Word of Salvation – Vol. 28 No. 11 – May 1983

 

Except A Kernel Of Wheat Die…!

 

Sermon by Rev. Prof. R. O. Zorn, B.A., B.D., M.Th. on John 12:24

Scripture Reading: John 12:20-43

Psalter Hymnal: 318:1,2,4; 58; 36; 454; 361:1,4

 

Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,

I’m sure we recognize that we can never exhaust the full meaning of Jesus’ words to be the Saviour of His people.

The Bible as a matter of fact, speaks of it in a number of different ways, and some are in striking contrast to each other.

For example: Jesus referred to Himself as the Good Shepherd; but He was also the sacrificial lamb who laid down His life for His people, who came not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many, as He Himself tells us.

Again, in the book of Hebrews, Jesus is called our great high priest; but in that same Epistle He is also described as the sacrifice for sin which He Himself offered on His peoples’ behalf.

Again, in the parables, Jesus referred to Himself as the sower of seed, the good seed being the Word of God.  And yet, here in our text He refers to Himself as a seed, a grain of wheat which needs to be planted and die before it becomes a life-giving plant.

What, then, does the Lord Jesus want us to understand by this comparison of Himself to a kernel of wheat?

Jesus here says that a grain of wheat must give up its own life in order to become a fruit-bearing plant.

Let us look at the details of this theme more closely and see: first of all, who is the grain of wheat, or why did Jesus describe Himself in this way; then secondly, the paradoxical truth that is manifested as a result as it refers to Jesus’ atoning death on Good Friday for His people; and then in the third place let us see how like produces like, or what Jesus’ dying and rising again to new life accomplishes for His people.

I.  Jesus as the Kernel of Wheat

When Jesus refers to Himself as a kernel or grain of wheat, we should notice first of all the background of our text.

We are told in verse 20 that some Greeks had come to see Jesus.

“There were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the feast.”

We are not told who these Greeks were although their coming to the important religious Jewish feast of the Passover indicates that they might be converts, ‘proselytes of the gate’.  Not proselytes of righteousness: that distinction was reserved for converts who were circumcised and who became Jews who fully kept the Mosaic Law and the legal prescriptions in the Old Testament dispensation.

But there were many who were worshippers of God and who could be considered among the Gentiles as proselytes of the gate.  Evidently that is what these Greeks were, worshippers of the true God although obviously they had not become converts in the fullest sense so that they would be regarded as Jews.  The significance of this should not be missed.  Here once again we see Gentiles coming to see Jesus.  At the beginning of Jesus’ life, you remember, Gentiles had come to worship Jesus.  The Wise-men from the East had come to Jerusalem asking, where is He who has been born King of the Jews?  For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.

Now at the close of Jesus’ life, Gentiles once again seek Him.  Greeks from the distant country overseas were in Jerusalem and ask to see Jesus.  It reminds us again, does it not, that Jesus is a Saviour for all kinds of people.  True, He came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, for God’s promise of a Saviour had been given to Abraham and his descendants, and to them belonged the fathers and the promises and the covenants and the giving of the law and, ultimately, the coming of Christ.

But after Jesus’ earthly ministry of redemption had been accomplished, He would give His church the universal mandate to make disciples from all the nations of the world.

Here with the Greeks, as with the Wise-men earlier, we have another intimation in the Gospel of the world-wide dimensions of the Gospel.  And if we are members of Christ’s church, then this is already an obvious proof of the universal scope of the Gospel, is it not?  For we too share in the benefits of the covenant which was made with Abraham.  Indeed, if we are Christ’s, “then we are Abraham’s seed and heirs of the promise.”

So the disciples came to Jesus with the announcement that Greeks were seeking Him.  And what was Jesus’ reaction to the disciples’ report that these Greeks were seeking to see Him?

It would seem that Philip had sensed the importance of this and that is why he told Andrew about it.  And then both he and Andrew came to tell Jesus this news about the Greeks.

Up to now, Jesus’ religious movement had been strictly Jewish.  But of late disciples had been turning away from Jesus and a real defection had occurred when He told them it was necessary for them to eat His flesh and drink His blood.  This is recorded in the sixth chapter of John.  Many had replied, “This is a hard saying, who can accept it?”  For they were looking for a political Messiah, a national Saviour, not really one who would save them from their sins.  They weren’t interested in abiding in Christ in that sense.  And so we read, “From that point many turned back and walked no more with Jesus.”

Did Philip and Andrew therefore suppose that with this announcement of Greeks seeking Jesus, the Master would be pleased with the prospects of some fresh blood among His followers?  In fact, did this perhaps indicate that there were possibilities for the movement to become international?  And if that were the case, wouldn’t that be perhaps a rather tantalizing prospect?

