John the Baptist did not seek to elevate himself as Jesus’ influence and ministry grew. Instead, he declared, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). In this sermon, R.C. Sproul explains how John’s humility and joy at Christ’s exaltation model the proper posture for our Christian lives and ministry.

As we continue with our study of the gospel according to Saint John, we come to John 3:22–36:

After these things Jesus and His disciples came into the land of Judea, and there He remained with them and baptized. Now John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there. And they came and were baptized. For John had not yet been thrown into prison.

Then there arose a dispute between some of John’s disciples and the Jews about purification. And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified—behold, He is baptizing, and all are coming to Him!”

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.”

He who has ears to hear the Word of God, let him hear. Let us pray.

Again, our Father and our God, as we come before this text that You have been pleased to give to Your people as part of the treasury of the church, we pray that the same Holy Spirit who inspired it may now illumine it for us and for our edification. For we ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen.

A Transfer of Allegiance

Throughout the early chapters of John’s gospel, we have been looking at a series of incidents in which the new order inaugurated by Jesus is set in contrast to the old things, and the superiority of that which breaks through with His appearance is set forth. We have seen, for example, the superiority of the wine that He made at Cana from the water of the jars for purification to that wine which the bridegroom had served. We have seen that when Christ is lifted up, He will exceed in greatness that episode in the Old Testament where Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. Now, we come to this passage at the end of chapter 3, where we see a comparison between the ministry of John the Baptist and the ministry of Jesus.

We are told in verse 22 that after the discussion with Nicodemus, Jesus and His disciples came into the land of Judea. You may notice that if this passage follows what came immediately before it, they already were in Judea. They were in and about Jerusalem, but the idea here is that they are now moving outside of Jerusalem into the uttermost parts of Judea as the Judean ministry expands. There are interesting footnotes to this in terms of Jesus’ total itinerary that the Synoptic Gospels give us, but we will pass over that for now.

The point I want us to see here is that John’s disciples are entering into a dispute with the leaders of the day, and they come to John and challenge him. They address him as “Rabbi,” which is a term of respect, and they say: “Rabbi, remember He who was with you at the Jordan, the One that you testified to? Behold now, He’s baptizing, and everyone is coming to Him.”

One of the issues that the early church faced was a divided loyalty between their commitment to John the Baptist and their commitment to Jesus. It was some people’s joy to continue to drive a wedge between the disciples of John and the disciples of Jesus.

I am sure it must have been hard for the followers of John to transfer their loyalty and allegiance to Jesus. But what comes across so clearly in this passage is that there was no problem in John’s heart about making that transfer. So, the people come, and they say, “You’re baptizing here, but that fellow you talked about at the Jordan, He’s baptizing, and more people are coming to Him to be baptized than are coming to you.”

Joy for the Bridegroom

Listen to John’s answer, which should be instructive for us: “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven.” In one sense, John is speaking about the principle of vocation. What do we have that we have not received? Every talent, every gift that we have has been given to us from God, and we understand that we each have our own vocation.

The term vocation comes from the Latin word that means “to call.” God has called each one of us to the place where we are in this life. Sometimes we are engaged in jealousy, envy, and backbiting, trying to advance our position over our neighbor, tearing down our neighbor so we can replace him in status or exaltation. When we do that, we despise the gifts of God.

As we completed our study of the Ten Commandments in our Sunday school class, we looked at the tenth commandment, “Thou shalt not covet.” We spent quite some time talking about the New Testament principle of contentment. For example, the Apostle Paul says of his life that he learned to be content. Contentment is not natural for fallen people. Rather, we are assaulted by spirits of envy and covetousness, where we want what someone else has. We want to have the job or position that someone else has.

People come to John and try to stir up that spirit within him: “What do you think, John? He’s getting more than you are.” Do you remember in the Old Testament, “Saul has slain his thousands, David his tens of thousands”? When Saul heard that, he wanted to kill David. By contrast, when John the Baptist is told that Jesus has a larger following, he is thrilled, because that means God is honoring the vocation that He gave to John in the first place.

Listen to how John responds to this. He says, in essence: “A man can receive nothing unless it’s been given to him from heaven. You heard me bear witness. I told you that I’m not the Christ. The gift I’ve been given from heaven is to be the one whom the Father sent to go before the Christ.” Throughout, he testifies that he is the voice crying in the wilderness. He is the herald of the kingdom of God. He is the forerunner of the King Himself, and he cannot wait to see the manifestation of the One whom the Father is sending as the Messiah.

John is saying: “He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The bride doesn’t belong to me.” Perhaps he is thinking back to the Old Testament economy in which Israel was seen as the bride of God. This was in anticipation of the New Testament church, which would be presented to Christ as His bride. John is saying: “I am not the bridegroom. The bride isn’t mine; the bride is His. But I’m the best man, and I get to go to the wedding feast and stand next to the Bridegroom as He enters into the joy of this wedding.”

