prefaces which are so frequent in John's Gospel, and indicate some very weighty truth coming. I think " to you " must surely include not only Andrew and Philip, but all the company arouud our Lord.
[Except a corn of wheat, etc., etcl Our Lord here illustrates a great Scriptural truth by a very familiar fact in nature. That fact is, that in plants and seeds life comes by death. The seed must be put into the ground, must rot, decay, and die, if we want it to bear fruit and produce a crop. If we refuse to bury the seed, and will keep it without sowing it, we shall never reap any harvest. We must be content to let it die if we want corn.
The wealth of spiritual truth which this beautiful figure un- folds is very great. The death of Christ was the life of the world. From it, as a most prolific seed, was to spring an enor- mous harvest of blessing to souls, and of glory to God. His substi- tution on the cross, His atoning death, were to be the beginning of untold blessings to a lost world. To wish Him not to die, to dislike the idea of His death, (as the disciples evidently did,; was as foolish as to keep seed-corn locked up in the granary, and to refuse to sow it. "I am the corn of wheat," Jesus seems to say. " Unless I die, whatever you in your private opinion may think, my purpose in coming into the world will not be accom- plished. But if I die, multitudes of souls will be saved."
Let us carefully mark here the immense importance which our Lord attaches to His death. Nothing can explain this but the old foundation doctrine of the Bible, that Christ's sacrificial death on the cross is the only satisfaction and atonement for the sin of the world. A passage like this can never be thor- oughly explained by those who regard Christ's death as nothing more than a martyrdom or an example of self-denial. It was something far greater and more important than this. It was the dying of a corn of wheat, in order that out of its death should spring up an enormous spiritual harvest. Christ's vica- rious death is the world's life.
Let us notice here, as elsewhere, the Divine wisdom with which our Master illustrated spiritual truth by earthly figures. Illustrations, fitly chosen, strike men much more than abstract arguments. Ministers and teachers of religion should study to " use similitudes."
Theophylact thinks our Lord meant, by this beautiful figure, to encourage His disciples not to be offended and shaken in mind by His coming death. In His case, as in the natural world, they must remember life comes through death.
Zwingle thinks that as with the corn, when sown, so it is with the body of Christ. It does us good by dying for us, and not by our eating it.
Gill remarks, that by " abiding alone," in this simile, Christ meant that if He did not die, He would be "alone" in heaven