Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to John · About this commentary
He Must Increase
John 3:22-30
22 After these things, Jesus came with his disciples into the land of Judea. He stayed there with them and baptized. · WEB
John's followers complain that everyone is going to the other man, and he says that was the plan.
After these things, Jesus came with his disciples into the land of Judea. He stayed there with them and baptized John 3:22.
Only this Gospel records the overlap. For a period the two ministries ran side by side in the same region, and the account is candid that it created friction.
A dispute arose on the part of John's disciples with some Jews about purification John 3:25. The subject is washing, which is what both movements were doing, and the argument evidently turned into a comparison.
"Rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified, behold, he baptizes, and everyone is coming to him" John 3:26.
The complaint is beautifully observed. They will not say his name — he who was with you — and they remind their teacher that he is responsible for this, since he is the one who pointed him out. And the grievance is stated in the language of numbers: everyone is going elsewhere.
It is the oldest temptation in religious work, and it has arrived within a chapter of the man who called himself a voice.
"A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven" John 3:27.
The answer begins by removing the premise. If the crowds are moving, then they were assigned; and if his own portion has shrunk, that too was given. Nobody in this framework is competing, because nobody is distributing.
"You yourselves testify that I said, 'I am not the Christ,' but, 'I have been sent before him'" John 3:28. He holds them to what they had already heard him say. Their complaint only makes sense if they had forgotten it.
"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" John 3:29.
The image settles everything. The friend of the bridegroom was a real office — he made the arrangements, carried the messages, and at the wedding he stood outside the chamber and waited. His whole success consisted in hearing the bridegroom's voice and knowing the thing had come off. A friend who wanted the bride would not be a rival; he would be a disaster.
Therefore my joy is made full. Not tolerated, not borne: full. What his followers are presenting as a loss he receives as the completion of the job.
There is more in the picture than modesty. In the older Scriptures the bridegroom of God's people is God himself Isaiah 62:5 Hosea 2:19–20, and John has just handed that role over without comment.
"He must increase, but I must decrease" John 3:30.
Six words, and they are the last recorded words of John the Baptizer in this Gospel. The verbs are the ordinary ones for a rising and a setting, and neither is offered as a strategy — both are stated as necessities. Must, twice.
What makes the sentence weigh what it weighs is who says it and when. He is at the height of a movement that had drawn the whole country out to a river, and he is looking at the beginning of his own decline and calling it right. Within a few chapters he is in a cell, and this book never mentions him again except in the past tense.
settled What this mark means