Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 12:24
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
24. Verily, verily ] Strange as it may seem to you that the Messiah should die, yet this is but the course of nature: a seed cannot be glorified unless it dies. A higher form of existence is obtained only through the extinction of the lower form that preceded it. See on Joh 1:51.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verily, verily – An expression denoting the great importance of what he was about to say. We cannot but admire the wisdom by which he introduces the subject of his death. They had seen his triumph. They supposed that he was about to establish his kingdom. He told them that the time had come in which he was to be glorified, but not in the manner in which they expected. It was to be by his death. But as they would not at once see how this could be, as it would appear to dash their hopes, he takes occasion to illustrate it by a beautiful comparison. All the beauty and richness of the harvest results from the fact that the grain had died. If it had not died it would never have germinated or produced the glory of the yellow harvest. So with him. By this he still keeps before them the truth that he was to be glorified, but he delicately and beautifully introduces the idea still that he must die.
A corn – A grain.
Of wheat – Any kind of grain – wheat, barley; etc. The word includes all grain of this kind.
Into the ground – Be buried in the earth, so as to be accessible by the proper moisture.
And die – The whole body or substance of the grain, except the germ, dies in the earth or is decomposed, and this decomposed substance constitutes the first nourishment of the tender germ a nutriment wonderfully adapted to it, and fitted to nourish it until it becomes vigorous enough to derive its support entirely from the ground. In this God has shown his wisdom and goodness. No one thing could be more evidently fitted for another than this provision made in the grain itself for the future wants of the tender germ.
Abideth alone – Produces no fruit. It remains without producing the rich and beautiful harvest. So Jesus intimates that it was only by his death that he would be glorified in the salvation of men, and in the honors and rewards of heaven, Heb 2:9; We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor. Phi 2:8-9; he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross; wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, etc. Heb 12:2; who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. See also Eph 1:20-23.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Joh 12:24-26
Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die
A corn of wheat
The original word is not sperma, a seed, but kokkos, a berry, a fruit.
It shows the extreme, even scientific, accuracy of our Saviours language; for the corn of wheat, and other cereal grains, consist of seeds incorporated with seed vessels, and are in reality fruits, though they appear like seeds. It is not the bare seed that falls into the ground, and, by dying, yields much fruit, but the corn of wheat–the whole fruit with its husk-like coverings. A corn of wheat is beautiful and complete in itself. It is full of latent life; it contains the germ of boundless harvests. But it is hard and narrow and isolated. How then are its dormant capabilities to be quickened? Clearly not by keeping it as it is. In its present state it abideth alone. It can never be anything else but bare corn if kept out of the ground. But if sown in the field, and covered by the earth, and quickened by the sunshine and showers of heaven, it softens and expands. It seems to die. It surrenders itself to the forces of nature which take possession of it, and seem to put it altogether aside. But this apparent death is in reality more abundant life. Its burial place becomes the scene of a wonderful resurrection. The spark of vitality has been kindled by the very elements that seemed to work its destruction. The embryo grows at the expense of the decomposing perisperm. Lengthening downwards by the radicle and upwards by the plumule, the seed becomes a bright, green, beautiful plant which lays all nature under contribution for its sustenance, borrows the materials of growth from earth and sky, and at length becomes a luxuriant stalk of corn laden with its fruitful ear. Seed time in this country is in spring. The sower goes forth to sow when the day is lengthening and brightening, and a warmer feeling is in the air. The dark days and wild storms of winter are over; and before the seed sown there is an almost uninterrupted continuance of genial weather till the harvest. But in nature seed time is at the close of autumn, when the melancholy days have come, the saddest of the year. The important process of scattering the seed over the waste places of the earth is accomplished amid the fading and falling of leaves, and the destruction of natures strength and beauty. The chill air and feeble sunlight put a stop to all further growth; and the dreary rain and boisterous storms which prevail at this season are needed to shake down the ripe fruits from stem or bough, to scatter them over the face of the earth, and to rot them in the ground, so that the imprisoned seeds may escape and find a suitable soil in which to grow. Thus, the dark ungenial weather which so often proves disastrous to our cereal crops when they are about to be gathered into the barn, is a wise provision of nature to facilitate the dispersion of the ripened fruits and seeds of the earth. We step between nature and her purpose, snatch the corn from its appointed destiny as the seed of a future crop, and convert it into human food; and thus diverting a law of nature into a new channel, we cannot always expect that the weather which would be favourable to the natural process should be equally favourable to the artificial. Nature fulfils her designs perfectly; she is faithful to the law of her God. But when she comes into contact with man she does not harmonize with his designs. The primeval curse rests upon the toil of mans hands, and the earning of mans bread; and nature therefore will not give us her blessings without a stern struggle with hostile elements. How true is all this of the stormy end of our Saviours life; that dreary autumn seed time of which He said, Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say, Father, save me from this hour; but; for this cause came I unto this hour. And further, how true of His entombment is the natural fact that the seed thus sown in the decaying autumn, amid the wreck of life and beauty, and to the wailing dirge of the devastating storm, lies passive and inert in the soil all the winter, chilled with the frosts, drenched with the rains, and buried in its grave of darkness beneath a shroud of snow, waiting for its resurrection under the bright skies of spring. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)
The corn of wheat; or growth through death
We see the principle of propagation by self-surrender operating in the region of
I. INDIVIDUAL LIFE.
1. if a man will be an individual in the strict sense of the term he will be his own destroyer. If the seedling of a babe would grow physically he must
(1) give, by stretching forth the tendrils of its undeveloped faculties; and
(2) take, by the aliment which such exercise supplies. Thus the first condition of physical life is faith. The same law operates in
2. The acquisition of knowledge. A man must believe before he knows, and faith is the depositing of self in the ground of human testimony, a boy must work with self deposited in the ground of study under disciplinary influences, and convert his time, etc., into materials for developing the seeds of knowledge.
3. The formation of character. When we say that a man has character we mean he has acquired self-control. Self-control is the fruit of submission. Submission during the period of youth grows into those principles of conduct which are the polestar of manhood, through mortifying acts of obedience.
II. SOCIAL LIFE. A man is obliged to work for others if he would enlarge and propagate his life and influence. We see this illustrated in
1. Family relationships. The law of marriage enjoins the giving up of self to another, so as to become a larger, happier self. Parents who fulfil Gods idea, think, work, pray, live for and in their children. If the father does not thus lose himself and die he abides alone, and when he departs this life he has no one to propagate his likeness, and becomes extinct except in name.
2. Legislation. Law, to a certain extent, consists of those things which individuals have agreed to surrender for the maintenance of society and is the fruitage of seeds of individual knowledge put into the soil of public experience.
3. The extension of knowledge. Ideas and schemes in the mind are so many seeds having life in them which have to be cast into the ground of public opinion in order to bear fruit. They must get out of the mind if they are not to abide alone. The thinker communicates his scheme to another, or publishes it in the newspaper, and by and by, under the influence of the opinions and suggestions of others, the thought, once his, bears fruit. This holds true of apparently trivial thoughts. A casual remark made in the hearing of a thoughtful friend may yield a rich harvest of knowledge.
4. Historic influence. The good that men do lives after them. Men in advance of their age are never known till they die. This is true of poets, statesmen, etc., but of none so much as Christ. No one was ever so misunderstood–so little known; but every succeeding century carries a truer picture of His unique life.
III. CHRISTIAN LIFE.
1. Christ who was the Life had to surrender that life in order that He might be for and in the world. Had he spared Himself He would have abode alone, had He never been bruised He would not have been the Bread of life.
2. So in regard to the principle of Christian life. Self is given away in holy efforts for others, in order to produce in them, and so be found again in, the fruits of righteousness.
3. The mainspring which sets all going is love. Love is self-sacrifice, and by that principle we live unto God and are filled.
IV. THE RESURRECTION. Like the seed corn the body must be put into the ground if it would rise again and bear fruit. Conclusion: The subject teaches
1. The difficulties of selfishness and the terrible daring and force of sin.
(1) God has placed us under a system of laws which make it natural and imperative to serve others. To break through this system involves effort and secures self-destruction.
(2) Yet sin has the audacity to recommend this course, and is thus the grand antagonist of nature as well as grace.
2. The nature and functions of Christianity–that it is no afterthought suggested by the fall, but what agrees with principles already in operation.
3. The feelings of awe and hope with which we should regard death. (S. C. Gordon, B. D.)
The corn of wheat dying
1. A corn of wheat–how insignificant. A little child may hold it in its tiny hand; and yet not all the science of the world could produce it. That depends on the strict preservation of all the laws and influences of the universe; were one interfered with all life would perish.
2. Our Lords disciples were probably excited over the triumphal entry, and expectant that their Master would assume that throne they had imagined for Him. Hence He reminds them of His approaching death and its significance.
3. The great truth here declared is that life comes through death and exaltation through humiliation. Again and again had our Lord taught this, but the disciples failed to apprehend it. Nor can we wonder at that, for it is the great stumbling block of our day.
4. But of what use is a corn of wheat except it die? It would hardly supply a meal for the smallest bird. It is a thing of beauty perfectly shaped and you may put it in a casket worthy of it, but it is worthless while kept alone. But place it in the earth where showers and sunshine may reach it, and who can tell what may become of it? So it was with Him who compared Himself to one. The disciples would have kept that inestimably precious life all to themselves. Had they done so it would have stood alone, and been but an angels visit. It would have supplied man with a pattern, but one which would have filled the race with despair, and made it at best local and temporary. What man wanted was an adequate motive power which death only could supply.
5. Not only so, but except it died how could it multiply itself? Place a corn of wheat among the regalia of the realm, and it will remain alone, but place it in suitable soil and it will spring up thirty, sixty, etc. The Son of Man came to give His life a ransom for many. The preaching of a crucified Christ won three thousand on the Day of Pentecost; and it is this same truth which has ever since been the lifeblood of the Church.
6. Moreover, it is by the death of the corn of wheat that we have hope and promise of a more glorious body by and by. Turn up the earth in a month or so after the seed has been sown, and what do you find but a black, mouldy mass with death written on every particle of it? But go to the same spot on the reaping day, and can any contrast be greater? Sown in corruption, etc. (D. Howell.)
The seed corn
I. THE FACTS.
1. The symbolical corn of wheat has a real existence–Christ.
(1) Wheat! The Word of God is called by this name. It is not like chaff; it has nourishment in it, and is preeminent among all words, as wheat is among grain. Believers are called wheat. The wicked are chaff, tares, which have no value in them. Christ is the Word of God in a higher sense than scripture, and between Christ and believers there is union. The rank which wheat holds among cereals may remind us that Christ is chief among ten thousand; the delicate purity of it, that He is the Holy One of God; and the great purpose that it serves, that He is the bread of life.
(2) A corn of wheat. There is life in that, so there is in a blade or leaf; but these cannot propagate their life, whereas that has life to give away. Their life, too, is dependent and continually derived from the stem and root from which they must not be divided; but that has life that it carries with it wherever it goes. So the life that is in Christ comes not by transmission. He is the Life.
(3) Acorn of wheat keeps its life a long time. It has been found in the hand of a mummy after thousands of years. The Son of God became a corn of wheat, for the purpose expressed in our text, before the foundation of the world.
2. The corn of wheat, has fallen into the ground. This is a figurative expression of the fact of the incarnation. When the vital powers of wheat are to he called into action it is necessary to take it from the garner and sow it. One corn of wheat was taken from the Fathers bosom and put into this sinful world. How great an abasement! The Creator became a creature, and was subjected to a creatures duties and obligations.
3. When a corn of wheat falls into the ground it dies. One corn of wheat has died because it was sown. If the Eternal Son had not been sent down His death would not have taken place. He was made under the broken, offended law which slew Him with its curse.
4. When a corn of wheat dies its life-giving power is developed. One corn of wheat has not remained alone. Christs death has great results. It was to Him what the deep sleep was to Adam–it gave Him a spouse. His death is the root, the collective Church is the stem, and individual believers its fruit with which the stem is laden. When thou shalt make His soul, etc. He saw this seed at Pentecost and at many a Pentecost since, and will continue to see it till the Church is complete. And when He sees His seed He recognizes them, and that because of their likeness to Himself. When a corn of wheat produces seed, it is seed of its own nature. So the seed of Christ are like Him.
II. THE DEATH OF CHRIST.
1. Its character.
(1) Glorious. The shame was outward and transient, the glory essential and imperishable.
(2) Fruitful. In this its glory largely consists. The consequences are destined to cover the earth and outlive time.
(3) Not a natural death but a death of violence. There are various kinds of violent deaths.
(a) Martyrdom. This is glorious, and has fruits. Christ was a martyr.
(b) That of a soldier. A peculiar lustre attaches to Wolfe, Nelson, and the heroes at Thermopylae, who conquered while they died, as did Christ.
(c) The felons death, which answers useful ends. And Christ suffered the punishment sin deserved. The holy law was trampled underfoot; His death lifted it up and took away its reproach.
(d) The death of a substitute, such as David wished for when Absalom was slain, and Paul, in Romans
1. The ram substituted for Isaac and the sacrifices of Judaism were examples of the same thing. Christs death was vicarious. The Lord laid on Him, etc.
