John 12:24Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

But the disciples did not understand His words. The evangelist constantly makes this clear, wishing to excuse their later flight. Paul used the same kind of speech when discussing the Resurrection.

What excuse, then, will unbelievers in the Resurrection have, when it is presented daily in seeds, in plants, and in our birth?

For the seed must first decay, and only then does birth occur. Yet, generally speaking, where God acts, there is no need for reasonings. How did He create us from nothing?

I say this to Christians who say of themselves that they believe the Scripture. But I shall also say something on the basis of human reasonings.

Some people live wickedly, others virtuously. Among the wicked, many live to deep old age and enjoy prosperity. With the virtuous, the opposite happens.

When, then, will each receive according to his deserts? At what time? This is true, they say, but there will be no resurrection of bodies.

Have they not heard what Paul said? This corruptible must put on incorruption (1 Cor 15:53). He is not speaking here of the soul, because the soul is not subject to corruption.

Moreover, rising belongs to what has fallen. It is the body that fell. And why do you refuse to admit the resurrection of bodies?

Is it impossible for God? To say so is utter madness. Or is it unfitting? Why is it unfitting that a corruptible being, which shared in labor and death, should also share in crowns?

If it were unfitting, it would not have been created in the beginning, and Christ would not have taken flesh upon Himself.

That He both assumed it and raised it, hear how He says: Put your fingers here, and see, for a spirit has not bones and sinews (Jn 20:27; Lk 24:39).

Why did He raise Lazarus, if it is better to rise without a body? Why does He place this among miracles and benefactions? And why did He give food at all?

No, beloved, do not be deceived by heretics. There truly is a resurrection, and there is a judgment. Only those who do not wish to give an account of their deeds reject them.

Moreover, the Resurrection must be like the Resurrection of Christ. For Christ is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead (Col 1:18).

If resurrection consists in the purification of the soul and liberation from sins, and Christ did not sin, then how have we been delivered from the curse?

And how does He say: The prince of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me (Jn 14:30)? This means that He is sinless.

Therefore, according to them, either Christ did not rise, or, if He rose, He sinned before the Resurrection. But He both rose and committed no sin. Therefore He rose in the body.

That impious teaching is nothing other than the offspring of vainglory. Let us flee this disease, for it is said: Evil company corrupts good morals (1 Cor 15:33).

This is not apostolic teaching. Marcion and Valentinus invented it. Let us flee from it, beloved.

With wrong dogmas, there is no benefit even from a good life. Likewise, sound dogmas are useless with a wicked life.

The Greeks gave birth to this, and the heretics spread it. They borrowed from pagan philosophers and asserted both that matter is uncreated and many other similar things.

Thus, just as they said that, if there were no uncreated matter, there would be no Creator, so also they rejected the Resurrection.

Let us not heed them, knowing the almighty power of God. Let us not heed them. I say this to you. For our part, we shall not refuse to enter into battle with them.

An unarmed and defenseless man can easily be captured, even if he enters battle with a weak opponent, and even if he is stronger than his opponent.

If you heeded Scripture and trained in it daily, I would not urge you to avoid battle with them. On the contrary, I would even advise you to contend with them, because truth is strong.

But because you do not know how to use Scripture, I fear this battle. I fear that they may find you unarmed and cast you down.

In reality, nothing is weaker than they are, because they are deprived of help from the Spirit. If they make use of pagan wisdom, this should not surprise us.

Rather, it deserves laughter that they are guided by foolish teachers. Indeed, those teachers could not arrive at anything true, either about God or about creation.

What every widow among us now knows, Pythagoras himself did not know. They said, for example, that the soul becomes now a plant, now a fish, now a dog.

Tell me, should such people be listened to? What basis is there for this? They appear great in the streets. They grow beautiful hair and dress in cloaks.

Their philosophy is limited to this. But look within, and all is dust and ashes. There is nothing sound. Their throat is an open grave (Ps 5:10).

Everything is full of uncleanness and corruption, and all their dogmas are filled with worms. Thus the first among them regarded water as god, the next fire, and the third air.

All supposed they had found him in bodies. Tell me, should we marvel at such men, who did not even have a conception of the bodiless God?

If they finally acquired such a conception, it was after they had entered into contact with ours in Egypt.

But in order not to stir up great disturbance among you, I shall end my discourse here.

If I began to set out their opinions in detail, how they reasoned about God, about matter, about the soul, and about bodies, there would be great laughter.

Moreover, they do not need our refutation. They refuted one another themselves. Thus, the one who wrote a book against us about matter refuted himself.

Therefore, so as not to weary you in vain and not to unfold before you a labyrinth of words, I shall say this instead of everything. We must heed divine Scripture and not enter into useless disputes.

Paul also teaches Timothy this (2 Tim 2:14), although Timothy was filled with great wisdom and had the power of miracles.

Let us follow his instruction. Leaving empty talk, let us occupy ourselves with deeds, that is, with love of the brethren and love of strangers. Above all, let us take care for almsgiving.

Thus may we attain the promised good things by the grace and love for mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory unto ages of ages. Amen.

