John 12:20-28 But If It Dies

“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.”

Throughout the generations, kings ruled the peoples of the world. Kingdoms rose and kingdoms fell depending on the strength of king and kingdom. Some kingdoms grew to become empires while other kingdoms faded into the shadow of history without a trace. But of all these kingdoms not one remained intact past its years of glory. For the most part, they have all come to ruin. Except perhaps for nominal kingdoms such as the British Empire and its likes. What tyranny and oppression associated with kings and kingdoms men once tolerated, they no longer tolerated and rebellion upon rebellion against kings and kingdoms gave rise to the independent government ruled societies we see in today’s world. But while human kings and kingdoms failed, mankind still yearn in their hearts for a king and kingdom with a righteous rule. And while these kings and kingdoms exist only in worlds of fantasy transcribed in fiction books, the real king and kingdom have already begun to grow in the hearts of those who saw a true King in Jesus and entered the true Kingdom of heaven. Of all kings Jesus alone survives in our hears because he is the King we all long for— a righteous king who promised to rule our lives in peace and in love. He entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey thereby sealing his true Kingship in our hearts forever. Today we may belong to a democratic society, but every Christian knows that we have a true King whose legacy was not cruelty and oppression, but whose legacy is love and whose rule is peace. He is the King who died on the cross to purchase us from sin and death and to bring us home to heaven. He is the Only One worthy of our love and devotion.

Jesus entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey. He did so in order to fulfill God’s will that the righteous King humble himself even to the death on a cross. His disciples did not know why Jesus did not take his rightful place as the King, removing his enemies and setting up his kingdom over all the world. Instead of destroying the religious rulers and their political Roman cohorts, Jesus sat on a donkey and showered his blessing on all people. He did not even challenge his enemies. He did not speak out against hose who waited to kill him. It seemed as if Jesus was giving himself into their evil hands. And this is exactly what he was doing. It was for this that he had come to this world, and it was for this that he had spent the last three and a half years teaching and preaching and raising disciples. But whether they understood what he was doing or not, Jesus went ahead and did what God wanted him to do. In the process, as we see events develop, he lost the loyalty of the crowds. In the process he made himself vulnerable to his opponents who wanted to kill him. How hard it was for Jesus to shatter the false expectation of his disciples, seeing them lose worldly hope in what they wanted of him to become and of what they themselves wanted to become because of him. But it was necessary for Jesus to do so. He had not come to raise our worldly hopes nor to offer us worldly goods and security. It was necessary that those who follow him understand that he had come for one thing and one thing alone, to save us from our sins and to prepare us for the kingdom of God. Today there are many false gospels that preach worldly hopes and expectations that cater to the sinful human desires of the heart. They despise the humility of the cross and the poverty of its kingdom. And many go after them in order to better themselves and their human situation. It is hard to shatter the high hopes and expectations of those who want to worship a worldly Christ. But for us who know Jesus from the manger to the cross, there is no gospel other than the one which teaches us repentance and faith, humility and servantship, sacrifice and the cross. Only in this gospel is there real hope because only in this gospel is there a resurrection— the hope of God for all those who believe.

Jesus entered his city on a donkey to the dismay of all those whose hopes rested on the worldly Christ and his worldly gospel of salvation. Among those who had been in Jerusalem at this time were some Greeks. They had seen the whole ceremony unravel before their eyes. A promised Messiah riding in a most unpromising way into his city. They had witnessed the religious leaders’ anger and scoffing at such a King riding in such a way to a hopeless victory. More than that, rather than a glorious triumph of a mighty king, Jesus was setting himself up for a perfect defeat, for capture and for disaster. After the entry into Jerusalem and the mayhem it produced, it is likely that the disciples whisked Jesus off to a safe place away from the imminent danger. Look at verses 20-22. Some of those Greeks who had witnessed all this wanted to see Jesus. When they could not find him, they found his disciples and begged for an audience with Jesus. What did they want?

We know they were believers in the God of the Jews, the true God, since they had come to worship. We also know something about their character. Greeks in history were known for their love for truth, even though they had for the most part followed many twisted and corrupted forms of truth. Part of the reason they had not arrived at the truth in all the generations of their searching, is because they were also philosophically minded loving to argue and to debate even the truth. In the end they had bits and pieces of truths that managed to damage rather than to bring healing to their souls. Those particular believing Greeks understood the truth of God, but they had no idea of the truth about life. When they heard about Jesus’ teaching about life and about salvation, they were curious to know more. It is likely that they came to Jesus to debate about life and salvation. Jesus understood their desire to know about him and about life and about the true way of life. So rather than engaging them in a discussion, Jesus gave them a most glorious teaching.