2. Its necessity.
(1) The simple fact proves this. Christ was not capable of throwing away His life, and God would never have given it had it not been necessary.
(2) Its character proves this–as that of a warrior, martyr, etc.
(3) But there was a special necessity for it. Except a corn of wheat, etc. Had He not died He had been a head without a body, a shepherd without a flock, a king without a kingdom, etc. (A. Gray.)
The seed corn
Two travellers, journeying together, tarried to rest by the way at an inn, when suddenly a cry reached their ears that there was a fire in the village. One of the travellers forthwith sprang up, and leaving his staff and his bundle behind him, hastened to afford assistance. But his companion strove to detain him, saying, Why should we waste our time here? Are there not hands enough to assist? Wherefore should we concern ourselves about strangers? The other, however, hearkened not to his words, but ran forth to the fire; when the other leisurely followed, and stood and looked on at a distance. Before the burning house there was a mother transfixed with horror, and screaming, My children! my children! When the stranger heard this, he rushed into the house among the falling timbers, and the flames raged around him. He must perish! exclaimed the spectators. But after they had waited a short time, behold, he came forth with scorched hair, bringing two young children in his arms, and carried them to their mother. She embraced the infants, and fell at the feet of the stranger; but he lifted her up, and spoke words of comfort to her. The house meanwhile fell with a dreadful crash. As they two, the stranger and his companion, were returning to the inn, the latter said, But who bade thee risk thy life in such a rash attempt? He, answered the former, who bids me put the seed corn into the ground, that it may decay and bring forth new fruit. But how, said the other, if thou hadst been buried beneath the ruins? His companion smiled, and said, Then should I have been the seed corn myself. (J. Krummacher.)
The corn of wheat falling into the ground and dying
I. The corn of wheat ABIDING ALONE. It is Christs humiliation which we are mainly called in these words to ponder. But in order, by contrast, to bring out the wonders of that humiliation, let us, as here suggested, go back to a past Eternity, and contemplate that corn of wheat abiding alone. Immensity a void. The mysterious Trinity in unity, pervading and filling all space: No need of worlds or angels to glorify them. There was the corn of wheat abiding alone: the Eternal Son with the Eternal Father, in the glory which He had with Him before the world was.
II. We are next called to consider the corn of wheat FALLING INTO THE GROUND, AND DYING. Impelled by nothing but His own free, sovereign, unmerited grace, Christ resolves not to abide alone. He is to come down to a ruined world in order to effect its ransom and salvation. But, how replace it? How, in other words, is this redemption from sin and death to be effected? There are two words in our text, on which we may for a moment instructively pause. The one suggesting the necessity, the other the voluntariness of the death of Jesus.
1. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground. Unless. There was no other possible way by which the world could be redeemed. Without the dying of corn seed–no life.
2. We have the voluntariness of Christs death here set forth. If it die!–If. This same monosyllable He Himself repeats with similar emphasis a few verses further on: And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me. This leads us
III. To the corn of wheat BRINGING FORTH MUCH FRUIT. It was prophesied regarding the Redeemer, that He should see His seed (Isa 53:10). This, says He, is the Fathers will who hath sent Me, that of all which He hath given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day (Joh 6:39). He–the Tree of Life–was to be felled to theground; the axe was already laid to the root. But as many a noble denizen of the forest, coming with a crash on the sward, scatters its seed all around, and in a few years there starts up a vast plantation, so Christ, by dying, scattered far and wide the grain of spiritual and immortal life. The seed and the leaves of this Tree are for the healing of the nations. The Divine corn seed drops into the ground; a golden harvest waves, and heaven is garnered with ransomed souls. Oh wondrous multitude which no man can number! A multitude growing ever since Abel bent, a solitary worshipper, in the heavenly Sanctuary, with his solitary song–the first solitary sheaf in these heavenly granaries. Yes! the song is deepening; the sheaves are multiplying. (J. R. Macduff, D. D.)
The dying seed fruitful
The blood of the martyrs has evermore been the seed of the Church. Thus have the corns of wheat been again and again planted, to die and live again in great harvests. We are reminded of the saying of Cranmer to Ridley, as they were fastened to the stake and the fire was lighted under them: Be of good courage, Master Ridley. We will kindle a fire this day that will be a light to all England. The life of Christ without and within
I. In one point of view Christs life was AN ENTIRE FAILURE. He did not get the things which men think to be most valuable; nor did He derive much gratification in those faculties which men live to gratify; nor, though endowed with a wondrous versatility of powers, did He employ those powers as to make it appear that He gained the object of life. Regarding our Saviour in His general relations
1. He could scarcely have entered life at a worse door than at the portal of Jewish nationality. For in that age it was a misfortune to be born a Jew in the estimation of everybody except a Jew. So far as worldly opportunities were concerned He might better have been born a heathen.
2. He had but few opportunities in youth. Men are dependent for their standing on the fact that they began with the capital of their predecessors. Christ had nothing of the kind, and He never strove to repair these conditions of fortune.
3. He secured no wealth, not even enough to redeem Himself from dependence.
4. Though He had great power of exciting enthusiasm, He never gained or kept a steady influence over the people. Even His disciples failed to enter into His ideas or career.
5. He failed even more, if it were possible, to secure any personal or professional influence on the minds that ruled that age. There were political rulers of great sagacity whom He never seems to have fallen in with, and He never had a place among men of letters, nor was He a power in any philosophical circle.
6. Even more remarkable is it that He did not produce any immediate impression on the religion and feelings of His age.
7. Nor did He found a family, the object of most great mens ambition. All this being the case, what could His life produce that should remain? Nothing, apparently. It seemed to be like an arrow shot into the air. His trial and condemnation were more than ordinarily ignominious and fruitless, whereas there are many whose trial, etc., is the most glorious event in their history. He died leaving no trace behind. In His resurrection there was not much alleviation, for He never appeared in public; and His ascension closed His career. Was there ever a life that seemed to be thrown away more than Christs?
II. WHAT ARE THE FACTS ON THE OTHER SIDE? Did He not save His life by losing it.
1. Born a Jew, no man now ever thinks of Him as a Jew. There is victory in that what hung about Him as a cloud is utterly dissipated.
2. Born without opportunity in His social relations, there is not a household or community in Christendom that is not proud to call itself Christian. The very kings of the earth bring their glory and baptize it with His name.
3. Having no learning, when has there been a school or university, or philosophical system for a thousand years that has not been conscious of receiving its germ from Christ?
4. He was indifferent to the ordinary sources of wealth, yet from out His life there has issued an influence that is to control money making.
5. He never gained much influence with the masses, yet what name evokes so much enthusiasm among the common people as Christs?
6. He made little impression on political and intellectual rulers, but He has now filled the channels of thought and poetic sentiment, and more and more do you find in treaties of law the principles of Christian justice. His life was thrown away, just as grain is thrown away, into the soil: it died to give growth to life.
III. WHAT WAS THE SECRET OF IT ALL? If you had asked at that time, What are the secrets of power in the world? any Jew would have pointed to the temple. If, as he did so, you had seen some Greek smiling and asked him the same question, he would have said, Have you been in Athens? And if, while he yet spoke, a disdaining Roman had passed by, and you had asked him, Wherefore that smile? he would have said, Jews and Greeks are full of superstitions and are blinded as to the true source of the worlds power. That power is centred in Rome. And how would Jew and Greek and Roman joined in the derision if you had pointed to Jesus crucified as the secret of the worlds power. And yet Jews, Greeks, and Romans have gone down while this shadow fills the world. It was His death, and the sacrifice involved by that death that was and is the secret of His unique power. But His life was a daily death–a constant self-surrender, and only in so far as we copy Him shall we share His power. (H. W. Beecher.)
The death of Jesus
I. DEATH THE MOST DREADFUL OF EVENTS HAS OFTEN BEEN MADE A BLESSING.
1. The death of the believer has been the life of the sinner. After turning their backs on a sermon men have been convinced by a dying bed.
2. The death of a parent has proved the life of the child. The expiring change has never been forgotten.
3. The death of a minister has been the life of the hearer. Little regarded when living, his word has come with power when gone.
4. The death of a martyr has been the life of the beholder. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.
5. But where are we now? The death of Jesus is the life of the world.
II. THE DEATH OF JESUS CONFERS THE LARGEST BLESSING. By His death Christ fills heaven with praise, the Church with blessings, the world with followers.
1. A grain of corn multiplies by yielding other grains like itself. If barley is sown, barley comes up; if wheat, wheat; if Christ, Christians. He was not of the world–they are not of the world; He went about doing good–they serve their generation by the will of God; He was meek and lowly of heart–they are learning of Him.
2. A grain of corn is capable of yielding a large crop–one may stock a country. Christ was asked, Are there few that be saved? He told the questioner to strive himself to enter into the straight gate; a wiser course for us than speculation. But were the question asked properly we might reply, No, He is leading many sons to glory–a multitude which no man can number.
III. EVERYTHING THAT ENLIVENS US AND CONFORMS US TO HIM OWES ITS EFFICACY TO HIS DEATH.
1. The convincing and renewing influences of the Spirit.
2. Deliverance from spiritual enemies.
3. The lively hope by which we draw nigh to God.
4. Holiness. (W. Jay.)
The law of fruitfulness
The people were full of expectation of the temporal kingdom of the Messiah. Therefore our Lord lays down the principles on which His kingdom shall come. It is spiritual, but conforms to the law which says, No power comes into this world, or attains its end, but on the condition of suffering: only in death can life be achieved.
I. ILLUSTRATIONS OF THIS LAW. When we distinguish between the laws of Christian and the laws of ordinary life, we make a false distinction. The former are but the highest spiritual expression of the conditions which underlie and rule all nature.
1. Our Lord takes us to the lower side of life–that of physical nature.
2. So it is with every beautiful and joyous thing that exists. Not a little childs laughter makes home ring with gladness but it has found its life in the trembling agony that has gone before.
3. Take life on its commercial side. The spirit of enterprise does not mean the hugging of your savings, but reinvesting them. A man wins wealth by his readiness and wisdom in fulfilling the law of sacrifice.
4. It is true also in the world of intellect. The power of genius and talent largely consists in the power of self-denial and industry. It is only when a man puts his whole will into the subject he is studying, denying himself pleasure, enduring physical pain and hardship, patiently proving the certainties of his discoveries, that he stands at last amongst his fellows as one who has something to teach.
5. So in all noble and high enterprise. Columbus has his dream, but he must first incur the ridicule and indifference of those who plume themselves on being the wise men of the day.
6. It is true in regard to social life. The same law has its illustration in the case, e.g., of Israel. Their position at first was that of a mere assemblage of tribes with individual preferences, needs, etc., surrounded by the determined hostility of the nations of Canaan. The duty of tribal suffering was the condition of the nations unity. The Song of Deborah teaches this. That was in its youth; but. Solomon taught that the same principle was at work. There is that scattereth and yet increaseth, etc. The real wealth of the nation depends on the peoples willingness to sacrifice themselves. When the spirit of selfishness came into the land it was easy for the prophets to predict its doom.
II. WHAT DO WE OWE TO CHRIST IN CONNECTION WITH THIS PRINCIPLE? Christ did for it that which makes it capable of operating throughout the whole length and breadth of human life.
1. Christ unfolded to the intellect and brought into the consciousness of life this law. This is His claim to originality. No man can claim originality in inventing new laws. Sir Isaac Newton only brought into human thought the law of gravity, which bad existed ever since the stars were made. The truest benefactor is not he that brings novelties, but who makes us acquainted with the laws which underlie our national existence.
2. But intellectual perception is not enough. Example is the potent agent of action, and therefore Christ brought the law home to the will. You teach a law by an example because you thus stir up the principles of admiration and emulation. Christ is no mere demonstrator; He stood to the yoke of the very laws He had made. He passes by all temptations to selfishness leading a life of self-consecration from Bethlehem to Calvary. And what is the harvest? His power is the kingdom which is the measure of the worlds empire today. Where is the power of Egypt and Assyria, the wisdom and genius of Greece? These, founded on mere selfishness, have passed away. But every land has worshippers of Him who died on the cross.
3. The work must be carried yet further. A man may clearly perceive a thing and most earnestly resolve it. You may gain his intellect and will, but you have not won the man until you have got hold of the affections. It is love which illuminates the actions and understanding, and lifts mens lives into courses which make the whole life obedient to them. Christ was not only the educator and the embodiment of the law; behind both there was the inspiration of His love. And so we love Him because He first loved us. (Bp. Boyd Carpenter.)
Alone
There are two conditions of being possible, either of which must constitute our character–rove and self. Love seeks its life outside itself: self seeks its life in itself. Love, in order to possess, sacrifices selfishness; while self, in order to possess, keeps itself and sacrifices love. An unloving soul is
I. WITHOUT GOD IN THE WORLD. Gods love toward us is certain; but of what avail is that if our hearts are closed against Him. He that loveth not knoweth not God. He may be, as He is, everywhere present; but unless the heart receives His love and returns it, it is the same to us as if God did not exist. The world is without the sun at noon-day to the blind man.
