Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.
The record of our Lord's public ministry has now been concluded-in the First Three Gospels by a solemn leave-taking of the Temple, until then "His Father's House" and the center of all the Church's solemnities; in this Fourth Gospel by an equally solemn leave-taking of the People, in whom until then God's visible kingdom had stood represented. We are now in the Supper-room; the circumstances preparatory to which our Evangelist presumes his readers to be already familiar with through the other Gospels. What passed in this supper room, as recorded in this and the four following chapters, has been felt by the Church in every age to be stamped with a heavenly and divine impress, beyond all else even in this most divine Gospel, if one may so speak, and the glory of which no language can express.
Now before the feast of the Passover. This raises the question whether our Lord ate the Passover with His disciples at all the night before He suffered; and if so, whether He did so on the same day with other Jews or a day earlier. To this question we adverted in the Remarks prefixed to the exposition of Luke 22:7-13, where we expressed it as our unhesitating conviction that He did eat it, and on the same day with others. That the First Three Evangelists expressly state this, admits of no reasonable doubt; and it is only because of certain expressions in the Fourth Gospel that some able critics think themselves bound to depart from that opinion. So Greswell and Ellicott, for example; while, among others, Robinson, Wieseler, and Fairbairn defend the opinion which we have expressed. Now, as this is the first of the passages in the Fourth Gospel which are thought to intimate that the "supper" which our Lord observed, if a Passover at all, was "before the feast of the Passover," as regularly observed, let us see how that is to be met.
One way of meeting it is by understanding "the feast" here to mean, not the Paschal supper, but the seven days' "Feast of Unleavened Bread" - which began on the 15th Nisan, and was ushered in by the eating of the Passover on the 14th. (See Numbers 28:16-17.) So Robinson. In this case the difficulty indeed vanishes. But there is no need to resort to that explanation, which seems somewhat unnatural. Understanding the Evangelist to refer to the Paschal supper itself, the meaning seems to be, not 'a day before the Passover,' but simply that 'ere the feast began,' Jesus made solemn preparation for doing at it what is about to be recorded. We know from the other Gospels what precise directions Jesus gave to two of His disciples about getting ready the Passover in the large upper room before He and the other ten left Bethany. (See the notes at Luke 22:7-13.) And what deep thoughts on the subject were passing in the mind of our Lord Himself in connection with these arrangements, we are here very sublimely told by our Evangelist (John 12:1-2). See also the notes at Luke 22:14-16. The meaning, then, we take it, is simply this, that Jesus, when He proceeded to wash His disciples' feet during the Paschal supper, did so not only with great deliberation, but in conformity with purposes and arrangements "before the feast." So substantially Stier and Fairbairn.
When Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father. On such beautiful euphemistic allusions to the Redeemer's death, see the notes at Luke 9:31; Luke 9:51.
Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. That is, on the edge of His last sufferings-when it might have been supposed that His own awful prospects would absorb all His attention-He was so far from forgetting "His own," who were to be left struggling "in the world," after He had "departed out of it to the Father" (John 17:11), that in His care for them He seemed scarce to think of Himself except in connection with them. Herein is "love," not only enduring "to the end," but most affectingly manifested when, judging by a human standard, least to be expected.