Now we want to see two aspects on the positive side of Christ's death.
Christ's all-inclusive death released the divine life from the shell of His humanity (John 12:24). In incarnation Christ put on humanity, and that humanity became a shell to conceal the divine life. The divine life was hidden, concealed, in Christ's humanity, and this humanity had to be broken on the cross. Christ's death released the divine life from His human shell. He was the one grain falling to the earth to die for the release of His life.
Through His death, Christ imparted the released divine life into the believers, making them many grains for the constitution of the Body of Christ (John 12:24; Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 10:17). This is the positive side of Christ's death: to release the divine life from Himself as the one grain and to impart the divine life into many grains so that the Body could be constituted for Christ's counterpart.
Now we need to see the symbols of the two aspects of Christ's all-inclusive death. These two symbols in John 19:34 are blood and water.
The blood symbolizes the redeeming death of Christ. The blood is for redemption. In this sense Christ's death is a redeeming death.
The water symbolizes the life-releasing and life-imparting death of Christ. The purpose of this is to produce the Body of Christ.
We need to get into all the crucial points of this message to know the all-inclusive death of Christ. All the negative things in the whole universe have been cleared up by the death of Christ. Today if we are going to live the Christian life, we must live it through the death of Christ. "If no death, no life" (see Hymns, #631—chorus).