If I do not wash you...

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, do you wash my feet?" Jesus answered him, "What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand."  Peter said to him, "You shall never wash my feet." Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you, you have no share with me."  Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" John 13:6-9 ESV

I am so eternally grateful that Peter asked Jesus that question! When I think about Jesus washing the apostles feet and Peter asking, "Lord do you wash my feet? ...You will never wash my feet." Jesus reply "If I do not wash you, you have no share with me." That statement makes me think about justification by Grace alone, through Faith alone, in Christ alone. We know scripture informs us that we are saved by grace, and not by works. Our Lord said "If I do not wash you...". He said that they do not understand what he's doing now, but later on they would understand. What we see in this amazing event is Christ giving us a lesson, not only a lesson about how to serve others, but a loving doctrinal lesson, that it is His washing that makes us clean from sin, and when He... washes us, He washes us once and for all, clean from all of our sin. It is His work that opens the doors of Heaven for all who Believe. It is not our own righteousness, but His, which He imparts to us, that opens the gates of Heaven to a person. "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me." He has done the work. 

O Lord, you will ordain peace for us,
    for you have indeed done for us all our works. - Isaiah 26:12

Now when Peter said "Lord, not only my feet but also my head and my hands." We hear that and we think ...oh such devotion and love, and faithfulness. 'Now Peter understands' we say to ourselves. But Jesus once again corrects him and says, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean...". It's so easy in our human minds to want to do the things that make us holy. Christ is here telling us 'you cannot, let me make you holy in the way that I do it. For it is the only way possible.' What a beautiful picture of justification by faith. Jesus simply, and miraculously washes us in our baptism and cleanses us from all our sin in his name, the name of the Triune God. And it is our faith in His work and His act on the cross that is delivered to us in our baptism. Our faith clings to His work.

   "If I do not wash you, you have no share with me."