of undeniable grandeur. He does not act as a slave who must do his work inconspicuously and then disappear from the scene before the meal. Only after he has reclined at the table with his disciples and eaten and drunk with them does he suddenly (certainly to the amazement of all) take the initiative to wash their feet.³³ And with the same “power” (cf. 10:18) with which he “lays aside” his garments does he later put them on again to resume his place among the disciples and to ask them: “Do you know what I have done to you?” (vs. 12).

6-9 But before he asks that question we have an interruption that is highly remarkable for the thrust of the whole story. When it is Simon Peter’s³⁴ turn to let Jesus wash his feet, Jesus encounters strong resistance: “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” What prompts Peter to say this is clear enough from the way he puts it. He considers Jesus’ action completely incompatible with their mutual relationship (“you … me”), incompatible above all with Jesus’ glory as he, speaking on behalf of all the disciples who have let Jesus wash their feet, have confessed it (6:68). As the story develops, Peter will express this resistance in increasingly stronger language (and deeds! vs. 37; 18:10, 15, 25). His present argument therefore touches on a dimension in the story that he will only learn to understand over a long period and in a way that is painful.

Jesus’ reply (vs. 7) anticipates this, but in a hidden way that is characteristic for the historical situation. He neither explains nor justifies his conduct to Peter but, tying in with Peter’s own “you … me” and on the basis of the difference between them, corrects Peter with “What I am doing you do not understand now.” The idea that Jesus thus refers to the explanation he gives immediately after the footwashing (as though he said, “Have a moment’s patience. I will explain it to you in a minute”)³⁵ is now almost universally rejected and seems contradicted by vs. 8. “Later”³⁶ is to be understood rather as an allusion to the idea in texts like 12:16 (cf. 2:22), which refer to the time after Jesus’ resurrection: then, by the light of Scripture and under the guidance of the Spirit, the light will dawn for the disciples in general and for Peter in a most personal way on what now appears perplexing and unacceptable.

The exchange that follows (vs. 8) shows how profound this misunderstanding was and how much was at issue. Peter no longer asks questions but most vehemently (“not in all eternity”; see the Greek) rejects the idea that Jesus will wash his feet.

Jesus’ reply is no less absolute. He no longer speaks of “understanding later,” but now confronts Peter with a choice between all or nothing: “If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.” The expression is Semitic and describes not so much the personal relationship but the solidarity in destiny of the two men.³⁷ Only by humbling himself before his own as a servant could Jesus come to glory and make his disciples participants in that glory. If Peter stands by his refusal, their ways will part and he will lose all that he thinks he has found in Jesus. Or, in Calvin’s words, “in refusing such a service, he rejects the principal part of his own salvation.”³⁸

At hearing these words (vs. 9), Peter at once changes his mind and tone. Despite what Jesus has said about “understanding later” Peter now thinks he has already understood Jesus’ intention, namely that by washing his feet Jesus seeks to bring home to him, and to remove, his impurity. And now of course the issue is different and the roles of “you” and “me” are correctly assigned. Again Peter’s spontaneity is in evidence: if it is a matter of his impurity, then it is not enough just to wash his feet. Then also his hands and head—he needs a complete bath from Jesus!

10-11 The truth is that Peter has not understood Jesus any better than the first time. Jesus is only concerned about the feet, that is, about performing a slave’s duty. There not Peter but Jesus is the lesser figure. Jesus’ concern is therefore not to induce Peter to understand himself better (as a sinner) but in one symbolic act to present himself to his disciples, as he leaves them, for all time to come in the form of a servant. That it must be so and not otherwise Peter will not understand until later. Jesus therefore rejects Peter’s spontaneous statement and insists that washing Peter’s feet is all that matters: “He who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, for he is clean all over.” This statement reflects the situation in which the disciples find themselves with Jesus. Guests were hardly expected to take a complete bath. They did so in advance in order to come to the table “completely clean.” All they needed was a slave who on their arrival would wash their feet to remove the dust they had collected on the way. It is that general truth that Jesus now applies in a spiritual sense to his disciples: “and you are clean, but not all of you.” They sit at table with Jesus as his disciples, clean not because they have purified themselves and made themselves worthy of this privilege but because of the word he has spoken to them (15:3), because he knows them and has taken them into the fellowship of his love (cf. 10:27f.; 15:1ff., 9, 16-17; 17:6; Lk. 22:28f.).

That they sit at table with him is proof of that, though not for all of them. In his oblique reference to the betrayer Jesus anticipates something that will come up again later during the meal (vss. 18f.). By saying that “not all” are clean, Jesus makes it all the more clear that he intends with the footwashing to confront them not with their impurity, an impurity he must deal with before going away, but rather with the image and example of their Lord as he is with them at that last meal and lays aside his garments to wash their feet. The significance of this act constitutes the focus of what follows.

From ancient times to the present interpreters have strongly differed on the interpretation of vs. 10 and therefore on the significance of the footwashing.³⁹ This difference of opinion is already reflected in the varying transmission of the text. Most of the important manuscripts have the reading we have followed above: “one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet.” One important manuscript lacks “except for the feet,”⁴⁰ which then yields the translation: “one who has bathed does not need to wash (or to be washed).”⁴¹

Of crucial importance for the whole interpretation are the words “one who has bathed.”⁴² Many interpreters understand them as referring to the footwashing itself and regard “bathe” as representing the purifying power of Jesus’ death.⁴³ The idea could be that by this footwashing the disciples would be taken up into the purifying event of Jesus’ death in such an all-embracing way that any additional washing (such as Peter has mentioned) would become redundant.⁴⁴ In such a view “except for the feet” would of course make no sense and would have to be explained as an insertion by copyists who no longer understood that: “one who has bathed” refers to the footwashing itself.⁴⁵

But this interpretation—however frequently followed—corresponds neither terminologically nor in content to the text’s train of thought. The meaning of the footwashing is greatly blurred if not totally lost. It is made clear throughout the passage that the footwashing was a partial purification by the use of the verb νίπτειν. The verb used in “one who has bathed” is λούειν, which, if it referred to the footwashing, would at least have to be regarded as a forced transition.⁴⁶ And this metaphorical interpretation of vs. 10 fails to fit into the content of the text. Apart from whether there is in this Gospel any point of contact for a portrayal of Jesus’ death as a water purification (let alone that a partial footwashing could represent that portrayal metaphorically), the image used here—“one who has bathed”—clearly refers not to a purification that the disciples must still undergo (i.e., in the event of the cross) but rather to the purity that they have already received as Jesus’ disciples, as is evident from the emphatic observation that follows: “and you are clean, but not all of you” (see the exegesis above).

And finally, there is a no less weighty objection: By thus making the footwashing into (a symbol of) a total bath of purification, one changes the specific meaning of Jesus’ symbolic act. As footwashing, it represents Jesus’ servanthood and not the disciples’ impurity. If we take it otherwise, we break up the unity of the story. According to Jesus’ explanation (see below), the footwashing that the disciples must render to each other is not washing but self-denial and mutual service.

That Jesus washes feet is the key. “Except for the feet” must not be deleted as redundant or meaningless. It constitutes the point of the statement and of the entire story. Some interpreters proceed from the longer text but take the idea of purification as their point of departure and have regarded “Except for the feet” as representing an additional washing that the disciples, because of their continuing contacts with the world, need over and over, even though they are fundamentally clean because they belong to Jesus.⁴⁷ But even if one tries in this way to do more justice to the text as handed down and to “one who has bathed does not need to wash,” our principal objection still stands: the actual and exclusive tertium comparationis of Jesus’ symbolic action is not the purification of the disciples but the servanthood of Jesus himself.⁴⁸

13:12-17

Jesus’ Interpretation of the Footwashing

Verse 12 picks up the thread of the story interrupted by vss. 6-11. After Jesus has completed the footwashing—including of the now apparently no longer recalcitrant Peter—and again “put on” the garments he had earlier laid aside (see the comments on vs. 4), he resumes his place at the table and, as teacher, takes up again the conduct of the conversation by confronting his disciples with a question: “Do you know what I have done to you?” He is thus evidently—though not directly—acting on the “later understanding” he has promised Peter (vs. 7). Only later will the disciples receive the full answer to this question, which is related to the laying aside of Jesus’ glory. He has washed their feet to portray to them the nature of the fellowship that not only unites them with him but must also be the permanent measure and source of their mutual relations when he is gone from them.

