I don't believe the plain text of John 12:24

Better to say you don’t understand the passage.

The Baptist theologian Bernard Ramm in his book, Protestant Biblical Interpretation writes this:

(1). When we assert the inerrancy of Scripture we do not assert that the Bible uses scientific language. [SNIP]

(2). No objection can be brought against inerrancy because the language of the Bible is phenomenal. A language which is phenomenal is restricted to terms of description and observation. Its language about astronomy, botany, zoology, and geology is restricted to the vocabulary of popular observation. What can be seen through microscope or telescope is not commented on. Phenomenal language is true because all it claims is to be descriptive. One is not deceived when he sees the sun rise and the sun set. One is deceived only if he artlessly converts his observations into theories.
[Bernard Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation: A Textbook of Hermeneutics, Third Revised Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1970). 210.]

A seed is separated from its life source, it dries up, and it is buried.

You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
1 Corinthians 15:36 (ESV)

Rob

 

Thats a great verse to show the efficaciousness of Christ's Death, it brings forth fruit, converts, His Seed. Many people do not understand it, even those who say they do.

 

Albert Barnes writes:

 

http://www.spurgeon.org/misc/corn.htm

 

Your problem is a failure to understand the Biblical meaning and use of the term "die." In the Bible the term "death" and "die" is used to define a state of spiritual separation from God, a state of spiritual separation from the body and a PROCESS of deterioration due to separation from God or from the body. The hebrew text in Genesis 2 says "DYING that shalt surely die." It is also used to describe the deterioration PROCESS going on in nature.

The seed when placed in contact with the soil begins a stage of decomposition of the outer shell so that the life within takes root. This outer decomposition is in perfect harmony with the term and meaning of "die" as used and defined by the Scritpures.

 

You certainly do not understand it at all! He is addressing saved persons and He is applying this analogy to verse 25-26 that teaches about SERVICE (not salvation) to God that makes your life count for the glory of God.

Death to the self-life is the key to saving your life for the glory of God as a SERVANT of God. Paul teaches the very same thing in Ephesians 5:16-18. Paul teaches the same thing in Galatians 2:20. Death to the self life is how you redeem the time and make your life count for the glory of God. This death comes only through submission to the Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:18).



25 He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
26 If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.

Through his own literal death would come the power of this resurrection life that Paul speaks about in Romans 6 as inseperable from those who have been justified. All who have been justified by faith have been regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit and this resurrection power abides within them to SERVE God.

 

God supervises the choice of words that are used by the writers regardless if the writer or the hearers in that cultural understand the full significance of what is said or not.

The point is that God has chosen the particular expressions and statements so that no truth is contradicted then or now.