ACC ~ John 3 v30

JOHN DIMINISHES AS KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST INCREASES

BEDE: The crowd believed that [John] was the Christ because of the greatness of his power, while some people supposed that our Lord was not the Christ but a prophet because of the weakness of his flesh. John himself revealed the secret meaning of this difference…. Our Lord increased because it became known to believers throughout the entire world that he who was believed to be a prophet was the Christ. John diminished and decreased because it became apparent that he who was judged to be the Christ was not himself the Christ but the herald of the Christ. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPELS 2.20. [1]

[1] CS 111:204-5.

GOD INCREASES AS HE LIVES IN US

AUGUSTINE: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” What is this? He must be exalted, but I must be humbled. How is Jesus to increase? How is God to increase? The perfect does not increase. God neither increases nor decreases. For if he increases, he is not perfect; if he decreases, he is not God. And how can Jesus increase, being God? [1] … This is a great mystery! Before the Lord Jesus came, people were glorifying themselves; he came as a man to lessen human glory and to increase the glory of God…. For this is what the apostle says, this is what holy Scripture says: “He that glories, let him glory in the Lord.” [2]

Will you glory in yourself? You will grow; but you will grow worse in your evil. For whoever grows worse is justly decreased. Let God, then, who is ever perfect, grow and grow in you. For the more you understand God and apprehend him, he seems to be growing in you; but in himself he does not grow, being always perfect…. Do but examine the nature of humanity: a person is born and grows, he learns the customs of people. What does he know but earth and things of the earth? He speaks the things of people, knows the things of people and minds the things of people. Carnal, he judges carnally, conjectures carnally. Everything is about humanity! Let the grace of God come and enlighten his darkness, as it said, “You will lighten my candle, O Lord; my God, enlighten my darkness”; [3] let it take the mind of humanity and turn it toward its own light. Immediately [John] begins to say, as the apostle says, “Yet not I, but the grace of God that is with me,” [4] and “Now I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me.” [5] That is to say, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 14.4-6. [6]

[1] In the intervening text, Augustine reasons that the increase cannot refer to the human, creaturely growth of the boy Jesus into an adult, since John the Baptist and Jesus were both”already thirty years old” at this meeting, according to Lk 3:23.

[2] See 1 Cor 1:31; Jer 9:24.

[3] See Ps 18:28 (17:29 LXX, Vg).

[4] 1 Cor 15:10.

[5] See Gal 2:20.

[6] NPNF 1 7:95-96**.