There are many biblical images taken from the world around us that show and remind us how the physical realm expresses faint images of spiritual realities.
These include a city (Rev. 21:2), a many-membered Body (I Cor. 12:27), a vine with many branches bearing fruit (John 15:5), a marriage (Eph. 5:31-32), a household (Eph. 2:19-22) a loaf of bread (I Cor. 10:16-17) and a seed (Gal. 3:16).
These are just a few examples.
But these images all have something in common. Their design is showing us something of God’s ultimate purpose to express Himself on the earth. Here we’ll talk about one of those – a seed.
The fact that Jesus Christ is God’s Seed (Gen. 3:15) will help clarify for us why He couldn’t, wouldn’t and didn’t stay in His first individual human body.
What’s inside a seed
A seed is an amazing thing. It’s a container full of potential. Within that small container is the DNA of the thing that it can become. The final product is always there inside of the seed.
Everything that thing will become is already present even when it’s still in seed form. You can acquire it by getting access to what’s contained inside.
But it’s only when something grows out of the seed that the life inside of it is expressed. Until then, the seed has the fullness of the life of the thing inside of it.
But the fullness of the life of the thing is not being expressed. It’s stuck in a state of potential expression.
How a seed expresses its life
Something must happen to the seed for it to release the potential life.
The disciple John recorded for us one time the Lord Jesus supplied insight into this…
“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.” (John 12:24)
A seed must be planted for it to release what’s inside of it. It must die to be cracked open and express the life inside of it on the earth.
Then, it’s designed to multiply itself. It’s not meant to remain alone. It’s meant to be fruitful and multiply.
Who Jesus Christ was
The first divine human was the Promised Seed of Genesis 3. He was the first perfect human container of the fullness of the Life of God. He was the Divine Seed that contained the Tree of Life inside of Him.
Because this was inside of Him, He carried the potential to spread this Divine Life to other humans. He was planted through His death and what was inside of Him was released at His resurrection.
The Tree of Life was released onto the earth once again. It came out of the Divine Seed.
That tree then bore fruit (John 15:5-8). That fruit contained the seed to be planted inside of any human that believes He is the Promised Seed. To believe is to eat the fruit (John 6:53).
What was going on in Him
The Tree of Life not only came back to the earth again, but it came back inside the human body of Jesus. He bore fruit that was receivable by other human bodies. But those other human bodies were a part of the first Body (I Cor. 12:27), just like they were a part of the first Adam before they received Christ inside of them.
The fullness of God is still inside of the body of Jesus. It’s just many parts, with each part being a different human body.
Mind blown?
How the fullness of God is expressed
Jesus perfectly expressed God’s nature and character while He was in His first Body. But He could not express the community Life of God fully. This is why He had to leave His first Body and enter His second many-but-one Body.
The process of expressing the fullness of God on the earth involves perpetual expansion by going like this…
A seed is planted, the seed dies, the tree grows, fruit is produced and seeds are re-planted. This continues eternally. It’s a picture of eternal life.
As Milt Rodriguez describes in his book The Community Life of God…
One grain of wheat alone could never express the community life of God. That’s because it would take a community of “seeds” to display the community life within God. Each new seed would need to contain the Tree of Life so that it could feed from the life of that Tree.
One solitary Seed could not express the fullness of the corporate God. Although the man, Jesus, contained the fullness of the Triune God, He could not express the fullness as one single man. It would take a whole body of people for that (Eph. 1:22, 23).
This helps clarify exactly why God’s original commission was to “be fruitful and multiply?“
God’s purpose has always been to fully express the many-but-one community life of God on the earth through a community of humans.
Michael Fleming
Mike Fleming is the creator of Finding Healthy Church. Over 20 years ago, he was sparked by the frustration of failing to experience what the biblical story claimed a healthy church was like. He caught a vision and passion for seeing local churches be what they were designed by God to be. He shares what he's learning along the way so the health of local churches around the world are improved. He’s currently working on an eye-opening book that will help better understand what it means for a church to be healthy.