Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except
a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abides by itself alone; but if
it die, it bears much fruit. He that loveth his life loses it; and he that hates
his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. John 12:24-25
All nature is the
parable of how the losing of a life can be the way of securing a truer and a
higher life. Every grain of wheat, every seed throughout the world, teaches the
lesson that through death lies the path to beautiful and fruitful life.
It was so with the Son
of God. He had to pass through death in all its bitterness and suffering before
He could rise to heaven and impart His life to His redeemed people. And here,
under the shadow of the approaching cross, He called His disciples: “If any man
will serve Me, let him follow Me.” (See Matthew 16:24.) He repeated the
words: “He that hates his life in this world shall keep it unto life
eternal.”
One might have thought
that Christ did not need to lose His holy life before He could find it again.
But so it was: God had “laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah
53:6), and He yielded to the inexorable law that through death comes life and
fruit.
How much more should we,
in the consciousness of that evil nature and the death that we inherited in
Adam, be most grateful that there is a way open to us by which, in the
fellowship of Christ and His cross, we can die to this accursed self! With what
gratitude we should listen to the call to bear our cross, to yield our “old
man” (Romans 6:6) as crucified with Christ daily to the death that he
deserves! Surely the thought that the power of eternal life is working in us
ought to make us willing and glad to die the death that brings us into the
fellowship and the power of life in a risen Christ.
Unfortunately, this is
rarely understood. Let us believe that what is impossible to man is possible to
God. (See Matthew 19:26.) Let us believe that the law of the Spirit of Christ
Jesus, the Risen Lord, can indeed make His death and His life the daily experience
of our souls.
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