^ I never understood the full meaning of our Lord's words in St. John xiii. 10, until I beheld the better sort of East Indian natives return home after performing their customary ablutions. As they return to their habitations barefoot, they necessarily contract in their progress some portion of dirt on their feet ; and this is universally the case, however nigh their dwellings may be to the riverside. When, therefore, they return, the first thing they do is to mount a low stool, and pour water into a small vessel to cleanse them from the soil which they may have contracted on their journey homewards ; if they are of the higher class of society, a servant performs it for them, and then they are " clean every whit." 1
^ If you speak of sanctification as the original act of God in
1 D. L. Moody. ST. JOHN (2) — 2
i8 REGENERATION AND RENEWAL
separating us to Himself, then it is a completed thing, for we are described as " having been sanctified in Christ Jesus." If, again, you speak of it as a legal cleansing from all past guilt, it is complete ; for, being washed in the precious blood, we are already clean. But if you regard it as the personal holiness of daily life, the purifying of the heart through faith by the indwelling power of the Holy Ghost, then I am prepared to maintain from the whole testimony of the whole Word of God from one end to the other, that so long as we are in this world of conflict the sacred work is not complete, but progressive.^
2. It is doubtful whether in this new rite which preceded the Paschal supper, and in the reference to a past bathing, there is any specific allusion to baptism. Of course the sacramental process of initiation into the Christian society, and the action- parable of the Upper Eoom, express a common truth, that flesh and spirit must alike be cleansed before a frail, erring man is fit to stand in the presence of the Divine King and fulfil His behests. We have no direct statement that the twelve Apostles ever were baptized, although it is more than probable that those who were followers of John had received the rite at his hands, and these may have administered it to their comrades. Jesus Himself did not baptize. Yet without any express mention of the baptism of the twelve, Jesus affirms that they had been " bathed," and that, with one sad exception, the virtue of the act remained. It was by the Word they had been cleansed. There is no suggestion that the spiritual change was coincident in time with the use of an outward rite which typified it. By response to the personal influence of Jesus Christ, they knew in the first fresh moments of their surrender to His will that the prophetic promise had been fulfilled, and that from the guilty errors and disabilities of the past they had been purified.
^ A modern writer, who lived for years in distressing poverty, and had no facilities in his sordid lodgings for washing, used to perform the greater part of his morning toilet at the British Museum, where he was a constant reader. He describes the shame he felt when he found a notice aflixed, " These basins are to be used for casual ablutions only." He had the sensations of a detected criminal. There is a wide distinction between the bathing of the body and " casual ablutions," and the distinction
' E. Iloarc, SandijiciUion, 66.
ST. JOHN XIII. 10 19
runs through the teaching of the incident before us. The daily- repeated grace is a complement to the washing of regeneration which comes through the all-encircling, soul-pervading influences of Jesus Christ. It is not to supersede or obscure that primary need, as Simon Peter was in danger of supposing.^
^ One evening, before Thomas De Quincey died, he said to his daughter, " I cannot bear the weight of clothes on my feet." She pulled off the heavy blankets. " Yes, my love," he said, " that is much better ; I am better in every way. You know these are the feet that Jesus washed." Ah, I scarcely can tell which I should admire most: His passion for me or His patience with me ; His suffering or His longsuffering.^
I.
Eegenekation.
1. In this text Jesus teaches that the efficacy of a disciple's first act of faith abides, and must not be thought of as invalidated by after-infirmities. If there were Divine forces present in that memorable change, it surely had qualities of permanence in it, for that which God effects cannot pass away as the morning cloud. We do not commit ourselves to the doctrines of indefectible grace and unconditional perseverance when we so interpret the Master's saying. The reference here made to Judas proves that to the rule of patient, tireless, long-continued, all-subduing grace there may be a tragic break. By false dealing, by calculated delinquency, by obstinate transgression, the bathed man may hopelessly defile himself again. But in eleven cases out of twelve the sanctifying grace asserts its permanence, for it is stamped with some of the qualities of its unchanging Minister.
^ When the great warrior knew that the end was sure, he met it with the confident resignation of his faith. He had seen death too often and too near to dread the parting hour of mortal anguish. Chaplains, preachers, godly persons, attended in an adjoining room and came in and out as the heavy hours went on, to read the Bible to him or to pray with him. To one of them he put the moving question, so deep with penitential meaning, so pathetic in its humility and misgiving, in its wistful recall of the bright bygone dawn of life in the soul : " Tell me, is it possible