John 12:24

John 12:24 . But second to the thought of His enthronement as Messiah comes the thought of the way to it: ἀμὴν … φέρει , “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.

Verily, verily See on John 1:51; see on John 10:1. A corn (ὁ κόκκος) 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 (Proserpina), 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.

{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.

24. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit—The necessity of His death is here brightly expressed, and its proper operation and fruit—life springing forth out of death—imaged forth by a beautiful and deeply significant law of the vegetable kingdom. For a double reason, no doubt, this was uttered—to explain what he had said of His death, as the hour of His own glorification, and to sustain His own Spirit under the agitation which was mysteriously coming over it in the view of that death.

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.

John 12:24 . Πεσών ) when it hath fallen .— αὐτὸς μόνος , 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.— ἀποθάνῃ — καρπόν , it shall have died—fruit ) This passage contains a previous specimen of both [His death -sufferings—and the fruit ], John 12:27 ; John 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.]

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 John 1:51 .

(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 John 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.

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.