John 13:7Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

That is, afterward you will know what benefit comes from this, how profitable this lesson is, and how it can dispose us toward every humble-mindedness. What does “you will understand after this” mean? When exactly is “after this”? He says, when you cast out demons in My name, when you see My ascension into heaven, and when you learn from the Spirit that I sit at the right hand of the Father. Then you will understand what is now being done.

What, then, does the Lord say? He says, “What I am doing you do not know now.” My action contains profound humility, which I also teach you. Yet after you cast out demons in My name, when you see My ascension into heaven, and when through the Holy Spirit you learn that I sit at the right hand of the Father, then you will understand. The One who humbled Himself so far as to wash your feet is the very One who gives you such power over demons, who ascended, and who is glorified with the Father, having suffered no lowering through humility. Therefore implant in yourself humility, which does not abase, but rather exalts.

But Christ postpones the explanation of this action until His own time, because He had a fully sufficient reason for Peter to understand what He had done “after this,” as He says. Clearly this means when He gives a fuller explanation of it. This, together with the rest, will bring us no small benefit. See how, when the time called for action, He postponed words. When, conversely, the time urged speech, He ceased from action. Everything must belong to its fitting and proper time.

And he, frightened by the greatness of the Lord’s act, still does not permit that to be done whose reason he did not yet understand. He still does not wish to see, and cannot bear, the humble Christ at his feet.

“Jesus answered and said to him, ‘What I am doing you do not know now.’” That is, you do not know what I teach by this action. “But you will understand after this,” when I explain it. Indeed, a little later the Lord said, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (Jn 13:14). Or else, “you will understand after this” means: when you see that I have ascended into heaven, and when the Comforter descends upon you, then you will understand what I am, what work I have accomplished, and for what purpose.

To see the divine Teacher in such a position was strange and painful for all. It was incompatible with the feeling of respect and reverence with which they had grown accustomed to look upon Him. Yet, with all this respect, no one dared contradict the fulfillment of His will. Only fiery, resolute Peter could not suppress this turmoil within himself. Even when the Lord, after his first refusal, pointed out to him that he did not yet understand the meaning of this action and would understand it afterward, his resistance had still not been overcome.

The supposition that the washing of the feet took place before the supper is not hindered by John’s expression in verse 2, δείπνου γενομενου. In itself, this expression can mean only, “when the supper had already been prepared.”

Thus the matter may be understood as follows. After the supper had already begun and Jesus had reclined at table, He still did not open the Paschal celebration itself. Rather, because of the disciples’ dispute about precedence, He rose from supper (v. 4) and began to wash the disciples’ feet.

If, further, the supposition is correct that the dispute about precedence mentioned by Luke gave Jesus Christ occasion to wash their feet, then we have this distinction between Luke and John. Luke intends only to transmit the teaching of Jesus Christ on humility.

Not wishing yet to enter into explanations with Peter, Jesus said to him, “What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you will understand.”

All who murmur against God, not understanding His foreordainings, should remember these words more often.

“Explain to me,” says Bersier, “why a beautiful and useful life is cut short, while so many useless beings remain to drag out their pitiable life in suffering.

Explain to me why trial often falls upon the most pious people, and seems to spare those whose arrogance it could have humbled by its blows.

Explain to me everything that seems fatal to us in nature and history. Explain to me all injustices and all undeserved sufferings.

“You do not know now,” that is, you do not understand the inner meaning of the action that I now perform. Peter saw only the Lord’s outward action, His fulfillment of a servant’s duty, and he was deeply struck by this. But, according to the Lord’s word, he was to understand the deeper meaning of this action afterward. This means after the Lord’s explanation of its meaning, which was soon to follow (Jn 13:12 and following). Then he would understand more and more the whole depth of this action through the experiences of his entire life and apostolic ministry toward believers in Christ.

Even the words of Christ did not stop the Apostle Peter: “What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you will understand” (v. 7).

Feelings of boundless reverence before the divine Teacher prompt him to protest decisively: “You shall never wash my feet.”

These words of the Apostle Peter, though inspired by a pious feeling, nevertheless bore witness to his resistance to the unexpressed will of God.

Therefore the Lord gives the Apostle Peter a stern admonition: “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.”

This means that Peter’s task is to obey the Lord’s will and to testify to his humility through submission. This is necessary also because Peter does not now know the meaning of the Savior’s deed, and it can be understood by him only later.

John Chrysostom, in Homily 70 on John, part 2, p. 302, points to the words of verse 6, “He came to Simon Peter.” He conjectures that before Peter the Lord had already washed someone’s feet.

He thinks that perhaps Judas, in his insolence, reclined above Peter, and that perhaps the Lord washed his feet before Peter’s. This is apparently a very ancient supposition.

Perhaps the washing of the feet is also to be understood partly in the prophecy of Ezek 16:9, in the Lord’s words: “I washed you with water and washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil.”