Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? [ huper Emou ] - 'for Me?' In this repetition of Peter's words there is deep though affectionate irony; and this Peter himself would feel for many a day after his recovery, as he retraced the painful particulars.
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, until thou hast denied me thrice. See the notes at Luke 22:31-34.
Remarks:
(1) Among the unique features of this wonderful History, none is more remarkable than the union in the Lord Jesus of a perfect foresight of the future, entire preparedness for it, and a calm expectation of it, but yet a certain freshness of feeling which unforeseen events awaken in others. He comes into every scene, and holds conversations with all classes, fully cognizant of every movement for and against Him, and with all hearts open to His gaze. And yet His own movements are so perfectly natural and manifestly human, that men have difficulty in believing the lofty things which He says of Himself, and all that is said and done in His presence awakens His sensibilities just as if it took Him as much by surprise as it would any other man. Look at this very chapter. With exalted Self-possession He rises from supper, girds Himself with the towel of service, pours water into a basin, and proceeds to wash His disciples' feet-all in the exercise of an eternal and unchanging love, and in furtherance of plans of action laid from the beginning.
But see, on the other hand, how naturally each incident and saying at the Supper-table gives rise to another, and the whole susceptibilities of that tender Heart are awakened by the painful disclosures which had to be made, and become keener when the moment arrives for being quite plain. Peter's hesitation first, and then positive refusal, to be washed by his blessed Master had led to a hint how fatal that resolution would be to him in relation to the higher washing. Peter, who had never thought of that, is now all eagerness to be washed in every sense of the word; but he is told that he needs it not, having gotten that already, and so become "clean every whit" - as his fellows at the table with him also were. But the presence of the traitor stifled the word "all," and shaped it into "Ye are clean-but not all." Still, as if loath to break it to them too abruptly, and as they evidently failed to catch the precise import of His hint, He proceeds to open up to them His design in washing their feet, holding this up as a high example of that self-denying humility and mutual service by which He expected them to be distinguished before the world.
But this again brought up before His mind the dark shadow of the deed about to be done against Him, and the man that was to do it, sitting with Him at the table, and by his presence interrupting, beyond longer endurance, the free flow of His gracious speech during the brief space they were to be together. Now, therefore, He will come nearer to the point and hasten his exit. "I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but, that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me. Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am He." And yet, even after He has come this length, He seems to pause; and, as if trying to throw off the unwelcome subject for a moment, He resumes what He had broken off-the lofty mission on which He was sending them forth - "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth Me; and he that receiveth Me receiveth Him that sent Me." So manifestly is this a resumption of the former subject, that if John 13:18-19 were enclosed in a parenthesis, it would seem not to have been interrupted at all, except by a side hint.
But the time for hints is past, and the moment for explicit disclosure has come. No doubt, the last hint-about one eating of His bread who was to lift up his heel against Him-was too plain not to pain the whole Eleven, and almost prevent them listening to anything else. Jesus, therefore, come to a point, will speak to them no more enigmatically. But mark the emotion which precedes the explicit announcement that there is a traitor at the table. "When Jesus had thus said, He was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said" - as if the utterance was almost choked, and the thing would hardly come out - "Verily, verily, I say unto you, One of you shall betray Me." What we wish to notice here is, that while all is manifestly naked and open beforehand to Him who calmly directed and lovingly presided at this Supper, His quick susceptibilities are kindled, and His heart's deepest emotions are stirred, when He has in naked terms to announce the deed of horror. In short, we have here divine intelligence and warm Human feeling, so entirely in harmony in one and the same Person, and in every part of one and the same scene, as proclaim their own historic reality beyond all the powers of human invention to imitate. Nor is it the mere facts here presented to us, but the very form and pressure of them, that bear the stamp of manifest truth; so much so, that it is to us inconceivable how, even with the facts before him, they could have been so conveyed by the Evangelist as they are here, except on one explanation - "When the Comforter is come, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I said unto you" (John 14:26).
To continue this line of remark here were needless. But we cannot refrain from alluding to the freedom which Jesus seemed to breathe the moment that the traitor made his exit, and at the same time the sublime transport with which His all-embracing Eye saw in that movement His virtual elevation to glory through the Cross - "Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him"! On every view of it but one this is inexplicable. That perfect combination of the divine and the human in the subject of this History, which to have been written must have been real-that, and that alone, explains all.
(2) How affecting is the contrast between the example here exhibited and the prevailing spirit of Christendom in almost every age of its history! At the most touching period of His conversation with them-when He was with them for the last time-the Master descends to the position and the offices of a servant to His servants; doing for them the humblest of services: and this in order to exemplify in His own Person what He expected them to be and to do to one another in all succeeding time. To give this the more weight, He holds up the difference between Himself and them. Being themselves but servants, it was no great thing for them to serve one another. But if the Master voluntarily went down to that position, much more should they, in whose case to serve was no descent at all below their rightful dignity, but only making full proof of their proper calling. Alas, for the fruit! The pride of the clergy, how early did it blossom, and how proverbial has it become, and, as if to make this all the more noticeable, the language and the forms of humility and service have kept bitter pace with the palpable absence of the reality. How could such ministers teach and beget humility and loving-kindness in the Christian people? Some noble examples, both of ministers and people, are on record; and many, many, doubtless, there have been and are which will never be recorded. But the full and all-impressive manifestation of that humility which minds not high things, but condescends to men of low estate, and that love which lives for others, and thinks no service too mean which ministers to the comfort and well-being of the least of Christ's "brethren," is yet to come-when, "by this shall all men know that we are Christ's disciples, because we have love one to another." The Lord hasten it in its time! (3) It is of immense consequence to the liberty and strength of Christians to be assured of their standing among the "washed" disciples of the Lord Jesus-the "clean every whit;" instead of having to be ever trying to get this length, ever settling that point, and thus all their lifetime subject to bondage. But the opposite error is equally to be eschewed, of supposing that when this point is settled, and that standing is attained, we have no more sin needing to be pardoned, no defilement to be washed away. This, we take it, is just what our Evangelist alludes to in his first Epistle, when he says, "If we say that we have no sin" - that is, as we understand it, If we say that being now clean every whit we have quite done with sinning - "we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." On the difference between this statement and the similar one that follows - "If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us" - see the notes at 1 John 1:8; 1 John 1:10. On the warning here given to Peter, and the way in which he received it, see the notes at Luke 22:31-34, Remark 3 at the end of that section.