His humanity, which was a restriction to His
His humanity, which was a restriction to His divine being. Therefore, He needed to be released through death; that is, He desired that His divine being would be released through death.
Luke 12:49 and 50 correspond to John 12:24: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." Here the Lord likens Himself to a grain of wheat. If a grain of wheat does not fall into the earth and die, it will abide alone and remain the same. But when it falls into the ground and dies, the death of that grain releases the life within it. We may say that death becomes a release to the inner life of the grain of wheat. Through such a release, the riches of the life of the grain of wheat come forth to produce many grains. The Lord Jesus as a grain of wheat fell into the ground and lost His soulish life through death so that He might release His eternal life in resurrection to the many grains.
When we compare John 12:24 with Luke 12:49 and 50, we see that both portions of the Scriptures describe the release of the divine life, or the release of the divine being of the Lord's Person. As God, the Lord Jesus possessed the unlimited eternal life. However, this unlimited