II. WITHOUT CHRIST. Jesus is one with the Father in Being and in love to man. He came not merely to atone for sin, but to impart His life of love. He represents Himself accordingly, as knocking, etc., the symbol of fellowship of brotherly love. But how can such fellowship be realized if self bars the door? Jesus may be as near to us as He was to Satan in the wilderness, and yet between us the same moral gulf. Judas was as far from Him when he sat by His side as when he went forth to his own place. So we may be near Christ when He saves others, but abide alone. He cannot dwell in the selfish heart.
III. WITHOUT THE SPIRIT. The Spirit sheds abroad the love of God. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, etc. The fruit of the Spirit is love. But if we quench Him, whatever His love may be, it may be said of us not having the Spirit.
IV. WITHOUT COMMUNION WITH SAINTS. There is but one family in heaven and earth, and one Spirit pervades the whole–love. Prisons, loss, and bereavement cannot shut Christians out from this. The unloving soul is not rejected: he is invited, Come thou with us and we will do thee good; but he responds, I desire only myself.
V. What is to become of such a man? He has rejected God, etc. As years advance the conviction steals over him that his companions are falling away. Old age comes, and the world becomes like a cell where he must suffer solitary confinement. The deathbed at last is reached, and he must go forth alone into the unknown. How sad and dreary. He has lived alone and now finds himself WITHOUT HEAVEN. (J. T. Pitcher.)
He that loveth his life shall lose it.–Suppose that Jesus, seeking only His personal safety, had now gone to the Greeks to play among them the part of a sage, or to organize the state like another Solon, He might indeed thus have saved His life, but would in reality have lost it. In having given it up to God, He could not have received it from Him glorified (Joh 12:23). Thus kept by Him, it would have remained doomed to sterility and earthly frailty. It was by renouncing the life of a sage that He became a Christ, and by renouncing the throne of a Solon he obtained that of God. This saying included the judgment of Hellenism; for what was Greek civilization but human life cultivated from the view point of enjoyment, and withdrawn from the law of sacrifice. (F. Godet, D. D.)
The bearing of the present on the future life
The text
I. APPLIES TO THE POSITION CHRIST OCCUPIED AT THE TIME. The gratification of a selfish desire in Christ at this time meant the worlds ruin–ruin intensified by the fact that the work of deliverance was so nearlycompleted. Christ was the exemplification of the text (chap. 10:17, 18; Gal 2:20).
II. THE GENERAL APPLICATION TO US. It points to two subjects on which we propose to dwell.
1. Selfishness indulged–the cause of irreparable loss. He that loveth His life shall lose it. See how selfishness operates on and affects the life.
(1) It isolates. Man is intended to be a social being. Selfishness shuts out society and turns a man in upon himself.
(2) It debases. Man is intended to benefit his race. While getting good he is to do good. Selfishness obstructs the work of charity and usefulness. The life that should find loving room for all is reduced to its own enjoyment and gratification.
(3) It destroys. Shall lose it. An irreparable loss, which cannot be fully understood, but of which some conception may be formed when you consider
(a) The excellence of its nature–God-bestowed.
(b) The duration of its existence–eternal.
(c) The price of its redemption–the sacrificial death of Jesus.
This leads us to ask, What is meant by loving life? Not the pure enjoyment of life by a healthy vigorous person, but the love bestowed without restraint on the purely animal life, indulging appetite, fulfilling sensual lusts and delights, following fashion, craving for fame, a passion for riches and pleasures–loving these more than Christ. The worldling who gives his soul for the world.
2. Self-denial practised–the security of eternal life. He that hateth, etc. Self-denial is not a gift, but a cultivation developed by exercise and practice. It is the resurrection of our personality buried in the grave of deception. In self-denial we find our true selves. Mans choice lies between temporary gain and eternal loss. The false says the present; the true part of our nature says the future. Hatred of life is not misanthropy. It is this life loved less than the life to come; everything here treated as being incompetent to give true joy, preferring Gods favour to all below. Crucifying the flesh, keeping the body under, enduring persecution for Christs sake–the seed of much fruit. Shall keep it, etc. Selfishness enervates, loosens the grasp, and allows the treasure to slip away. Self-denial tightens the hold and retains possession. Life eternal–deliverance from trial, the enjoyment of rest and reward. (J. E.Hargreaves.)
Life loved and lost
Richard Denton, a blacksmith, residing (in Cambridgeshire, was a professor of religion, and the means of converting the martyr, William Woolsey. When told by that holy man that he wondered be had not followed him to prison, Denton replied that he could not burn in the cause of Christ. Not long after, his house being on fire, he ran in to save some of his goods, and was burnt to death.
If any man serve Me, let him follow Me
Following Christ
I. LET WHOM?
II. FOLLOW WHOM?
III. FOLLOW WHENCE?
IV. FOLLOW WHITHER?
V. FOLLOW HOW. (S. S. Times.)
I. THE LEADER.
II. THE FOLLOWER.
III. THE JOURNEY.
IV. THE DESTINATION. (S. S. Times.)
Following Christ
When Amurah II died, which was very suddenly, his son and destined successor, Mohammed, was about a days journey distant in Asia Minor. Every day of interregnum in that fierce and turbulent monarchy is attended with peril. The death of the deceased Sultan was therefore concealed, and a secret message despatched to the prince to hasten at once to the capital. On receiving the message he leaped on a powerful Arab charger, and, turning to his attendants, said, Let him who loves me follow! This prince afterwards became one of the most powerful sovereigns of the Ottoman line. Those who approved their courage and loyalty by following him in this critical moment of his fortunes were magnificently rewarded. There is another Prince–the Prince of Peace–who says to those around him, Let him who loves Me follow.
Christs servant: his duties and rewards
The motto of the Prince of Wales is Ich dien–I serve; it should be the motto of every prince of the blood royal of heaven.
I. PLAIN DIRECTIONS FOR A VERY HONOURABLE OFFICE.
1. We should all like to minister to Christ. If He were here now there would be nothing which we would not do for Him, so we say. But much of this is mere sentiment. If Christ were to come now as He came at first, probably we should treat Him as He was treated. This sentimentalism has at the bottom of it the idea that we should be honouring ourselves by it. But if you really would serve Christ, you can, by following, i.e., imitating Him.
(1) One says, I should like to do something to prove that I really would obey my Lord. I would show that I am not a servant in name only. Imitate Christ, and you then show your obedience.
(2) Another says, I would joyfully assist Him in His wants. Imitate Him, then, and go about doing good. Behold His wants in the poor saints.
(3) I would do something to cheer Him. The solace of His sorrow is the obedience of His people. When He sees that He sees of the travail of His soul, etc.
(4) I would honour Him. Christ is most honoured when His saints are most sanctified. Follow Him thus, and you will honour Him more than by strewing palm branches in His way and shouting Hosannah!
2. Let me mark out Christs way, and then, if you would serve Him, follow Him. The proud flesh wants to follow Christ by striking out new paths, to he an original thinker. It is not for us to be originals, but humble copies of Christ.
(1) He went to Jordan to be baptized. If you would serve Him dont say this is not essential; it is not a servants business to determine that.
(2) The Spirit led Him to be tempted of the devil; dont think that temptation is a mark of being out of Christ.
(3) Now He comes forth to work. So you must follow Him in labour. If you cannot preach to thousands you can to tens, or to one, as He did by Jacobs well.
(4) He bears bold witness before His adversaries. Let there not be a foe before whose face you would fear to plead His cause.
(5) He comes into the black cloud of reproach; they say He has a devil and is mad. Follow Him there.
(6) He comes to die. Be ready to yield thy life if called upon, and if not, devote every moment of it to Him.
II. GENEROUS STIPULATIONS FROM A NOBLE MASTER. Where I am, etc. Whoever heard of such conditions. The master is in the drawing room, the servant in the kitchen; the master presides at the table, the servant waits at the table. Not so here.
1. This was Christs role all His life long.
(1) He went to a wedding, to the house of Lazarus, to the Pharisees house, and had He been an ordinary man He would have said, I cannot take these poor fishermen with Me; but they were always with Him: with Him too in His triumphal entry and His last great feast. With desire, etc.
(2) But if He thus shared His comforts among His disciples, He expected them to share His discomforts. He was in a ship in a great storm, and they must be with Him though they were sore afraid. He goes to Gethsemane, and they must be with Him there; and though He had to tread the winepress alone, yet they were with Him in death, for they suffered martyrdom.
2. This stands true to us. Where Christ was we must be. He is gone to heaven now, and where He is we shall be also. Fare ill or well we are to have joint stock with Christ.
III. A GLORIOUS REWARD FOR IMPERFECT SERVICES. Him will my Father honour.
1. In his own soul. He shall have such peace and fellowship that this honour shall be apparent. How greatly God honoured Knox, who never feared the face of man, with unruffled serenity of heart!
2. By success in whatever he may attempt. Why is it that little success rests on some who labour for God? Because they do not serve Christ by imitating Him. Ecclesiastical courts and rubrics confine too many.
3. At the last, before the angels. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Service and its reward
I. THE COURSE OF CHRISTIAN SERVICE. What are mens ideas of life? The gratification of animal appetites, the desire for social pleasures, the love of distinction. Is it any wonder that these ideas should prompt the question, Is life worth living? These are ends which life itself will ultimately disdain. Turn, then, to Christs idea–service true and lasting.
1. Christs life was one of full consecration to God. This consecration was
(1) Active–I come to do Thy will.
(2) Entire–My meat is to do the will, etc.
(3) Realized in the largest degree–Into Thy hands I commit My Spirit.
(4) Triumphant, It is finished.
(5) Was maintained by prayer.
2. Christs life was inspired with one aim–the elevation of mankind. Archimedes said that if he could find a fulcrum he would make a lever that would lift the world. The fulcrum in our redemption was Gods eternal purpose, and the lever Christs own life–His teaching and example. This is the Churchs mission today.
3. Jesus never made present success the ground of His life. After 1800 years there is more power in it than when He saved the dying thief.
II. THIS SERVICE LEANS WHERE JESUS IS. There is elevation in the very nature of Christian service. Men wearing titles and honours which they have never deserved are looked upon with contempt. To bear Christs name and to wear His livery without serving Him is despicable. But that service is calculated to destroy one of our most debasing passions–selfishness; and the moment that that is dead at the feet of Jesus we begin to rise. We are not Mind to other elevating influences–knowledge, taste, industry, uprightness, but a heart consecrated to Christ is higher than all. It has higher conceptions of life, sweeter sentiments of duty, aims at higher ends.
III. THIS LIFE OF SERVICE WILL BE CROWNED WITH DIVINE HONOURS.
1. A place in heaven.
2. Distinguished signs of approbation.
3. Association with Jesus. (Weekly Pulpit.)
Self-denial
I. THE SELF-DENIAL IN WHICH WE SHOULD FOLLOW JESUS.
1. It was free. Voluntariness is the essence of this virtue. For others to deny us a benefit or to constrain us to hardship we would avoid is not self-denial. Christ emptied Himself, etc.
2. It was wise. It was not placed in trifles. If He restrained innocent desires or endured what was painful it was for noble and generous ends.
3. It was extensive, reaching from the humble stable to the malefactors cross, and all was foreseen.
4. It was disinterested. Many deny to serve themselves; but ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, etc. Would we be Christs followers? Our self-denial must be like His–free, wise, etc.
II. THIS SELF-DENIAL IS THE PATH TO TRUE HONOUR AND GREATNESS, because
1. It is great and honourable in itself. These qualities arise from character and conduct, and are independent of the judgments of men. They are not derived from noble descent, magnificence, dominion, etc. To rise above self-love requires a vigour in which there will always be found true greatness of mind.
2. It conducts to true greatness. Voluptuousness rusts the best talents, blunts the most undaunted courage, perverts the soundest judgment, and corrupts the purest heart. All these qualities a habit of self-denial improves. That which the world counts greatness can only be achieved by self-denial–learning, statesmanship, war. But Christian self-denial makes man trulygreat.
3. It is honoured by God. This is seen in the case of Christ. For His self-denial God gave Him a name above every name. (J. Erskine, D. D.)