He gave this gain to bear fruit through Him not only to the dead, but also to the living. Indeed, the Lord's word can very plausibly be turned into a parable. The fruit of Christ's sufferings is the life of all, both dead and living. For Christ's death became the seed of life. But did the divine nature of the Word become subject to death? Would it not be utterly impious to say this? The Word, who is from God and the Father, is Life by nature. He raises up instead of falling. He abolishes death instead of being possessed by corruption. He gives life to what needs life, rather than seeking life Himself from another. As light could not be darkness, so it is impossible for Life not to be life. How, then, is it said of one and the same Person that He will both fall into the earth as a "grain of wheat" and rise as "God with a shout" (Ps 46:6)? Clearly it was fitting for Him to taste death insofar as He became man. But giving life belongs to Him according to His divine nature. *** The human race may be likened to the ears of grain in the fields. It rises, as it were, from the earth and awaits the fullness proper to it. With the passage of time it is cut down, and in this it finds its death. So Christ Himself also said to the holy disciples: "Do you not say, There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest? But I say to you, lift up your eyes and see the fields, that they are white and ready for harvest. He who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life" (Jn 4:35-36). Therefore, as I have just said, those who live on earth can very easily be compared to a field sown with grain. Christ became like us, arising from the Holy Virgin in the manner of an ear of grain. Therefore He Himself called Himself a grain of wheat, saying: "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 also became, as it were, an offering for us to the Father. In the sense of a sheaf, He became the firstfruits of the earth, which testifies through its produce to its own fruitfulness. The ear, named as one, is not only one, just as we ourselves are not merely one. It is brought as a sheaf, that is, as one bundle composed of many ears. This is necessarily for our benefit and is an image of the mystery. For there is one Jesus Christ (1 Cor 8:6). Yet spiritually, as in the form of a sheaf, He is shown as one composed of many. This is what He is, since He contains in Himself all who believe, according to spiritual unity. Otherwise, how does blessed Paul write that we have been raised together with Him and shall be seated with Him in the heavens (Eph 2:6)? Since He became like us, we have also become members of His body and have been enriched with unity with Him through the body. Therefore we say that all of us are enclosed in Him. Thus He Himself says in one place to the heavenly Father and God: "As I and You are one, so may they be in Us" (cf. Jn 17:22).

But if he loves himself more than those many, and if for his own welfare he is ready to sacrifice their fate, then he remains untouched, but fruitless, like the condemned fig tree. Whoever loves his earthly life so much that he does not dare sacrifice it for the good of others in essence loses everything. By guarding in every way this life, which seems only a moment compared with eternity, he deprives himself of the blessedness of eternal life. But whoever regards eternal life as higher than this fleeting life will not hesitate to sacrifice it, if the good of his neighbors or the triumph of truth requires it. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

If it were possible to imagine that He had not died for the world, then the latter would not have been made spiritually fruitful. This figure of speech was all the more fitting and forceful when the Lord spoke, because the grain of wheat played an important role in the Greek mysteries.

A grain of wheat, thrown into the ground, sends out a root and wholly decays. But in place of one grain, one hundred and three hundred grains appear. The greatness of the self-sacrifice accomplished by the Son of God is beyond survey. It is not surprising if the thought of His death on the Cross seems so strange to the Gentile, 1 Cor 1:23. Yet the history of Christianity shows how fruitful this death is. “Let them not be troubled if He dies, for then especially the preaching will increase and the Gentiles will believe,” Ammonius. By the experience of life they learn that the death of the Son of God on the Cross is the only reconciliation of guilty humanity with the righteousness of God. For this reason the pagan nations receive the teaching of the Cross with such thirst. The thought of the Son of God’s self-sacrifice is a fruitful grain not only in relation to the increasing number of confessors of Christ’s name. It is the same kind of grain in relation to the process of spiritual life in every person. Thus here is the brief dogmatics for the Gentile: the teaching about the death of the Son of God. In what does the brief moral teaching for the Gentile consist? “He who loves his life will lose it.” To love one’s life means to love oneself, Lk 9:23-24. The pagan is self-loving and unbridled in the passions. How can he fail to cherish his passions, his selfhood, and his love of glory, honor, money, and pleasures? All this is his property, his very self. How can he raise his hand against himself? But as long as he loves himself and does not rise up against himself, his salvation is impossible. More than that, day by day he only multiplies disorder in his spiritual organism. Why? For what reason? Because he lives in estrangement from God, the principle and source of life. Because self-love in corrupted man does not desire man’s good, but loves only transgressions. Each of us can learn all this by experience, if he observes himself. “If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me.” If anyone wishes to be a true servant of Christ, a true disciple, he must walk as He walked, 1 Jn 2:6. Like Him, he must take up his cross, Mt 16:24, and go by the sorrowful path, 1 Pet 2:21. Such is the application of the teaching about the death of the Son of God to our life. It is hard here, but there man will not regret fulfilling it. “Where I am, there My servant will be also. My Father will honor him.” The constant dwelling of the Son of God is in heaven, in eternal glory. There also will be His faithful disciple. The heavenly Father, the cause of all, will reward such a disciple. No earthly king will bestow honors and glory on a faithful servant as the heavenly King will reward him.

Energy will appear, and what energy. You will say to yourself: only one little minute remains; the sentence is about to come. Let me hurry to do something. And you will do it. So it will be at every moment.