But Jesus reacted in the opposite way.  Instead of following up this open door into the Gentile world, Jesus talked about His being glorified in death.  For already in verse 23, the verse preceding our text, Jesus replied: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.  I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed, but if it dies it produces many seeds.”  What a strange way, it would seem, to promote the Kingdom with talk like that!  Is it any wonder that the disciples often didn’t have a clue as to the way things were to develop concerning the kingdom of God?  It was all so different than the way one might naturally reason.  Let me give one or two examples to point this out.

One would suppose that greatness comes about by being served by others; and yet Jesus taught that greatness in the kingdom of God was not by being served by others, but by that person becoming humble and being a servant of others.  For the way up in the kingdom is down.

And one would suppose that finding one’s life should come by seeking to save it, to preserve it at all costs.  And yet Jesus said the one who seeks to save his life is going to lose it, while the one who loses his life for My sake, ah, that person will find it!”  How opposite to one’s natural inclination!

Moreover, one would suppose that God’s kingdom should come by a kingly manifestation, by a powerful demonstration of earthly might.  And that’s just what the Jews wanted their Messiah to do.  But here is the Messiah saying He is going to submit Himself unto death.  How odd.  How paradoxical!

How hard to understand the sayings of Jesus were – according to the flesh.  Nevertheless, one should notice the significance of Jesus’ description of Himself in this way.  He is telling us here that, like a seed, His life was not an end in itself to be preserved at all costs.  A seed that isn’t willing to be planted in the earth will never become a fruitful plant, will it?  For a seed does not exist unto itself.  If it does, it is not good for much.  It just remains a seed and that’s all.

And, so, Jesus’ earthly ministry was not an end in itself.  He was born not just to live.  He was born to die.  Why?  Notice the significance that the light of our text casts upon Good Friday.

If, for example, Jesus had been the master teacher of a religion, as the religious liberals have been telling us now for over a hundred years, then His teaching would have been the all-important thing.  All else, His life included, would have been incidental to His teaching which was the major thing and the thing to be emphasized.

Or, if Jesus had been a great humanitarian, as the Humanists teach, then of course, His life would have been the important thing.  In that connection His death would have been an unmitigated tragedy; in fact, it would have been the premature end of what might otherwise have been a long and useful life.

But Jesus Himself tells us the significance of His coming into the world.

It was to be like a seed; a seed that dies in order to become a more useful fruit-bearing plant.  You see, He would not be able to be a Saviour of Jew or Gentile until, like a grain of wheat, He gave up His life in death.  Now do we see why He hesitated to see the Greeks?

He could have seen them.  For there was nothing wrong with that as such.  But their salvation would depend upon the all-important work of atonement for sin which He was to accomplish shortly on Calvary’s cross.  After He had been lifted up, then He would draw all men, including these Greeks, unto Himself.  Until He did this, there was no real purpose in seeing them, or us, as a matter of fact.

Now do we see why their desire to see Him prompted Him to think about the cross?  As He said in verses 31-33, “Now is the time for judgement on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out.  But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.  He said this to show the kind of death He was going to die.”

You remember how, earlier He had said to Nicodemus in the interview He had at night with this teacher of Israel; “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believes on Him may have eternal life.”

II.  The Paradoxical Truth

But now we come to the paradoxical truth which our text gives us.  It is this: can life and fruitfulness come out of death?  Is that the way things are: life and fruitfulness out of death?

Now of course we know what happens when a seed is planted, buried in the earth, hidden from sight, subject to the conditions of the weather.  Why isn’t that the end of the seed, we might ask?  But we know that this is not the case.  Rather, it grows roots and a stalk, and becomes a plant.  Later, the stalk produces grain like the original grain that was planted.  Why should it do this?  That is quite a remarkable thing, isn’t it?

But you say: well, it may be remarkable but when a seed does that it is simply obeying the laws of life that God has ordained for that seed.  That is the process it must undergo if it is eventually to become a grain-producing plant.  True enough!  But it is still a remarkable thing, is it not?  Why should a seed respond in just this way?

Boys and girls, have you ever wondered about that?  What would happen if you were to take a stone and plant it in the ground?  Would anything happen?  Nothing would happen would it?  It would just stay in the ground; remain the stone that you had put there.  Now if you are thinking about this, you probably will reply, “Yes, but that stone doesn’t grow because it’s not alive like the seed is.  The seed is alive and so it germinates.  It grows when it is planted.  The stone isn’t alive and so it doesn’t grow.” True enough!  But now, suppose you plant something that is alive?  You say the seed grows because it is alive.  Well, plant something else that is alive, an animal, for example.  Or even a plant when it has begun to grow.  Bury that in the ground and what happens?  Instead of living, something like that dies, doesn’t it?  So just being alive is not the answer either.

