Page 68 - The Divine Unfolding of God's Plan of Redemption

movement but never coming into vital relation with Him through the touch of faith. To
this woman was granted immediate bodily healing and a promissory note on eternal
life when it should be released.

Power and glory were radiated from His body on all occasions, but life remained
pent up within His divine Person and was never released in the days of His flesh. Even
in the case of Jairus‟ daughter, the son of the widow of Nain, and Lazarus of Bethany

whom He brought back from the sleep of physical death, He did not release life―only
power. They were in reality merely resuscitated to physical life and in no sense
experienced resurrection as Christ experienced it and as every believer will one day
experience it. When resurrection in the real sense takes place, death can never come

again. “Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more. Death hath no more
dominion over Him!” It will be true of every believer likewise.

It was true of the three mentioned and of those brought back from physical death by

Elijah and Elisha, that they all died again. Christ was declared to be and was the
first-begotten of the dead, and none could be raised to a deathless life, an incorruptible
body, until He had broken the very bonds of death and abolished it.

“Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone!” The Creator
Christ is here setting forth a principle which is spiritual as well as biological.

There is no possible way of transmitting the life from a grain of wheat to other

grains except by the process indicated. No skill in the world is sufficient to cut open a
grain of wheat or any other live seed and wrest the life-germ from it and transfer it to
an empty hull of chaff. It must fall into the ground, be covered up with earth, the outer
shell must rot off, before the little green blade can project itself above the level of the

ground. It grows into a stalk and then the seed is reproduced and reduplicated thirty,
sixty, and one hundredfold. The empty hull of chaff if placed in the ground cannot
sprout because it possessed no life to begin with, and the live grain (given the proper
conditions) must sprout because this mystic thing called life is enshrouded within it.

The wheat and the chaff may externally appear the same, but the test comes when they
are put under the ground.

We have been frequently asked in the Far East, “After all, what is the difference in
this doctrine you are preaching and the teaching of our sages?” In such cases we
frequently employ the method used by the Savior when He was interrogated on
various points―“I also will ask thee a question!” Then we say to these Oriental
thinkers, “Did any of your sages sprout after they were once planted?” A blank look of

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