<p>13:1 <i>Now before the feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that his hour had come- </i>I argued on 12:12 and throughout chapter 12 that the Lord arranged the exact point of His death; for He gave His life, it was not taken from Him (10:17,18). He wanted to die at that particular Passover feast, which explains why John records how at other feasts, the Jews tried to kill Him but He somehow avoided them. The implication here in 13:1 is that the coming of Passover meant that the Lord knew His hour of death and glory had come.</p><p><i>That he should depart out of this world to his Father- </i>The Lord saw His death as an exodus, as He had been taught at the transfiguration. And He saw the whole process of death, resurrection, 40 days on earth and ascension as a going to the Father. His prayer that the Father not take His disciples &quot;out of the world&quot; could be understood as asking that their lives, for the time being, be preserved; they should be &quot;kept from the evil&quot; (Jn. 17:15). For He understood departing out of the world as a reference to His death. And yet the word for 'departing' is used of how believers in Him depart or pass from death to life, right now (5:24; 1 Jn. 3:14). The essence of His experience becomes ours if we walk in the light of life we have seen and known in Him.</p><p>The language of departing from this world to the Father is a quotation from a common Rabbinic claim that these were the words of Moses before he died (Targum on Song of Solomon i. 1, 7, Bereshit Rabba, sect. 96. fol. 84. 1. and Debarim Rabba, sect. 11. fol. 245. 2). The Lord clearly understood Himself as the greater than Moses (Dt. 18:18). Without any doubt there is also reference to the well-known at the time John was writing Jerusalem Targum on Dt. 32: &ldquo;And when the last end of Moses the prophet was at hand, that he should be gathered from the world&hellip;&rdquo;.&nbsp;</p><p><i>Having loved his own that were in the world, he loved them to the end</i>- His love for His own during His ministry is part of His final love for them unto the end. The essence of His self-giving for them throughout His life was seamlessly continued in His death. &quot;His own&quot; is another allusion to the prologue, where the Lord comes to &quot;His own&quot; and they do not receive Him; but others do (1:11,12). Israel becomes redefined; no longer are &quot;His own&quot; His own kith and kin of Israelites, but those who receive Him.</p><p>The 'love to the uttermost' here can of course be applied to the crucifixion. But the Lord at this point felt He had now departed from this world (17:11 &quot;I am no longer in the world&quot;), and so it could be that the following account of the foot washing is to be understood as a preview of the Lord's death on the cross. The grammar of the whole verse implies that &quot;Before the feast of the Passover... He loved them to the end&quot;, as if the 'love to the end' was before the feast, before His death. When did He loved them to the end? Before the Passover. That is the idea. The last supper therefore becomes the love feast, the exemplification of His love unto the end; and it is to be felt like that by us as we partake to this day.</p><p>The Lord&rsquo;s conscious attempt to develop the twelve appears to have paid off to some extent, even during His ministry. For there was evidently some spiritual growth of the disciples even during the ministry. There are indications that even before the Lord&rsquo;s death, the disciples did indeed progressively grasp at least some things about Him. John&rsquo;s Gospel is divided into what has been called &lsquo;The book of signs&rsquo; (Jn. 1:19-12:50) and &lsquo;the book of glory&rsquo; (Jn. 13:1 and following). In the book of signs, the disciples always refer to the Lord as &ldquo;rabbi&rdquo; or &ldquo;teacher&rdquo;; whereas in the book of glory, they call him &ldquo;Lord&rdquo;. We have seen in other character studies how spiritual maturity is reflected in some ways by a growth in appreciation of the titles used of God. Although Jesus was not God Himself,&nbsp;so it seems was the case in how the disciples increasingly came to respect and perceive the Lordship of Jesus.&nbsp; &nbsp;</p><p>In the New Testament, we see the love of Christ directly, openly displayed. Particularly on the cross we see the very essence of love. Having loved His own, He loved us there unto the end, to the end of the very concept of love and beyond. He knew that in His death, He would shew &quot;greater love&quot; than any man had or could show. There He declared the Name and character of God, &quot;that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them&quot; (Jn. 17:26). &quot;Walk in love, as Christ hath loved us (in that) he hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God&quot; (Eph. 5:2). &quot;Hereby perceive we love, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren&quot; (1 Jn. 3:16 Gk.).</p>