MICHAELS By Water and Blood 153
'wash one another's feet' (13.14). Even though they are 'clean all over'
(KocSccpos oXos, v. 10), one kind of further cleansing is needed. Here if
anywhere, the Gospel of John seems to focus on the sins of believers or
disciples, minor though these sins might be. Parallels in the other Gospels
and in Paul could prompt the Christian reader to interpret 'Wash one
another's feet as I have washed yours' to mean 'Forgive one another as I
have forgiven you' (see Mt. 6.14-15,18.21-35; Mk 11.25; Eph. 4.32; Col.
3.13). This interpretation seems to have been common in the ancient
Church, and it is probably implicit in John as well.^8 But it is never explicit.
Instead, the interpretation comes near the end of the chapter: 'A new com-mand I give you, that you love one another; just as I loved you, that you
also love one another' (13.34). Just as John's Gospel views Christian
conversion and baptism positively as the giving of life rather than nega-tively as repentance from sin, so it views footwashing among believers^9
positively as mutual love rather than negatively as mutual forgiveness of
sins. But Christian readers familiar with the entire New Testament as canon
are rightly slow to pit the one against the other. Rather, they understand
love and forgiveness, like cleansing from sin and the giving of life, as two
sides of the same coin.^10 When John is read canonically, its distinctive
emphases are softened and it looks more like the rest of the New Testa-ment than when it is read alone.
Was this the author's intention? The tendency of much modern scholar-
ship would be to say no. Once a reader—especially an academic or schol-
arly reader—discovers something distinctive in a particular Gospel, it is
tempting to make it the key to one's understanding of that Gospel at the
expense of other things which may fit more comfortably within the larger
canon. In the case of John's Gospel, the matter is complicated by the
question of whether the Gospel of John is in fact the author's last word
within the biblical canon or whether the author had more to say. I am
referring not so much to the Revelation that actually bears John's name as- See Thomas, Footwashing, pp. 155-72.
- For a rather convincing argument that the Johannine community took the
practice of footwashing as literally as water-baptism, see Thomas, Footwashing, pp.
126-49. - See for example Eph. 4.32 ('forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has also
forgiven you'), immediately followed by 5.1-2 ('So be imitators of God as beloved
children, and walk in love, just as Christ has also loved you'). Also Lk. 7.47, where
Jesus knows that a woman's 'many sins are forgiven' because 'she loved much; but the
one to whom little is forgiven loves little'.