Where I am there shall also My servant he. I have heard that a noted Methodist preacher, who commenced his ministry very early in life, suffered not a little at first because of his humble origin and unpromising exterior. Being sent on the circuit plan to a certain house on a Saturday night, to be in readiness for preaching on the Sunday, the good woman, who did not like the look of him, sent him round to the kitchen. The serving man was surprised to see the minister in the kitchen when he came from labour. John, rough as he was, welcomed the despised preacher, and tried to cheer him. The minister shared Johns meal of porridge, Johns bed in the cockloft, and Johns humble breakfast, and walked to the House of God with John in the morning. Now, the preacher had not long opened his mouth before the congregation perceived that there was somewhat in him, and the good hostess, who had so badly entertained him, began to feel a little uneasy. When the sermon was over there were many invitations for the minister to come home, and the hostess, fearful of losing her now honoured guest, begged he would walk home with her, when, to her surprise, he said, I supped with John, I slept with John, I breakfasted with John, I walked here with John, and Ill walk home with John. So when dinner came he was, of course, entreated to come into the chief room, for many friends wished to dine with this young minister, but no, he would dine in the kitchen; he had supped with John, he had breakfasted with John, and he would dine with John. They begged him to come into the parlour, and at last he consented on the condition that John should sit at the same table. For, he said, very properly, John was with me in my humiliation, and I will not sit down to dine unless he be with me in my exaltation. So on they went till the Monday morning, for John was with me at the beginning, and he shall be with me to the end. This story may be turned to account thus: our Master came into this world once, and they sent Him into the servants place, where the poor and despised ones were. Now the name of Christ is honoured, and kings and cardinals, popes and bishops, say, Master, come and dine with us. Yes, the proud emperor and philosopher would have Him sup with them, but still He says, No, I was with the poor and afflicted when I was on earth, and I will be with them to the end, and when the great feast is made in heaven the humble shall sit with Me, and the poor and despised who were not ashamed of Me, of them will I not be ashamed when I come into the glory of My Father, and all My holy angels with Me. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
If any man serve Me, him will My Father honour
Christian service and its honours
I. THE SERVICE OF CHRIST.
1. It is not a condition of serfdom. It is perfect freedom.
2. It is not a condition of menialism. In a modified sense it gives equality with Christ (Joh 15:15). The relation between the Saviour and His servants is tender, intimate, mysterious. Christ in you the hope of glory.
3. It involves a complete renunciation of every other service and our entire dedication to Christ. Hand and head and heart, time and influence and wealth must be laid on His altar.
4. It is a voluntary service. The Bible, the history of each saint of God, and our own inward consciousness unite in attesting that we possess the power to discern moral distinctions, to recognize the character, and to appreciate the claims of God; the power to render implicit obedience or proudly to defy our Maker.
II. ITS ACCOMPANYING HONOURS.
1. The service of Christ is the only path of real honour; but it is the sure way to certain and glorious distinction.
2. This service elevates the physical, gives majesty to the intellectual, and arrays in robes of richest glory the moral and spiritual. It inspires an unwavering purpose. It raises to all the privileges of an adopted sonship.
3. It is emphatically royal. Those engaged in it are a royal priesthood. Already they have in possession the highest good, and in prospect an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away. They are kings, albeit as yet uncrowned, but awaiting patiently their coronation. (J. W. Jones.)
The Christian service and honour
Few men love service. Man prefers to be his own master, to do as he pleases, But he who spurns the counsel of God commits an act of suicide on his liberty. He is the free man who serves God. But he who refuses is a slave to Satan or self.
I. WHAT IS IT TO SERVE JESUS? We may serve Him
1. In the faith we hold. Studying it, mastering it, loving it, practising it.
2. In suffering for His sake. Bearing meekly persecution, calumny, Divine discipline, and poverty.
3. In the outward acts we perform. Some may serve God in ecclesiastical duties, others in the private duties of religion, and those of daily life. If you cannot serve Christ in one way you can in another–the servant in the household, the nurse in the hospital, the merchant in the rectitude of his dealings. It is not necessary to be a clergyman; you may serve Christ behind the counter or at the plough.
II. THE HONOUR GOD CONFERS ON CHRISTS SERVANTS.
1. In this world.
(1) In the midst of the Church. Whatever a mans rank may be, the most useful are after all the most honoured. Let a man deserve position, and his fellow Christians will not be backward in giving it.
(2) In the world. You may not know it, but the conscience of the wicked respects the righteous, however scornful the tongue. And for whom does the sinner send on his death bed? His boon companions? No; the man of prayer.
(3) After he is dead. The servant of Christ has honour at the hands of his family, his business connections, his neighbourhood, after he is gone.
2. In the world to come.
(1) At the judgment–from persecutors, the wicked, the devil himself.
(2) Throughout eternity. Well done, etc.
Christian service and its reward
I. THE SERVICE.
1. The master who is served. Jesus–Divine and human–One in whom are associated the might of omnipotence and the tenderness of love, who strengthens the weakness of His servants and uniformly leads them to victory and reward. And what else can it be but a service of honour to follow one so preeminently glorious? The subject may be proud of the sovereign, the scholar of the teacher, etc., but what sovereign, etc., can be compared with Christ. The conclusion is irresistible. There is no one who ought to be so trusted, loved, and obeyed.
2. The men who serve. Not men of any description, but fit men, chosen, justified, sanctified. How animating to be associated with such–men at the head of their species, whatever the world may say. The soldier congratulates himself on belonging to a profession which includes a Wellington; the student that he traverses a path trodden by Plato and Newton; the artist that he follows in the wake of Raphael and Reynolds; but we follow in the footsteps of Paul, Augustine, Luther, etc. Wherefore seeing we are encompassed, etc.
3. The object contemplated–the loftiest at which man can aim–the evangelization of the world. The politician may alleviate the burdens of many, the merchant increase the comfort of thousands, the physician and inventor minister to multitudes, but the Christian carries light to the benighted and life to the dead, deposes Satan and enthrones God.
4. Its motive. The love of Christ. Think of that in the constancy of its exercise, the depth of its intensity, the fulness of its abundance, the felicity of its influence, and the munificence of its bestowment, and you will feel with Paul, the love of Christ constraineth, etc.
II. THE REWARD. God honours those who serve His Son
1. By crowning their labours with success. Admiration and advantages are nothing with success, but that compensates all sacrifices and exertions; and Christians always have it, although in a different way and of a different sort to what they expect.
2. By bestowing upon them His friendship and presence. This atones for worldly neglect and contempt.
3. By making them the almoners of His grace. All right-minded men esteem it an honour to dispense blessings, but Christians are channels of the living waters of salvation.
4. By raising them to the blessedness and glory of heaven. (J. Fleming.)
The Christian a follower of Christ
I. EVERY TRUE CHRISTIAN IS A SERVANT OF CHRIST. This is a very frequent description of His people, My servants. In one sense all men and all creatures are the servants of Christ: they are subject to the control of His power, the direction of His wisdom, the accomplishment of His purposes, and the manifestation of His glory. But it may be more properly said He serves Himself by them, than that they serve Him. We are not to confine this relationship to those who serve Christ in the ministry of the word, either at home or amidst the moral wilds of pagan superstition. They, indeed, are His servants in an eminent, but not in an exclusive sense. To be a servant might seem to imply no very lofty eminence of distinction, no very rich honour. This, however, depends upon the dignity of the person we serve. When the queen of Sheba saw the glory, and heard the wisdom of Solomon, she poured forth her raptures in congratulations to his servants, who stood continually in his presence, and ministered before his throne.
II. IT IS ESSENTIAL TO THE CHARACTER AND CONDUCT OF A SERVANT OF CHRIST TO FOLLOW HIM. This, in fact, is the service; the follower is the servant, and no other. The servant keeps his eye upon his master, and avoiding all other persons, and all other streets, treads in his footsteps, and presses as closely as possible to him. Just observe for a moment whom a Christian does not follow. He does not follow the teachers of false opinions in religion, in philosophy, or in morals, with whatever specious sophisms, or seductive eloquence, their notions may be advanced and supported. He does not follow the votaries of pleasure or of fashion, in their epicurean revels, with whatever elegance or refinement they may endeavour to recommend their habits.
1. In what views of Christ do His servants follow him? As their Teacher.
2. We are to follow Him as our Saviour. He came not only to instruct us, but to redeem us.
3. We are to follow Christ as a Master. Ye call me Master and Lord, said Jesus to His disciples, and ye say well, for so I am (Joh 13:13). Here it may be proper to consider the rule of our service to Christ. This is the word of God. If I were asked to describe the character of a servant of Christ, not such as His professing people are too generally found, but such as they ought to be, I should say, they are His willing servants; they choose His service with their whole heart, and would not quit it for any consideration of wealth, rank, station, or fame. They are His servants without terms or conditions as to the kind, quantity, time or place of service. If it be not degrading the subject to apply to it a common phrase in domestic use, I would say they are servants of all work: willing to do the work of God in any place, in any condition, in any circumstances; so that if they can serve Him better by suffering than by active duties, in adversity than in prosperity, they are willing to do it. They are His inquisitive servants, searching the Scriptures as the rule of conduct, to know His will. They are His loving servants; loving their Master and His work too. They are His diligent servants, satisfied with no measure of duty, wrestling against a slothful and indolent disposition, and forgetting the things that are behind, in going on unto perfection. They are His faithful servants, taking account of all the gifts, graces, opportunities of usefulness, and means of doing the will of God and serving their generation. They are His waiting servants, looking for the coming of their Master.
4. We are to follow Him as an example. We are to imitate His holy life. Christ must be followed in humble dependence on Divine grace; and with a fixed resolution and dauntless courage in the face of danger, and at the risk of suffering.
III. ALL WHO FOLLOW CHRIST ON EARTH WILL DWELL WITH HIM IN HEAVEN. HE SAITH, WHERE I AM THERE SHALL MY SERVANT BE. (J. A. James.)
Christian service
Labour is not necessarily service. A good worker may be a poor server. A cook who lets the dinner spoil because she persists in scrubbing the floor when she should be watching the pot, is laborious, but not faithful. Service rather than labour is the measure of usefulness everywhere. Gods service is not merely in the church meeting, nor in the home closet, but in every legitimate undertaking of life. Whatever distracts us in our proper business distracts from our proper service. The bookkeeper who makes a wrong entry because he is dreaming of the pleasures of last nights prayer meeting, is practically forgetting God, because he forgets present duty. The paymaster who makes an overpayment because he is framing his next Sunday school lesson, may think more about God than he thinks of Him. He is a religious worker more than a godly server. And one may serve the Church to the neglect of the Master. He may forget God in thinking about God. (H. C.Trumbull, D. D.)
The honour God confers upon those who serve Christ
We will suppose that the Prince of Wales is wrecked on a certain voyage, and is cast on shore with only one companion. The Prince falls into the hands of barbarians, and there is an opportunity for his companion to escape; but he says, No, my Prince, I will stay with you to the last, and if we die, we will die together. The Prince is thrown into a dungeon; his companion is in the prison with him, and serves him and waits upon him. He is sick–it is a contagious fever–his companion nurses him–puts the cooling liquid to his mouth–and waits on him with a mothers care. He recovers a little: the fond attendant carries the young Prince, as he is getting better, into the open air, and tends him as a mother would her child. They are subject to deep poverty–they share their last crust together; they are hooted at as they go through the streets, and they are hooted at together. At last, by some turn in Providence, it is discovered where the Prince is, and he is brought home. Who is the man that the Queen will delight to honour? I fancy she would look with greater affection upon the poor servant than upon the greatest statesman; and I think that as long as she lived she would remember him above all the rest, I will honour him above all the mighty ones in the land. And now, if we shall be with Christ, the Kings Son, if we shall suffer with Him, and be reproached with Him, if we shall follow Him anywhere and everywhere, making no choice about the way, whether it shall be rough or smooth–if we can go with Him to prison and to death, then we shall be the men whom heavens King delighteth to honour. Make room for Him, ye angels! Stand back ye peers of heavens realm Here comes the man; he was poor, mean, and afflicted; but he was with My Son, and was like My Son. Come hither, man! There, take thy crown, and sit with My Son in His glory, for thou wast with My Son in His shame. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 24. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die] Our Lord compares himself to a grain of wheat; his death, to a grain sown and decomposed in the ground; his resurrection, to the blade which springs up from the dead grain; which grain, thus dying, brings forth an abundance of fruit. I must die to be glorified; and, unless I am glorified, I can not establish a glorious Church of Jews and Gentiles upon earth. In comparing himself thus to a grain of wheat, our Lord shows us: –
1. The cause of his death – the order of God, who had rated the redemption of the world at this price; as in nature he had attached the multiplication of the corn to the death or decomposition of the grain.
2. The end of his death – the redemption of a lost world; the justification, sanctification, and glorification of men: as the multiplication of the corn is the end for which the grain is sown and dies.
3. The mystery of his death, which we must credit without being able fully to comprehend, as we believe the dead grain multiplies itself, and we are nourished by that multiplication, without being able to comprehend how it is done.
