Must One Die to Bring Forth Fruit?

Tom:

We’re continuing with the gospel of John and are in chapter 12, verse 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.”Now Dave, there are some Scriptures, some verses that you just know there must have been millions of sermons based upon those Scriptures and particularly verse 24.There’s a great teaching right here.It doesn’t apply to the life of Christ, what He did; His sacrifice on the cross, but it should apply to every Christian, shouldn’t it?

Dave:

Well, it must, from a natural standpoint, Tom, it’s rather interesting, it must die.A grain of wheat, if it’s green, it’s still alive, it won’t sprout, it rots.

Tom:

It’s just left to its own devices, nothing else can impact it.

Dave:

And I don’t understand that.Paul talks about the same thing.He says you get a resurrection in your garden; you put this dead seed in the ground and out it comes with a new body that God gives it and such is the resurrection of the believer, he’s going to give us a new body.But I don’t understand the science of it enough to even discuss it further.But Jesus is saying that just as a grain of wheat has to die, it’s got to be dried up and no signs of life in it so I’m going to have to die and be laid into the grave.This is what he is talking about.

Tom:

Well, what about we as believers?We have to die as well this way, don’t we in order to bear fruit?We can’t be left to our own devices, thinking that we are going to do something, we have to die to self.Our life has to be in Christ, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, there’s death right there; identification with Him, His death is my death.

Dave:

Right.It’s not that I am going to nail myself to a cross now.

Tom:

As they do in the Philippines around Easter time.

Dave:

Right, but I have found my identification with Christ in His cross.You know He said to the disciples, and maybe this is a thought that many will disagree with me, when Jesus said, Except you deny yourself, take up the cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciples.Now we can find an application of that in our lives today but there was a special application for those that lived at that time.Jesus said, I’m heading for a hill outside Calvary and if you are going to be true to me, you know, they are going to crucify me, if you’re going to be true to me, make up your minds right now, pick up your cross and follow me.That’s where we are going, we are going to get crucified, but then when Peter said at the Last Supper, Though all should forsake you, not I!Jesus said, Look, Peter, where I’m going you can’t follow me now but you will follow afterwards.It wouldn’t have been right for the others to be dying on a cross, Christ had to die in our place.So I think He was talking about a literal cross to them at that time.So he’s not talking about a literal cross to us now, but the death of self.The cross of Christ is a place where I die in Christ to my own ambitions, my own desires.As Paul said, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ has come to live in me.He has become my life.And so Jesus goes on in verse 25—

Tom:

Dave, before you get to—I was a Roman Catholic for 32 years and looking back with regard to my understanding of the Roman Catholic church, most of it is based on the passion of Christ, that’s what they say.And if you look at all the saints, all the saints were revered, well let’s say most of them were revered because of their passion, passion being their suffering for Christ.So you had a thrust in the church that it was good to suffer.Just as Christ went through His passion and to the cross, this is what we need to do.So there was a kind of, well, a sense of through this suffering we were going to expiate our sins.Now that’s not what we are talking about here.

Dave:

No.Of course the extreme example of that would be Padre Pio.Those who had the stigmata, there were a number of stigmatists, but Padre Pio, remember, as the young monk he asked his superior for permission to suffer for the sins of the world and he was granted permission.And what was it? Forty some years he even had to wear gloves, well, they were cotton gloves so you could see the red stain coming through when he presided at Mass and so forth. But he bled from five wounds, the five wounds of Christ for forty some years.And he claimed, and the church claimed and Pope John Paul II honored him as such that his suffering was paying for the sins of the world as Christ had.And he used to testify that more souls of the dead than living people visited him in his cell and his associates, other monks there in the monastery, said that they heard multitudes of voices talking with him and he said they were on their way from purgatory to heaven, stopping by to thank him for suffering for their sins.Now you have another conflict there, Tom, because, supposedly, in purgatory you are purged in the flame of purgatory and yet Padre Pio was suffering for them.Well, wait a minute!Then why wouldn’t Christ’s suffering be enough?And you know that you could do various things to get people out of purgatory.You could suffer for them, too, so then that breaks down.Well, you say, Well, Christ’s suffering was not enough, you’ve got to pay for your temporal sins yourself.But wait a minute!Other people can pay for them.Then why couldn’t Christ pay for them, pay for all sins.But anyway, as you said, he’s not talking about we’re suffering now in order to expiate our sins.We’re suffering now to get points with God to purge ourselves.But he’s making it very—it’s something more important than that, Tom.You can suffer in that way, you can get yourself nailed to a cross in the Philippines and be very self-centered all of your life, you see.

Tom:

Whether it’s self-flagellation or wearing a hair shirt or putting pebbles in your shoes, this was all highly regarded.

Dave:

Well, it still is, as you know, in certain Catholic monasteries.

Tom:

So let’s go back, Take up the cross and follow me, what does that mean for us today?

Dave:

Well, it means, as Paul says in Galatians, “God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ whereby this world has been crucified unto me, I and the world.”I’m standing with Christ in His cross and I am saying that He is God who became a man, lived a perfect sinless life, He didn’t cease to be God, He will never cease to be man, He’s the one and only God man, the only begotten Son of God and He paid the penalty for my sins.The judgment of God’s wrath against sin, all the judgment that was required by God’s holiness and his law against sin fell upon Christ.He endured it and I take my stand there and I say, This is the only hope of the world.With Peter Acts:4:12Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
See All..., I say, There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.Now people will despise you for that.They will laugh at you or they may kill you, Muslims will kill you if you insist upon that because they say Jesus didn’t die on the cross, he is not God, he is not the Son of God, he didn’t die in our place—

Tom:

Dave, just to interject, where they can do that they are doing it and be put in jail.

Dave:

And you can be hated, you can come under persecution, at school for example, a child in school who says, I believe in Jesus, I believe He is the only way—they can be laughed at and mocked.“So, he that loveth his life shall lose it.”In other words, if I love my life so much that I don’t want to be persecuted, I don’t want people to hate me or misunderstand me or ridicule, therefore, I’m going to kind of compromise or I’m going to be selfish, I’m going to clutch my life to myself.Then, Jesus says, You’re going to lose it.But he that hateth his life—well that’s relative statement, in comparison with my love for Christ, “…hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.”I give up life as I would have lived it and I say, Lord, you died in my place, I accept you as the one who paid the penalty for my sins.Now I have died, I’m crucified with you, it’s no more I but now you have become my life.Now I have eternal life through faith in Christ Jesus.

Tom:

Now verse 25, 26, “He that loveth his life shall lose it; (this is what you’re just saying) and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.”“If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be:if any man serve me, him will my Father honor.”

Dave:

So, I am being called to be true and loyal to Jesus Christ.I’ve left it all, nothing else matters to me except Christ alone.Now that may bring hatred, persecution, ridicule but I have laid down my life in this world in exchange for the life that Christ has given me.

Tom:

And why not?Jesus said, “Those who come to me, I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”

Dave:

Amen.