“Is there any difference between the feet-washing of John 13 and the advocacy of 1 John 2? Any difference between defilement and sin?”
Your interesting question is one not so much for argument and dogmatism as for inquiry and edification.
To begin with, we should not allow anything to weaken in our souls the gravity of sin. Defilement and sin are in their nature identical, for sin is that which morally defiles in the sight of God.
“Is feet-washing in John 13 exactly the same as advocacy in 1 John 2?”
I have always understood that they coalesce; and yet feet-washing is the action manward, advocacy the action Godward.
“We have an Advocate with the Father”; here our blessed Lord has to do with God our Father in intercession for the sinning child. Whereas, “If I wash thee not,” &c. — here our girded Lord and Master takes our defiled feet into His hands to wash away the defilement.
Hence advocacy seems more what He does “with the Father” — feet-washing what He does to us.
But may there not be something more than this in that marvelous scene in John 13? In the Authorized Version we read, “supper being ended” (ver. 2), but in reality it should be “during supper.” In other words, it is not so much the figure of communion interrupted by sin, but of communion still continuing. Yet the Lord was leaving His own in the world to take His place on high in a heavenly scene. He would have the communion to be of a higher character. He was fitting His disciples for communion with Him in that new place He was about to enter.
Then again, do we not see in this something that corresponds to the priests of old? At their consecration they were first washed with water (Exod. 29:44And Aaron and his sons thou shalt bring unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and shalt wash them with water. (Exodus 29:4)). After that, each time they entered the tabernacle to perform their priestly service they washed their hands and feet at the brazen laver (Exod. 30:17-2217And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 18Thou shalt also make a laver of brass, and his foot also of brass, to wash withal: and thou shalt put it between the tabernacle of the congregation and the altar, and thou shalt put water therein. 19For Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet thereat: 20When they go into the tabernacle of the congregation, they shall wash with water, that they die not; or when they come near to the altar to minister, to burn offering made by fire unto the Lord: 21So they shall wash their hands and their feet, that they die not: and it shall be a statute for ever to them, even to him and to his seed throughout their generations. 22Moreover the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, (Exodus 30:17‑22)). Now in John 13 we must carefully note that it is not a question of the blood of Christ as the ground of justification, but the water as a figure of the Word in its regenerating and renewing power.
“He that is washed (or bathed),” &c. — this corresponds to the washing of the priests at consecration, and was never repeated in their case; neither is it in ours, for once new born in a spiritual sense we cannot be born over again.
When the priests entered the tabernacle to do their service, they needed to wash their hands and feet, and so do we need constant feet-washing. Without doubt we need it if defilement has been contracted; but do we not also need it in each act of service, whether in worship, or in ministry amongst the saints, or in testimony to the world in the gospel?
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We need the constant application of the Word to heart and conscience.
WHEN a person gets discouraged about things around, it shows his mind has got wrong. We have just as much strength for our circumstances as Paul had for his. So we are without excuse.