The greatest philosopher that ever existed could not tell how one grain became thirty, sixty, a hundred, or a thousand – how it vegetated in the earth – how earth, air, and water, its component parts, could assume such a form and consistence, emit such odours, or produce such tastes. Nor can the wisest man on earth tell how the bodies of animals are nourished by this produce of the ground; how wheat, for instance, is assimilated to the very nature of the bodies that receive it, and how it becomes flesh and blood, nerves, sinews, bones, c. All we can say is, the thing is so and it has pleased God that is should be so, and not otherwise. So there are many things in the person, death, and sacrifice of Christ, which we can neither explain nor comprehend. All we should say here is, It is by this means that the world was redeemed – through this sacrifice men are saved: it has pleased God that it should be so, and not otherwise. Some say: “Our Lord spoke this according to the philosophy of those days, which was by no means correct.” But, I would ask, has ever a more correct philosophy on this point appeared? Is it not a physical truth that the whole body of the grain dies, is converted into fine earth, which forms the first nourishment of the embryo plant, and prepares it to receive a grosser support from the surrounding soil; and that nothing lives but the germ, which was included in this body, and which must die also, if it did not receive, from the death or putrefaction of the body of the grain, nourishment, so as to enable it to unfold itself? Though the body of our Lord died, there was still the germ, the quickening power of the Divinity, which re-animated that body, and stamped the atonement with infinite merit. Thus the merit was multiplied; and, through the death of that one person, the man Christ Jesus united to the eternal WORD, salvation was procured for the whole world. Never was a simile more appropriate, nor an illustration more happy or successful.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Look as you see in your ordinary husbandry, the grains of wheat are first buried in the earth, and lose their form, before they spring and shoot up again, and bring forth fruit; so it must be with me; I must be first lifted up, before I shall draw men after me; I must first be crucified, before my gospel shall be preached to all nations, and the fulness of the Gentiles shall come: but if I have once died, and risen again from the dead, then you shall see this abundant fruit.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
24. Except a corn of wheat fall intothe ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringethforth much fruitThe necessity of His death is herebrightly expressed, and its proper operation and fruitlifespringing forth out of deathimaged forth by a beautiful anddeeply significant law of the vegetable kingdom. For a double reason,no doubt, this was utteredto explain what he had said of Hisdeath, as the hour of His own glorification, and to sustain His ownSpirit under the agitation which was mysteriously coming over it inthe view of that death.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Verily, verily, I say unto you,…. This is a certain truth in nature, Christ was about to assert; and what he signifies by it would be a certain fact, and which he mentions, that his death might not be a stumbling block to his disciples, or any objection to his glorification; but was rather to be considered as a means of it, and necessary in order to it:
except a corn of wheat fall into the ground; or is sown in the earth; for sowing with the Jews is expressed by the falling of the seed into the earth; [See comments on Mt 13:4]; and is a very fit phrase to set forth the death of Christ by, who fell a sacrifice to justice by the hands of men:
and die; or is corrupted, and putrefies; and which is done in three days time in moist land, but is longer in dry ground ere it perishes z: and a corn of wheat is almost the only seed, that being cast into the earth, does die; and therefore is very aptly used by Christ:
it abideth alone; a mere single corn as it is:
but if it die; if it wastes, consumes, and rots, as it does, being cast into the earth, in the time before mentioned:
it bringeth forth much fruit; it shoots out, and rises above ground, and appears in blade, and stalk, and ear, and produces many corns or grains of wheat; all which our Lord intends should be accommodated to himself, and to his death, and the fruits of it. He compares himself to a corn of wheat; to wheat, for the choiceness and excellency of it above all other grain, he being the chiefest among ten thousand, angels or men; and for the purity and cleanness of it, he being, even in his human nature, pure, and free from sin; and for its fruitfulness, he being fruitful in himself, and the cause of all fruitfulness in his people; and for its usefulness for food, he being the bread of life, and the finest of the wheat: and whereas the wheat must be threshed, and ground, and sifted, and kneaded, and baked, before it is fit for food; all this may express the sufferings and death of Christ, in order to be proper food for the faith of his people: and Christ here compares himself to a single corn of wheat, because he was of little account among men, and but little or nothing was expected by them from him; and chiefly because he was alone in the salvation of his people. The death of Christ is signified by the falling of the corn of wheat into the ground, and dying, and shows that Christ’s death was not accidental, but designed; it was determined in the counsels and purposes of God, and intended for his glory and the redemption of men; even as wheat falls out of the hands of the sower, not casually, but on purpose, that it may die and spring up again, and produce an increase: and also, that the death of Christ was voluntary, both on his Father’s part, and on his own; and was real, and not in appearance only, and yet was but for a short time; as the corn of wheat that dies, soon revives again, and is quickly above ground, so Christ, though he really died, did not long continue under the power of death, but rose again the third day, and now lives for ever. Moreover, Christ intimates by this simile, that if he had not died, he should have been alone; not without his Father, and the blessed Spirit; nor without the holy and elect angels, but without any of the sons of men, who all fell and died in Adam; and had not Christ died, none of them would have lived; none of them could have been justified; nor could their sins have been expiated; nor would any of them have been regenerated: Christ must have been without them in heaven; wherefore he chose rather to die for them, that they might be for ever with him, than be alone in the human nature. And he further observes hereby, that his death would be productive of much fruit; which may be understood both of a large harvest of souls, that should be saved, among Jews, and Gentiles, and especially the latter; and of the blessings of grace, as redemption, justification, peace, pardon, and eternal life, that should follow upon it.
z Rabbenu Samson & Bartenora in Misn. Celaim, c. 2. sect. 3.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Except ( ). Negative condition of third class (undetermined, supposable case) with second aorist active participle (from , to fall) and the second aorist active subjunctive of , to die.
A grain of wheat ( ). Rather, “the grain of wheat.”
By itself alone ( ). Both predicate nominatives after . It is not necessary to think (nor likely) that Jesus has in mind the Eleusinian mysteries which became a symbol of the mystery of spring. Paul in 1Co 15:36 uses the same illustration of the resurrection that Jesus does here. Jesus shows here the paradox that life comes through death. Whether the Greeks heard him or not we do not know. If so, they heard something not in Greek philosophy, the Christian ideal of sacrifice, “and this was foreign to the philosophy of Greece” (Bernard). Jesus had already spoken of himself as the bread of life (6:35-65).
But if it die ( ). Parallel condition of the third class. Grains of wheat have been found in Egyptian tombs three or four thousand years old, but they are now dead. They bore no fruit.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Verily, verily. See on Joh 1:51; Joh 10:1.
A corn [ ] . Properly, the corn or grain. The article should be inserted in the translation, because Jesus is citing the wheat – grain as a familiar type of that which contains in itself the germ of life. So wheat has the article : the corn of the wheat. The selection of the corn of wheat as an illustration acquires a peculiar interest from the fact of its being addressed to Greeks, familiar with the Eleusinian mysteries celebrated in their own country. These mysteries were based on the legend of Dionysus (Bacchus). According to the legend his original name was Zagreus. He was the son of Zeus (Jupiter) by his own daughter Persephone [] , and was destined to succeed to supreme dominion and to the wielding of the thunderbolt. The jealousy of Here (Juno), the wife of Zeus, incited the Titans against him, who killed him while he was contemplating his face in a mirror, cut up his body, and boiled it in a caldron, leaving only the heart. Zeus, in his wrath, hurled the Titans to Tartarus, and Apollo collected the remains of Zagreus and buried them. The heart was given to Semele, and Zagreus was born again from her under the form of Dionysus. The mysteries represented the original birth from the serpent, the murder and dismemberment of the child, and the revenge inflicted by Zeus; and the symbols exhibited – the dice, ball, top, mirror, and apple – signified the toys with which the Titans allured the child into their power. Then followed the restoration to life; Demeter (Ceres) the goddess of agriculture, the mother of food, putting the limbs together, and giving her maternal breasts to the child. All this was preparatory to the great Eleusinia, in which the risen Dionysus in the freshness of his second life was conducted from Athens to Eleusis in joyful procession. An ear of corn, plucked in solemn silence, was exhibited to the initiated as the object of mystical contemplation, as the symbol of the God, prematurely killed, but, like the ear enclosing the seed – corn, bearing within himself the germ of a second life.
With this mingled the legend of Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, who was carried off by Pluto to the infernal world. The mother wandered over the earth seeking her daughter, and having found her, applied to Zeus, through whose intervention Persephone, while condemned to Hades for a part of the year, was allowed to remain upon earth during the other part. Thus the story became the symbol of vegetation, which shoots forth in spring, and the power of which withdraws into the earth at other seasons of the year. These features of the mysteries set forth, and with the same symbol as that employed by Christ here, the crude pagan conception of life rising out of death.
Alone [ ] . Literally, itself alone. Rev., by itself alone.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1 ) “Verily, verily, I say unto you,” (amen amen lego humin) “Truly, truly, I assert to you all,” in parabolic language.
2) “Except a corn of wheat,” lean me ho kokkos tou, sitou) “Unless the grain of wheat,” typifying Christ in His lowest state, the state of death, which He “tasted for every man, – Heb 2:9; 1Co 15:36.
3) “Fall into the ground and die,” (peson eis ten gen apothane) “Upon falling into the ground dies,” for the way to glory and new life is through death, which is “gain” for every believer, and to be in the “presence of the Lord,” Php_1:21, 2Co 5:8.
4) “It abideth alone: (autos monos menei) “It remains alone,” unproductive, inactive. Unsown seed does not reproduce. It must be sown or planted. This alludes to Divine, eternal life that existed in Jesus by nature, which was predestined to bear fruit in others, only after the order and by means of His death and resurrection, 1Co 15:1-4; 1Co 15:12-22.
5) “But if it die,” lean de apothane) “Yet if it dies,” is buried in the earth, with dormant germ of life in it, after its kind, Gen 1:11-12. The end of the grain that dies is the first step to a new harvest.
6) “It bringeth forth much fruit.” (polun karpon pherei) “it bears much fruit,” of its nature and kind; The law of the seed is the law of human life and human experience. Men must sow seed to reap grain of an harvest of fruit. They must be willing to die daily, live the life they live daily, for the honor of Christ Jesus and others, Gal 6:14; Ecc 11:4-6. True believers must die to self, that Christ in them may fruitfully live in many others, Mar 8:35; Joh 15:5; Joh 15:8; 2Pe 1:4-14.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
24. Unless a grain of wheat having fallen into the ground, die, it remaineth alone. If a grain of wheat do not die or putrefy, it continues to be dry and unfruitful; but the death of the seed has the beneficial effect of quickening it, that it may yield fruit. In short, Christ compares his death to sowing, which appears to tend to the destruction of the wheat, but yet is the cause of far more abundant increase. Though this admonition was especially necessary at that time, yet it is of continual use in the Church. And, first, we ought to begin with the Head. That dreadful appearance of disgrace and cursing, which appears in the death of Christ, not only obscures his glory, but removes it altogether from our view. We must not, therefore, confine our attention to his death alone, but must likewise consider the fruit which has been yielded by his glorious resurrection. (21) Thus there will be nothing to prevent his glory from being every where displayed. From him we must next come to the members; for not only do we think that we perish in death, but our life also is a sort of continual death, (Col 3:3.) We shall therefore be undone, unless we be supported by that consolation which Paul holds out:
if our outward man decays, the inward man is renewed from day to day, (2Co 4:16.)
When, therefore, the godly are distressed by various afflictions, when they are pressed hard by the difficulties of their situation, when they suffer hunger, or nakedness, or disease, when they are assailed by reproaches, when it appears as if they would every hour be almost overwhelmed by death, let them unceasingly consider that this is a sowing which, in due time, will yield fruit.
(21) “ Sa resurrection glorieuse.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(24) Verily, verily, I say unto you.He is passing to the deeper truth which underlies His words, and calls attention to what He is about to say by the usual and solemn Verily, verily. (Comp. Note on Joh. 1:51.)
Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die.The truth is one of those of the spirit-world, lying beyond the ordinary language of men. He prepares them for it by what we call the analogy of a physical law, but what is really an instance of the working of the great law of life, which God has given to the moral and physical worlds alike. All knew that a grain of wheat, though containing in itself the germs of life, would remain alone, and not really live unless it fell to the earth. Then the life-germs would burst forth, and the single grain, in its own death, would give life to blade, and stalk, and ear of corn. Its death then was the true life, for it released the inner life-power which the husk before held captive; and this life-power multiplying itself in successive grains would clothe the whole field with a harvest of much fruit.
This law Christ now teaches to be a law also of the moral world, and one to which His own life is subject. Here too life issues from death. The moral power which is the life of the world finds its source in the death of the Son of man. He is life. In Him is life. He quickens whom He will. Whosoever believeth in Him hath eternal life. These truths this Gospel has told us again and again: but Christ now tells that while He is still on earth this life exists, but in its germs; and that in His death it will burst forth, and grow up, and multiply itself in the great spiritual harvest of the world. Such was the prophecy. The history of all that is best, and truest, and noblest in the life of eighteen centuries comes to us as the fulfilment. Hearts hardened, sinful, dead, that have been led to think of His death, and in thoughts of it have felt germs of life springing up and bursting the husks of their former prison, and growing up into living powers which have changed their whole being; this is the individual fulfilment that has come to many and may come to all.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
24. Except wheat die In the natural creation death is the prelude and source of life. In the vegetable world the seed expires by giving its life, and more than its life, to the germ. So Christ, the seed of all humanity, expires to give life to humanity. Let not, then, these philosophic Greeks who have come to see Jesus, despise that shameful death they are soon to see, which is to be the life of the race. Nor let them contemn the dying Victim who even in death is to conquer the world.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Joh 12:24 . My death, however, is necessary to the successful and victorious development of my work, as the wheat-corn must fall into the earth and die, in order to bring forth much fruit. The solemn assurance ( , , . . .) is in keeping with the difficulty of getting the disciples to accept the idea of His death.
