And Jesus answered them,— If we suppose that our Lord spoke these words as the Greeks were introduced to him, the following discourse will discover many a latent beauty. Our Lord might enlarge perhaps on some of the hints in this discourse; and if his hearers took a due notice of them, and made a proper report on their return home, it might prepare the way for the apostles, when they came, by their preaching, more fully to unfold and illustrate these important doctrines. Our Lord here declares, that the appointed time was now at hand, when he should be honoured by the conversion of the Gentiles, an earnest whereof they now had in the approach of the present Greeks: at the same time he told them, that he was to suffer death before he arrived at this glory; and illustrated the necessity of his dying by the similitude of grain cast into the earth, John 12:24. "As the only way to make grain produce fruit, is to bury it in the ground; so the grand primary method of bringing about the conversion and salvation of all that believe is, that I die and be buried." Our Lord's resurrection, (to omit other things,) that grand miracle on which the truth of Christianity in a very considerablemeasuredepends,andbywhichthesalvationof the faithful was effected, happened in consequence of his death. Dr. Heylin renders the 24th verse more clearly thus: If the grain of wheat that falls into the ground dieth not, it remains there a single grain; but if it die, it becometh very fruitful.
Related Commentaries of John 12:23
John 12:23-24
23 And Jesus answered them, saying,The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.
24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.