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Chapter 13
2 (
John 15:1-8
; see
EGW comment on Luke 22:3-5
). Judas a
Dry Sapling
—Judas ... did not become transformed, and converted
into a living branch through connection with the True Vine. This dry
sapling adhered not to the Vine until it grew into a fruitful, living
branch. He revealed that he was the graft that did not bear fruit—the
graft that did not, fiber by fiber and vein by vein, become knit with
the Vine, and partake of its life.
The dry, disconnected sapling can become one with the parent
vine stock only by being made a partaker of the life and nourishment
of the living vine, by being grafted into the vine, by being brought
into the closest relationship possible. Fiber by fiber, vein by vein,
the twig holds fast to the life-giving vine, until the life of the vine
becomes the life of the branch, and it produces fruit like that of the
vine (
The Review and Herald, November 16, 1897
).
10, 11. A Test of Heart-cleansing
—Christ gave His disciples to
understand that the washing of their feet did not cleanse away their
sin, but that the cleansing of their heart was tested in this humble
service. If the heart was cleansed, this act was all that was essential
to reveal the fact. He had washed the feet of Judas; but He said,
“Ye are not all clean.” Judas brought a traitor’s heart to this scene,
and Christ revealed to all that He knew him to be the betrayer of
his Lord, and that the washing of his feet was not an ordinance to
cleanse the soul from its moral defilement....
Jesus would give convincing proof that He understood perfectly
the character of Judas, and that He had not withheld His ministry
even from him whom He knew to be working to betray Him into the
hands of His enemies. And we have, in His example, the lesson that
the ordinance of feet-washing is not to be deferred because there
are some professed believers who are not cleansed from their sins.
Christ knew the heart of Judas, yet He washed his feet. Infinite
love could do no more to bring Judas to repentance, and save him
from taking this fatal step. If this service of his Master, in humbling
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