] For the vital principle in the corn, the germ , forces itself out; thus the corn is dead , and become a prey to dissolution, comp. 1Co 15:36
] by itself alone , Joh 6:15 . Ast, Lex. Plat . I. p. 314. The life of the corn which has not fallen into the earth remains limited and bound to itself, without the possibility of a communication and unfolding of life outwards issuing from it, such as only follows in the case of that corn which dies in the earth through the bursting forth of the living germ, and in this way of death produces much fruit. Thus, also, with Christ; it is through His death that there first comes upon all peoples and times the rich blessing which is destined for the world. Comp. Joh 12:32 .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
Ver. 24. Except a corn of wheat, &c. ] The apostles thought Christ should have been presently glorified. He lets them here know that he must first suffer, before he enter into his glory; bear the cross, before he wear the crown; pass the stroke of death’s flaming sword, before he come into paradise. Ne Iesum quidem audias gloriosum, nisi videris prius crucifixum. You may not hear even Jesus glory unless you have seen first the crucifixion. (Luth. epist, ad Melanct.)
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
24. ] Meyer thinks, that our Lord begins His declaration with the double asseveration , on account of the unreceptivity of the mind of the disciples for the announcements of His Death. But St. John always uses . The grain of wheat perishes, and is not apparent (as the seeds of dicotyledonous plants are ) in the new plant: see 1Co 15:36 . The saying is more than a mere parabolic similitude: the divine Will, which has fixed the law of the springing up of the wheat-corn, has also determined the law of the glorification of the Son of Man, and the one in analogy with the other: i.e. both through Death . The symbolism here lies at the root of that in ch. 6, where Christ is .
, by itself alone, with its life uncommunicated, lived only within its own limits, and not passing on.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Joh 12:24 . But second to the thought of His enthronement as Messiah comes the thought of the way to it: , “except the grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides itself alone; but if it die, it bears much fruit”. The seed reaches its full and proper development by being sown in the ground and dying. It is this process, apparently destructive, and which calls for faith in the sower, which disengages the forces of the seed and allows it to multiply itself. To preserve the seed from this burial in the ground is to prevent it from attaining its best development and use. The law of the seed is the law of human life.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Verily, verily. The seventeenth occurance of this double amen. See note on Joh 1:51.
Except = If not. Greek. ean (App-118).
a corn of wheat = the seed-corn of the wheat. The Greek word kokkos occurs seven times: in Mat 13:31; Mat 17:20. Mar 4:31. Luk 13:19; Luk 17:6 (of mustard seed); here; and 1Co 15:37.
into. Greek. eis. App-104.
ground. Greek. ge. App-129.
abideth. Greek. meno, one of the characteristic words in this Gospel. See p. 1511.
if. Greek. ean. App-118.
bringeth forth = beareth.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
24.] Meyer thinks, that our Lord begins His declaration with the double asseveration , on account of the unreceptivity of the mind of the disciples for the announcements of His Death. But St. John always uses . The grain of wheat perishes, and is not apparent (as the seeds of dicotyledonous plants are) in the new plant: see 1Co 15:36. The saying is more than a mere parabolic similitude: the divine Will, which has fixed the law of the springing up of the wheat-corn, has also determined the law of the glorification of the Son of Man, and the one in analogy with the other: i.e. both through Death. The symbolism here lies at the root of that in ch. 6, where Christ is .
, by itself alone, with its life uncommunicated, lived only within its own limits, and not passing on.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Joh 12:24. ) when it hath fallen.- , by itself alone) Christ, even though He had not died for us, yet could have been by [in] Himself the same that He now is.–, it shall have died-fruit) This passage contains a previous specimen of both [His death-sufferings-and the fruit], Joh 12:27; Joh 12:32. The many ages since portray and exhibit the much fruit. [So also, even among those who live in our time, there are some little grains of this kind. It is happy for him, who can with truth reckon himself among the number.-V. g.]
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Joh 12:24
Joh 12:24
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it
die, it beareth much fruit.-Preceding his glorification, his humiliation, his sufferings, his death, and his burial must come. Naturally must the humiliation precede the glorification, but his death and resurrection would result in bringing many into his service and so to eternal life. He compares himself to a grain of wheat. If the grain is not planted and does not die, it will remain alone. But if it die in the ground, it gives its life to the production of many seeds. So if he preserved his life, his disciples would not multiply; but if he died, out of his death would come a multitude of disciples. [A grain of wheat might lie on a hard, smooth, dry surface a long time and never be anything but a grain of wheat with large possibilities of fruitfulness within it; they would never be developed into realities. Falling into the ground, covered over, exposed to soil, and warmth, and moisture, the grain dies and decays; the germ within is released; it feeds upon the very decay of the enveloping grain, and lo, the plant; and not another grain, but thirty, sixty, a hundredfold. Life comes out of death and more abundantly. It is almost certain that even yet the disciples did not understand him, but it is equally evident, in the light of after events, that he meant to tell them that his glorification was to come through his death. From this the coming of the Greeks could not save him, but was valuable as a symbolic indication of how, in the end, he would draw all men unto him.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Except
John 12-17 are a progression according to the order of approach to God in the tabernacle types: John 12, in which Christ speaks of His death, answers to the brazen altar of burnt-offering, type of the cross. Passing from the altar toward the holy of holies, the laver is next reached Exo 30:17-21, answering to John 13. With His associate priests, now purified, the High Priest approaches and enters the holy place, in the high communion of John 14-16. Entering alone the holy of holies Joh 17:1, the High Priest intercedes. (Cf) Heb 7:24-28. That intercession is not for the salvation, but the keeping and blessing of those for whom He prays. His death (assumed as accomplished), Joh 17:4 has saved them.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Fruitfulness through Death
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit.Joh 12:24.
1. Jesus was always alive to the beautiful and instructive analogies between the natural and the moral world; but this occasion, when He illustrated heavenly truth by the striking comparison of the grain of wheat, was one of more than ordinary interest. The Apostles Andrew and Philip had approached Him on the part of certain Greeks, with the request that they might be introduced to Him of whom, no doubt, they had heard much. It is probable, since Greek Jews are called Hellenists and not Greeks in the New Testament, that these persons were proselytes of the gate from among the nations where the Greek tongue was then spoken. As they had been won over from heathenism into acceptance of the Mosaic religion, they seem to have awakened in the prophetic soul of Christ the conception of a time when the heathen would flock to His spiritual standard, and the prince of this world would be cast out from his kingdom. The next associated thought was the means for such a great and fruitful result, which was no other than His death. He who was thus waited on by men from strange lands would, in a very few days, be hanging on a cross, under condemnation as a malefactor. But His death and burial, so far from destroying His cause, were to become the life of the world. And the same in substance holds good of those who will follow Him. Just as the seed committed to the earth suffers a separation of its parts and is buried before it can germinate, so man must, in a spiritual sense, pass through death before he can truly live and be to others a source of life. If he abideth alone, he is unfruitful; but if he die, he bringeth forth much fruit.
2. Jesus is just about to be conclusively rejected by His own people; just on the point of being crucified by them. Some have shut their eyes, and stopped their ears, and hardened their hearts in the most determined manner against Him and His teaching; others, not insensible to His merits, have meanly and heartlessly concealed their convictions, fearing the consequences of an open profession. Pharisaism, Sadduceeism, ignorance, indifference, fickleness, cowardice, have confronted Him on every side. How refreshing, amidst abounding contradiction, stupidity, and dull insusceptibility, this intimation brought to Him at the eleventh hour: Here are certain Greeks who are interested in you, and want to see you. The words fall on His ear like a strain of sweet music; the news is as reviving to His burdened spirit as the sight of a spring to a weary traveller in a sandy desert; and in the fulness of His joy He exclaims: The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified. Rejected by His own people, He is consoled by the inspiring assurance that He shall be believed on in the world, and accepted by the outlying nations as all their salvation and all their desire.
3. The thoughts of Jesus at this time were as deep as His emotions were intense. Specially remarkable is the first thought to which He gave utterance in these words: Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit. He speaks here with the solemnity of one conscious that He is announcing a truth new and strange to His hearers. His object is to make it credible and comprehensible to His disciples that death and increase may go together. He points out to them that the fact is so in the case of grain; and He would have them understand that the law of increase, not only in spite but in virtue of death, will hold equally true in His own case. A grain of wheat, by dying, becometh fruitful; so I must die in order to become, on a large scale, an object of faith and source of life. During My lifetime I have had little success. Few have believed, many have disbelieved; and they are about to crown their unbelief by putting Me to death. But My death, so far from being, as they fancy, My defeat and destruction, will be but the beginning of My glorification. After I have been crucified, I shall begin to be believed in extensively as the Lord and Saviour of men.
4. It is not at all difficult to see why Jesus laid special and weighty emphasis on the fact that death, self-surrender, self-renunciation, self-sacrifice, is the condition of all life, or why He called the special and earnest attention of the Greeks to it. For not only is the truth itself a fundamental truth of His Gospel and Kingdom, lying at the very root both of Christian theology and of Christian experience, and finding its supreme expression in the Cross; not only is it repugnant to mans general bent and inclinationfor who cares to impose on himself either a yoke or a cross?but it also ran right in the teeth of Greek thought and civilization. Self-culture and self-enjoyment were the master words with the Greeksthe chief good of human life, the supreme aim, the ruling bent of the whole Grecian world, as we may learn from their literature, their art, their political economy, their social and civic institutions; from which we may also learn how miserably, in pursuing this aim, they fell short of the ends for which man was created and made. So that in calling them to substitute self-renunciation for self-culture, and self-sacrifice for self-gratification, the Lord Jesus was virtually asking them to reverse the whole bent of their thought and conduct, and to set before themselves an ideal the very opposite to that which they had hitherto pursued.
I
Death the Condition of Fruitfulness in Nature
The illustration which our Saviour employs is generic. Take a particle of grain into your hand. It is round and complete; hard and self-contained. It seems to be dead, but there lies within it the possibility of a wondrous and manifold life. The mystery of life sleeps within it. The beauty of summer lies hidden in its dark and narrow breast. But of it the paradox is true, that it is dead, because it has not died. It must die in order to become alive. It must be cast away from the hand of the sower, fall into the ground, and be buried in darkness. Its outer form must be broken up and decay, that the dormant life within it may be awakened, and manifested, and its beautiful and manifold being come out of the prison-house of its loneliness, and wave and rustle and shine in the sunlight. Unless it go through this process, it remains a lonely and unproductive seed. Every seed is alone until it dies. It may be laid up with other seeds in the store house; but in the midst of multitudes it is alone. It has no living union with any, being cut off from the universal life; and the reason why it escapes from its loneliness through death is, that thereby its individual life is placed in living contact with the all-pervading life of nature. When it is embedded in the soil, it is no longer alone, but unites itself with the universal life; and thus the day of its death is the day of its birth to a higher life.
Every annual plant dies when it has produced blossom and fruit; every individual branch in a tree which corresponds with an annual plant also dies when it has blossomed and fruited. It is interesting to notice the strange effect of the effort to flower in the American aloe. It appears to exhaust all its energies, so that the huge, fleshy leaves, which before stood firm and erect, gradually shrink, shrivel, and droop as the process of inflorescence advances, and the plant becomes a mere ghost of its former self. So, too, the Talipat palm, which lives to a great age and attains a lofty stature, flowers only once, but it bears an enormous quantity of blossoms, succeeded by a crop of nuts sufficient to supply a large district with seed, while the tree immediately perishes from the exhaustion of over-production. These are beautiful illustrations of the natural love of self-sacrifice.1 [Note: Hugh Macmillan.]
This law of self-sacrifice is embedded in nature. Minot, the embryologist, and Drummond, the scientist, tell us that only by losing its life does the cell save it. The new science exhibits the body as a temple, constructed out of cells, as a building is made of bricks. Just as some St. Peters represents strange marble from Athens, beauteous woods from Cyprus, granite from Italy, porphyry from Egypt, all brought together in a single cathedral, so the human body is a glorious temple built by those architects called living cells. When the scientist searches out the beginning of bird or bud or acorn he comes to a single cell. Under the microscope that cell is seen to be absorbing nutrition through its outer covering. But when the cell has attained a certain size its life is suddenly threatened. The centre of the cell is seen to be so far from the surface that it can no longer draw in the nutrition from without. The bulk has outrun the absorbing surface. The alternative is very sharp, says the scientist, the cell must divide or die. Only by losing its life and becoming two cells can it save its life.
Later on, when each of the two cells has grown again to the size of the original one, the same peril threatens them and they too must divide or die. And when, through this law of saving life by losing it, nature has made sure the basis for bud and bird, for beast and man, then the principle of sacrifice goes on to secure beauty of the individual plant or animal and perpetuity for the species. In the centre of each grain of wheat there is a golden spot that gives a yellow cast to the fine flour. That spot is called the germ. When the germ sprouts and begins to increase, the white flour taken up as food begins to decrease. As the plant waxes, the surrounding kernel wanes. The life of the higher means the death of the lower. In the orchard also the flower must fall that the fruit may swell. If the young apple grows large, it must begin by pushing off the blossom. But by losing the lower bud the tree saves the higher fruit.1 [Note: N. D. Hillis, The Investment of Influence, 159.]
