Luke 8:5-11 “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it. (6) Some fell on rock; and as soon as it sprang up, it withered away because it lacked moisture. (7) And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. (8) But others fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold." When He had said these things He cried, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear!" (9) Then His disciples asked Him, saying, "What does this parable mean?" … (11) "Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.”
We saw at the outset of this teaching, that our Lord Jesus likened the kingdom of God in the believer, to a mustard seed that is sown and grows into a large tree. In the above quoted parable, our Lord taught the same truth regarding salvation. For He taught us that all believers are born of the seed of the word of God, and that seed which is sown on good ground yields a crop a hundredfold. The important truth that we need to see from this parable as far as spiritual growth is concerned, is that it all starts out in seed form, and grows from there.
1 Peter 1:23 “having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.”
We have seen that is our spirits that are born again, but just like any birth in the natural, our spirit is born again in seed form. No one is born again, spiritually mature. In the above passage of scripture, the Holy Spirit through the apostle Peter, tells us that we have been born again, of the incorruptible seed of the word of God. And so, just as in the natural, when the seed is sown in the womb it looks nothing like the body that it will eventually become, but nevertheless, everything that God intends that body to become is already inside the seed, so it is with the seed of God’s word which is our spirits. The seed of our new spirits have been born of the incorruptible word of God, and in that seed is everything that God intends our spirits to become.
1 John 3:9 “Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.”
The apostle John uses the same terminology that the apostle Peter uses, to explain the new birth. For he also speaks of the one who is born of God, as having the seed of God in him. The seed that John refers to, is obviously the seed of the word of God.
1 Corinthians 15:36-38 “Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies. (37) And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain--perhaps wheat or some other grain. (38) But God gives it a body as He pleases, and to each seed its own body.”
In the context of the above passage of scripture, the apostle Paul is teaching the church about our resurrected bodies. In his teaching, he explains how God uses our current mortal bodies, as the seed that is sown to raise up our immortal bodies. He explains the concept to us, by showing us in the natural, how God creates every type of body that we see in the earth today from a seed, and that that seed looks nothing like the body that it eventually becomes. And so, we see that the concept that Paul teaches, can also be applied to the new birth, for before our new man is created, the bible plainly teaches us that our old man dies (Romans 6:6), and our new creation is then born again of the seed of the word of God. And so, in the seed of our new man, is everything that God intends our new man to become when it is fully grown.
1 Corinthians 3:6-7 “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. (7) So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.”
In the above passage of scripture, the apostle Paul is speaking to the church at Corinth and in context, he is speaking about their spiritual growth, or rather their lack of it. Paul had planted the church in Corinth, and he illustrates that fact to them, by telling them that he had planted, and that Apollos had watered. One only plants and waters seeds, and so clearly the apostle Paul was likening their new birth to the seed of God’s word that had been sown in them.
Michael E.B. Maher
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