NOTES for Joh 3:28-29

John's testimony about Jesus is the chief meaning of his ministry. Including, and first of all, his ministry as a prophet. Indeed, a prophet is above all a witness. God's witness. A witness of the Kingdom. A person who in himself, however paradoxical this may seem at first glance, has less importance than anyone else, at least as far as his ministry is concerned. Indeed, how much is required of a witness?

In essence, only one thing: to distort nothing. To tell everything exactly as he saw it. So that the narrator himself is not in the story at all. Or is present so little that his presence has no effect on the story. If ordinary human testimony is in view, this means that the witness must be as dispassionate as human nature allows.

No emotions, no semantic accents arranged according to one's own view of the situation. Only facts, in as much detail as possible. Of course, such testimony is an unattainable ideal, but a conscientious witness always strives toward it. And if the testimony is prophetic? Here everything is more complicated, because one cannot communicate with God in a detached way, and one cannot speak of what God reveals as something extraneous. Here the personality of the witness is unquestionably important.

But along with personality comes the problem, well known to physicists, of the observer: observation is also a kind of interaction with the object, and it happens that this interaction in itself changes the state of the object observed. A pure experiment does not result. In a person's communication with God something similar sometimes happens, though in another sense. Touching human nature, the revelation given by God changes through that very contact. How, then, can one remain an unbiased witness? God finds a way: He takes a person's consciousness fully under His control.

Of course, for a time and with that person's consent. And He speaks in the language of the witness. Literally. The problem of human nature is solved. But what if the issue is the Messiah? The One for whom the very fact of His existence becomes testimony? Here only one thing is possible: to point to Him and disappear. To step aside. To become a completely ordinary person, unremarkable in terms of ministry. And John does exactly this. "He must increase, but I must decrease."