13-15 Jesus expresses this with, “You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.” Their bond to him is not merely one of personal affection and respect. It has been shaped above all by the fact that he has bound himself to them and they to him in a fellowship of life and learning in which he is their teacher (rabbi) and master (mari)⁴⁹ and in which they understand themselves to be subject to his authority and instructions. Hence also (vs. 14) their obligation to wash one another’s feet. For in being bound to him they are also bound to each other and therefore can only appeal to him as master and teacher if they are prepared to do as he, at his farewell from the world, has done for them.

For thus (vs. 15) “I have given you once for all⁵⁰ an example, so that you also might do as I have done for you.” By the word “example” Jesus describes his deed as “a rule of life”⁵¹ for their future association with each other. In this and similar statements (13:34; 15:9, 12; 17:11, 23) the conjunction “as”⁵² indicates not only similarity and adherence to a standard but also the ground on which this discipleship rests and the source from which it gains its strength. “As I have done for you” does not mean that in their contacts with each other the disciples can or should equal Jesus’ love for them. It directs them, rather, to Jesus’ self-sacrificial love for them as the source and driving force for their love for each other—“just as” his love for them has its source and ground in the Father’s love for him (15:9).

Verses 16 and 17 again place a heavy emphasis on the imperatives involved in discipleship and on the salutary effect they have when they are carried out. The obligations come first, introduced by heavily charged words that are characteristic of Jesus’ self-revelation: “Truly, truly, I say to you.” “If anywhere”—so we may paraphrase—“the rule here is: The disciple is not greater than the Teacher, nor the emissary than the one who sent him” (cf. Mt. 10:24; Lk. 6:40). The statement is very general and is sometimes thought of as a proverbial saying. But here, of course, we must understand it in light of what precedes, though from the second clause it is evident that it does not just speak of the disciples’ mutual relations. The force of the statement is clearly that they must not take too lightly the prospect that awaits them as disciples and emissaries of Jesus in the world. The “truly, truly” carries a warning. The disciples still do not realize where Jesus’ self-surrender for their sake and the sake of the world is to take him, or therefore what following him as their Teacher will mean for them. This he will discuss further, including how it concerns the difference between them and him (vss. 36f.). But with increasing clarity Jesus places the future of their discipleship in the light of the events he is now initiating. And that (vs. 17) not just as a warning to prepare them for it but also as a promise: “If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.” Knowledge calls for performance and cannot be isolated from it. But when what is known is done, those who have accepted Jesus as their Lord will also participate in the prospect and actuality of his glory. That is the beatitude for those who in their conduct demonstrate that they are truly his disciples (cf. 12:26).

The Unity of the Footwashing Story

I have attempted to interpret the story of the footwashing and its interpretation in vss. 12ff., including the interruption in vss. 6-11, as a coherent whole. In the history of interpretation this unity has recurrently been a subject of much discussion and dispute. This discussion has continued into recent exegesis and has led to a multiplicity of views concerning the meaning of the footwashing that is so great as to defy summarizing.⁵³ The real crux of the story is said to lie in the fact that the manner in which Jesus speaks about the footwashing in his conversation with Peter is quite different from the answer he gives in vs. 12ff. to the question that he himself poses. In the latter everything hinges on the footwashing serving as an example. But in his confrontation with Peter Jesus is said to mean something much deeper, or at least very different, something Peter does not understand but without which he will “have no part” in Jesus. What Jesus says to Peter about purification makes the footwashing a symbol for Jesus’ act of total purification in his surrender for his own on the cross (see the comments on vs. 10). On this basis commentators frequently refer to the “double meaning” of the footwashing: in vss. 12ff. a “parenetic” (“moral,” “pastoral”) meaning, in vss. 7-10 a christological (or “soteriological”) meaning. These meanings contradict each other at essential points,⁵⁴ and could not have formed an original unity.⁵⁵

As a rule scholars judge that vss. 6-10, because of their “christological-soteriological” approach, are more typically Johannine than the “parenetic” interpretation in vss. 12ff. The latter is said to rest on a broader base in the tradition (cf., e.g., vs. 13 with Mt. 10:24, 25; Lk. 6:40; 1 Tm. 5:10). Therefore, although the account of the footwashing occurs only in John, the version of the story represented in Jesus’ explanation in vss. 12ff. led a life of its own in the tradition. This version of the story (further edited or not) gained a secondary position in John’s story alongside the version represented in vss. 6-10. According to some, this combination was the work of the Evangelist himself, who incorporated the “example” motif into his story in order to furnish it with a new grounding by means of vss. 6-10.⁵⁶ Others, however, think that not the Evangelist but a later redactor inserted vss. 12ff. for reasons that interpreters understand in diverse ways.⁵⁷

It is our conviction, however, that the whole idea that we are dealing with two competing interpretations is based on a failure to appreciate the fundamental motif that controls the entire story from beginning to end, which is that of the footwashing as symbol of servitude and of readiness to deny oneself in the service of others. That is no less true for Jesus’ conversation with Peter than for the explanation in vss. 12ff. It is undoubtedly true that in his conversation with Peter Jesus has in mind more than Peter was able to understand at that moment. There Jesus partly unveils the deeper messianic dimension of what he is “doing.” But he does not pursue the point and again limits himself—even when Peter asks for a total purification—to washing feet as the one thing Peter “needed.”

Interpretation is derailed when it is not restricted to footwashing and to the motif of the servant, when, that is, it seeks to impart to the footwashing a soteriological meaning applicable only to Jesus and not to the disciples, namely the all-embracing purification from sin. Thus the connection with vs. 12 is blocked and the story is broken up into two “interpretations.”

The story has only one interpretation, the one given in vss. 12ff. The deeper (salvation-historical) background is referred to, but remains unexplained. The shadows of the cross peep through again and again. But what is happening is still veiled. In so relating the story the Evangelist respects the boundaries of the historical situation in which the events occur. He does not write the story of Jesus going to the cross as historicized theology, but repeatedly stresses that the events preceded the disciples’ understanding of the events and would be understood in their deep divine sense only “afterward,” with the aid of the Spirit’s witness. Consequently vs. 10—like other statements in which Jesus encounters and reacts to his hearers’ incomprehension (cf. vs. 36; 6:52; 2:19, etc.)—acquires an air of mystery. The time for “understanding” it has not yet come. For that reason, too, the interpretation in vss. 12ff. is restricted to the “example” character of the footwashing.

However—and this is the no-less important other side of the issue—this “parenetic” thrust of the footwashing did not exist without the deeper dimension it gets in John 13. It did not first lead a moral life of its own to be given, only later, a “christological” background (by some “church” theologian) and thus gain a place in the Passion narrative. The degree to which the two parts of the story—not only compositionally and stylistically but also in content—form an unbreakable unity is evident from vss. 12ff. themselves, where the ground for and inspiration of what Jesus asks of his disciples is precisely pointed out in the conjunction “as,” in that which he “has done” for them (see the exegesis above). But there is more. The dual interpretation view of 13:1-17 breaks apart that which, in the whole of Jesus’ farewell in chs. 13–17, is constantly interconnected and described as an inseparable unity: Jesus’ love for his own, culminating in the all-determining exclusive salvific significance of his suffering and death, and the love he asks of his own as the new commandment to be fulfilled on the basis of his love for them. What Jesus here both “does” for his own and asks of them has its place in the whole context of God’s love for the world in giving up his Son (3:16). As the Father has loved the Son, so the Son loves his own (15:9) so that they may also love one another (13:34; 15:12). The commandment to mutual love is a commandment to “remain” in the love of the one who sends the disciples. For just “as” the Son kept the commandments of his Father and remains in his love, so they will keep his commandments when they—taken up into the oneness of the Father and the Son (17:21, 23, 26)—remain in his love (15:10).