Read verse 23. “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” Jesus deeply understood their longing for truth and immediately began to teach them the way of life and the way of salvation. “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” refers to the hour of Jesus’ death on the cross. (7:30,39; 8:20; 12:16; 13:31) But why talk about his upcoming death on the cross? To teach the world the way of salvation; that there is no salvation apart from the cross of Jesus. This was the truth that Jesus’ death was the only way of salvation for all men who live under the shadow of sin. Under the shadow of sin, there is no meaning to man’s life, nor hope for salvation. Through his cross, God provided the way of salvation for mankind. It was important for Jesus to teach the Greeks this marvelous truth, simply because their concept of salvation was tangled up in the false truths of philosophy and religion and the roots of such things which is humanism. Jesus graciously brought them directly to the foot of the cross.

Then Jesus began to explain to them why it was necessary for him that he die. Read verse 24. “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.” Here, Jesus applies a very simple truth from the life cycle of a kernel of wheat to explain a most fundamental spiritual principle in the Bible, the principle of life, death and resurrection. Jesus teaches that there is a big difference between a kernel of wheat in the storeroom, and a kernel of wheat which is planted in the soil. The first one is destined to remain only a single seed, while the other is destined to grow into a fruitful plant that bears many seeds. Here Jesus is talking about man’s life. He compares a single seed to a man’s life. A man’s life is like a seed with great potential to grow into something more wonderful than a seed. This is the mystery of life. Physically speaking, we are born an infant— helpless and weak. But we grow to maturity with a personality of our own. When we contemplate man’s unlimited potential, we think about the great men and women in history who made a significant impact on the world through their intellectual, scientific, and cultural contributions. Their lives which started as seeds, grew to their full potential. Indeed, our lives are like a seed which carries in it the potential for life and growth and glory.

But on the human level, we see that not every person grows to his or her full potential. Many become useless in life, both to God and to man. Some resign themselves to nothing but an obscure existence. Some live mundane lives, unable to achieve anything significant. Some realize their insignificant existence and they fall into despair. But this principle is not limited to man’s physical life only. Man’s life is designed by God to a spiritual potential. As much as man can grow to be a man of greatness in the world he is equally able to be a man of contribution in the spiritual world— in other words a man who can bear much fruit for the glory of God. How many are the great servants of God who have shaped up God’s history spreading his gospel and his kingdom to the ends of the earth. But on the spiritual level, there are many who live no more than a basic Christian lives of bare spiritual existence. Their lives have no bearing whatsoever on the spiritual world. No significant contributions. No fruits. Why then is there such tremendous differences between one life and another? Jesus explains.

Look at verse 24 again. “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.” Jesus states the condition for us to reach our full potential for life and growth and glory. The difference is whether we choose to remain a single seed or we choose to die. This is the truth that our Lord Jesus laid before all the world, especially before his disciples who have a tremendous responsibility as disciples. But what does it means to be a single seed? And what does it mean for the seed to die? It does not mean to remain single and not to marry. But verse 25 explains it best. “The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it to eternal life.” The person who remains a single seed is the one who loves his life too much. This person does not want to fall to the ground and die. He or she does not want to give up their selfish existence as a single seed nor their love of self. They want to hold on to their life. Because of this, they are unable to commit themselves to anything or to anyone. They fear that if they commit to anyone or to anything in life, they would lose their life. Consequently they do not fall to the ground. They remain a single seed.

Life holds many such people. For the love of ease and comfort, some cannot commit their lives to basic school studies nor to working hard with their own hands. So instead of committing themselves to labor for the basic responsibilities of life and family, they rather preserve their lives by doing what their human desires will them to do. In the end, they do not reach their potential, and pretend that God had not given them a potential in the first place. In the end, their lives become a burden to themselves and a burden to others who have to carry them in life and beyond. Many are they in this world who love their lives too much that they will not commit themselves to their husbands or to their wives not even to their own children. They have no root to put in their own homes, and so they are usually ready to abandon their families and their children anytime. According to Lord Jesus, while they try to preserve their own lives, they end up losing their lives. It is the godly principle that dictates this, not some punishment from God for their failure. What about Christians who love their lives too much? The principle goes for Christian and non-Christian as well.

