He Must Increase
by Chip Brogden
"He must increase, but I must decrease (John 3:30)."
These seven words found in John 3:30
contain the entire mystery of God’s dealings with man from ages past to
eternity future. "He [Christ] must increase." All of God’s works are
towards this end of increasing Christ. In other words, everything God has
done, is doing, and will do is related towards revealing His Son and
bringing us into the full-knowledge (epignosis) of Him. The goal is for
Christ to have the preeminence in all things, beginning with us
individually as disciples, then with the Church, and finally with all
creation, "that He may be All in All."
He MUST increase. Isaiah tells us
that there will be no end of the increase of His government and peace. In
the beginning was the Word, and we can see how God has worked steadily
from the beginning to increase Christ. From types and shadows in the Old
Testament we see Christ coming into view. Then the Word is made flesh and
dwells among us, and Christ is increased yet again. Next He comes to dwell
within us, and this is a major increase. Finally, He begins to conform us
to His own image through the indwelling Life. If we are growing up into
Him then He is increasing daily. Eventually every knee will bow and every
tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Beyond this, we are told
that God will continue to reveal His Son in the ages to come, bringing us
into depths and dimensions of Christ that we cannot fathom.
God is not moving backward, but in
the Son and through the Son, He moves steadily forward. Christ MUST
increase. This is the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus. Just as
we cannot have gravity without having the law of gravity, so it is
impossible to have the Life of the Lord but not have the Law of that Life.
And the Law of Life is that Christ must increase.
"But I must decrease." Why doesn’t
God reveal His Son to us, in all His glory, all at once? What prevents
Christ from filling all things and having the preeminence now? Why do we
not yet see all things submitted to Him? Because we must be decreased. If
He is to become greater then I must become lesser. When Paul says, "Not I,
but Christ," he is saying "He must increase, but I must decrease."
Just as all things are working
together towards God’s purpose of increasing Christ, so all things are
working together towards decreasing us. It does not matter if we
understand it or comprehend it. It does not matter if you believe in it or
agree with it. You are being decreased just the same, and Christ is being
increased. It MUST be so, therefore it IS so. Scientists call this
decreasing "entropy", and it means, "inevitable and steady deterioration".
We can observe this in creation. The present things are groaning and
travailing in pain, deteriorating in order to make way for a new heaven
and a new earth. We begin to die as soon as we are born. We can look in
our own bodies for evidence of "inevitable and steady deterioration" as we
move towards a redeemed body. But more importantly, WE, the "I", the
"Self", is being decreased that Christ may fill us.
How are we decreased? Let us say
right away that it is not your duty to decrease yourself, to become an
ascetic, and crawl around in the dirt in abject poverty. It is not an
outward decreasing, but an inward decreasing, a coming to the end of
ourselves. The Kingdom of God belongs to the poor in spirit. Earlier, John
said, "A man can have nothing except he receive it from heaven." Now we
may have quite a bit, but if we obtained it from a source other than
Christ, it amounts to nothing. Only those sufficiently decreased, the poor
in spirit, can see this. This poverty cannot be achieved through
self-effort. In fact, part of the decreasing process is the realization
that I can do nothing of myself, including decreasing myself. Just as I
cannot commit suicide by crucifixion, so I cannot crucify my flesh. The
only way to learn this is to fail hundreds, even thousands of times. Then
we will learn to say, "I have no confidence in the flesh."
In the world we will experience
temptations, testings, and trials. We will experience persecution,
tribulation, and afflictions of soul and body. We will experience
mistreatment and misunderstanding. It is not a question of God allowing or
not allowing things to happen. It is part of living. Some things we do to
ourselves, other things we do to each other. Our Father knows about every
bird which falls to the ground, but He does not always prevent it from
falling.
What are we to learn from this? That
our response to what happens is more important than what happens. Here is
a mystery: one man’s experience drives him to curse God, while another
man’s identical experience drives him to bless God. Your response to what
happens is more important than what happens.
If we see that offenses are bound to
come, that there is no way to live in the world apart from what happens,
then we must see that the difference between overcoming and not overcoming
lies in our response to what happens.
Paul did not pray to be weak so that
he could be strong. Naturally speaking, we despise weakness. We prefer
strength. But human strength is an illusion. It is not true strength. The
Lord shows us His grace is made perfect (or, is matured) through our
weakness. Now, Paul rejoices in his weakness, in his being decreased: for
"when I am weak, then I am strong." To the degree that we accept the
decrease of ourselves, to that degree will we experience the increasing of
Christ.