13:18-30

The Betrayal Predicted, Judas Dismissed

Verses 18-20 form a transition to the identification and dismissal of Judas as the betrayer. They link up with vss. 10b-11, which have already alluded to Judas. Vs. 18 echoes the “not all” of vs. 11, and Jesus’ foreknowledge of his betrayer returns with “I know whom I have chosen,” though one can argue whether Judas is included in that category or whether “chosen” refers to those whom Jesus has truly bound to himself and appropriated for himself, in which case Judas has not been included from the beginning. In 6:70 (“Did I not choose you, the Twelve, and one of you is a devil?”) the choice is of all twelve; it is likely that Judas is among the “chosen” here.

Jesus adds: “but that the Scripture may be fulfilled.” The “that” does not link up with a preceding verb and therefore hangs somewhat in the air (cf. 9:3). One cannot therefore say that Jesus chose Judas to fulfill Scripture; we must read the clause more generally in the sense that “this happened/had to happen, so that.…” The citation is from Ps. 41:9. It is not certain if we should read “my bread” or “bread with me.” The first agrees with Psalm 41 and could refer to Jesus as the host who hands out the bread. Some take “has lifted his heel against me” to mean “has shown the bottom of his foot as a gesture of contempt”; others take it to mean simply “has kicked me.” The citation not only confirms that what Judas was about to do was foretold in Scripture but no less brings out the treacherous and faithless nature of his deed: he was about to abandon one whose bread he ate and in whose intimate fellowship he had spent time.

In vs. 19 Jesus tells why he is already (literally “from now on”) informing his disciples that “not all” would remain faithful to him and that therefore “not all” of them could count on the promise of salvation given to them (vss. 10, 17). He does this so that Judas’s betrayal will not shake their faith in Jesus but rather confirm them in the knowledge that, even with regard to Judas, Jesus is not surprised by developments but knows what awaits him (cf. vs. 18). This motif recurs in what follows in statements (14:29; 16:1, 4, 32, 33) that recall similar utterances in the Old Testament in which fulfilled prophecies are identified as proof of God’s omnipotence (Ezk. 24:24; Is. 43:10; 46:10). Here, in the Johannine Passion story, such statements are above all intended to make Jesus’ power and authority indisputable, even in his suffering and death (cf. 13:1, 3). They are also made with a view to the temptation inherent, for the disciples and (later) the church, in Jesus’ suffering and death, not to believe “that I am he,” that is, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (20:31). Similarly Jesus, in his earlier dispute with “the Jews,” has pointed to the future to establish his identity (8:28): “When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am he.”

Verses 18-20, as a transition between the story of the footwashing and the identification of Judas as the betrayer, thus have a clearly apologetic intent. This focus must be understood also against the background of the continuing conflict between the church and the synagogue with regard to the suffering Messiah. Vs. 20 does not seem to fit with this concern, but it can be understood as an encouragement to Jesus’ disciples not to waver in their work in the service and name of Jesus by whatever opposition or contradiction they might encounter.⁵⁸

21 The transition to a new pericope and a new phase in the story is evident from the introductory expression,⁵⁹ from the report of Jesus’ agitation, and from the following lengthy and solemn phrasing: “and he testified, saying ‘Truly, truly, I say to you: one of you will betray me.’ ” The betrayal is not announced here for the first time; on the contrary, it has been repeatedly prepared for (6:64, 70, 71; 12:4; 13:2, 11, 18ff.).⁶⁰ Now, however, Jesus knows that the time has come when the break between him and Judas will become reality. For as long as possible he has tolerated Judas as the hidden traitor in the circle of his disciples, right up into the footwashing. Now that the meal is almost finished and Jesus has begun to prepare the disciples for the time of separation, there is no longer any room for Judas. Again Jesus takes the initiative, now by exposing Judas and sending him away. Nevertheless, Jesus himself experiences the weight of the moment in a state of profound agitation (see the comments on 12:27; 11:33, 38). The authority with which he speaks (“Truly, truly …”) and the veiled way in which he tells his disciples of his knowledge that he will be handed over to his enemies by one of them⁶¹ do not, in the Fourth Gospel, exclude the deep human emotions that repeatedly come over him on the way to the cross and in which he makes himself one with the ancient psalmists whose utterances he repeats (cf. comments on 12:27; 13:18).⁶²

22-24 The disciples, affirmed and addressed by Jesus in their profound union with him only a moment earlier, are deeply embarrassed and look at each other disturbed and speechless. In the Synoptics the betrayer’s identity remains a secret: Judas asks, “Is it I, rabbi?” and the answer is apparently intended for his ears alone (Mt. 26:25). But in John the story of the exposure and dismissal of Judas is told in greater detail. This is closely linked with the role played in the story by the disciple “whom Jesus loved.”⁶³

Of immediate importance for this unnamed disciple’s identity is his introduction as “one of Jesus’ disciples,” which here means one of the Twelve, not only because according to the whole tradition known to us it was the Twelve who were with Jesus at the last Supper (Mt. 26:20; Mk. 14:17; Lk. 22:14, 30) but also because “one of you” in vs. 21 is used emphatically of “the Twelve” in 6:70, with that identification repeated in 6:71. No less telling, then, is the place this disciple occupies at the table: “at the breast of Jesus.” This description assumes the custom of the time of reclining at table on special occasions.⁶⁴ Each guest leaned on his left arm with his elbow on a cushion so that his head would be near the chest of the person to his left.⁶⁵ “At the breast of Jesus” therefore means not only that this disciple was in the place of honor to the right of Jesus, the host, but also that he had opportunity to conduct the tête-à-tête with Jesus described in vs. 25 without being overheard by the others at the table. Many interpreters see in “at the breast of Jesus” an allusion to 1:18: “As the Son is in the bosom of the Father, so this disciple is in the bosom of Jesus.”⁶⁶ 21:20 refers back to the beloved disciple’s place at “the” meal, though not with the word used in 1:18.⁶⁷ The idea that the Evangelist intended such an allusion to 1:18 is certainly possible, but it would certainly be very indirect.

This disciple’s place in the seat of honor is explained by the note that he was the one “whom Jesus loved.” He is identified as such for the first time here.⁶⁸ While this identification conceals his identity, certainly for a reason, it also emphasizes his special relationship with Jesus. What that relationship amounted to is not said. Jesus loved the other disciples (cf. 13:1; 15:9, etc.) and called them his “friends,” but always with an eye to the fellowship he maintained with them as his disciples and to their destiny as his apostles (cf. 15:15, 16). What distinguished this disciple from the others must therefore have been a more personal relationship of friendship (cf. 11:5), possibly also of kinship (see the comments on 19:25f.). The relationship does not come up again in the story (but see also 19:26, 27). The reference here to this disciple is evidently intended to stress the role he plays in the unfolding events, which is shaped by that personal relationship to Jesus.

The relationship (and this disciple’s proximity to Jesus at the table) plays a role here in that Peter, who, as so often, reacts first amid the confusion created by Jesus’ statement and gestures specifically to the beloved disciple, asking him to find out whom Jesus is speaking of.⁶⁹ Without attaching far-reaching (“theological”) conclusions to this event, we must still say that it is typical for the place of these two disciples in the circle around Jesus and reflects other incidents in this Gospel:⁷⁰ here and elsewhere Peter and the beloved disciple act in close conjunction (cf. 18:15ff.; 20:3ff.), especially in ch. 21, where they are expressly placed side-by-side in their permanent significance for the later church. Peter, as in the other Gospels, occupies a central place among the disciples (see especially 6:68; 1:42). There is no evidence of competition between the two (cf. 20:3ff.) or of subjection by Jesus of one to the other (cf. 21:15ff., 20ff.). But the beloved disciple has a priority of his own in that circle, not in opposition to but alongside that of Peter, a priority that proves to be a determining factor in the origination and character of the Fourth Gospel (see the comments on 21:24).