First the grain, and then the blade
The one destroyed, the other made;
Then stalk and blossom, and again
The gold of newly minted grain.
So Life, by Death the reaper cast
To earth, again shall rise at last;
For tis the service of the sod
To render God the things of God.2 [Note: John B. Tabb.]
II
Death the Condition of Fruitfulness in the Life of Christ
1. The need for Christs death.A comparison of the good done by the life of Christ with that done by His death shows how truly He judged when He declared that it was by His death He should effectually gather all men to Him. His death, like the dissolution of the seed, seemed to terminate His work, but really was its germination. So long as He lived, it was but His single strength that was used; He abode alone. There was great virtue in His lifegreat power for the healing, the instruction, the elevation of mankind. In His brief public career He suggested much to the influential men of His time, set all men who knew Him a-thinking, aided many to reform their lives, and removed a large amount of distress and disease. He communicated to the world a mass of new truth, so that those who have lived after Him have stood at quite a different level of knowledge from that of those who lived before Him. And yet how little of the proper results of Christs influence, how little understanding of Christianity, do you find even in His nearest friends until He died. By the visible appearance and the external benefits and the false expectations His greatness created, the minds of men were detained from penetrating to the spirit and mind of Christ. It was expedient for them that He should go away, for until He went they depended on His visible power, and His spirit could not be wholly received by them. They were looking at the husk of the seed, and its life could not reach them. They were looking for help from Him instead of themselves becoming like Him.
When Jesus was upon the earth, the Spirit of God was in some peculiar sense associated with, and confined to, His person; and He taught His disciples that He must needs depart from them, that the Spirit might be poured out in larger measure. I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And, therefore, He departed from the world, that He might come nearer to it; inasmuch as a spiritual presence is nearer than a bodily presence. The one living temple of God was broken down and removed out of sight, that every Christian might be a temple of the Holy One.1 [Note: Fergus Ferguson.]
This truth is not here spoken for the first time. It is the truth wrapt up in the first promise respecting the womans seed, the man with the bruised heel. It is the truth to which Abels sacrifice pointed so explicitly. It is the truth coming out in all the Levitical sacrifices and rites. It is the truth uttered by prophets: When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days. It is the truth announced by apostles: Without shedding of blood is no remission. It is the truth to which such prominence is given in the Apocalypse, when the Son of God is seen as the Lamb slain, and when the saints sing, Thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood.2 [Note: Horatius Bonar.]
2. The fruit of Chrisfs death.As seed produces grain of its own kind, so Christ produces men like Christ. He ceasing to do good in this world as a living man, a multitude of others by this very cessation are raised in His likeness. By His death we receive both inclination and ability to become with Him sons of God. The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them. By His death He has effected an entrance for this law of self-surrender into human life, has exhibited it in a perfect form, and has won others to live as He lived.
Who shall measure the fruitfulness of that one death? It is the source of all true thought, of all holy feeling, of all noble action, of all the heavenly graces of the Spirit. We see but the beginning of what it is designed to bear. The day alone will declare it; that day when Jesus will appear at the head of the whole family of God, saying, Behold I and the children which God has given me.1 [Note: Fergus Ferguson.]
The voluntary death of the Son of God, His self-sacrifice, put mankind in a new position. He came back from the grave with the powers of Godhead no longer in abeyance. He came back to act no longer according to the restrictions which He had imposed on Himself during those previous three and thirty years; no longer to confine Himself to mans condition, to be seen only in one place, heard only by one company, teaching a handful of men; but He was to act henceforth in the plenitude of Godhead. He was to give efficacy to the work of those three years of His ministry, He was to fill His sacraments with grace, to make them channels for conveying and renewing life, for imparting the life that was in Himself to His members. He was to write His new law on the heart, i.e. to work it into the mind, to make it mens pleasure to obey. He was to perform to the end of time moral miracles, corresponding to those first physical ones. The Apostles He had trained were to perpetuate a succession to the end of time. The society He founded was never to be broken up. The prayer He had issued, whenever earnestly offered, should be supported by His own intercession. The cross He died on should be for ever dear. Not only the literal cross should be honoured, be worn as an ornament and decoration, be lifted high over cities, wave in banners, be the ground-plan of cathedrals; but, far more important than these outward effects, men should carry out the idea of the cross, call their trials crosses, take them up in His Spirit, bear them meekly, patiently, as He had borne His.1 [Note: H. W. Burrows.]
III
Death to Self the Condition of Fruitfulness in the Christian Life
1. The law of the seed is the law of human life. If we use our life for present and selfish gratification and to satisfy our present cravings, we lose it for ever. If we renounce self, yield ourselves to God, spend our life for the common good, irrespective of recognition or the lack of it, personal pleasure or the absence of it, although our life may thus seem to be lost, it is finding its best and highest development and passes into life eternal. Our life is a seed now, not a developed plant, and it can become a developed plant only by our taking heart to cast it from us and sow it in the fertile soil of other mens needs. This will seem, indeed, to disintegrate it and fritter it away, and leave it a contemptible, obscure, forgotten thing; but it does, in fact, set free the vital forces that are in it, and give it its fit career and maturity.
This may be called a dying life, when a man for the love of God refuses to gratify his senses and take his natural pleasure, and follow his own will; and as many lusts as he dies to, so many deaths does he offer to God, and so many fruits of life will he receive in return. For in what measure a man dies to himself, and grows out of himself, in the same measure does God, who is our Life, enter into him.2 [Note: Tauler.]
One night I got a letter from one of the students of the University of Edinburgh, page after page of agnosticism and atheism. I went over to see him, and spent a whole afternoon with him, and did not make the slightest impression. At Edinburgh University we have a Students Evangelistic Meeting on Sunday nights, at which there are eight hundred or one thousand men present. A few nights after this, I saw that man in the meeting, and next to him sat another man whom I had seen occasionally at the meetings. I did not know his name, but I wanted to find out more about my sceptic, so when the meeting was over, I went up to him and said, Do you happen to know ?Yes, he replied, it is he that has brought me to Edinburgh.Are you an old friend? I asked.I am an American, a graduate of an American University, he said. After I had finished there I wanted to take a post-graduate course, and finally decided to come to Edinburgh. In the dissecting-room I happened to be placed next to , and I took a singular liking to him. I found out that he was a man of very remarkable ability, though not a religious man, and I thought I might be able to do something for him. A year passed and he was just where I found him. He certainly was blind enough, because it was only two or three weeks before that that he wrote me that letter. I think you said, I resumed, that you only came here to take a year of the post-graduate course.Well, he said, I packed my trunks to go home, and I thought of this friend, and I wondered whether a year of my life would be better spent to go and start in my profession in America, or to stay in Edinburgh and try to win that one man for Christ, and I stayed.Well, I said, my dear fellow, it will pay you; you will get that man. Two or three months passed, and it came to the last night of our meetings. We have men in Edinburgh from every part of the world. Every year, five or six hundred of them go out never to meet again, and in our religious work we get very close to one another, and on the last night of the year we sit down together in our common hall to the Lords Supper. This is entirely a students meeting. On that night we get in the members of the Theological Faculty, so that things may be done decently and in order. Hundreds of men are there, the cream of the youth of the world, sitting down at the Lords table. Many of them are not members of the Church, but are there for the first time pledging themselves to become members of the Kingdom of God. I saw sitting down and handing the communion cup to his American friend. He had got his man. A week after he was back in his own country. I do not know his name; he made no impression in our country, nobody knew him. He was a subject of Christs kingdom, doing His work in silence and in humility. A few weeks passed and came to see me. I said, What do you come here for?He said, I want to tell you I am going to be a medical missionary. It was worth a year, was it not?1 [Note: The Life of Henry Drummond, 338.]
2. The seed must die if a harvest is to spring firm it. That is the law for all moral and spiritual reformations. Every cause must have its martyrs. No man can be fruit-bearing unless he sacrifices himself. We shall not quicken our fellows unless we die, either literally or by the not less real martyrdom of rigid self-crucifixion and suppression. But that necessity is not only for Apostles or missionaries of great causes; it is the condition of all true, noble life, and prescribes the path not only for those who would live for others, but for all who would truly live their own lives. Self-renunciation guards the way to the tree of life. That lesson was specially needed by Greeks, for ignorance of it was the worm that gnawed the blossoms of their trees, whether of art or of literature. It is no less needed by our sensuously luxurious and eagerly acquisitive generation. The worlds war-cries to-day are twoGet! Enjoy! Christs command is, Renounce! And in renouncing we shall realize both of these other aims, which they who pursue them alone never attain.1 [Note: A. Maclaren.]
The apparent death of a cause is sometimes but the beginning of its true and world-wide life. Let it alone, and it will remain alone; but persecute itthreaten it with death, and you only increase its vitality. When you try to chase a truth out of sight you only chase it into public notice. When you think you have exterminated it, cut it in pieces or burned it, there springs up around you a thousand witnesses to the truth that seemed to be dead. Every drop of blood shed has a voice, and cries from the ground. It is the truth of this text that is expressed in the familiar words, The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.2 [Note: Fergus Ferguson.]
You have heard of Henry Martyn, the Cornishman, of whom Cornishmen are justly proud. Though with all the devotion of a saint he laboured to carry the story of the Cross to the hearts of the heathen, perseveringly and without complaint, he saw but little result. His death did what his life could not do. The noble self-sacrifice was not in vain. The news of his death sent a thrill of interest and love through many English hearts, which resulted in a deeper sense of responsibility towards the heathen, which has not died away. The corn of wheat fell into the ground, and died, and brought forth much fruit.3 [Note: W. R. Hutton, Low Spirits, 64.]
But all through life I see a Cross,
Where sons of God yield up their breath:
There is no gain except by loss,
There is no life except by death,
And no full vision but by Faith,
Nor glory but by bearing shame,
Nor Justice but by taking blame;
And that Eternal Passion saith,
Be emptied of glory and right and name.1 [Note: Walter C. Smith, Olrig Grange.]
3. If a man does not die to himself, to his selfishness, to his own will; if he is not born to a new life, to a life of renunciation, of expansion and of love, he remains alonealone with regard to God, and with regard to all creatures in the universe,alone in the present life, and alone in the life to come. The life of the man who is not dead to himself in order to live again spiritually, the life whose principle is selfishness, is a perpetual moral solitude: and there is no chastisement more frightful than that eternal solitude which is its inevitable result. To escape that fatal isolation, to have on earth and in heaven loved hearts which understand us, which beat in sympathy with our own, can be secured but in one waythat is, to die to ourselves, to our lusts; it is to crucify our selfishness as Jesus Christ was crucified, in order to be born again with Jesus Christ to a new life, the principle of which is lovelove to God and love to man.
The measure of our willingness to deny ourselves in order to do good, is the measure, also, of the good that we actually will do. If we do for Christ and for our fellow-men only that which costs us nothing, we shall do but little good, and that little will scarcely be worth the doing. Cost, sacrifice, self-denial, toil, generosity, self-forgetfulness, the laying down, every day, in whole or in part, of even life itselfthis is ever the Divine condition of usefulness, the price we must ever pay in order to be benefactors to our fellow-men or helpers to advance the Kingdom of Christ in the world.
Annihilation of self; Selbsttdtung, as Novalis calls it; casting yourself at the footstool of Gods throne, To live or to die forever; as Thou wilt, not as I will. Brother, hadst thou never, in any form, such moments in thy history? Thou knowest them not even by credible rumour? Well, thy earthly path was peaceabler, I suppose. But the Highest was never in thee, the Highest will never come out of thee. Thou shalt at best abide by the stuff; as cherished house-dog, guard the stuff,perhaps with enormous gold-collars and provender: but the battle, and the hero-death, and victorys fire-chariot carrying men to the Immortals, shall never be thine. I pity thee; brag not, or I shall have to despise thee.1 [Note: Carlyle, Cromwells Letters and Speeches, i. 89.]
The great obdurate world I know no more,
The clanging of the brazen wheels of greed,
The taloned hands that build the misers store,
The stony streets where feeble feet must bleed.
No more I walk beneath thy ashen skies,
With pallid martyrs cruelly crucified
Upon thy predetermined Calvaries:
I, too, have suffered, yea, and I have died!
Now, at the last, another road I take
Thro peaceful gardens, by a lilied way,
To those low eaves beside the silver lake,
Where Christ waits for me at the close of day.
Farewell, proud world! In vain thou callest me.
I go to meet my Lord in Galilee.
Fruitfulness through Death
Literature
Bonar (H.), Family Sermons, 168, 175.
Burrell (D. J.), The Verilies of Jesus, 39.
Burrows (H. W.), Lenten and other Sermons, 111.
Cox (S.), Expositions, ii. 258.
Debenham (A.), On Guard, 24.
Eyton (R.), The True Life, 440.
Ferguson (F.), Sermons, 123.
Gotwald (L. A.), Joy in the Divine Government, 107.
Howell (D.), in The Welsh Pulpit of To-Day, 214.