For John, that is an unspeakable privilege, a joy that is matchless and immeasurable. He does not covet the bride, but he delights to stand with Christ the Bridegroom on the occasion of the wedding: “I’m the friend of the Bridegroom, who stands and hears Him, who rejoices greatly because of His voice, and therefore my joy is fulfilled.”

He Must Increase

Listen to what he says next, which is perhaps the most famous statement from the lips of John: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” I want to point out one detail about this statement: John is not suggesting a strategy that he has devised.

John does not meet with his disciples and say: “From now on, we need to lighten up a bit. We pointed out the Messiah; we called attention to the Lamb of God. Now that He has emerged, come out of obscurity, and entered into His public ministry, we need to call attention to that, because that would be a wise thing to do. It’s a good strategy.” No, John says, “He must increase,” and the force of that statement is, “It is necessary”—that is, the increase of Christ is not an option; it must happen.

John has his marching orders. He is called to go before Christ, and once he announces Christ, John is to go into the background so that Christ might emerge in the fullness of His leadership as the appointed Messiah. “It’s necessary,” John says. “It’s not optional. This has to happen. It has to take place. I have to decrease. He must increase.”

Why must John decrease and Christ increase? Here is the contrast again: “Because He who comes from above is above.” There is a play on words here. Remember where Jesus came from. He did not just come out of Jerusalem and come along the Jordan River. His point of origin is heaven itself. He has come from above, and the One who has come from above must be above.

Then John goes on to talk about his own origin. He is basically saying: “I am of the earth, earthly; and that which is of the earth cannot have preeminence over that which is from heaven.” So, he says, “He who comes from above is above all; he who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth.” John is speaking of himself. But then he says, “He who comes from heaven is above all. And what He has seen and heard, that He testifies.”

John is agreeing with Jesus’ testimony—and this is important later in the text when there are disputes with the leaders of the Jews—that He comes from above, and the things He teaches are not of His own creation. Jesus says, “I teach nothing on My own authority, but that which the Father has given to Me.” Christ comes from heaven, and He comes with the words of God. He is the Apostle of the Father, divinely appointed to come to earth and declare the very words of God Himself.

God’s Love for the Son

John continues: “And what He has seen and heard, that He testifies; and no one receives His testimony.” The next verse seems to contradict that, because it says, “He who has received His testimony.” Speaking generally, as John tells us in the beginning, the light comes into the world, and the world does not receive it. He comes to His own, and they receive Him not. That is a general truth, but there is still this element that calls attention to those who did receive Him: “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).

The text continues back in John 3:34: “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.” When God anoints His Son the Messiah with the Holy Spirit, the anointing given to Christ is not piecemeal or partial. It is not like God measures out a little dose to give to His Son. Rather, in immeasurable dimensions, the Father pours out the Spirit upon the Son.

“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.” Beloved, the whole of Scripture speaks to us about the love of God for His people. Often, we fix our attention so much on God’s love for us that we forget the ground of His love for us is the love that He has from eternity for His Son.

Remember, we are not the natural children of God. We are the adopted children of God, and even our election must always be understood to be in the Son. It is because of the Father’s love for the Son that we can be here at all. Even as we come to the Lord’s table, we need to have the love of the Father for the Son in our minds.

Look to the Marriage Feast

When we come to the Lord’s table, we do not just look to the past and remember what Christ accomplished for us on the cross. We do that, but we also look ahead to the future. We look to the marriage feast of the Lamb. There is a sense in which every time we participate in the Lord’s Supper, we have a taste of heaven, because we have already received our invitation to the marriage feast between the Bridegroom and His bride.

We are invited not simply to be friends of the groom, and not simply to be friends of the bride, but we are invited to be the bride. That is what is going on here. So this morning, the Bridegroom comes to meet at His table with His bride. The spirit of the bride is saying, “Come.”

I invite all of you who have repented of your sins and have fled to Christ for your redemption, who have embraced Him by faith and by faith alone, who have experienced the remission of your sins, that all of those who are in Christ Jesus and are part of His body, the church, and who are not currently under the discipline of an evangelical church to come to the Lord’s table.

We remember the words of institution, how the Apostle Paul tells us that on the night in which Jesus was betrayed, He took bread. When He had blessed it, He broke it, and said to His disciples, “This is My body, broken for you.” Later in the course of the meal, after they had supped, He took the cup, and He spoke of a new covenant, a covenant that was established in His blood for the remission of our sins. We come this morning to look forward to that moment when we will feast with Him in His kingdom. Let us pray.

Our Father, even now we ask that You would take the common elements of bread and wine and set them aside for an uncommon and sacred use, and that by Thy Spirit, we may meet with the resurrected and ascended Christ, that we may be strengthened by Him in this sacrament, that it may indeed be for us a means of grace, and that we may experience a fresh sense of the forgiveness of our sins and the strengthening of our inner person by His Spirit. Sanctify us and forgive us as we come into His presence. For we ask it in His name. Amen.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.