No, that seed is rather a remarkable thing, isn’t it?  The action of growth when it is planted is more remarkable than we realize.  And the point I’m making is simply this: if God can make it so that a seed, and only a seed, will respond when planted so that it produces new life as a result, why should Jesus’ death and resurrection be thought remarkable if that leads to the giving of new life for His people?  Is that incredible?  God brings about the one; Jesus says He likewise brings about the other.  For what our God can do in the realm of nature He can just as easily do in the realm of grace.

And, yet, we take the one for granted and perhaps think that the other is impossible.  That’s why Jesus uses this illustration from the realm of nature to point out a parallel truth in the realm of grace.  He does the same thing very often in connection with the parables that He told.  Jesus is here pointing to the significance of His death and what it will accomplish for His people.

His death wasn’t to be a martyrdom – that is, dying to maintain noble ideals.  If that is all it were then how useless it would be for us who are sinners and who don’t need a martyr dying to maintain noble ideals.  We need a Saviour, someone to die for our sins so that we may be forgiven, so that we may be reconciled to God and may have eternal life and fellowship with Him.  No, Jesus’ death was more than a martyrdom.

Nor was His death an untimely tragedy.  As is the case sometimes with great men: President Kennedy perhaps, or Martin Luther King, or someone else you can think about.  No, Jesus’ death was not an untimely tragedy.  His death, He tells us, would be as a seed that has been planted to produce new life and fruitfulness for others.  For His own whom He would save by His grace with that redemption He was to accomplish on Calvary’s cross.

We must not, however, overlook the grandeur of Jesus’ suffering and death to become the life-giving Saviour of His people.  By giving His life for us that we might live, Jesus was not like some inanimate seed obeying God’s law of nature when it is planted.  No, we are very well aware of how painful Jesus’ death was; what agony He endured; what unimaginable suffering He underwent!  We think of the beating, of His being flogged by the Roman soldiers; we think of the crown of thorns they plaited upon His head as they mocked Him and said, “Hail, King of the Jews!”  We think of the cruel nails that pierced His hands and feet as He hung suspended on the cross between heaven and earth; the agonizing suffering He underwent, including unimaginable thirst.

Yes, Jesus was lifted up on the cross and executed like a criminal in order that we might be raised to newness of life in Him.  He died that we might live.  He was forsaken of the Father that we might never be forsaken.  He became our sin-bearer that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.  No wonder Scripture speaks of Jesus as both priest and sacrificial offering; shepherd and lamb, sower and seed.  For His work of saving sinners, making them the people of God is a grand work!

So great is its scope that it cannot be exhausted by one or two figures.  And so a number of them are given in order that we may understand and appreciate that so-great salvation He accomplished on our behalf.

Let us therefore ever keep in mind the figure of the kernel of wheat as Jesus brings it to our attention here in our text.  Jesus’ death was as necessary in God’s plan of salvation as it was necessary for a grain of wheat to die if that grain of wheat is to become a harvest producing plant.

III.  Like Produces Like

Let us now see, in the third place, how like produce like.  For Jesus said that His death, as an atoning death, would, like a planted seed, be a means of life and fruitfulness for others.  What fruit does Jesus produce as a result of His atoning death?  Ah, He is God’s answer for the lost human race, is He not?  As the Son of God He became the Son of Man in order to make us the sons of God.

For Adam’s sons had become prodigal sons, lost in the far country of sin, servants of the devil instead of being servants of God.  That’s the only way to describe it.

How else can one describe the terrible things we read about daily in our newspapers that are happening in our society.  Yes, terrible things, increasingly terrible things it seems.  The lost sons of men are the producers of the poisonous weeds of sin rather than the fruits of righteousness which God originally intended for people He made to rule and govern earth in His name.  Now unless their nature is renewed after the image of the Son of God in righteousness and holiness and the knowledge of the truth, the consequences of their fall into sin only goes from bad to worse!

Therefore, the Son of God became the Son of Man to bring this about, and during His life and ministry He learned firsthand how great the gulf is between a righteous God, on the one hand, and lost mankind on the other, suffering from the disease of depravity and its fatal consequences.

He knew of the love of material wealth that blind men’s souls and keeps them from God.  Remember the rich young ruler who wanted to know what he must do to inherit eternal life?  Jesus said to him, “This is what you lack, sell your possessions and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven – and then come follow me”.  The rich young ruler didn’t love God all that much nor his neighbour as himself.  And so he was unwilling to part with his wealth.  He went away sorrowing, for he wanted to cling to his wealth.  And in the end he lost it; in fact, he lost all!

Jesus knew about that.  How material wealth and the love for material things can blind man’s hearts and eyes to true realities, spiritual realities, eternal realities, things of God.

