Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
What it means to be initiated into the secret of the mystery. Part 6. Beware of sincerity, emotionalism and the critical spirit.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Like many sincere people, Peter was ignorant and wrong.
JOS 24:14 “Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.”
There is no virtue in sincerity, Bible doctrine produces something far far greater than the hypocrisy of sincerity.
“Part” - meros = fortune, share, destiny, partnership, or business.
Before the Lord can make the first prophecy concerning the Church-age, He must teach the disciples to rebound from the filth of competing and comparing so that they can recover and learn doctrine.
Because Peter has no doctrine resident in his soul to associate with this, then this ritual of foot-washing is meaningless without the doctrine.
The ritual - foot washing = the doctrine is rebound, and the trouble with Peter is he does not understand rebound.
MAT 16:6 “Watch out and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
MAR 8:15 “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”
LUK 12:1 “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”
1CO 5:6 Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump {of dough}?
GAL 5:9 A little leaven leavens the whole lump {of dough.}
MAR 4:24 “Take care what you listen to.”
LUK 8:18 “Take care how you listen;”
“You shall understand” - future tense - ginosko = Peter will learn doctrine including the rebound technique.
Middle voice - ginosko = Peter will be benefited by learning the rebound technique, benefited almost immediately, within a few days.
Indicative mood = reality of Peter’s future understanding of the rebound technique.
First, Peter is shocked, then he is ignorant; Jesus says, “What I do you do not realize now, but you shall understand hereafter.”
Secondly, Peter gets emotional -
JOH 13:8 “Never shall You wash my feet!”
Then he gets carried away with the wrong application -
JOH 13:9 “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.”
First of all, you’re shocked, then stupidity sets in, then emotion.
If you are legalistic, practically everything shocks you, especially when you do not have all the facts.
As soon as you’re shocked, You stop thinking doctrinally.
When you stop thinking doctrinally, you become emotional, and the worst monster in the world is a self-righteous legalistic emotional person.
If you do not know doctrine, you are shocked about everything.
If you are shocked about everything, you are stupid about everything, and if you are stupid about everything, you are emotional about everything.
2TH 3:14 And if anyone does not obey our doctrine in this letter, take special note of that man and do not associate with him, so that he may be put to shame.
JAM 1:8 being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
JAM 4:8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
“Not my feet Lord” = pride, and the front for this pride is always humility.
The false humility -
“I’ll be your servant Lord, don’t you be mine.”
MAT 23:11 But the greatest among you shall be your servant.
He takes a correct doctrine and makes the wrong application.
PSA 7:14-16 Behold, he travails with wickedness, And he conceives mischief, and brings forth falsehood. He has dug a pit and hollowed it out, And has fallen into the hole which he made. His mischief will return upon his own head, And his violence will descend upon his own pate, the top of his head.
Ignorance of doctrine results in disorientation to the grace of God.
Peter is in a state of shocked self-righteous legalism.
Sincerity is no substitute for the knowledge of God.
Peter says “ou [not] me [not] nipses tous podas mou” = “no not the feet of mine,” or “You shall never, not ever, wash my feet.”
ONLY the Lord can wash his feet.
When you are out of fellowship the only thing the believer can produce is human good.
JOH 13:8 “If I do not wash [aor-act-subj] you, you have no part with Me.”
Verse 10 - TLJC uses foot-washing to make a distinction between regeneration and rebound.
When the Lord said to him, “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet,” He changes from nipto to louo = to take a bath.
“Has bathed” - perf-pass-part - leloumenos = to be washed all over or to take a bath.
One bath but many foot-washings, or saved once, rebound many times.
“Wash his feet” - aor-mid-inf - nipsasthai = to wash or to cleanse.
“Only” = there is no fellowship when the believer is defiled by sin.
There’s too much sincerity.
There’s too much human viewpoint.
There’s too much human personality and dynamics.
Even too much enthusiasm.
PHI 3:6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church;
“You are clean” -
pres-act-ind - este - e*ste = you keep on being clean - that is eternal salvation.
He is an unbeliever - Judas came without a bath.
“Knew” - pluperfect-act-ind - edei - h!/dei = Jesus always knew that Judas Iscariot would always remain an unbeliever.
Pluperfect tense - perfect indicative of past time = represents an action as complete and the results of the action in existence at some point in time in the past.
PSA 41:9 “Even My close friend, in whom I trusted, who ate My bread, has lifted up his heel against Me.”
- fulfilled in JOH 13:18, LUK 22:47-48.
LUK 22:47-48 While He was still speaking, behold, a multitude {came,} and the one called Judas, one of the twelve, was preceding them; and he approached Jesus to kiss Him. But Jesus said to him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”
The fact that our Lord would be sold out for money is recorded in the Old Testament, Amos 2:6,
ZEC 11:12, and our Lord knew these prophecies in His humanity.
ZEC 11:12 So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages.