The Grain of Wheat
The Flesh Under Sentence

John 1:12-13; 3:5-6; 6:63; 12:24-25.

From the very first chapter of John there comes a subtly conforming teaching (a little here, a little elsewhere) that definitively and clearly concludes in Jesus' following words: –Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. (NASB John 12:24-25)

With this statement the Lord brings light to a matter of vital importance for the Christian. However, to understand it properly we will have to follow it from the beginning of its course.

Engendered of God

In John 1:12-13 says that God’s children are engendered not of blood, nor by flesh or a man’s will, but born of God" (1). The terms " blood ", "flesh", and “man’s will” remit us to the sphere of terrestrial things; whereas the expression “of God” lifts us toward the heights of divine things. The contrast is evident.

In this contrast, the terrestrial things are placed, according to God’s valuation, in a very unfavourable place. Nothing of the earth can produce something divine. Nothing of "flesh" or “blood”, or of "man’s will" can generate something spiritual. Flesh and blood can engender children of flesh and blood, but it cannot engender children of God. In the same way, man's will (which is his strong point) remains an excluded root.

Born of the Spirit

Lord Jesus told Nicodemus, on that night of secret questions and answers: –Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the spirit gives birth to spirit.

He also told him: –No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and of the Spirit. (John 3:5-6).

In John 1:13 it speaks of engendering; here it speaks of being born. In the former, God is the one who engenders a child of God; here it is the Spirit who gives birth to a new man so that he can enter the Kingdom.

The flesh and the spirit follow two different, parallel tracks that will never cross. What is born of the flesh, is flesh. What is born of the Spirit, is spirit.

Spirit and life

–The spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing - the Lord says in John 6:63.

In John 3 it speaks of the irreconcilable character of the tracks of the flesh and of the spirit; here we are shown what the destination of each one of those tracks is.

Life is at the end of the track of the spirit; at the end of the flesh, is something that counts for nothing. That phrase, “counts for nothing”, is clarified by Paul in two places in his epistles. Romans 8:6 tells us that it is death, and Galatians 6:8 tells us that it is destruction.

Then the Lord completes this idea saying: –The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.

Here it indicates what is at the end for he who has the track of the spirit: life. In Christ everything is coherent. From beginning to end is only a line. He doesn't allow interference of the flesh (with its consequences, death and destruction); He associates with the spirit and with life. What’s more, his words are (they don't simply contain) spirit and life.

The repertoire of the flesh

Every time that one speaks of the flesh and of its manifestations we go to Galatians chapter 5, verses 19 to 21. This is all very well. Of that long list it is very clear that things such as adultery, impurity, debauchery and lasciviousness, drunkenness and orgies, for example, being so grotesque, are evidently carnal. But there is not always the same sense of agreement to judge other “lesser” sins, which almost sound to be normal even amid the people of God, such as the hatred, discord,  jealousy, fits of rage, dissensions (divisions), factions (or sects), and envy.

Thus, the first thing that we must consider here are those less grotesque manifestations of the flesh (so near to weaknesses, and as such, almost excusable), and to give them the name that really belongs to them.

There are Christians that have gotten used to them, that accept a life with them, to adapt to them, and to joke about them with the most absolute self-confidence. Those who do this don't realize the pain that they cause in the heart of God, or the delay that they cause in His work, nor the discredit that it brings to the beautiful faith before unbelievers.

The jealousies, the fits of rage and the divisions that Paul attacked so strongly in the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 3:3) are usually banal and accepted matters today, almost without reproach. Those wrongs, so sanctioned by Paul, are the same ones that today separate Christian leaders and God’s children in a multitude of factions. Each faction is a clear sign that in some place and in some certain circumstance, there was somebody (or some) that didn't want to die, and that left the way open to their flesh. There was somebody (or some) that allowed those smallest sins of the flesh like hatred, jealousies, disagreements and envy into their heart.

The goodness of the flesh

However, there is a manifestation of the flesh that is even more subtle than the previous ones. The flesh is not only the bad things that Paul describes in Galatians 5. There is much good in the flesh, and that being as such (at least before eyes that are not spiritually anointed) is not judged, nor even hated.

When Peter, filled with compassion for the Lord, wanted his Teacher to avoid going to the cross, he manifested, not a feature of the spirit, but of the natural goodness of his flesh. (Matthew 16:22-23). The compassion and the desire for the survival of his Friend and Teacher is not a reproachable thing in the eyes of those who are not anointed, but the Lord left them without doubt: it was simply of the flesh and, even more so, flesh used by the Wicked one. Peter's flesh -like all that is of the flesh - didn't fix his eyes in the things of God, but in those of men.