25-27 The real importance of this disciple’s action, however, lies in the manner in which Jesus involves him in the sequence of events. When, at Peter’s prompting,⁷¹ he asks, “Lord, who is it?” Jesus answers: “It is he to whom I will give this morsel⁷² when I have dipped it.” The answer is significant not only because it discloses the identity of the betrayer, but also because it makes the beloved disciple a witness to that identification. As Jesus dips the morsel and, as the host, presents it to Judas he not only unmasks Judas as the betrayer to the beloved disciple but also sets in motion a sequence of events in which Judas will play a decisive role. With the morsel, Satan enters into Judas.⁷³ Everything that until now has awaited fulfillment becomes real: the bread prophecy of Psalm 41 (cf. vs. 18), the Satan-inspired plan to “betray” Jesus (vs. 2), Satan himself moving into action. All these things have awaited the signal that Jesus—into whose hands the Father has put all things—had to give. He now gives that signal expressly to Judas: “What you are going to do, do quickly!”⁷⁴

28-29 Again the unique role that the beloved disciple plays in the story is made evident, now by what is said about the other disciples: “No one at the table knew why he [Jesus] said this.” Evidently they could not understand the whispered exchange between Jesus and the beloved disciple. They could hear the dismissal of Judas, but could only guess at its purpose. Therefore, “some” of them connected it with Judas’s role as administrator of the common fund (cf. 12:6), either that he was sent to buy necessities for the feast or that he should give alms to the poor.⁷⁵ They thought all this apparently without further reflection on the matter. The intentional mention of the disciples’ not understanding what was happening in their very midst is proof of how little they suspected Judas as Jesus’ potential betrayer. As a result—and this is surely the intention of the Evangelist—the beloved disciple’s position of trust is highlighted, for he is the only one to know what Jesus’ dismissal of Judas really meant.

In recent exegesis we frequently encounter the idea that this—from now on recurrent—special involvement of the beloved disciple in the closing events of Jesus’ life on earth must be understood as symbolic, not historical. Even though most scholars who entertain this view regard the beloved disciple as a historical figure (the founder or leader of the “Johannine community”), the actions ascribed to him in the Gospel, both here and elsewhere, are said to have a merely, or at least predominantly, symbolic meaning. As the ideal disciple or apostolic witness, he is said to represent, in the midst of the not-yet-understanding disciples before Easter, the faith of the later church (or the theology of the “Johannine school”) and thus to shed proleptically on the life of Jesus the light that had dawned on the church after Easter and under the guidance of the Spirit. From this vantage point, we are told, his role at the last meal is to be understood. Appeal is made to vs. 23 (understood in the light of 1:18): “One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was lying close to the the breast of Jesus.”⁷⁶

After the exposition of ch. 21 we will summarize everything that is continually at issue in the interpretation of the beloved disciple passages and that is consequently of special importance for the interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. But because the above-mentioned view is based particularly on the present passage, we must say now that this passage offers no support whatever for such an idealizing and ahistorical interpretation of the role of the beloved disciple and is, rather, totally at odds with it. What distinguishes the beloved disciple from his fellow disciples is not only that Jesus made him privy to his foreknowledge that Judas was the betrayer but also that he made him a witness of his dismissal of Judas, thus offering proof that he was not taken by surprise by Judas’s betrayal.

Accordingly, what Jesus said to all his disciples a few moments earlier (“one of you”), so that when it took place they might “believe that I am he” (vss. 18, 19, 21), he now—now that it was beginning to happen—makes clear in word and deed to this one disciple. This disciple’s special significance as a witness to Jesus stands out as a motif that, as we will see, returns in the later passages that mention him (see the comments on 18:15ff.; 19:35; 20:5ff.), which is why at the end of ch. 21 so much stress is laid on the reliability of his testimony (21:24; cf. vs. 20). But this does not make him the ideal post-Easter disciple who thus here already represents “proleptically” (and therefore unhistorically) the insight, faith, or theology of the later “Johannine community.” What makes his witness so important and gives him a certain priority among the disciples next to Peter is his intimate relationship with the earthly Jesus, whose glory in the flesh he observed and experienced at such close range that he could well be called its witness par excellence.

But he was not this in an exclusive sense but, as at the first time he is mentioned (vs. 23), as “one of the disciples.” They were all witnesses of the same glory, which is why the content of the whole Gospel can be summed up as the account of the signs (of Jesus’ glory) that Jesus had done “in the presence of the disciples” (20:30, 31).⁷⁷ In this respect one must make a sharp distinction between the Evangelist and the disciple whom Jesus loved. According to 21:24 they were one and the same person (on this point we see at length the discussion after the comments on ch. 21). The Evangelist interprets and explains in the light of the Scriptures and appeals (“post-Easter”) to the assistance of the Spirit. But the Evangelist portrays the beloved disciple with the utmost sobriety and restraint. He is, if you please, the great receptive witness who was involved as such in revelation history and for whom the salvation-historical (“theological”) understanding and interpretation of the events still had to come, just as it did for the other disciples (see the comments on 20:9; 19:36; cf. 2:22; 12:16; 14:26). All this does not detract from his special significance as the disciple and witness beloved by Jesus, but it does keep us from depriving him (as a symbolic figure) of his historic place among Jesus’ disciples.

30 Judas’s departure is described with utmost sobriety, but in a very telling way. No sooner had he received the bread of fellowship from Jesus’ own hand than “he left immediately.” He was in no less a hurry than Jesus. The dark power that had already taken possession of his heart now drove him to carry out his (long-cherished?) plan. “And it was night” is surely more than a temporal reference. It was “the night of the betrayal” (cf. 1 Co. 11:23), of “the power of darkness.” It was the night against which Jesus had repeatedly warned both the crowd and his disciples, that they should believe in the light before it was too late (cf. 9:4; 11:10; 12:35). Into that night Judas vanished to do what he had to do (vs. 27). We are not told where or to whom he went. The outcome will be evident soon enough (cf. 18:2ff.). With his departure the die was cast and the separation between light and darkness was final.

13:31-38

The Approaching Farewell, Peter’s Denial Foretold

Verses 31-38 form a fluid transition between 13:1-30 and ch. 14. They directly continue vs. 30 and the Last Supper conversation as we know it also from the Synoptics (cf. vss. 36-38 with Mt. 26:33ff. par.). And they also anticipate the great themes of chs. 14–17, which are lengthy monologues with only one further reference to the meal of ch. 13 (14:31).

Verses 31-32 depict the situation beginning with the departure of Judas from the viewpoint of Jesus’ glory. This glory will come up again and again in the following chapters, especially in the prayer in ch. 17 (14:13; 15:8; 16:14; 17:1-5, 10, 22, 24).⁷⁸ Typically, here again Jesus identifies himself as the bearer of the divine glory with the Son of man (cf. 12:23; 1:51), the self-designation that is associated with the absolutely transcendent character of Jesus’ messiahship and that also serves as an alternative for the title Son of God.⁷⁹ Accordingly, the change from one to the other of the two titles of majesty does not create tension (cf., e.g., 13:31 with 17:1ff.),⁸⁰ with this difference, however, that (the glory of) “the Son of God” refers specifically to Christ’s (preexistent) personal relation to God, while “the Son of man” refers to the (“eschatological”) salvation-historical function and mandate Christ has been given by God. Both of these realities emerge here. When Jesus dismisses Judas, he says, “now is the Son of man glorified,” and this bears on the fulfillment of the mandate given him by God as the Son of man on earth, which is now reaching its culmination; for the “night” into which Judas disappears also marks the end of the “day” in which Jesus must do the “work” that the Father had given him to do, which is to be the light of the world (cf. 9:4, 5; 11:9f.; 12:35) as the Son of man descended from heaven (cf. 3:13). For that reason we read next, “and in him God is glorified”: God is glorified in the fulfillment of the mandate for which God has sent Jesus (cf. 17:4).

