Excerpts from the CNT:

The Gospel of Matthew begins with the Son of David (1:1) and ends with the Triune God (28:19). In between chapters one and twenty-eight we have the Sower (13:3). The Lord Jesus clearly considered Himself a Sower. In His ministry He apparently was a teacher and a preacher. Actually, in teaching the truth and in preaching the gospel, He was a Sower, and His life was a life of sowing. As the Sower, the Lord Jesus was the Distributor of the divine life.

a. Sowing Himself as the Seed of Life into Us

The Sower is the wonderful person of the Lord Jesus, and the seed sown is also the Lord Himself as the embodiment of the Triune God. Christ has sown Himself as the seed of life into us (vv. 4a, 8). Christ is the seed signified by the word (v. 19), and we, the chosen ones of God, are the soil. In the sight of God, we are the soil for growing Christ. Therefore, Christ as the word is the seed of life sown into us as the soil.

Christ came to earth not only to be with us but also to be sown into our being. Through incarnation He became the seed of life, and in His ministry He sowed this seed into others. This means that He sowed Himself as the embodiment of the Triune God into His believers. As the Sower Christ has sown Himself as the seed of life into our hearts so that He may live in us, grow in us, and be expressed from within us. 

Just as the seed of life is planted into the earth, is mingled with the element of the earth, and grows together with the earth to produce the plant, Christ has sown Himself as the seed of life into us as the earth and both He and we grow together. He as the life seed has a certain kind of element, and we as the growing earth also have a certain kind of element, and the two mingle together and grow together to be one plant. This is the Body of Christ constituted with the divine life mingled with humanity. The Body of Christ in reality is a plant growing out of Christ as the life seed into the human heart as the growing earth.

We need to see the vision of Christ, the Sower, sowing Himself as the seed of life into human beings. This vision is the very heart of the Lord’s recovery, for it is related to the desire of the Lord’s heart. Throughout more than sixty years, the Lord has been showing us what is on His heart: He desires to come into us, His chosen people, to be our life in the way of mingling in order to make Himself our element and to make us His expression. Christ, the embodiment and expression of the Triune God, has sown Himself into our being. What a deep and profound matter this is!

b. Making Us the Wheat of Life

By sowing Himself as the seed of life into us, Christ makes us the wheat of life (v. 30b). As the wheat of life we are the many grains produced by Christ (John 12:24). The Triune God in His embodiment has been sown into our being to grow wheat, producing the many grains that can be blended together to be one entity, the one Body of Christ (1 Cor. 10:17). This thought is high, deep, and profound.