[AI translation] What is striking about this saying is that there is no sadness, no resignation, no resignation, no forced resignation to an unchangeable situation, but on the contrary - joy and happiness are all that John says when he says it: He must increase, and I must decrease. In the verse immediately preceding it, there is a straightforward bridal rejoicing, and rejoicing over the bridegroom's voice. And this is what is not self-evident. For when a man finds that he has to be inferior to someone else, he does not usually do so, because he cannot "rejoice with joy"!It is a question here of the disciples of John the Baptist bringing the news to their Master with indignation: 'Master! He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you bore witness, behold, he is baptized, and everyone comes to him." (Jn 3,26) The disciples find it hard to bear this increasing marginalization of their Master. Well, before, everyone went to John the Baptist, but now, all at once, people are leaving him behind, and everyone is going after someone else. Nothing is more natural than that this annoys and irritates the disciples. It is perfectly understandable! Don't we get annoyed when the "downward spiral" begins in our lives? There is nothing in the world that is so against our nature as to be on the downward slope. To come down from some high place, for example a so-called "high horse", to step off the stage, to disappear, and not to shine as we once did. Today, God is teaching a lot of people what it means to come down - and then, if they haven't learned enough, to come down again, and then to come down again! But what joy is there in that?" one might ask. Indeed, nothing in itself. There is also tragic descent. Some people can't even stand it: they collapse, die or commit suicide!
If only John the Baptist had said, "I must go down," this "must" would express the cruelty, the misery, the tragedy of human destiny. But he doesn't say it like that, he says it like this: "He must increase, and I must decrease." (Jn 3,30) And so it is quite different! Now it makes sense to go down! I must come down so that He may grow! And then it is not painful to go down! In fact, it is joyful if He, Christ, grows through it. And once someone notices that Christ begins to grow before him, he will also happily conclude that this is worth every descent!
It is such a natural thing, my brethren. As long as a man has too good a thing, he has so little of Christ that he can do nothing with it! But, as soon as God begins to humble man, begins to humble him, the Lord becomes more and more powerful before him! There are few joys so pure as the joy of such a descent. I have seen men who could give thanks very happily! I say this almost with fear, because those who are weak in faith can easily misunderstand, but on the other hand it can also be a consolation and encouragement: do you know that we have no reason to complain, but can only acknowledge with joyful gratitude that God has "brought down" our Hungarian Reformed Church in its fullness? He has brought it down from the level at which our church stood in terms of wealth, political influence, social importance, schooling, general esteem and popularity. Downgraded! Never mind! Look how much the holy figure of Jesus Christ the Saviour has grown in the Hungarian Reformed Church! All over the country, our young men, our daughters, our husbands and wives are falling on their knees in droves before him!
Brother, if you only see the descent, then you have something to weep for, and as long as you only see the descent, then you always have something to weep for. It may be that God will bring our church even lower. This is the programme that God seems to have set for our church: "He must grow, and I must go down." God is not doing this against the church, but for the sake of His church! Can you accept this with the joy of John the Baptist?! Not as punishment, but as grace?!
Let us now make this question quite personal: How great a Christ do you yourself have? It sounds a strange question, because Christ is only as big as you are. And yet it is true that sometimes Christ is very small in a person's life! He occupies a tiny little place in a heart, he is overshadowed by all sorts of other more important persons and things, he is not so big that he can fill the soul completely. Or does it? Are you so filled with Christ that you cannot, for example, fit into your mind anything from Satan? If your Christ is small, it means that He has not outgrown you, has not risen above you with impressive power, with dominating supremacy. Or has he? Who is greater in your life: you or Jesus? Who has more say in what you do: you, your desires, or Christ? Whose passions are on the edge inside you: your own body, your soul, or Christ's? How much Christ do you have? Shall he not increase, and thou shalt not decrease? It is not that you do not believe in Him, or do not believe in Him well, nor that you do not love Him enough. No! Perhaps there is no fault in all this, but there is a relational fault between you: the ratio is not right. He is not big enough and you are not small enough!
That's the problem with a lot of people: they think they can do something with Christ, like visit Him in church on Sunday; listen to what He says; silence Him if they want to, like closing their Bible; speak to Him in prayer, etc. You see: that's why Christ has to grow, because there is a fatal mismatch here. It is the other way round! He can visit you if He wants to and in any way He wants to: it may be with suffering, with adversity, it may be with a soft and gentle word. He can listen to what you say, if he looks at you with mercy, if he turns towards you. He can speak to you from within, from the depths of your soul, if his Holy Spirit works in you! He can do with you what he wants: he can save you or condemn you! He is the Somebody, you are the nobody. He is everything, you are nothing, He is holy, you are a sinner. He is God, you are man. He must increase, you must decrease!
