How Many Times Can You Die Before You Die?

“But Jesus answered them, saying, ‘The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain’” (John 12:23-24 NKJV).

Jesus refers to His death and resurrection as the hour that He should be glorified.

How is He glorified? The same way a grain of wheat is glorified. It falls into the ground and dies. But then it rises again to produce much grain.

This theme of death and resurrection seems to catch His disciples by surprise. But it shouldn’t have. It’s the main theme of Scripture. Every hero and heroine in the Word had a figurative death and then resurrection.

The books and movies that we enjoy today often have a death and resurrection theme.

Nature loves it. Not only with grain, but also with caterpillars and compost.

Job had the opportunity of dying in this life. In a few minutes his servants came and told him how he had lost all his riches and even his children (Job 1:13-19). Job then strips himself, shaves his head, and says:

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
And naked shall I return there.
The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away;
Blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21 NKJV).

Job knew he would one day die naked. He didn’t bring anything into this world and he wouldn’t bring anything out. And now he was as naked as he would be on the day of his death. But he wasn’t actually dead.

Most people stop reading Job there, but at the end of the book, we see Job’s resurrection. He is restored twice as much as before.

What would your reaction be if God stripped you of everything? Would you “count it all joy”? Would you rejoice because you are convinced that the nakedness of death will soon be covered by a robe of resurrection?

I hope so, because that isn’t a theoretical question. One day you will be stripped of everything. One day you will die.

Job had the blessing of practicing his death and resurrection in this life. But don’t we also? Isn’t every trial a form of death? And isn’t the growth that comes from those trials a resurrection?

Here is what I wish for myself and for you. May we—in this life!—die and rise up as many times as we can. Instead of stagnantly waiting for only our final death and resurrection.

What do you think?
Joseph