The Bathing and the Washing

Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all (John 13:10).

Humility Is the Basis of Cleansing

No doubt our blessed Lord’s primary object in His action upon this memorable occasion was to inculcate upon His disciples a lesson of humility. The moral that He seeks to enforce is expressed in the words,

If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you (John 13:14-15).

Humility is essentially a Christian virtue. No other ethical or religious system ever enforced it, or even recognized it as a virtue. It was not until He who was rich for our sakes became poor, not until He “emptied Himself” of His royal glories, and took upon Himself the form of a servant, and was obedient unto the death of the cross, that the true beauty of humility could become apparent.

It needed something more than words, however strong, to teach men to love and admire what we are naturally so disposed to regard with aversion. Christ had to live humility before the world could learn the beauty of humility, and see how much grander and nobler a thing it is than self-assertion. And humility is not only a Christian virtue; but it is the first and greatest of the negative virtues, just as faith is the first, though not the greatest, of the positive virtues of Christianity. These two Christian graces may be said to be at the root of all others. Humility teaches us our own littleness and insufficiency, and takes us by the hand and leads us down to our true level; while Faith meets us in the valley, and shows us the high and lofty One that inhabiteth Eternity, dwelling with him that is of an humble spirit, and bringing within his reach all the glories of a new and wonderful relation with God.

Humility is, we may say, the first and the last lesson that the Christian learns. We begin to learn it at the very moment that we first come to Christ, and we go on learning it all the