Soon afterward, on the mount of the transfiguration, Peter requests the Lord to authorize him to make three shelters, he was also reflecting carnally. (Matthew 17:1-5). For that reason, the Father interrupts him from the cloud, to give testimony of his dear Son. Peter's idea didn't honor the Lord, because it put Jesus on the same level as His servants Moses and Elijah. So his good intention is, once again, counterproductive, and instead of helping, becomes a nuisance.

When the disciples disputed among themselves about who the greatest would be, they did not necessarily have bad intentions. (Luke 22:24-27). They simply wanted to recognize an order among them in order to better face the future work ahead. They wanted to settle some kind of flowchart for a “better operation", which, in the world, is a good thing. However, that was spiritually reproached. The Lord told them that what was used among the nations was not applicable to them, and which was the difference between what comes from the flesh and what comes from the spirit.

When the disciples fell asleep in Gethsemane, that terrible night in which they could not keep watch with their Teacher, he gave them the explanation for their weariness (Matthew 26:36-41). He told them: –Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

Prayer was a really good thing that they could and should have done next to their suffering Lord; however, they were still carnal, and couldn’t do it.

Thus we derive an important conclusion for all Christians: that in the Kingdom and in God’s work, whatever the flesh can do, it doesn't serve; and what does serve, the flesh cannot do.

The flesh and the work of God

In spite of the above-mentioned, in the fulfillment of God’s work, much goodness of the flesh is usually in charge, and usually borrows many good resources from the world. In the preaching of the gospel, in the establishment of churches, in the formation and financing of "ministries", in the edification of the believers, that is to say, in practically everything, there are many carnal strategies in action.

How can God support that which originates in the flesh? The spirit and the flesh are irreconcilable entities, and the resources of the flesh cannot produce any spiritual fruit.

If there is some fruit amid that whole profane Christian paraphernalia of today it is not because many human resources have been invested in it, but because, in some moment of the ‘show’, the exciting individual (or singer or televangelist) allowed, in passing, some good word of God to fall into a hungry heart that gave fruit for life. It is the Word and only the Word that is spirit and life. All the rest is good for nothing, because all of it is flesh and nothing but flesh.

God supports His Word, and the Word that leaves His mouth doesn't return empty. Of all the ingredients of the 'show', it is a minuscule portion and almost worthless in what fruit it gives for God’s glory today. How much greater fruit would there be if we inverted the emphases and God’s priorities replaced ours! How much greater fruit would there be if we let go of Saul’s weapons, and we take a sling and a few stones from the stream to demolish the Goliaths that arise in our days!

The complete truth

When coming to John 12:24-25 we find the outcome of this whole beautiful teaching that continues disseminating little by little throughout John's gospel. Let us reconsider the previous truths and let us see how they come together in this passage.

If flesh and blood are of no use to engender a son of God (1:13); if the flesh cannot introduce anybody in the Kingdom of God (3:5-6); if the flesh doesn't serve for anything (but rather only brings death and destruction) (6:63), then the flesh must fall in earth -like a wheat grain - and die. That is the conclusion of everything.

The wheat grain is -as explained in verse 25 - the life in this world." It is human life, the life of the self, with all its desires and its appetites; but not only with its evil desires and its sinful appetites. It is the life of the soul with all its ideas, its good intentions, and its repertoire of kindness. When this life converts to death, the soul is troubled (John 12:27); it is confused and it suffers, but equally it has to die.

The life of the soul (or of the flesh) is so intimate a part of us that it hurts us more than a thorn tearing at our affections. But we have to do it. If we don't, we will be left without fruit. The spirit, locked in the strengths of our soul, won't be able to escape to give life to others. The grain of wheat would be alone, and its final death would not bring anything profitable. It would die of old age, but not voluntarily. Its death would not bring glory to God.

So, what began in John 1:13 as a matter in which the life of God engendered life into men, concludes here (John 12:25) as a matter in which man dies so that the life of God is manifested.

May the Lord help us to accept our death, so that when our soul is troubled, let us not turn back, but continue on until the grain of dead wheat is seen in many new grains, to the glory of God!

(1) Translation taken from Reina Valera 1960.

Copyright © AGUAS VIVAS | CHILE 2001