| “But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed his own body” (1 Corinthians 15:38). |
| We all know that every plant and tree is distinct, and that every seed is distinct too. If you plant bean seeds in your garden, you will get bean plants. If you were to plant an apple seed, it would grow an apple tree. But there is something interesting about fruit trees. |
| There are many different kinds of apples, but suppose you took a seed from a MacIntosh apple, and planted it. You would get an apple tree, but would it bear MacIntosh apples on it? No, it would not. You would get wild apples — the kind you sometimes see on wild apple trees growing by the side of a road, or occasionally near a forest. They are small, usually bitter, and not very good to eat. How then do you get a tree to bear MacIntosh apples, or any other kind of good apple that we like to eat? |
| When the tree is young, you have to graft it. This means that you get a bud from a MacIntosh apple tree, and then make a cut in the bark of the tree you have grown from seed. You fit the bud underneath the bark of the wild tree, and then the growth of the tree from that bud will produce MacIntosh apples. The tree now has a “new life” — it has a different life from what it had before. This is true for any kind of fruit, whether it is peaches, or pears, or things like olives that grow in warm climates. Paul talks about grafting in Romans 11, in connection with the future of Israel. |
| Before we are saved, we are all like a wild apple tree. Even if our parents are saved, they do not automatically produce saved children. No, we need a new life in Christ, just as the wild apple tree needs a graft from a tree that produces good apples. We must all be saved individually. |
