John 13: Part 2

The passages in John 13, 18, and 19 taken together seem to indicate that the Passover supper had not been eaten before Jesus was crucified. However, it is clearly taught in Matt., Mark and Luke that Jesus instituted the Eucharist after the Passover supper, which he consumed with His closest disciples. I suggested that the contradiction is only interpretive and that the text in John's account does not teach that Jesus was crucified before the Passover. Let's take a look at each verse:

1. John 13:1 - "Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come...." This verse is not setting up the timeline of the footwashing, but is telling the time when Jesus knew that His hour had come. In the original language, the participle "knowing" (translated "knew" in the ESV) refers to the time when the knowing took place. In this case, "Before the Feast of the Passover." John was pointing out that the events about to take place were no surprise to Jesus. He knew them before they came. The context reinforces this. The second point will make this a little more clear, but if the footwashing took place "before the feast of the Passover," then it could have been before Jesus was annointed at Bethany. But that doesn't flow with the text.

2. John 13:29 & 18:28 refer to "the feast" and "eat the Passover." It is an interpretive error to force these versus to refer strictly to the day when the Passover supper took place. Passover was a 7 day Feast (Ex. 12, Lev. 23, Deut. 16:1-3), much like the other multi-day feasts throughout John's account. The Lamb's were slain and consumed (Passover supper) and unleavened bread was to be the feast for seven days.
In John 13, the disciples could anticipate (even after the Passover supper) that more would be needed to continue the feast, especially in light of how hastily the supper was planned.
In John 18, the officers and chief priests and Pharisees would not want to participate in anything that would prohibit them from continuing to participate in the Passover feast.

3. John 19:14 states, "Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover..." and Jesus is rejected by the chief priests and sent to be crucified. Again, the text is not stating that this was the preparation "for the Passover," and if you notice, "Preparation" is capitalized. The reason is because the Preparation day was for the Sabbath on Passover week (i.e. Friday). We get this explanation in several other passages (Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54 and even in John 19:31).

The only way to get the text to teach that the Passover supper had not taken place is to make some interpretive mistakes. Hopefully, looking at this a little more carefully will instill in your faith an uncompromising, steadfast hope in God's Word to us. It is reliable and without error and you can trust it.