Washed, Wiped, Kissed, Anointed (feet). (Luke 7:38, 7:44,45, John 11:2, 12:3, 13:5,6,8,9,10,12,14, 1Ti 5:10). The most illuminating instance of this is found in the Last Supper, when Christ washed the feet of the disciples. When finished, in John 13:10: “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.”
The key to this enigmatic saying is the preface in verse 7: “Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.” That is, the understanding of the prophetic symbol will only come after the greatest fulfillments of the PW: the crucifixion and resurrection. Does this mean, as with Abert Barnes, that they will see “more and more the necessity of humility and of kindness to each other, and would see that they were the servants of Christ and of the church, and ought not to aspire to honors and offices, but to be willing to perform the humblest service to benefit the world”? This is typical of our exegesis of the passage. But this is not a uniquely Christian interpretation to meet the needs of a uniquely supernatural revelation. It is prosaism.
If the foot is the fulfillments and conclusion of the predictions, and the disciples are those expected to carry it in the world and become their own moral images of that Word themselves, it is no wonder why Christ said that they are now clean, having been washed by that Word. “Clean” is not here of their understanding of those oralces, but a preparation to enter a Holy place where illumination and faith happen concerning Jesus in respect to them. Jesus, even after washing the feet of Judas, said by implication that they are still not all clean. This was confirmed when Judas rejected Jesus, but, most importantly, that Judas rejected in his heart the Word of God, the Messianic prophecies, by which Jesus came to rule such hearts. Washing the prophetic feet is preparing them by the clearest of signs of fulfillment, which instrumentality they are ordained to serve in evangelism and one’s daily walk.
A clean fulfillment, which is not a symbol but its essence, is un-obscure and informed by the Holy Spirit of truth (water). A clean heart is one responding to a revelation outside of the dregs and effluent of scriptural obscurity and arcanery, equivocation, speculation, historical bean-counting, and bad philosophy.
Peter wants Christ to wash his head (speculation, promise) and hands (his ability to teach the truth). This is a figure of the belief in the power of a ritual to effect Holiness. But Jesus rejects this and redirects Holiness to God’s Word alone. Christ says that when one has bathed he is clean everywhere, and only his feet need cleaning. The head and hands, along with the rest of the body (the corpus of the revelation of Christ to faith), has since been clean daily by interaction with Jesus. But the feet, which hare in constant contact with the filth of the World, particularly in contact with false and anti-revelational religion, the carnal and dead antithesis of true faith, must always be last.
Peter’s head, the perception, reason, identity, or, in purely scriptural terms, all the promises pertaining to Christ are known, are already fixed to accept the full Truth coming. Because of a mind prepared for Truth, both that mind and the Truth is set to become fully what they are when Truth historically realizes hose promises.
The hands are those instirments not carrying the prophetic Word, but, when it reaches its destination, causes that Word to be applied to the world: acts of charity, patience, mercy, meekness, morality and, most importantly, the instruction of Truth. Again, those hands, like the feet, are set to their vocational destination but have not engaged it yet.
Judas, having his feet washed by the Word, however, is still not ready to go into service for that Word’s final revelation of Christ. Implied is that he is also not clean elsewhere, having all along a heart set on other things, not the Messianic Prophecies.
“Clean” is known by its antithesis. The opposite of this cleanliness, this forthright and clear understanding and commitment to the PW, is one who, for a religion of personal benefit, tries intentionally to fight against God and prevent the fulfillments from taking place so that he may continue in his dissembling.
Christ demonstrates His synonymity with the PW by uttering prophecy and quoting prophecy, predicting Judas’s betrayal by the sop of bread, which prophecy none of the disciples anticipated.
Christ says that none of the disciples is the master of the other, but they are all equal servants of the PW, which is Master, and therefore Christ: the ultimate equalizer and destroyer of all human pretense to power and truth. Christ confirms this in John 13:18–19, quoting the prophecy of Psalm 41:9: “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.”
When feet then are kissed, what is being kissed is the moral reputation of the individual when his fulfilled presence is before us. With Christ, this is the admission and revering not of Christ’s moral obedience to the law, but the law of the PW, which He was bound to carry out perfectly in both His aspects: before He is confirmed as Messiah (promise) and after (fulfillment).
Anointing of the feet. This occurred in Luke 7:36-38, Matthew 26:6-13, Mark 14:3-9 and John 12:1-8.
The case in Luke is an unnamed woman called a “sinner.” The implication is that she is weeping in grief over her sin. Why she does this to Jesus is only generally here implied as indicating her belief in Jesus as the course of her forgiveness, but what scripturally informs her of this is not given. This is, however, clearly seen in the next account found in three passages.
In John, Mary of Bethany, the sister of Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead, and Martha. This is a dramatic example of Jesus being prophecy and uttering prophecy at once. Judas, the anti-revelational but religious principle, essentially complains that such an expensive appointment should have been sold and given to the poor as a better example of morality. This is a figure of the coming Church that will shift love for the Messianic Word aside for ritual, acts of piety, faith statements, philosophy, the products of reason and emotion, and generally the physcial or symbolic act, not the crucial spiritual action in advance of a Truth. Jesus says :
Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.
He says that the peculiar motivation for her annotating was what the Hebrew Prophets said should come in Jesus, that he will be pierced, murdered. In this time, before Jesus dies and rises from the dead, he is in “Promise” mode, not “Fulfillment” mode. The corpus of the messianic revelation is not yet complete, but is in progress. In this time priority goes to the pure religious act of faith in scripture-to-Jesus, not the religious act serving the consequences of necessary religious expression with which we must deal after that fulfillment. This is set for a time when Jesus physically departs and leaves behind only his informational entity of the completed Prophetic Word and the Holy Spirit as its teacher. Religious acts will come to define the superficial appearance of the Church, but then only as long as they are motivated exclusively by messianic Fulfillment of Promise.
This interpretation is again conformed in Mark, with Jesus adding another prophecy: “Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.” A Prophecy of a worldwide faith in a prophecy. It will become for all time a supreme example of giving one’s all to the supreme Truth of Jesus Messiah. Matthew has the same words, adding that it was not Judas alone that complained about the woman, but “the disciples.”
But what about the symbol of the anointing of the feet? The woman washed (bréchō) Jesus’ feet with her tears, the anointed (aleíphō) the with oil. You bathe and then you put on a fragrant oil, as a perfume. Washing is removing the offscouring of the earth, the clinging carnal influence. The anointing is the adding of joy, happiness, emotion, and blessing to a state clean of it. Again, the foot is the figure for motion, the organ that carries the Truth into the world. Even Jesus did not anoint the feet of the disciples that he washed. If he did this is making for them what is set to be made only by them: the love and happiness experienced upon knowing the Truth. Only then will their feet be “beautiful” (Isaiah 52:7, Romans 10:15). This woman, however, unlike the disciples, already knew the truth and its truth resonated in her spirit. Her anointing of Jesus’ feet is her faith that forgiveness of sin has come in the form of the first-ever supernatural proof of the existence, nature and redemptive plan of God that will now move into and conquer all darkness.
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