John 13: 6-11. ESV.
He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, …“Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is COMPLETELY clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
One of the most dangerous false teaching of the hyper grace doctrine is teaching believers never to confess their sins whenever they do sin. The warped argument is that if one confess his or her sins and seek forgiveness daily is to render the death of Christ on the cross an imperfect atonement for our sin.
In the above passage, the cleansing mentioned clearly refers to spiritual cleansing. Though Peter was clean, not every one of the disciples was clean and Jesus knew who would betray Him.
So when we have taken a spiritual bath in Christ, we are COMPLETELY clean. But we will still get our feet dirty as we walk through life and we have to allow Jesus to wash our feet. That is, if we do not confess our sins and obtain His forgiveness and cleansing of all our unrighteousness in our daily walk (1 John 1:9), we will have no part with Jesus.
John MacArthur elaborated this in his book “Twelve Ordinary Men” :
…Peter, as a believer, was already fully justified. The forgiveness and cleansing he needed was not the kind of summary pardon one would seek from the Judge of the Universe – as if Peter were seeking to have his eternal destiny settled. He had already received that kind of cleansing and forgiveness. But now Peter was coming to God as any child would approach a parent, seeking fatherly grace and forgiveness for his wrongdoings. That was the kind of cleansing Peter needed. It is the same kind of forgiveness Jesus taught all believers to pray for daily (Luke 11:4). Here, Jesus likens such daily forgiveness to a foot-washing…