Forgiving One Another; John 13:12-20

We come to understanding the implications for the spiritual life of what Jesus did in foot-washing. What is taking place is a visual aid of Jesus Christ’s work on the cross of paying the penalty for sin. He is demonstrating that as a servant He is going to go to the cross and wash away the sins of the world. That is the image here. He is showing them by actions what he is going to do on the next day, that it is His work on the cross as a servant that He will forgive the sins of the human race.

John 13:12 ^NASB “So when He had washed their feet, and taken His garments and reclined {at the table} again, He said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you?’” Now we get the teaching point. We have seen the illustration, we have understood the Old Testament background, we have understood the significance of the terminology used, and now we can understand His application. [13] “You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for {so} I am.” The two titles are didaskolos [didaskoloj] and kurios [kurioj]. Notice the order is reversed in v. 14 “If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” There are a couple of observations we have to make here. First, our Lord is making use of a figure of speech known as a chiasm. A chiasm is based on the Greek letter x. When you utilise this type of figure of speech what you are doing is setting up a frame and a picture. The frame is designed to focus attention on the picture. The emphasis in the chiasm is on the central term, which is Lord. Jesus is emphasising His deity here. He is emphasising the fact that He is the eternal God of the universe, the creator of everything, the sovereign of the universe, and the one who has humbled Himself to being a servant in order to solve the greatest problem the human race will ever face. The point here is that if the Lord of the universe is willing to become a servant in order to execute forgiveness then those who are creatures should also be servants and forgive one another. It is not simply being a servant, it is being a servant in a particular way, and that way is forgiving one another. This is an expression of impersonal love. It is called impersonal love because there doesn’t even need to be a relationship there. Impersonal love is based not on who and what we are but on who God is and what Jesus Christ did for us. That is always the pattern and it is the pattern that we see here. Forgiveness is part of this. Forgiveness is a rejection of all animosity, hostility, revenge and revenge motivation, anger, and the whole realm of mental attitude sins towards somebody who perhaps has wronged us. It is the absence of that and the giving up of all of those mental attitude sins toward that person. We ought to forgive one another’s sins because of who and what Jesus Christ is and what He did. That is the model; that is the pattern.

John 13:15 ^NASB “For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. [16] Truly, truly [A)mhn, a)mhn], I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor {is} one who is sent greater than the one who sent him.” The word “sent” is the Greek word apostello [a)postellw]. The noun form of apostello is apostolos. Jesus is talking to the disciples. He is saying: ‘You are not greater than the one who sends you. If I am the Lord of the universe and I am going to forgive your sins, then you as my representatives need to forgive one another,’ and by extension and application that goes for every believer throughout the church age.

This brings up the whole point of forgiveness. Forgiveness is one of those concepts that is often misunderstood. We have to draw a distinction between two categories. One is legal and the other is personal. Forgiveness is a term related to personal relationship. The term justification is a forensic term. Because of justification, the laying of the legal foundation for our relationship with the Lord through the possession of the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, God then is able to forgive us. People don’t understand that forgiveness is not a legal concept. We can go through the whole code of jurisprudence in the US and we don’t find the concept of forgiveness. We find the concepts of pardon and clemency and other terms, but those are legal terms; forgiveness is not a legal term. If someone near and dear to us is murdered we can forgive the person and have an absence of mental attitude sins, yet nevertheless I can be consistent with that and still press for justice under the law. The murderer is a criminal, he broke the law, and he should be tried to the full extent of the law and punished accordingly. Justice is different from forgiveness.

In salvation justice and justification lays the foundation for the relational forgiveness between man and God. Forgiveness is a foundation concept in the Old Testament. Proverbs 19:11 ^NASB “A man’s discretion makes him slow to anger, And it is his glory to overlook a transgression.” That is forgiveness.

Proverbs 24:17 ^NASB “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, And do not let your heart [mental attitude] be glad when he stumbles. [29] Do not say, ‘Thus I shall do to him as he has done to me; I will render to the man according to his work’.”

The doctrine of forgiveness

1) God is able to forgive us our sins and wipe the slate clean because, first of all, it was taken care of on the cross where Christ paid the penalty. There is no divine forgiveness apart from the payment of a penalty and a recognition of sin.

2) In the Hebrew there are two words that are translated forgiveness and they emphasise different aspects. The first is the word nasa which means to take away, to lift off, to carry away. By implication it means to take away guilt, iniquity, and transgressions, and so it came to mean forgiveness. But this forgiveness emphasises phase one forgiveness which is the lifting off or carrying away of sin. This is the word used in Psalm 25:18 ^NASB “Look upon my affliction and my trouble, And forgive all my sins.” It is not talking about a relationship as much as it is talking about that legal removal. Psalm 32:1 ^NASB “How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven [lifted off], Whose sin is covered [atonement]! [5] I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I did not hide; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD”; And You forgave [lift off] the guilt of my sin. Selah’.” The relational aspect of this is emphasised by the Hebrew word salach, and this is a technical term for the pardon to a sin or a sinner, where that consequence may be lifted off or ameliorated but that there is a restoration of fellowship. In the New Testament there are two other words used. There is the word aphieimi [a)fihmi] which is the word normally used for forgiveness, e.g. 1 John 1:9, and it means to let go, to send away, and it is also used in reference to a divorce. It means to cancel, to remit, to pardon alone or to forgive debt. It indicates pardon and a remission of penalty. In Colossians 3:13 another word is used, charizomai [xarizomai] which is normally translated to freely give. It emphasises the grace aspect of forgiveness. It is not something earned or deserved, it is something that is freely given on the basis of penalty price paid on the cross. When we come to English we get a little clarification. According to Webster’s Dictionary forgiveness has several meanings. The first is to give resentment of or claim to requital. That means that you are going to give up mental attitude sins toward a person who has offended you. It doesn’t mean, as so many people think, the idea of absolution from consequences. It may include that and it does sometimes in the believer’s life. Sometimes when we sin the Lord decides out of His grace to remove any divine discipline that goes with it. Sometimes He just decreases the divine discipline and sometimes the discipline stays at the same intensity. But forgiveness is a separate issue from the consequences. So you can forgive someone yet they still have to suffer the consequences for their actions. The second meaning in the dictionary is to cease to feel resentment against an offender. So forgiveness affects you as the person offended, it is your mental attitude.

3) There are two kinds of forgiveness in the Scriptures that we must distinguish. One relates to phase one salvation and one relates to phase two salvation. Ephesians 1:7 ^NASB “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.” As we have seen, forgiveness has to do with relationship. Redemption is different. Redemption means the payment of a price. The payment of a price is an objective reality, it is a judicial payment. Forgiveness is the application of that. In this passage we have redemption, the payment of a penalty for sin; forgiveness emphasises relationship and the restoration of fellowship. Redemption deals with all pre-salvation sins and all post-salvation sins, so it lays the ground work for our salvation; it can never be lost. However, as we go through the spiritual life we continue to commit sins. That is why the priests had to wash their feet and wash their hands. They went places and they did things that were sinful. In the act of confession we are in essence reflecting on what took place on the cross, that the penalty was paid for, and we are saying, “Lord I committed this act which was paid for by Christ on the cross,” we are admitting that and as a result of that confession the Lord reapplies that cleansing and our sin is separated from us, and God remembers that sin no more. At the point of that sin it affects our ongoing relationship with the Lord but not in terms of our position in the family. That is for restoration to fellowship. Because God does that for our relationship with Him He says we are to do the same thing in our relationship to one another.