The end of the descent of the Son of man is also the beginning of his ascent. This we learn in vs. 32: “if”—as vs. 31 intended—“God was glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself” in answer to his own glorification in the Son of man (cf. Ph. 2:9ff.),⁸¹ in his return to where he was before (6:62), to his glory as the Son with the Father before the world was (17:5, 24; 1:1). It is that glory to which Jesus now directs himself, in distinction from the stage of glory he is (as it were) leaving behind. That return still lies before him, and he is still to pray for it with urgency (17:1ff.). Between the two still lie the night and the cross as the place at which and the way in which the Son of man “must be lifted up” (3:14). But that hour is now at hand: “he will glorify him [the Son of man] at once.” There is no gap between the Son of man’s descent and ascent or between the glory of the one and the glory of the other. But the glory of the descent from heaven is not the same as the glory of the ascent to and into heaven: the two are “worlds” apart. Hence the disciples still need to be given extensive instruction, and Jesus will still pray at length before he leaves.

33 The second great theme that is struck in vss. 31-38 and that returns again and again in what follows is that Jesus’ imminent glorification is also his departure and separation from the disciples. In the term of address “little children,” which occurs only here in this Gospel (but frequently in the Johannine epistles), we are certainly permitted to hear an assertion of deep emotional attachment, especially in view of this final farewell and departure, though the rabbis commonly used such a form of address in speaking to their pupils.⁸² Now that he is departing and they must stay behind, Jesus’ concern embraces them in a particular way. Admittedly, he does express himself in the same words as he has used in speaking to “the Jews” (7:33ff.; cf. 8:21ff.; 12:35), and he reminds the disciples of that: “Yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and, as I said to the Jews, so now I say to you.…” For “the Jews” this was a warning to believe in him before it was too late. For the disciples it certainly means something else (cf. 14:19; 16:16ff.). But Jesus still stresses that he is going away, and following him is no less impossible for the disciples than for the others. For him and therefore for them his departure leads to another mode of existence. Until now he has participated in their mode of existence (1:14) and they have been able to see his glory with their own eyes and touch it (as it were) with their own hands. But all that will now come to an end. Their faith in him will have to face very different demands than before.

Here, too, we are struck by the strong salvation-historical discontinuity that is posited in the Fourth Gospel between the modes of existence of the earthly and the heavenly Jesus. Jesus’ work and fellowship with his own are not merely transferred from earth to heaven in order to go on there as usual.⁸³ It is precisely this difference that will be the subject of lengthy discourse in what follows but to which Jesus now already wishes to alert the disciples, who are now largely groping in the dark.

Because the transition from vs. 33 to vss. 34 and 35 seems at first rather abrupt and because vs. 36 seems to link up with vs. 33 better than with vss. 34 and 35, some expositors regard vss. 34 and 35 as an insertion by a later redactor.⁸⁴ The question is, then, what moved the redactor thus to break the connection between vss. 33 and 36 and whether this is not an oversimple shifting of the problem. Others understand vss. 31-35 to be a unit that originally served as the introduction to ch. 15, after which ch. 16 then followed. In that reconstruction, ch. 14, joined with 13:36-38, is said to have formed the conclusion of the whole and at the same time the transition to 18:1ff.⁸⁵ Most expositors reject this radical reconstruction and consider the text before us as original, granting that the transitions between vss. 31-32, 33, and 34-35 are not smooth.⁸⁶ We abide by the idea expressed earlier that this closing section of ch. 13 anticipates, from varying vantage points, that which is further elaborated in the cycle of chapters beginning with ch. 14, a structure for conceptual development that is not foreign to the Fourth Gospel (found also in ch. 14 and in chs. 15–16; see below).⁸⁷

34 After the glorification of Jesus (vss. 31-32) and the disciples’ consequent remaining behind on earth (vs. 33) follows, as the third vantage point of the approaching time, the “new commandment” as the basic rule for their emerging community. Only in the fulfillment of this rule is fellowship with their glorified Lord maintained and the ground and meaning of their existence indicated to the church that remains behind. This theme has already been presented to the disciples in its paramount importance for the future in the footwashing. And it will come up again in the following chapters (e.g., 15:9ff.). Hence this verse, like vss. 31-32 and vs. 33, also anticipates a coming theme.

The sentence construction of vs. 34 is not entirely clear, but the second half of the sentence is clearly designed to elucidate the first part, so that the translation must read approximately as follows: “I [herewith] give you a new commandment: that⁸⁸ you love one another and that, as I have loved you, you also love one another.”

The expression “a new commandment,” which also occurs in 1 Jn. 2:8, is striking and much debated. It cannot mean that Jesus was the first to posit the obligation to love one another. It was, after all, also the fundamental rule of life in the Old Testament (cf. Lv. 19:18; Lk. 10:25ff.)⁸⁹ and held as an ideal in pagan antiquity, whether in the general sense of philanthropy or in the sense of political solidarity.⁹⁰ Scholars have explained this newness of the Christian love-commandment in various ways—for example, in terms of degree and intensity or scope—but, in view of what love is able to do also from purely humanitarian motives (cf. Ro. 5:7), not always convincingly.

As translated above, the new commandment of which Jesus speaks is given further definition and explanation in the words “as I have loved you” (cf. 15:12). In Jesus’ love the commandment comes into play in a new salvation-historical way⁹¹ and receives a new grounding and, by his Spirit, a new possibility of fulfillment (cf. Ro. 8:3, 4) and, in content, a characteristic definition (cf. 15:13). Already in the footwashing Jesus gave his disciples the “example” of that love. And that not only in the ethical command, imperative sense of the word, but above all in the indicative sense of how he, as the One sent by God, represents his love to the world. For as “his own” must love one another “as” Jesus has loved them, so he has loved them “as” the Father has loved him (cf. 15:9), that is, as he revealed God’s love to the world in his self-abandonment for his own and for the life of the world (cf. 3:16; 10:17; 15:12, 13; 6:51; 1 Jn. 4:10; Ro. 5:8).

Accordingly, the “newness” in the commandment lies fundamentally in the new possibility that the commandment has acquired because God has, as it were, set the sending of his Son behind the commandment, thus making it fulfillable, as Paul puts it in Ro. 8:3ff. For that reason the new commandment can also be described in 1 Jn. 2:8 as that which “is true in him [Christ] and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.” The newness of the commandment lies in its “truth,” that is, in the effect in which it proves itself in Christ as “true,” as answering to its purpose. It is therefore known as “new” and “true” from its fruits, just as Christ can also be called the “true” vine because whoever remains in his fellowship also remains in his love, by doing his “commandments” (15:9ff.).

35 It is noteworthy that Jesus repeatedly speaks in vss. 34-35 of “love for one another.” This certainly does not mean that in their acts of love the disciples are to restrict themselves to their own circle. Jesus refers precisely to what the disciples in their mutual relations can and should mean for the world: “By this will all know …” (cf. 17:21). Everything will depend on whether as disciples they love one another. In this mutual love lies the criterion of the identity by which they will be known to the world, not in order to win the world’s admiration by their irreproachable conduct as a separatist group, but so that, by their mutual acts of service and self-denial (cf. vs. 15), they may evoke the image of Jesus in his self-sacrificial love for sinful humanity. Again and again everything is referred to his love as the great underlying secret from which the church not only derives its unity (17:20-23) but also as that which alone can redeem the world from its lostness, for God and for one another (3:16).

36-38 Before all this is elaborated in depth and breadth in the following chapters, we encounter the dialogue with Peter in vss. 36-38.⁹² Peter’s question, “Lord, where are you going?” clearly picks up on vs. 33.⁹³ Peter asks the question because he cannot imagine Jesus going where his disciples cannot follow or will not want to follow. Jesus has, to be sure, already spoken thus to “the Jews” (7:33), but—as Peter evidently tries to say—certainly he and the other disciples are not to be equated with “the Jews!”

