"If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me......" John 13:8.
This is an inexpressibly solemn sight: the Saviour of the world, on bended knees washing His disciples feet. We are accustomed to speak often and much of the cross-bearing Saviour dying thereon for 'sin'. We are not so accustomed to speak of the towel-girt Saviour. Yet the one is as indispensable to our Salvation as the other. Note, then, that true sanctification is Christ-cleansing.
Simon did not understand this. He had had gracious dealings with the Saviour before this day. He had been washed in the laver of regeneration. All of them except one had this initial cleansing, and therefore the Master could say "Ye are clean but not all." Judas somehow missed it. He had come into discipleship somewhere along the road, but not by way of the cleansing fountain......... So it may be with us.
'Not you,' the Master says. You cannot deceive Him. You may be in the company of discipleship, but if you have taken up religeon halfway along the road, if you have not had your transaction with Him to begin with, He says to you, 'Clean, but not all.'
But this once-for-all cleansing, this over-all bathing as the Word puts it, did not mean that no further cleansing was now necessary. True, it was to be of a different order. It was not a cleansed standing,a justified position they needed; ......it was a cleansed walk they must receive.
'He that is clean needeth not to wash save his feet, but is clean every whit.' He that is bathed, he who has had sin once-for-all dealt with in its guilt and condemnation, is now and forevermore in the sight of God, clean every whit.
Accepted, justified from all things; freely and completely forgiven. That work will not need to be done again. It is a once for all transaction.
This is an inexpressibly solemn sight: the Saviour of the world, on bended knees washing His disciples feet. We are accustomed to speak often and much of the cross-bearing Saviour dying thereon for 'sin'. We are not so accustomed to speak of the towel-girt Saviour. Yet the one is as indispensable to our Salvation as the other. Note, then, that true sanctification is Christ-cleansing.
Simon did not understand this. He had had gracious dealings with the Saviour before this day. He had been washed in the laver of regeneration. All of them except one had this initial cleansing, and therefore the Master could say "Ye are clean but not all." Judas somehow missed it. He had come into discipleship somewhere along the road, but not by way of the cleansing fountain......... So it may be with us.
'Not you,' the Master says. You cannot deceive Him. You may be in the company of discipleship, but if you have taken up religeon halfway along the road, if you have not had your transaction with Him to begin with, He says to you, 'Clean, but not all.'
But this once-for-all cleansing, this over-all bathing as the Word puts it, did not mean that no further cleansing was now necessary. True, it was to be of a different order. It was not a cleansed standing,a justified position they needed; ......it was a cleansed walk they must receive.
'He that is clean needeth not to wash save his feet, but is clean every whit.' He that is bathed, he who has had sin once-for-all dealt with in its guilt and condemnation, is now and forevermore in the sight of God, clean every whit.
Accepted, justified from all things; freely and completely forgiven. That work will not need to be done again. It is a once for all transaction.
