This poverty cannot be achieved through self-effort. Only those sufficiently decreased, the poor in spirit, can see this. 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. The Kingdom of God belongs to the poor in spirit. It is not an outward decreasing, but an inward decreasing, a coming to the end of ourselves. 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. But more importantly, WE, the “I”, the “Self”, is being decreased that Christ may fill us. We can look in our own bodies for evidence of “inevitable and steady deterioration” as we move towards a redeemed body. The present things are groaning and travailing in pain, deteriorating in order to make way for a new heaven and a new earth. Scientists call this decreasing “entropy”, and it means, “inevitable and steady deterioration”. You are being decreased just the same, and Christ is being increased. It does not matter if you believe in it or agree with it. It does not matter if we understand it or comprehend it. Just as all things are working together towards God’s purpose of increasing Christ, so all things are working together towards decreasing us. When Paul says, “Not I, but Christ,” he is saying “He must increase, but I must decrease.” If He is to become greater then I must become lesser. “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. And the Law of Life is that Christ must increase. 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.
This is the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus. God is not moving backward, but in the Son and through the Son, He moves steadily forward.
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. Eventually every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. If we are growing up into Him then He is increasing daily.
Finally, He begins to conform us to His own image through the indwelling Life. Next He comes to dwell within us, and this is a major increase. Then the Word is made flesh and dwells among us, and Christ is increased yet again. From types and shadows in the Old Testament we see Christ coming into view. In the beginning was the Word, and we can see how God has worked steadily from the beginning to increase Christ. Isaiah tells us that there will be no end of the increase of His government and peace. 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.” 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. “He must increase.” All of God’s works are towards this end of increasing Christ. These seven words found in John 3:30 contain the entire mystery of God’s dealings with man from ages past to eternity future.
0 kommentar(er)