Jesus’ reply is in the main a repetition of his statement in vs. 33, with the important difference that he now limits this inability to “follow” to the present (“now”) and adds: “but you shall follow afterward.” Again Jesus speaks in words that Peter will understand only “later.” Thus the dialogue is parallel with the dialogue during the footwashing, again Peter is not satisfied afterward (cf. 13:7), and again no language is too strong to convince Jesus that Peter means what he says. What can possibly prevent him from following Jesus now? He is prepared to risk everything and “lay down his life” for Jesus. He is prepared to match Jesus’ willingness to give his life for his own (10:15ff.).

Jesus’ answer (again, cf. vs. 8b) is striking in its extraordinary sharpness. Almost contemptuously he hurls Peter’s words back at him: “Will you lay down your life for me?” In the same breath, with the solemnity of a revelational saying, he announces to Peter the role he will actually play, now, in this very night: “Truly, truly, I say to you, the cock will—before the night elapses⁹⁴—not crow until you have denied me three times.” The severity with which Jesus repulses Peter is not to be explained solely as a rebuke of Peter’s spontaneous overconfidence, the disgraceful outcome of which Jesus foresees; the solemn, prophetic seriousness of “truly, truly, I say to you” rather concerns Peter’s opposition to and indeed encroachment on the utterly unique character of Jesus’ departure. The problem is not only that Jesus, in being “lifted up from the earth,” is going where his disciples cannot follow him but also, and especially, that Peter is trying to hold him back from going the way that the Father has ordered for him, from drinking the cup the Father has given him to drink, from entering into confrontation with the power of darkness. This Jesus must find most profoundly painful in Peter’s opposition. For this very reason his earlier statement to all the disciples, “you cannot follow me now,” is of such scarcely fathomable depth.⁹⁵

But for that reason Peter’s attempt to divert him from that path or to protect him from himself on it (cf. 18:10) is not only an assault on Jesus’ obedience to the Father but as such also a way of adding to the bitterness of his suffering, as will be evident before the night is over. Peter will disown Jesus three times, not for lack of courage, but because he is unwilling and powerless to be considered a disciple of a Lord in fetters on his way to a cross.

This last word of Jesus to Peter also demonstrates in a striking way what following Jesus really is. “You will deny me three times” does not undo “you will follow afterward.” But it does put all the stress on “afterward”: Afterward, when Jesus by the power of his self-surrender has overcome the power of the world, when Peter has turned from his way to the way of his Lord (cf. Lk. 22:32). Then the disciples will follow Jesus in his going to the Father. For where the Lord will be, there his servants will also be (12:26).⁹⁶ But “afterward” they will also follow him on earth, when he has departed and it will prove true of them that “a servant is not greater than his master” (vs. 16) and that “if anyone serves me, he must follow me” (12:26). But even then their following will only take them on a road that Jesus has first traveled alone and has thus made passable for them.

1. See G. D. Cloete, Hemelse Solidariteit. In Weg in die relasie tussen christologie en soteriologie in die Vierde Evangelie, 1980, p. 104, cf. p. 114.

2. πρó here does not imply indeterminate duration or stress that the feast had not yet occurred. It emphasizes, rather, the feast’s imminence.

3. Bultmann even writes: “to date ἀγαπήσας … εἰς τò τέλος ἠγάπησεν would be absurd.” He thinks, however, that this objection remains even when one links, as we have, πρò τῆς ἑορτῆς τοῦ πάσχα with εἰδώς because—though this link would be meaningful in the subordinate clause—the connection with the main verb would indirectly persist (it “would come back in the end to a dating of εἰς τέλος ἠγάπησεν”). For that reason he wants—by a complicated surgical procedure—to break open the entire text as we have it in 13:1-3 (Comm., p. 403). But ἠγάπησεν does not coincide temporally with πρò τῆς ἑορτῆς but speaks rather of progression in Jesus’ display of love, based on the starting point indicated in εἰδώς.

4. ἠγάπησεν refers not only to Jesus’ love as a state of mind but also to the concrete expression of this love in the footwashing and in his self-giving “to the end”; on the whole matter, see also W. K. Grossouw, “A Note on John XIII 1-3,” NovT 8 (1966), pp. 124-31.

5. εἰς τέλος has both temporal and intensive meaning.

6. See the comments above on 12:24f. (on the views of Käsemann, Nicholson, and others).

7. See the comments on 12:23ff. above.

8. See Cloete, Hemelse Solidariteit.

9. On the history of exegesis, see especially the important work by G. Richter, Die Fußwaschung im Johannesevangelium. Geschichte ihrer Deutung, 1967.

10. So, for example, Bultmann, according to whom this story must be counted in its original form (later developed into its present form by the Evangelist) as belonging to the form-critical genre of the apophthegm, in which sayings of Jesus are set into the context of specific situations at a later stage of the tradition than the saying itself; see Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, 1963, pp. 11, 48, 61ff.

11. See, e.g., Brown, Comm. II, p. 568; Cloete, Hemelse Solidariteit, in loc.

12. Bultmann concedes that the form in John 13, which he characterizes as an apophthegm, is a “relatively late” instance of that genre “since Jesus’ own action here constitutes the occasion for his saying” and not vice versa (Comm., pp. 47f.).

13. So Brown, Comm. II, pp. 555f.

14. Ibid.

15. Some therefore translate: “and when the (familiar) meal had come” or “during supper”; see also E. Behm, TDNT II, p. 34.

16. This is also recognized by, for example, Brown: “That there are Passover characteristics in the meal even in John is undeniable” (Comm. II, p. 556; similarly Lindars, Comm., pp. 445ff.). J. Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, 1966, pp. 41ff., 79ff., regards 18:28 as decisive against viewing the meal of 13:2 as a Passover meal and concludes that “the Johannine report is therefore not uniform” (p. 82); on this, see further below. Cf. also R. Schippers, Jezus Christus en het historisch ouderzoek I, 1969, pp. 53ff.

17. For the different views about this “omission,” see, e.g., at length Lindars, Comm., pp. 442ff.

18. For this “reduction” see at greater length above.

19. In the case of the Last Supper he had all the more reason for this assumption because he has already spoken at length about the saving significance of Jesus’ death as the giving of his flesh and blood as food and drink for eternal life, words that are foundational to the Supper (6:51ff.).

20. Cf. Brown, Comm. II, pp. 556, 895.

21. So, very pronouncedly, Lindars, Comm., p. 446: “It is difficult to eradicate the impression that the death of Jesus on the eve of Passover is a purely Johannine invention, dictated by his theological interest, regardless of the tradition which he was actually handling.”

22. παρασκευὴ τοῦ πάσχα.

23. According to Strack/Billerbeck II, pp. 812ff., we have before us here a translation of the rabbinic term ʿereḇ pesaḥ. But ʿereḇ means “evening,” which can hardly coincide with “the sixth hour,” while παρασκευή means “preparation” and refers to the whole of Friday. On this see at length J. van Bruggen, Christus op Aarde, 1987, pp. 190ff.

24. ἦν γὰρ μεγάλη ἡμέρα ἐκείνου τοῦ σαββάτου.

25. Bultmann comments on 19:31 as follows (Comm., p. 676):

Certainly it is surprising that no mention is made of the Passover, unlike 18:28; 19:14. That may well be due to the fact that this story is derived from a tradition according to which Jesus was crucified on the 15th Nisan, as in the Synoptics. According to the source the μεγάλη ἡμέρα was the sabbath of the Passover week, which in this case fell together with the 16th Nisan; the day could be called “great,” because on it (according to Pharisaic tradition) the omer offering (Lev. 23:1) was made.

The question is whether all this can be so easily eliminated from the discussion by referring to another source.