Humberstone (W. J.), The Cure of Care, 97.
Hutton (W. R.), Low Spirits, 63.
Inge (W. R.), Death the Fulfilment of Life, 1.
Jay (W.), Short Discourses, i. 51.
Leitch (R.), The Light of the Gentiles, 125.
Liddon (H. P.), Passiontide Sermons, 100.
Lorimer (G. C.), The Modern Crisis in Religion, 37.
Mackenzie (W. L.), Pure Religion, 20.
Macmillan (H.), Two Worlds are Ours, 230
Mantle (J. G.), The Way of the Cross, 83.
Moberly (G.), Plain Sermons at Brighstone, 76.
Monod (H.), in The Foreign Protestant Pulpit, ii. 43.
Morrison (G. H.), Sunrise, 84.
Mulling (E. Y.), in The Southern Baptist Pulpit, 246.
Rogers (J. H.), The Verily, Verilys of Christ, 164.
Selby (T. G.), in Gods Garden, 193.
Skrine (J. H.), The Hearts Counsel, 34.
Tauler (J.), Life and Sermons (by Winkworth), 395.
Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit, 1865), No. 513.
Woolsey (T. D.), The Religion of the Present and of the Future, 288.
Christian World Pulpit, x. 347 (Mercer); xxiv. 247 (Heard); xxix. 253 (Young); xxx. 368 (Austin); xxxviii. 206 (Rice); lxii. 44 (Jeffs).
Contemporary Pulpit, 1st Ser, x. 30 (Liddon).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
Except: Psa 72:16, 1Co 15:36-38
if: Joh 12:32, Joh 12:33, Psa 22:15, Psa 22:22-31, Isa 53:10-12, Heb 2:9, Heb 2:10, Rev 7:9-17
Reciprocal: Job 14:8 – die in the ground Isa 28:28 – Bread Isa 53:11 – see Eze 17:23 – and it Hos 14:7 – revive Mat 5:18 – verily Mat 13:38 – the good Mar 4:26 – as Mar 15:31 – He Joh 1:51 – Verily Joh 15:5 – same Act 4:4 – the number Act 21:20 – how Rom 1:13 – that I Rom 6:5 – planted Heb 2:14 – he also Heb 12:2 – for
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
DEATH THE FULFILMENT OF LIFE
Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone.
Joh 12:24
The universal and inexorable doom of all life is here pronounced by Him Who abolished death. Jesus Christ abolished death in the only way in which a stubborn fact can be abolishedby showing that it is not what it appears to be. Death appears to be the seal of failure, it is the condition of success; it appears to be an end, it is also a beginning; it appears to be a humiliation and a curse, but its cleansing waters purge the soul of her travel-stains, and land her refreshed upon the farther shore.
I. Death, is the gate of life.What was the secret, the hidden source, of St. Pauls joyous attitude towards the thought of death? Why did he look forward to finish his course with joy, instead of only to depart satisfied? What made him so sure that to die is gain? His belief in the Resurrection, of course. But this belief rested not only on what he saw in the clouds on the road to Damascus, not only on the reports of the Twelve and the survivors of the five hundred brethren who had seen the risen Christ, but on the overpowering conviction, to which the Resurrection of Christ opened His eyes, that death has no sting to those who know the hidden laws of life. The passage from death unto life is no unique portent; it is the open secret of the universe, which Jesus Christ brought to light. In the world without it is exemplified in every harvest field. That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die. The seed dies; it does not perish entirely, else the analogy would fail; but it dies as a seed, and takes new life as a blade. In the world within St. Paul knew what it was to die to the old man, to die and be buried with Christ, and to rise again into newness of life. Is this analogy from Nature really valid and helpful? Many have doubted it. To some the law of renewal in Nature has seemed only to make the fate of mankind more cruel by contrast. The well-known lines of Catullus have had many echoes in literature. And if an impartial view of nature, including man, does give us something immortal, namely, the law of mortality, and something invariable, namely, the law of change, is this much comfort to us? There is only one way in which the values of life can escape the doom of the existences to which they are linked; and that is by constant transmutation into values of a higher quality. Cling to them as they are, and they fade and perish; let them go, make a living sacrifice of them, and they will still be yours, transmuted and enhanced. That which we receive in exchange for what we have given up is never the same as what we surrendered. In St. Pauls words, Thou sowest not that body which shall be, but bare grain. The new life is always life on another plane. And if we make a living sacrifice of ourselves in reasonable service to God, the new man whom we shall put on in return for the old man whom we have put off is not just our old selves back again, but a new self, nearer to the image of God.
II. The law of re-birth has an intimate bearing on our daily life.It should determine our whole attitude towards our experience. What did St. Paul mean by saying, I die daily? Did he simply mean that he was in constant peril of death? No; his words have a much deeper meaning. They mean that the law of sacrifice has become a constant part of his experience. He is conscious that deaths and re-births are continually going on within him. His whole life has taught him that all gain comes through pain, all profit through loss. He began, it may be, with a hard struggle against his lower appetites. At least, the lurid picture of the internecine warfare between flesh and spirit, too strongly painted to represent the average experience, must surely have been drawn from his own spiritual combat; and we know that such highly-strung, neurotic temperaments as his have often to pass through the fire in this way. Then there came the call to surrender the pride of legal righteousness, and the treasure, too highly valued, of Rabbinical learning. All that he had counted gain was now to be set down as loss, yea, counted but as refuse, that he might win Christ. Henceforth he walked the earth as one already dead, and yet continually dying anewalways bearing about with him the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of the Lord Jesus might be made manifest in him. Yes, he knew, more intimately than it is given to most of us to know it, that it is the nature of all earthly things either to perish and be lost, or to be transmuted into values of a higher quality. The new life is never the same as the old. Instruments are used up in realising ends, and lower ends become instruments for realising higher ends.
III. I do not think that we ought to dwell much on the thought of death; indeed, I am not sure that Spinoza was wrong when he said that there is no subject on which the wise man will ponder less often than on his own death. One of the most illuminating thinkers among our contemporaries was accustomed to say, Death does not count. It does not count, in this sensethat it is not of great moment whether God calls us in youth, middle age, or old age. God is just and merciful, and will somehow give us all a fair chance of doing and being what He requires of us. We need not trouble ourselves about the fate of unbaptized infants, or persons cut off, as it seems to us, without the opportunity of preparing for death. We are much more sure that God is just than that as the tree falls so must it lie. I rejoice, too, that the rather vulgar and morbid attitude towards death which was common in the last century is now felt to be in bad taste. And I hope that we are losing, together with the fashion of parading our bereavements, that disinclination to talk and think about the dead which is the obverse side of the same false sentiment. Let us do all in our power to keep the memory green of those whom we have loved and lost, and not behave as if some tragic or shameful thing had befallen them or us. If we could face the changes and chances of this mortal life in the simple faith that they are meant to be stepping-stones, and not stumbling-blocks; if we could face them with a fixed resolve to tear the heart of goodness out of what appears to us as evil, confident that all things must work together for good to those who love God, how much useless friction and fretting we should escape, and how much braver and happier our lives would be!
Professor Inge.
Illustration
The righteous law of the spiritual world, the law of death and re-birth as the condition of all growth and all permanence, has been dimly perceived by nearly all religions. The more we study the dogmas, the ritual, and the sacred mysteries of the various religions that have flourished among men (excluding the worship of mere savages) the more impressed we shall be by the universality of symbolism intended to express the law of spiritual death and re-birth. If there be a key to all mythologies it is here. Men have felt that everywhere in Nature God has stamped some hint of the law of re-birth. The changing seasons, the rising and setting suns, the time process itself, with its mysterious register, human memoryall point to the central law of the higher life, That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die. This train of thought has its value as an argument for our survival after death. It is, indeed, the chief foundation of our faith in a future life. Without undervaluing the argument from Divine justice, which is not satisfied, so far as we can see, by the distribution of rewards and punishments in this world; without undervaluing the confident claim of human love, which asserts its prerogative as the most Divine part of our nature, to insist that it has the quality of everlastingness, so that neither death nor life, nor any other creature can separate us from love, whether human or Divine, or terminate our capacities of loving and being lovedwithout undervaluing these arguments, I still think that the strongest argument for immortality is the unquenchable conviction that in the mind of God values are facts, and indestructible facts. Whatever has value in Gods sight is safe for evermore; time and change cannot touch it. And so far as we can make our own those things which we know to be precious in His eyes, we have the assurance that for us, too, death has no importance, save as the entrance to another state, in which those same treasures will be ours, purer and more unalloyed.
(SECOND OUTLINE)
LIFE THROUGH DEATH
Why did out Lord speak in parables? Because they are easily remembered. Because they are easily understood. Because they aroused thought; they made people think, and when people begin to think they begin to learn.
I. This parable speaks of life coming through death.Through death to life is the Divine order. The burial of the seed is not its destruction, but its quickening and its expansion. The seed-corn of one year must perish if the harvest of next year is to be reaped. There is no life without dying; e.g. take a single grain of wheat, in it there is provision of a hundredfold increase, but for that increase its own life must be surrendered. When we see the harvest fields bending low with golden corn, remember the harvest comes through death. So all our life, all our pardon, all our peace, all our comfort, all our hope comes through the death of Christ. They have have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God.
II. Life comes through death, the death of Christ.Christ dieth no more. All His tears have been changed to pearls, all His blood-drops into rubies, all the thorns of His crown into diamonds. He hath given us rest by His sorrow and life by His Death. And He says to every believing soul, Because I live, ye shall live also (Joh 14:19). In the great Harvest-Home of Heaven He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied, for He shall gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.
Rev. F. Harper.
Illustration
I have read of a minister who was standing before the window of an art store. A picture of the Crucifixion was there. A street arab approached from behind. Turning to him, the good man asked, Do you know Who that is hanging upon the Cross? That is our Saviour, came the prompt reply, as the boy looked at the inquirer with manifest pity and surprise at his ignorance. Thems the soldiers, and that woman crying there is His mother. He waited, that the man might take it in, then added, They killed Him, mister, they killed Him! Where did you learn all this? inquired the minister. At the Sunday-school, said the boy. The preacher turned and went his way, but presently he heard a voice of one who had run to overtake him, saying, He rose again, though, mister; I wanted to tell you He rose again.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
4
The original word for corn is defined “grain” in the lexicon. Jesus used the subject to show why his death was necessary. If a grain could be kept alive, it would never be able to grow into another stock of the species. All that its owner would have would be the single grain; no reproduction. Likewise, if Christ had not died, he would never have produced others to share with him in the glorified state.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
[Except a corn of wheat.] How doth this answer of our Saviour’s agree with the matter propounded? Thus: “Is it so indeed? do the Gentiles desire to see me? The time draws on wherein I must be glorified in the conversion of the Gentiles; but as a corn of wheat doth not bring forth fruit, except it be first thrown into the ground and there die; but if it die it will bring forth much fruit; so I must die first and be thrown into the earth: and then a mighty harvest of the Gentile world will grow up, and be the product of that death of mine.”
Isa 26:19; “Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise”: so our translation, with which also the French agrees, They shall rise with my body. But it is properly, They shall arise my body; so the Interlineary version. “The Gentiles being dead in their sins shall, with my dead body, when it rises again, rise again also from their death: nay, they shall rise again my body, that is, as part of myself, and my body mystical.”
Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels
Joh 12:24. Verily, verily, I say unto you. There is a general principle lying at the root of the glorification of the Son of man, This is now to be explained and illustrated.
Except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth itself alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. Absolute death, destruction of the principle of life, is not implied. The seed does not actually die: its old covering dies that the germ of life within may spring up in higher forms of beauty, and with many grains instead of one. Such is the law of nature, and to this great law Jesus as Son of man must conform: He does not simply lay down a rule for others; as representative of our humanity the rule must first find its application in Himself.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Ver. 24. Verily, verily, I say to you, Unless the grain of wheat dies after having fallen into the ground, it abides alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
Before He can answer to the need of salvation for the heathen world, the first symptom of which has just reached Him, something of serious moment must happen in Himself. So long as the grain of wheat remains in the granary, it is preserved, but without acquiring the power of reproducing itself; it is necessary that it should be cast into the earth, that its covering should be decomposed, that it should perish as a seed, in order that it may live again with a new existence, and may have a new birth in a multitude of beings like itself. We know the considerable part which is played by the grain of wheat in the Greek mysteries. The emphatic affirmation, amen, amen, refers to the contrast which Jesus knows to exist between this painful necessity of His death and His disciples’ dreams of glory.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
12:24 {5} Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and {b} die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
(5) The death of Christ is as it were a sowing, which seems to be a dying of the corn, but indeed is the cause of a much greater harvest: and such as is the condition of the head, so will be the condition of the members.
(b) A wheat corn dies when it is changed in the ground, and becomes the root of a fruitful new plant.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Jesus announced another important revelation with His characteristic introductory clause. He described His body as a kernel of wheat that someone sows in the ground. By dying He would produce a great harvest. His death was necessary for that harvest. The illustration also implies the humility of Jesus’ death. Jesus’ sacrificial death would result in eternal life for many other people.