Jesus; the Grain of Wheat
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Jesus; the Grain of Wheat
Jesus; the Grain of Wheat
20 Now there were certain Greeks among those who came up to worship at the feast. 21 Then they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
22 Philip came and told Andrew, and in turn Andrew and Philip told Jesus.
23 But Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. 24 Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. 25 He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.
27 “Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify Your name.”
Then a voice came from heaven, saying, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.”
29 Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to Him.”
30 Jesus answered and said, “This voice did not come because of Me, but for your sake. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. 32 And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.” 33 This He said, signifying by what death He would die.
34 The people answered Him, “We have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever; and how can You say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this Son of Man?”
35 Then Jesus said to them, “A little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you; he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. 36 While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.” These things Jesus spoke, and departed, and was hidden from them.
The New King James Version. (1982). (Jn 12:20–36). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
Now there were certain Greeks among those who came up to worship at the feast. 21 Then they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus."
22 Philip came and told Andrew, and in turn Andrew and Philip told Jesus.
23 But Jesus answered them, saying, "The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. 24 Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. 25 He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.
27 "Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save Me from this hour'? But for this purpose I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify Your name."
Then a voice came from heaven, saying, "I have both glorified it and will glorify it again."
29 Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, "An angel has spoken to Him."
30 Jesus answered and said, "This voice did not come because of Me, but for your sake. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. 32 And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself." 33 This He said, signifying by what death He would die.
34 The people answered Him, "We have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever; and how can You say, 'The Son of Man must be lifted up'? Who is this Son of Man?"
35 Then Jesus said to them, "A little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you; he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. 36 While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light." These things Jesus spoke, and departed, and was hidden from them. NKJV
Let's get into the context of this moment in time Jesus has just entered the city of Jerusalem in what we call, "The Triumphal Entry." This is Palm Sunday, so called because the people waved palm branches and laid them in the streets as He rode in on a donkey, celebrating Him as their King. Things would take a quick turn later in the week.
There is plenty of talk about this Jesus character going around Jerusalem and Bethany. We don't have a specific timeline but maybe within a week before His entry, Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead. (Explain Lazarus) So, many people are coming around this week hoping to see Jesus and maybe even more so, hoping to see this fellow Lazarus that has been raised from the dead.
We see in verse 20, certain Greeks coming and looking for an audience with Jesus. Some believe that these were Greeks turned Jewish but the indication by the Greek term used is that they were Gentiles, non-Jewish people. Many foreigners and especially Greek/Roman people would want to come to see the Temple and the feasts that went on.
So when the disciples Philip and Andrew come to tell Jesus that these Greeks, these Gentiles, are looking for Him, Jesus replies in what seems to be a strange way. He starts talking about wheat and being glorified. But in reality, this almost appears to be the signal as these Gentiles come in search of Jesus. Now if we go back to 24 But He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” NKJV
Jesus was sent to the nation of Israel to redeem them. There rejection would usher in the salvation of the world, the Gentiles and the Jews. These Greeks come and He says, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified." The hour, the time in this age has arrived for what it is that I came as man to do. It is for this moment that I was sent and came. For Him to glorified would be for Him to fulfill His purpose in this human form. This is a point in Scripture where we see about the humanity of Jesus. Remember, Jesus is fully God and yet fully man. He left His godly power to be fully man but He retained His deity. (Explain a prince leaving the palace with nothing. He is still prince.)
Jesus was sent to the nation of Israel to redeem them. There rejection would usher in the salvation of the world, the Gentiles and the Jews. These Greeks come and He says, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified." The hour, the time in this age has arrived for what it is that I came as man to do. It is for this moment that I was sent and came. For Him to glorified would be for Him to fulfill His purpose in this human form. This is a point in Scripture where we see about the humanity of Jesus. Remember, Jesus is fully God and yet fully man. He left His godly power to be fully man but He retained His deity. (Explain a prince leaving the palace with nothing. He is still prince.)
Then Jesus compares Himself to a grain of wheat. Unless that grain of wheat is planted, it will forever be just a single grain and will eventually decompose to nothing. But, if that same grain of wheat is planted, it will produce much more grain. His explanation is that He must die and be planted, buried in order for Himself to bring about more life, everlasting, eternal life. He also explains that as He lays down His life, so all those who follow Him should be willing to lay down their life also.
So, does that mean we all should look to becomes martyrs or look to be crucified and die for our faith? Well, if need be, yes we should. But, the essence of Jesus at this point and we will see it in a minute is His obedience and THAT is what He wants from us. That we would be willing...if called upon...to do that which is asked of us by the Father. Make no mistake, Jesus had a choice as a man to fulfill the cross or not. The option was there. He faced the cross as a man, not as God. He had to choose as a man to obey God the Father and go to the cross as a sinless person, a sinless man, not a sinless God but a sinless man. That's the whole point. Look at For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.
We are going to hear about some neat obedience stuff with Jesus in in a few weeks.