26. Cf. also C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 1963, p. 234: If the Evangelist had wanted to make that connection, it is “somewhat strange that he has not said anything to call attention to this synchronism.” And this all the more because the Evangelist repeatedly shows that he realizes that his readers were not familiar with all the details and fine points of the earlier Jewish temple service. The same is true of the appeal to 19:36. Not only does the diction suggest Ps. 34:20 rather than Ex. 12:46, but in 19:31-37 Jesus’ death is nowhere related to the Passover, “which would have been so natural” (Bultmann, Comm., p. 677). See further in the comments below on 19:36.

27. Jeremias speaks of “the dating of the Last Supper on the eve of the Passover—actually only unambiguously stated in John 18:28” (Eucharistic Words, p. 82).

28. Cf. Strack/Billerbeck II, p. 837.

29. Others advance as an objection to such an understanding of 18:28 that there would have been time enough for the chief priests to purify themselves since the Passover meal would not have taken place until the evening of that day. But this raises the troublesome question of what precisely is meant by “defilement”; for this discussion, see, e.g., Lindars, Comm., p. 545; J. van Bruggen, Christus op aarde, 1987, p. 191, who, on the basis of this purification, concludes that the reference in 18:28 cannot be to the eating of the Passover lamb.

30. See also Bultmann’s overall judgment: “Nor is the historical question, which of the two datings is correct (perhaps the Johannine), of any importance for the interpretation of John” (Comm. p. 465, n. 1).

31. On the name see the comments above on 6:71; 12:4.

32. From Judas to the Sanhedrin, from the Sanhedrin to Pilate, and from Pilate to the executioners (cf. 18:5, 30, 35; 19:6; and in the Synoptics passim); the word is also used of the path Jesus had to follow under God’s direction as the Son of Man (cf. Mt. 17:22 par.).

33. ἐκ τοῦ δείπνου is probably best translated “after the meal”; cf. A. Friedrichsen, “Bemerkungen zur Fußwaschung Joh 13,” ZNW 38 (1939), p. 94. He, too, sees here a description of a surprising aspect of the footwashing, “since the footwashing certainly had its natural place before the meal” (cf. Lk. 7:14).

34. Here referred to by his double name, as elsewhere when his most striking and characteristic interventions are described (6:68; 13:9, 24, 36; 18:10, 15, 25; 21:3f.).

35. See below.

36. μετὰ ταῦτα; cf. ὕστερον in vs. 36.

37. Cf. Bultmann: “The meaning was originally: to have a share with a person in something” (Comm., p. 468).

38. “Atqui tale officium repellens, quod praecipium est in salute sua repudiat.”

39. Cf. Schnackenburg: “Jesus’ reply to Peter in this verse is one of the places in the fourth gospel that is most disputed by exegetes. It has been interpreted in very many different ways and this divergence of interpretation has played the most important part in the extreme variety of views concerning the meaning of the washing of the disciples’ feet” (Comm. III, p. 20). Still very important for this topic is Richter’s Die Fußwaschung, which offers a survey of interpretation from the church fathers up into modern times. See also F. F. Segovia, “John 13:1-20: The Footwashing in the Johannine Tradition,” ZNW 73 (1982), pp. 32f.

40. εἰ μὴ τοὺς πóδας.

41. ℵ, some editions of the Vulgate, and some patristic citations.

42. ὁ λελουμένος.

43. See, e.g., Brown, Comm. II, pp. 566f.; Schnackenburg, Comm. III, p. 21.

44. Many interpreters think that this reading—apparently apart from the historical context—also involves a theological rejection of certain ritual washings. Some have applied this interpretation in a sacramental sense (see, e.g., the lengthy discussion by Bultmann, Comm., p. 471). But the text offers not a single material point of contact for such an interpretation. See also Grosheide, Comm. II, p. 256, which has an extensive bibliography of older literature.

45. Cf. Brown, Comm. II, p. 568.

46. Schnackenburg (Comm. III, p. 21) also admits this: “λούεσθαι, however, cannot simply point to the washing of the feet that had just taken place. Almost always, this verb is used to indicate a complete bath, whereas νίπτεσθαι is employed in the case of partial washing.” Later, however, he writes that λούεσθαι must be “factually” understood as referring to the footwashing (in view of the theological meaning of the statement that he favors; see n. 43 above).

47. So, at length, Calvin, Comm. II, p. 59:

For, as Christ washes from head to foot those whom He admits to be His disciples, so the lower part remains to be daily cleansed in those whom He has cleansed. The children of God are not totally regenerated on the first day so that they only live a heavenly life. On the contrary, the remnants of the flesh remain in them, and they have a continual struggle all through their lives. Feet, therefore, is a metaphor for all the passions and cares by which we are brought into contact with the world.… What is spoken of here is not the forgiveness of sins, but the renewal by which Christ gradually and continually delivers His followers completely from the desires of the flesh.

48. Irrespective of the certainly very far-fetched sense one has to assign to the symbolic significance of “the feet” in this interpretation; see the quotation from Calvin in n. 47.

49. On the analogy of titles that defined the relationship between Jewish teachers of the Torah and their followers.

50. ἔδωκα; cf. BDF §333: “An act valid for all time can be expressed by the aorist.”

51. In this connection Bultmann speaks of “the last testament of the departing Revealer” (Comm., p. 475).

52. καθώς.

53. See Richter, Die Fußwaschung.

54. So, e.g., elaborately, Richter, Die Fußwaschung, p 306.

55. So, e.g., Bultmann (with many others), who, though holding the view that we are dealing with two competing “interpretations,” nevertheless states: “It is the task of the exegesis to demonstrate the inner unity of the two interpretations” (Comm., p. 462).

56. So Bultmann, Comm., in loc.

57. Cf. Schnackenburg, Comm. III, p. 24; Richter, Die Fußwaschung, pp. 309f. See also Brown, Comm. II, pp. 559ff., and the tradition-historical reconstructions of other authors mentioned there, among them M. E. Boismard, “Le lavement des pieds (Jn XIII,1-17),” Revue Biblique 71 (1964), pp. 5-24.

58. Others understand vs. 20 in the context of vss. 12ff., and it does tie in well with vs. 16; the content of vss. 16 and 20 is linked elsewhere in the tradition (cf. Mt. 10:24, 40). In connection with vs. 16 it would be the intent of vs. 20 to say that though the emissary is inferior to the one who has sent him, he may not for that reason be treated with contempt. If one wishes to draw vs. 17 into this context as well, the meaning would be: “Blessed are you when you show love to one another. For this love is regarded as having been shown to me.” But in that case one has to view vss. 18 and 19 as a later insertion, forcing vs. 20 to limp along behind. However, it is also quite possible to understand vs. 20 in connection with vss. 18 and 19.

59. ταῦτα εἰπών; cf. 7:9; 9:6; 11:28; 18:1.

60. For all the similarity with the corresponding stories in the Synoptics (Mt. 26:21ff.; Mk. 14:18ff.; Lk. 22:21ff.), John goes his own way here. Therefore, no conclusions can be drawn about how and to what degree he was dependent on existing tradition, if at all. This is all the more true with respect to the hypothetical sources with which the tradition-historical method operates in order to understand the independence and uniqueness of the Johannine story. For a survey of the studies of this pericope according to this method—and the very divergent results it has led to—see, e.g., L. T. Witkamp, Jezus van Nazareth in de gemeente van Johannes, 1986, pp. 231ff. For an understanding of the text before us, however, that sort of study contributes hardly anything certain.

61. See here, too, the striking use of ἐμαρτύρηθεν.

62. For that reason it seems to us that the idea that ἐταράχθη τῷ πνεύματι describes “not Jesus’ emotional crisis, but his speaking in the spirit,” as Bultmann puts it (Comm., p. 481, n. 2), poses a false contrast.

63. On this disciple see 19:26, 35; 20:2ff.; 21:7, 20-25.

64. On this, in connection with the character of this last meal (whether it was a Passover meal or not), see at length, Jeremias, Eucharistic Words, pp. 48f.

