John 13:20

John 13:20. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me. The difficulty of tracing the connection of these words with the rest of our Lord's discourse at this time has been felt by all commentators. Let us observe that they are introduced by ‘Verily, verily,' and that we are thus taken back to John 13:16 with the expectation that the thought here will closely correspond, although in a deepened form, to the thought there. There, however, the distinct reference had been to that work of lowly love which ‘in the form of a servant' Jesus had just performed for His disciples. What, therefore, He had done for them, they are now to do for one another, and for the world. Laying aside all thought of earthly preeminence, seeking only the glory of God and not their own, they are to go out, like their Master, ‘in the form of a servant,' and in a spirit of self-sacrificing love like His to be His representatives to men. As they do so, they will experience the same reception as He had done. Some will ‘receive' them, that is, will not merely view with favour their general work, but will accept them when they come, and because they come, to them in the same spirit as that which Jesus had displayed in the act which He had just performed towards them. Others, it is implied, will reject them; will accept indeed the outward service, the external rite; but, yielding to the evil suggestions of Satan, and so proving themselves his children instead of the children of God, will cast away from them the precious truth of which the service and the rite were only the symbolical expression. Men will thus divide themselves into two classes which will take up towards the apostles doing the work of Jesus the same position as that which the eleven on the one hand, and Judas on the other, had now taken up towards Jesus Himself. It is important to keep this thought of Judas as well as of the others prominently in view in the verses before us. Just as John 13:1; John 13:3 constitute a parallel to John 13:19, and there is One behind Jesus who is received when Jesus is received (John 13:20), so John 13:2 constitutes a parallel to the implied thought of Judas, and there is one behind the traitor whose children the rejectors of Jesus, as He acts in the apostles, show themselves to be. Nor is this all; for, while the thought of which we speak binds the whole passage, John 13:1-20, into one, it also explains the apparently sudden transition to the powerful emotions stirred in the Redeemer's breast by the thought of Judas at John 13:21, as well as the emphatic ‘Now' of John 13:31, now, when the last who would resist that true glory which consists in self-sacrificing love has been expelled. The last clause of John 13:20 is explained by chap. John 1:12.

It is desirable to pause here for a moment, and to ask as to the real meaning of the wonderful scene, the details of which we have been considering. It is not a mere lesson of humility. The lesson is far deeper. It is the completing act of that great work of self-sacrificing love in which Jesus was engaged. He even includes in the thought of it the thought of the crucifixion now so near; and, as then He shall depart unto the Father, He affords now the most touching, the culminating, illustration of the fact that ‘the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.' That is the very essence of His glory, a glory so different from that of the world, so different even from that upon which the thoughts of His disciples were yet fixed. Therefore He humbles Himself anew. Laying aside His glory He takes up His cross, not that He may justify disciples who are already His, who are ‘clean,' but that He may bring them ever and again to Himself the source of all true spiritual nourishment, and may wash away any fresh stains of defilement which they have contracted in their work in the world.

That is His part, What is ours? It springs from the consideration that, exalted in glory, He really labours and suffers no more. His disciples take His place and carry on His work, constantly leading one another back to Him, and washing away those weaknesses of faith, those defects of love, which their work in the world brings with it. Thus they ‘fill up what is behind of the sufferings of Christ for His body's sake, which is the Church' (Colossians 1:24); and it is thus only that, suffering with Him, they shall at last be glorified ‘with Him' (John 13:8) in His glory.