We cannot walk the narrow path until
we have entered the narrow gate. But we cannot assume that because we have
entered the narrow gate we are now finished. Most people lay stress on the
gate, and their goal is to get people just far enough through the gate
that they can claim salvation. That is where most of the Church sits
today, just inside the narrow gate, rejoicing in a future salvation, a
future heaven, a future return of Christ, and a future reward. But the
narrow gate is only the beginning. The narrow gate only opens the door to
the narrow way. It is the narrow way which leads to Life, and few find it.
Fewer still walk to the end of it.
Now what we are discussing is an
event as well as a process. There is a once-and-for-all decision to follow
Christ, but we have to keep on following. Entering the gate is a
once-and-for-all event, but walking the path is a process. We gain
everything when we enter the gate, but we must walk the path in order to
now live out of what we have. We are new creations, but we are being
changed daily into the image of Christ. We died with Christ once: yet we
die daily. We were crucified with Him once: yet we take up the cross
daily. We were raised with Him once: yet we experience His Life daily. We
were ascended with Him and we were seated with Him in the heavenlies once:
but we live out the heavenly position in our daily walk, daily ascending
above the earth, above the natural, to sit with Him in His throne as
overcomers.
God wills that "all men would be
saved (narrow gate) and would come to the full-knowledge [epignosis] of
Truth (narrow way)." Those who merely enter the narrow gate have yet to
satisfy God’s heart. There is rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who
repents, but as Arthur Katz has said, "Many are saved, but few are
converted." It is God’s will, His desire, that we come to the end of
ourselves so that Christ may have the preeminence in us. Jesus said, "If
you have seen Me, you have seen the Father." Hebrews tells us that Christ
is the brightness of God’s glory, and the express image (or exact
representation) of His person. Likewise, God’s purpose for us as disciples
(and by extension, the Church) is "if you have seen a disciple, you have
seen Jesus." The Christian is to be the brightness of Christ’s glory, and
the exact representation of His person. I lack the vocabulary to express
this adequately, but I trust the Lord will show us.
This is beyond "mere salvation", this
is conversion, this is conformity to the very image of Christ. He most
certainly does not have the preeminence in us now, thus, "He must
increase, but I must decrease."
We have emphasized the Church for so
long that we have lost sight of the individual disciples of which the
Church consists. If one member lacks, the entire Body goes lacking. It is
not so much a problem with the Church failing to apprehend its fullness as
it is the individual disciples of the Lord failing to count the cost,
suffer all as loss, and progress down the narrow way towards Christ as All
in All. As the disciples go, so goes the Church. If Christ does not have
the preeminence in the Church, it is because He does not have the
preeminence in us as disciples.
If we have truly entered the gate and
are walking the path, if we have truly yielded our lives to Him and long
to know Him, then everything we experience is working to increase Christ
and decrease us. On the positive side, the Holy Spirit is working to bring
us into a more perfect knowledge of Christ. The Spirit is increasing Him,
leading us into "all Truth", towards epignosis. On the negative side, the
principle of the Cross is working to decrease us, to bring us to the end
of ourselves, to reduce us to nothing. Eastern mysticism has long been
aware of this positive and negative at work, it has simply misunderstood
what it means and misappropriated it towards an end other than Christ.
They have observed a principle but lack the Truth to explain the
principle.
We must see that for every decrease
of Self, Christ is increased. Even in our discussions we groan inwardly
about having to die daily, having to give up our way and our will. We
ought instead to be excited about Christ being increased, and how much He
stands to gain in us and through us. He MUST increase, but you MUST
decrease. It is better to relinquish everything now, on a voluntary basis,
and lose our lives in order to gain our real Life. It is more glorious to
enter the Kingdom out of a desire to give Christ the preeminence than to
enter kicking and screaming and crying because we love ourselves too much.
Make no mistake, if it is the Kingdom you seek, the Kingdom you will find,
but you must be changed in order to enter therein. If you seek power from
God you will have to accept weakness in yourself. If you want to rule with
Him you must suffer with Him. If you want His Life you must give up your
life. You can have either one you want, but you cannot have both. There is
no increase without decrease, and there is no decrease without increase.
May the Son be increased through
these words. Amen.