65. On this arrangement at table, see at length Strack/Billerbeck IV, p. 618.

66. So Schnackenburg, Comm. (German ed., III, 1975, p. 34; this is omitted from the English translation); cf. also Brown, Comm. II, p. 577: “In other words, the Disciple is as intimate with Jesus as Jesus is with the Father.” So also M. de Jonge, Jesus: Stranger from Heaven and Son of God, 1977, p. 212: “His unique position of trust towards Jesus somehow reflects Jesus’ unique relationship with the Father.” Witkamp, Jezus van Nazareth in de gemeente van Johannes, pp. 340ff., goes much further: see below.

67. In 21:20 not κóλπος but στῆθος is used, as also further on in the present text (vs. 25).

68. But see also the comments on 1:37ff. “The other disciple” in 18:15; “the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved,” in 20:2. On this designation see further the discussion of authorship after the comments on ch. 21.

69. πυθέσθαι τίς ἂν εἴη περὶ οὗ λέγει. The text is uncertain; some manuscripts read καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ εἰπὲ τίς ἐστιν περὶ οὗ λέγει, in which case the first λέγει (with Peter as the subject) would mean something like “let him know” or “whisper” and εἰπέ would mean “ask (him).” Still other manuscripts add these words to the text we are following (with λέγει becoming ἔλεγεν). At first sight, at least, the text we are following is clearer and is therefore generally regarded as secondary.

70. See the comments above on 1:39.

71. οὕτως in vs. 25 is somewhat hard to translate; it is, perhaps for that reason, missing from some manuscripts, but is as a rule interpreted as we have taken it here: “in keeping with Peter’s signal,” “accordingly.”

72. Usually scholars take the rare word ψωμίον to refer to a piece of bread that was dipped in a fruit purée (or in wine; cf. Ruth 2:14). But because bread was probably not presented particularly by the host, some think it refers to meat (but cf., again, Ruth 2:14). This passage also plays a role in the discussion concerning the date and character of the Last Supper. The “morsel” is also said possibly to refer to the bitter herbs that at a certain phase of the Passover meal were dipped in the charoseth sauce (cf. Jeremias, Eucharistic Words). But, of course, this cannot be proven.

73. To see tension here with the “already” in vs. 2 is hypercritical. Vs. 2 refers to the plan, “already” here to its execution. The emphatic τóτε aims merely to draw attention to the significance of the moment. “This was the moment in which …!” (Bultmann, Comm., p. 482, n. 5).

74. τάχιον, which has the same meaning here as, e.g., in Hb. 13:23.

75. On the possible link between almsgiving and Passover night, see above,

76. This view has been very explicitly developed by Witkamp in Jezus van Nazareth. In distinction from “scholars who first inquire into historicity and then possibly into theology,” he explains vs. 23 as follows (pp. 340f.):

The beloved disciple relates to Jesus as Jesus relates to the Father. During the Last Supper he lies ἐν τῷ κóλπῳ τοῦ Ίησοῦ (13:23), just as Jesus lay in the bosom of the Father. In Jesus’ case this meant he was thereby enabled to reveal God. For the beloved disciple it means the same. His intimacy with Jesus, his being beloved, had revelational relevance.… When it is said of him alone that he reclined at Jesus’ breast, this suggests a unique position that, like that of Jesus with the Father, is not transferable. He alone is the disciple who has direct access to Jesus. This implies that the others had to rely on his witness.

77. The idea that one should understand the words of vs. 23, “who reclined at the breast of Jesus,” “theologically” in the light of 1:18 as a description of the unique and exclusive revelational position of the beloved disciple, as he who alone had direct access to Jesus and on whose witness the others were dependent (see n. 76), therefore seems very far removed from the significance that the Evangelist ascribes to all the disciples, who “were with Jesus from the beginning” as the church-founding witnesses of Jesus’ glory (cf., e.g., 15:27; 20:30, 31).

78. On this see at length G. B. Caird, “The Glory of God in the Fourth Gospel: An Exercise in Biblical Semantics,” NTS 15 (1968-69), pp. 265-77.

79. See further in the comments on 1:51; cf. also

, and

80. Cf. also 11:4, where in place of δοξασθῇ ὁ υἱòς τοῦ θεοῦ is also found the reading … τοῦ ἀνθρώπου.

81. Basic to the transition here is not—as in Philippians—a humiliation-exaltation scheme but a descent-ascent motif. But this does not exclude the fact that in John Jesus’ exaltation by the Father also has the character of God’s answer to (or reward for) the doing of his will by the earthly Jesus—pace E. Käsemann, The Testament of Jesus, 1968, p. 18; see also the comments above on 12:23. Schnackenburg speaks correctly of the “response-character of [God’s] activity” (Comm., German ed., III, p. 56; English ed., III, p. 50, has “correspondence”).

82. Though apparently not in this diminutive form; cf. Strack/Billerbeck II, p. 559.

83. On this see at length the comments above on 9:4ff. and 11:9ff.

84. So Schnackenburg, though he recognizes that the insertion of the love commandment is “very much in the spirit of the Evangelist and fits in very well” (Comm. III, p. 53).

85. Bultmann, Comm., pp. 523ff., 595ff.

86. Brown (following Loisy) writes that the parts are “more juxtaposed than connected.” But he adds: “Nevertheless, one can trace the logic that led to the union of these disparate elements” (Comm., p. 609).

87. On this see also

88. The first ἵνα indicates epexegetically (cf. BDF §394) the content of ἐντολήν; the second ties in with the following καθὼς ἠγάπησα ὑμᾶς, which clarifies vs. 34a. According to other expositors, the second ἵνα clause is not parallel to the first but states the purpose of the καθώς clause (cf. Bultmann, Comm., p. 525, n. 5). The second clause then gains a more independent place next to the first with its new beginning: “as I have loved you, that you may also love one another.” But in my view καθώς should be seen as further explication of ἐντολὴν καινήν, not as a new rationale for ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους.

89. For the rabbinic view see Strack/Billerbeck I, p. 353 on Mt. 5:43, but also II, p. 559 on Jn. 13:34.

90. See Bultmann, Comm., p. 527, n. 2.

91. Cf. J. Behm, TDNT III, pp. 449f.

92. This passage occurs in Luke in the conversations of the Last Supper, in Matthew and Mark on the way to the Mount of Olives. While John’s account agrees with the Synoptics in this regard, the independence of its tradition is again clearly evident from its structure and from various details as compared with the other Gospels; for the comparison, see, e.g., Brown, Comm. II, pp. 614ff.

93. Hence vs. 36 reaches back past vs. 34. The idea that vs. 34 breaks up the contextual flow and must therefore be a later insertion (see above) evidently poses different demands on sequence than the Evangelist does; for a similar resumption of something not immediately preceding, see, e.g., 10:15-17.

94. For this designation of early morning in the rabbinic literature, see, e.g., Strack/Billerbeck I, p. 993.

95. Or, J. C. Sikkel puts it in Zie het lam Gods, 1965, pp. 89ff.:

We are not able.… Jesus has to go forward alone. We cannot go with him in that battle of faith, in that clinging to the Scriptures as he enters the deep waters, the swirling maelstrom of death. We cannot go where sin is to be atoned for, where the debt is to be paid, where, in submitting to the suffering of death and curse, the soul of Jesus has to pour itself out.… It is one single life that is in him and in us, and therefore Jesus’ way is our way. We go along with him. Where he is, there we will also be. We will suffer with him, and we will also be glorified with him.… But he goes on ahead—we follow. He goes forward alone. In that way we cannot follow him.

96. Cf. also Bultmann, Comm., p. 598:

Ὕστερον [“afterward”] is to be understood as equally fundamental as μετὰ ταῦτα in 13:7: Jesus must first have gone and have conquered the world; or: in the light of Jesus’ death, by becoming aware of his own powerlessness, Peter must first become convinced of Jesus’ victory before he can follow him. His following will then consist, as will be stated in 14:1-4, in Jesus fetching him; what is required of him, on his side, is not an act of heroism, but expectant preparedness.

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