ChipBrogden
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.
What Prevents the Increase of Christ?
“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.
By Chip Brogden
“And they overcame [the dragon] by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their Testimony, and they loved not their own lives unto the death” (Revelation 12:11).
Whenever I speak or write on the subject of the Overcomers I always preface my remarks by saying that overcoming is the normal Christian life. God has not created an elite group of super-spiritual people within the Church who have some special “anointing” or power.
I am well aware that some people teach and believe that the Overcomers are a special class of people that will rise up and exercise great authority over the earthly kingdoms of this world – even over their spiritually immature brothers and sisters. We reject that on the basis that every believer, whether they know it or not, is already complete and is already blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ (Colossians 2:10; Ephesians 1:3).
I pray God will open our eyes to see that God’s purpose for the Overcomers is not to establish an earthly kingdom, but to enlarge and increase a spiritual kingdom that is not seen outwardly, but is hidden within each believer (Luke 17:20,21). This is no earthly kingdom, for it is “not of this world” (John 18:36). When Jesus perceived that the people were going to take Him by force and make Him an earthly king, He left them and went up into a mountain, alone (John 6:15). When Peter drew his sword, Jesus told him to put it away. From these examples it should be obvious that overcoming is a heavenly reality, not an earthly achievement or accomplishment.