But how can this happen? Once I was driving to Matrahaza. Driving towards Gyöngyös, I saw the Mátra range in the distance: an insignificant little rise at the edge of the horizon. Then, as we approached it, the mountain grew. As we left Gyöngyös, the mountain giant rose ever higher, and our own person became smaller and smaller in comparison. So it is with Christ. He is small because one looks at Him from a distance! Come closer to Him, and you will see how much He grows! The nearer you approach His holy, mysterious person, the more overwhelming His glory, His power, His love, His grace, His wholeness, will be! I can tell you from experience: the more I know the Lord by His revelation, the deeper and more thoroughly I immerse myself in the study of His mysteries, the Scriptures, the greater I see my Lord, to Whom "all power is given in heaven and on earth" (Mt 28,18b).
John the Baptist marvels at this when he says to his discerning disciples. He who is from earth is of the earth, and speaks of the earth; he who is from heaven is above all." (Jn 3:31) Behold, therefore Christ is greater than all earthly powers, because He is from above, from heaven! He is the only One who came from above. Everyone else is from earth, belongs to the earthly, and this, His origin, defines His essence. Whatever wisdom anyone else besides Christ proclaims is only earthly wisdom - but He says what He has seen and heard where He came from: in heaven!
Jesus is therefore essentially different from even the greatest man in the world. For a human greatness is created by rising up from below, but the greatness of Jesus Christ is reversed: it bends down from above. And no matter how high man may have risen on the wings of science, or power, or art, or technology, no matter how dizzyingly great he may have become, the proverb that trees do not grow to the sky always applies to him - but God in Christ did bend down to the ground. And no matter how much a man may be deified, he will never become a god, but God in Christ became a man. Therefore, His power cannot be measured, His greatness cannot be compared to any earthly power or greatness, because He is not earthly, but heavenly. Though He is like man, yet He is other than man: He is God! Foolishly, I might say, in a qualified way, that Jesus Christ is like a part, a piece, a person of the eternal God, reaching down from heaven, from above to earth, and even through death to damnation.
And once I really stand before Him and look up at Him, contemplating His ever-increasing greatness: my gaze will plunge into infinity! I see Him at the point where He descended from heaven to reach the earth: in the manger at Bethlehem, and then I see Him growing larger as I look up to Him on the cross, His holy form growing still higher as He emerges from the tomb opened at Easter, His greatness becoming quite invisible as I look after Him towards heaven. And what is all this compared with the power and glory with which He will reappear in the clouds of heaven, like the lightning that flashes from sunrise to sunset, when all, in all places, will be forced to acknowledge at once that "He who is from above is above all." (Jn 3,31a)
Oh, Brother, I cannot tell you how great Christ is! But when I try to run my spiritual eyes over His greatness. When I consider that He is the One who died for my sins, He is the One who holds the keys of hell and death, the One into whose hands the Father has given all things. (Jn 3,35) He is the One who judges the world, the One who will come on the clouds of heaven with great power and glory. (Mt 24,30) It is He who will then destroy all empires and all dominions and powers, for He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet (1 Cor 15,24-25) When I think about it like this, I am reminded of something from the terrible perspective that the prophet Isaiah once expressed in this way: "There shall be no end of the increase of his dominion and peace upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to exalt and establish it in righteousness and justice from henceforth and for ever." (Is 9:7)
You see how this echoes John the Baptist's statement, "He must increase, but I must decrease." Notice: there is no limit to either the increase or the decrease. It does not say how long or to what extent this increase or decrease must continue! In other words: there is no limit to either! So neither is the other! It is not possible to say that now I have descended low enough, now I must ascend. Because you have already experienced that every misery, every fall, every fall occurs in the life of a believer when I myself am very big and Christ is not big enough in my life! And this is damnation itself. Because what does it mean? It means that man himself wants to atone for his sins without Christ; he himself wants to solve his problems without Christ; he himself wants to fight death without Christ! The Word says: "But he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." (Jn 3,36b) But, "He who believes in the Son has eternal life"! (Jn 3,36a) In other words, he has eternal life who looks up from the depths of repentance, from the depths of the very depths of sinfulness, to Christ the Saviour, who is descending from the very height of heaven!
"He must grow, but I must fall", now, here, at this communion table! And how wonderful: two directions totally opposed to each other - He grows and I fall - and yet this is the true meeting, the happy meeting, the meeting that gives eternal life!
Amen
Date: 29 October 1950.
Lesson
Jn 3,22-36