He Must Increase

John answered and said, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. 
You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ,’ but, ‘I have been sent before Him.’ 
He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. 
He must increase, but I must decrease. 
He who comes from above is above all; he who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all. 
And what He has seen and heard, that He testifies; and no one receives His testimony. 
He who has received His testimony has certified that God is true. 
For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure. 
The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand. 
He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
[John 3:27-36 NKJV]

John The Baptist is the one who heralded Jesus’ appearing to the world, and the apostle John now switches his account from what Jesus said about Himself to what The Baptist concluded, which was that Jesus was ‘The Bridegroom’, that is, ‘He who comes from heaven’.

John is presenting us here with the growing body of testimony that Jesus is ‘The Anointed One’; ‘The Christ’, and that he, Nicodemus and John the Baptist all hold it that Jesus was and is The Messiah, the gateway to everlasting life. His citing of two independent witnesses who state the truth of this assertion, could have been seen as sufficient in law to prove the case for Jesus.

However, this passage is most significant in the life of a believer for the statement — attributed to John the Baptist — that “He must increase, but I must decrease.” This very effectively sums up in few words what happens in every one who truly follows Jesus.

• It declares the process — we are not immediately perfected in Him, but ‘going on to perfection’
• It is a statement that Jesus is the focus of our spiritual life and that our own motivations and desires are, at best, secondary and also of diminishing importance.
• It clearly establishes the attitude of heart that marks out the true believer in Jesus as the Son of God.

And we can see that in verse 36, we are being offered the promise of everlasting life, and that without Jesus Christ, we shall not see that life. He is the only life that will carry us through, and that life must abide in us.

God’s providences come to you unawares and they produce flurry or faith. If they produce flurry there is no nourishment in God’s Word. The tiniest touch of the wing of God’s providential angel is enough to keep you from concentration on God, and the Bible is of no practical use.

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