Different Views on Baptism, Part Two: Foot Washing
The Roman Catholic Church has seven sacraments which include baptism, confirmation, the Lord’s Supper, penance, extreme unction, holy orders, and matrimony. Most Baptist churches only observe two ordinances: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Some such as the Grace Brethren observe a third ordinance of foot washing based on Jesus command in John 13:14: “If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” I have heard it argued that foot washing cannot be an ordinance for the New Testament church because it is not repeated in the Epistles. Foot washing, however, is mentioned in the Epistles in reference to widows worthy of support in 1 Timothy 5:10. About these widows it is said that they “have washed the saints feet.” In 1 Timothy 5, Paul is not talking about the observance of an ordinance but the qualification of widows for help from the local church.
The argument against foot washing being an ordinance must come from the text of John 13. More than instituting another ordinance, Christ was setting an example of humility for the proud disciples who were arguing at the Last Supper, “which of them should be accounted the greatest.” Christ rebuked His arguing disciples by saying, “For whether is greater, he that sits at meat, or he that serves? Is not he that sits meant? But I am among you as he that serves.”
Christ’s disciples apparently they were unwilling to wash each other’s feet because of pride at the Last Passover (Luke 22:24-27). Christ, who humbled Himself as Phil. 2:5-10 teaches and added to His form of God the form of a servant, washed His disciples’ feet as an example of humility. This example of humility was never forgotten by one of the disciples whose feet Jesus washed. Later the Peter would pass the example of humility learned at the Last Passover to others in 1 Peter 5:5: “Likewise, you younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yes, all of you be subject one to another and be clothed with humility: for God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble.” Peter never mentioned foot washing as an ordinance and 1 Peter 5:5 would have been the perfect time and place to do so.
“Only in the most general way does our Lord’s washing of his disciples’ feet signify his redemptive activity. It is much more likely that his washing of his disciples was intended as an example of humility to teach them (and us) that Christians should be ready, in lifelong service to him, to perform the most menial service for others” (Robert Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, page 920).
As a Grace Brethren pastor, I would like to present our position. Firstly, though many Grace Brethren churches have forgotten this, historically the German Baptist Brethren movement from which we are descended has practiced 7 ordinances — There are seven ordinances grouped in three observances: The first observance includes baptism of believers by triune immersion (Matt. 28:19), laying on of hands ( 1 Tim. 4:12, 2 Tim. 1:6) and the holy salutation (Romans 16:16, 1 Cor. 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:12, 1 Thess. 5:26, 1 Pet. 5:14). The second grouping includes threefold communion service, consisting of the washing of the saints’ feet (John 13:1-17), the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:20-22, 33-34; Jude 12), and the communion of the bread and the cup (1 Cor. 11:23-26). The final ordinance is the anointing of the sick with oil (James 5:13-18).
As to the issue of Foot Washing being an ordinance, your article skipped over the most important verses in the John 13 passage. In verses 7-10, Jesus makes this activity a picture, not of servanthood, but of continual cleansing. Just as the bread and cup are a picture of the finished work of redemption, the foot washing pictures the continual work of sanctification. There is as much a command to continue this in verses 14-15 as there is for continuing the bread and cup anywhere.