We have to grasp what God did here. We have to grasp who Jesus was and is. I wish I could explain it better, but I'm not sure anyone can. This is something that we need to be pondering on a daily basis. Immanuel, God with us, God in human form. Here not as God, but here instead as man. If Jesus wanted to come to earth as God, He had done that many times before. He walked with Adam in the garden. He visited with Abraham, He wrestled with Jacob, He stood in full battle gear as the Captain of the Lord's army before Joshua. But this time, the Holy Spirit impregnated a young virgin girl and she conceived, not by man but God. She bore a male child in a manger in the little town of Bethlehem. She nursed Him, changed Him, when He was hungry He cried and He was as helpless as any of us at that age. He had to learn to roll over, to crawl and Mary taught Him how to walk. He even had to learn how to read. Most likely His father Joseph taught Him how to build things. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men. NKJV
, "And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men." NKJV
The reason we need to understand this is to grasp this next verse. “Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify Your name.” NKJV This is the man talking here. His soul, His mind will and emotions are troubled although His Spirit knows exactly what needs to be done. As I said, the choice to do it or not is before Him but as God, He would never make the wrong decision. In the Spirit, He was in direct connection to the Father and knew what the will of God was for His human life here but that in no way negated the pain, suffering, humiliation and actually, the filthiness of sin that would be put upon Him. He would at that point be separated from the Father for the first time ever in all eternity. There was a disconnection between God the Father and God the Son who had been a part of each other forever and ever. We may never grasp that.
But this was His purpose and He was focusing on fulfilling that purpose. That is our job here also. We must find God's purpose for our lives here and fulfill it.
Jesus said, "I came here for this, Father, glorify Your name." Barnes says this about the verse, "The meaning of this expression in this connection is this: "I am willing to bear any trials; I will not shrink from any sufferings. Let thy name be honored. Let thy character, wisdom, goodness, and plans of mercy be manifested and promoted, whatever sufferings it may cost me." Thus Jesus showed us that God's glory is to be the great end of our conduct, and that we are to seek that, whatever sufferings it may cost us." - Barnes Notes
And look what happened then. God spoke up. Now we don't know what that sounded like but I bet it was awesome! God said, I have glorified (His name) and will glorify it. God's name had been glorified already from the time of Jesus' baptism (when that same voice was heard), through His ministry, His miracles and His Word and it would further be glorified by His death and resurrection to come. This was for the people there to hear. We don't really know if those Greeks are there with them or not. Likely they were!
This next statement is critical to salvation. Jesus said in v. 31, Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. NKJV This is deciding point for this world. This is a crossroad, an intersection in time, actually in all of eternity. This is point that will be forever. The battle between good and evil on the face of the earth has come to the culmination. Man was given dominion over this earth but sinned, disobeyed God and fell from his authority. Evil and death took root here to destroy all that God held dear. But then Jesus came. God incarnate, God as man to redeem as a sinless man what was lost through the sinful man, Adam. Only a man could redeem what belonged to man and that is what God accomplished through His Son.
Now is the judgment. This world tried to take that which was sinless and destroy it as if were sinful and sealed the return of the authority back to man, that man being Jesus. From this point, there is a division in this world for judgment. Those who would and will accept the sacrifice that Jesus would pay and those that will not. But, He also tells us that the one that was the "prince of this world" has been defeated. The enemy has lost his foothold on this earth and will be cast out. And death that he brought with him has been overcome!
Once again, let's look at what Barnes explains here. “Now is approaching the decisive scene, the eventful period-the crisis-when it shall be determined who shall rule this world. There has been a long conflict between the powers of light and darkness between God and the devil. Satan has so effectually ruled that he may be said to be the prince of this world; but my approaching death will destroy his kingdom, will break down his power, and will be the means of setting up the kingdom of God over man.” The death of Christ was to be the most grand and effectual of all means that could be used to establish the authority of the law and the government of God, . This it did by showing the regard which God had for his law; by showing his hatred of sin, and presenting the strongest motives to induce man to leave the service of Satan; by securing the influences of the Holy Spirit, and by his putting forth his own direct power in the cause of virtue and of God. The death of Jesus was the determining cause, the grand crisis, the concentration of all that God had ever done, or ever will do, to break down the kingdom of Satan, and set up his power over man. Thus was fulfilled the prediction (), “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel.” - Barnes’ Notes
Jesus then declares that if He is lifted up, if He is crucified, then He will draw all men to Himself. This declaration clears the way for all men, not just the Jews to have salvation through His death and resurrection. Jesus was lifted up, on the cross, bridging the gap between heaven and earth. Placed between us and God as the ultimate sacrifice. It was God's desire all along to save ALL men. To make salvation available to ALL who accept it.
The people listening still were locked in to the beliefs that they misunderstood from the past. Their thinking was that the Messiah was to come, conquer and stay, remain here forever. Their understanding of forever was skewed and limited to the earth instead of encompassing eternity. They looked for an earthly king instead of a heavenly king. They looked for an eternal human instead of an eternal God. They looked for a earthly kingdom instead of heavenly kingdom. They looked for a man instead of a Lord.
We leave ourselves with this, , Then Jesus said to them, “A little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you; he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. 36 While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.” NKJV