What of the seed that falls to the ground and dies? Read verse 25. Jesus said that this seed stands for the one who hates his life. To hate one’s life means to deny my love for my self, and to overcome my selfishness. More practically, it means to deny my basic human desire to live my life only for myself, and then to decide to live my life for the glory of God. Why should I do such a thing? It is because it is God’s truth that I do so. It is a truth God has been teaching us all across history and the Bible. God made us to be fruitful, a blessing on God and on ourselves and on each other. This is the purpose of our existence— that we should bear fruit to the full potential of our lives. Biblically speaking this is also what makes us happy. There is nothing in this world that brings more joy to the heart than when we know we are a blessing on God and on others. There is something in the human heart that simply rejoices every time we reach a higher level in our growth and in our contribution to God and to each other. This joy cannot be achieved otherwise. Neither this world nor anything in it can well up such joy as the joy of knowing that I am fulfilling my duty in God by the grace of God and through his blessing working in and through me. Jesus teaches us that to be so we must die to ourselves. It is a decision we are called to make as one who has been blessed and forgiven by our Lord’s sacrifice on the cross— the greatest of selfless acts done in time and in history— a model to follow in life and beyond.

Dying to self as a single seed is not so easy! We are born under the power of sin which drives us unnaturally towards unhealthy ambitions and sinful desires. Sin makes us believe that the way of selfishness is the true way of life and the way of salvation. So the world is quick to promote selfishness as the way of truth. We are taught that we must look out for ourselves, because no one will look out for us. Sometimes we follow this philosophy at a great loss to ourselves. But even when we know this is wrong and we want to come out we find that it is not easy to do so, hard as we may try. So we need a power stronger than ourselves and our own will to defeat the sin of selfishness. We need God’s power and his grace. And God has given it to any one who eagerly desires to be free from the sin of selfishness. That power is in the cross of our Lord Jesus. It is in the faith in our Lord Jesus and what he had done to save us. When we claim it God in his mercy does many things for us. He forgives us and he extends his hand of grace upon us so that we may no longer live for ourselves but we live for his glory.

Still it is not easy. Some think that as soon as our Christian life begins, we immediately began living for the glory of God. We then discover that our hearts are still corrupted with selfishness and our lives are still bearing no spiritual fruit for God. We discover that our church going and occasional Bible reading is not transforming us into great servants of God. We discover that we are not much changed. This is not uncommon. In fact most Christians experience the horrors of their own selfishness and fruitlessness. But when we do not urgently deal with it, we eventually become numb to our own selfishness and learn to live with our sins— which a terrible mistake. How can we overcome? How can we live such lives as to glorify God? What is the way of life for a Christian?

Read verse 26. “Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be.” This is the secret to the selfless life. We must follow Jesus. A Christian no longer serves himself. He serves Jesus. He no longer follows his own way. He follows the way of Jesus. When we wholeheartedly devote our lives to following Jesus, then something miraculous happens, we begin to gain the strength from above to throw off the burden of selfishness and begin to wear the blessing of sacrifice, the yoke of life and growth, and of death and resurrection. Then our lives would bear much fruit for the glory of God. But it’s important to learn how to follow Jesus.

Jesus said, “Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be.” (26) Through Bible study, faith and prayer, we learn the life of Jesus so that we may follow him as his servants. When we think of Jesus’ life, he lived as a kernel of wheat that falls to the ground and dies. Jesus did not remain a single seed. He did not love his life in this world. Jesus denied himself basic human privileges such as the joy of a family life, comfort of a home, regular eating and sleeping. Jesus could have lived an ordinary life and enjoyed the simple pleasures of life. But instead he lived the life of perfect sacrifice. We too must follow our Lord Jesus’ footsteps in living the sacrificial Christian life. The way of the selfishness is the way of destruction. But according to Jesus, the way of self sacrifice is the way of life and of salvation.

Verses 27-36 reveal Jesus’ personal struggle to submit his will to God, that is not to live for himself but live for the glory of God. Jesus died as a kernel of wheat so that he may draw all people to himself and to God. But his people did not like the spiritual Messiah who dies on the cross. They really did not like the teaching on the way of life and salvation. They did not like to give up their single seed life and become a kernel of wheat that falls to the ground and died. Still Jesus urged them to listen to him. However when we read verses 37-50 we see that the Jews continued in their unbelief. But their unbelief could not put out the light of the gospel. The gospel spread to the whole world, and the Christian teaching of life and salvation became the standard by which all of God’s people chose to live by.