A SOWING

A. J. E. Welch

John 12: 24; 1 Corinthians 15: 37, 38, 42–44

What we are engaged with, dear brethren, is a sowing, and we can look on beyond it to glory that is to come, glory that is extensive and substantial. It all depends upon the grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying (John 12: 24), a unique reference to Jesus. No dying but the dying of Jesus could yield “much fruit”. He alone could go that way. The grain of wheat is not exactly said to be sown; it falls into the ground, a reference to what is uniquely His own action in going into the depths. We can think of the myriads, we can look on and have some impression of the myriads who are the fruit of that death and resurrection of His; He will not be alone. “Except the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, it abides alone”. It is remarkable that that expression is used, “abides alone”, to bring out, by contrast, what the coming day will be when that same glorious Person shall be in the midst of myriads—and our sister will be among them. We shall all who are here together, I would think, be among them.

But then there is sowing, which is spoken of in 1 Corinthians 15; there is something sown and something quickened. The suggestion is clear that though there is the sowing, the glorious result is something which answers to the heart of God. God gives to it a body ‘ as He has pleased’, “and to each of the seeds its own body”. Oh the marvel, dear brethren, of those divine counsels, that in perfect consistency with all that God is in Himself in love and in all His attributes, He can, so to say, use death itself as a means to bring into view what is entirely of Him, and subsists for His pleasure. He “gives to it a body as he has pleased, and to each of the seeds its own body”.

The identity goes through, a marvellous thing! the identity goes through, but free of all limitations, such as those which our sister, latterly especially, has known. We might say that the dying of Jesus has left God absolutely free, in consistency with what He is in Himself, to give to each its own body, to bring us into view according to His pleasure abidingly. What a wonderful contemplation! What a scene opens up, not an empty scene, but a full one, so it says, “It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body”.

Well, dear brethren, that is a wonderful contemplation, to think of what we have before us today as just a sowing, and to look on into the glory of the fruit that is to follow—and the basis of it all is in the dying of Jesus.