He saw the selfishness of man that makes him a slave of his own desires.  And that’s what one of His own disciples, Judas, was.  He wanted a Messiah on his own terms.  He thought that following Jesus would make him an important person.  When Jesus became king, he would have a very prominent place in Jesus’ Kingdom.  And, then, when Jesus spoke about death, it looked as if that was the way the movement was going to end, with Jesus’ death.

So he decided to get out of it while he could and to salvage from the movement what he could by selling Jesus in betrayal for some thirty pieces of silver.  How sad!  How tragic!  But that’s the way people are when they refuse to follow Jesus on His terms; rather, want a Saviour on their own terms.  Then he is not a Saviour at all because they don’t want Him as a Saviour.  They only want to do their own thing, and want God to agree to the way they live their own lives after the sinful desires of their own hearts.  Jesus knew all about this.  He knew about discrimination and oppression, hatred and violence, pride and self-righteousness.  Yes, and apathy and indifference as well.  You name the sin, Jesus knows about it.  For He knows man’s heart as no one else does, for He is God.

Man without God is a child of the Devil even if he thinks he is as good as a self-righteous Pharisee.  Jesus said that your righteousness has to exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees or you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

What, then, can Jesus do to change man’s tragically lost and hopeless condition?  Jesus makes His own the children of God.  In the redemption He provides, they become like Him, true image-bearers of God once more.  And what does a change of heart, a change of nature, do?

Well, such people now love God instead of hating Him.  They become interested in promoting His cause in this world and not just their own.  They see life in terms of a stewardship, a trust from God which is to be rendered as an accounting to Him, rather than merely trying to make it a big ball until death blows the candle out before a person realizes it.

People like this, children of God, truly hunger and thirst after righteousness; they show mercy and kindness to their fellow man; they promote the interests of peace; they long for purity and holiness of life.

These things must be true of all who would be children of God.  Things that Jesus describes about His people which we find in the Beatitudes, given at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5.

In other words, the people that Jesus saves become like Him in their dedication to doing the will of God.  But of course, that means: losing one’s life to the Lord; being so identified with doing the Father’s will that one is willing to die for Him if necessary like the Lord Jesus.  And that’s why Jesus says in verse 25 that “The man who loves his life will lose it, while the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

You see, only the one who does the will of God abides forever because only the one who does the will of God has abiding fellowship with God now and forever.  And so John writes, “Don’t love the world or the things of the world.  The one who loves the world does not have the love of the Father in Him.  The world passes away and its lusts.  Only he who does the will of God abides forever” (1John 2:15-17).

Well, then, what fruit is Jesus as the harvest-producing grain of wheat producing in your life?  He is the only answer to any and all hang-ups that you may yet have.  Do you, for example, have a hang-up about religion being only a practical matter?  “Talk to me about practical matters only.  Forget about all these doctrinal and theoretical things; practical things are what I’m interested in.”

Are you that type of a person, so practical that you feel that faith in the life to come is largely irrelevant because it is this life we have to live and be concerned about?

Then remember that Jesus as a grain of wheat gave His life in death that His people might be saved from their sins and have eternal fellowship with God.  The fact that He now lives at the right hand of the Father is the guarantee, yes, the guarantee of the reality of eternal life.

Therefore, Christianity is more than just a system of ethics, more than just a concern about practical matters.  It’s that for sure, but it is more than that.  It also promises eternal life, fellowship with God now and forever.  How important this is; in fact how all-important it is!  Because if it’s true, then this life is only the beginning of yet better things to come.  I trust that you see Christianity as a faith that encompasses the whole of reality, giving us a world and life view to be sure, but also giving us fellowship with the Father that endures unto eternity as it begins now, and its reality is a present experience.  But perhaps someone’s hang-up may be a love for the things that are wrong, even things that displease God.  Things that harm your own mind and body and soul, and that are no good for your companions with whom you commit these sins.  But you nevertheless love these sins?  Why go on in this way of unfruitfulness and death?

Jesus, as the living and harvest-bearing grain of wheat, fills His followers with a new life, so that they are given strength to forsake things that are wrong and are enabled to do the things that are right, the things that please God.  And then their lives become fruitful in fellowship with Him forever.  And isn’t that the all-important thing?

But this means dying to self, confessing our sins, asking the Lord for saving grace as He gives it freely in the Lord Jesus Christ.  And, then, being united to Him, one will become a living and fruitful branch of Him who is the true vine.

Have you died to sin yet so as to be alive unto the Lord?

Come to Jesus and let Him clear the poison of death-producing sin out of your life.

Come to Jesus, partake of His new life in salvation, and live a fruit- bearing life to the glory of God in this life and the life to come!

Amen.