Note 162 — TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Preliminary Note.—John alone of the Evangelists gives no account of the institution of the Lord’s Supper. But he alone gives us a report of the last words of Christ, and his last prayer with his disciples at the time of the institution of the Supper. This report occupies chapters 13-17. This most sacred legacy which the Lord has left to his disciples can never be interpreted except by the heart which enters into the secret place of the Most High. All that the commentator can hope to do is to point out the significance of the original, and the connection between the various parts of this uninterpretable disclosure of divine love. That the supper referred to in ver. 2 here is the same described in Matthew 26:26-29, Mark 14:22-25, and Luke 22:19, 20, I think is beyond question, and is indeed questioned by few if any of the scholars except Lightfoot, who endeavors to identify it with the supper at which Mary anointed the feet of Jesus (Matt. 26:1-16; John 12:2-8). The time when the Last Supper was celebrated, whether it was a true Paschal feast or one which ante-dated and anticipated it, is confessedly one of the most difficult questions in Biblical chronology. If we had only the Synoptical Gospels no one would doubt that the Last Supper was the real Jewish Passover; if we had only John, few would question that it was previous to the Passover. This question I have stated and discussed in the notes on Matthew (note on Lord’s Supper, Vol. I, p. 286), and to the discussion there refer the student. I have no doubt, on a careful comparison of the four accounts, that the four Evangelists refer to the same supper, and that it was taken at the time of and was for them the true Passover Supper. In that case Christ’s act here receives new significance from a comparison with the events recorded by Luke (ch. 22:24-30 and notes). The disciples sat down to the meal without washing their feet, after a hot and dusty walk. There was no servant to perform the menial act for them; and no one would volunteer to do it for the rest. They quarreled as to which should have the pre-eminence at the table. Christ said nothing, waited till the quarrel was over and they had taken their seats, and then rose from the table, and girding himself as a servant, performed the slave’s office in washing their feet. This was his answer to their unseemly strife for the post of honor at the table.