Must he increase and must I decrease

The year 2019, I heard a pastor who made his audience understand that the normal for a Christian was to live and confess this verse of John 3/30: which is: " He must increase, but I must decrease".

Many Believers, indeed, apply this verse to them, thinking: "Jesus must grow in me and that me, my old nature must decrease".

I too have sincerely confessed this verse for several years in my Christian life.

Today I am convinced that a child of God actually aspires to grow in Jesus-Christ, but cannot aspire for his old nature to diminish, for that would be to deny what Jesus Christ did for him, and by the same opportunity to deny Jesus.

The apostle Paul writes in Romans chapter 6 verses 6 and 7.
“We know that our old nature or old self was crucified with him, in order that the body of sin might be destroyed, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin; for one who has died has been set free from sin. "

Indeed, we do not want to decrease or to strip away little by little the old self, since he is already dead in Jesus Christ, but we want to put on ourselves, that is to say, to grow ever more in Jesus Christ.
And this is what Paul said in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 4

For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened, no that we would, be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

It was John the Baptist who said: "He must increase but I must decrease. "
John the Baptist represented life under the law, which was to be replaced by life in Jesus Christ, by faith and under grace.

When we continue to confess "He must increase but I must decrease," we place ourselves in the condition of John the Baptist, That is to say: under the law, as the Galatians did.

Although these are not the same situations, there is a similarity between what the Galatians lived and what many Christians live today.

The apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 6/11

" And such were some of you.. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our God.”

We are washed, sanctified, Justified thanks to the sacrifice of the cross.

Summary in one sentence, the word of the cross is:
When Jesus, identified with sin, died on the cross, our sin or old nature died with him on the

cross and when Jesus has risen, we are risen in him and with him. By faith and we became a entirely new creature. (2Corinthians 5/17)

The bible tell us:

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved she is the power of God. (1Cor 1/18)

In Colossians 2/11 it says: In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,

I repeat: We were circumcised, written in the past, by The Circumcision of Christ, which consists in the stripping of the body of flesh, which means that we have been stripped of the body of flesh, be the old self.

In the following verse the apostle Paul says us how:

“Having been buried with him in baptism, in which, you were also raised in him and with him, through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. (Col 2/12)

So instead of staying in faith in the power of the preaching of the cross, in what God said and did in us and for us in Jesus-Christ, our defiitive death with Christ on the cross, to live in newness of life.
We believe our old self is still alive, since he would gradually decrease.

We think, that Jesus will decrease it, thanks to our prayers, thanks to our vigilance, our work on oneself, our psychology, like the helping relationship, or through our prayers for deliverance of ancestral bonds, of demons, and so on. All this in order to make the old self decrease.

You may be familiar with this image, taught by some preachers, of the black dog and the white dog that would live in every Christian, and the Christian would be more or less black, or white in the image of the dog he feeds the most.
What does it mean?

Clearly it means that by our works, we will help Jesus to decrease our old self.
This is not the good news of the Gospel, which is the word of the cross, this is called living under the law.

What the Apostle Paul reproached for the Galatians, today he would reproach Christians, who place themselves in the condition of John the Baptist, under the law, confessing: "He must increase, but I must decrease. "

The apostle Paul said in Galatians 3 verse 3

" Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?"

When we place ourselves under the works of the law, we walk by the flesh. This is why our life is like this that the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 7/14 to 23)

Of which I quote verse 19, which you certainly know.

" For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing."

Which is not the life of a child born of God, but the life of a child under the law, in the flesh. See my video on Romans 7.

Churches that place themselves under the law, turn away from the true gospel, as was the case with the Galatians.

Indeed, it is not the fact of isolated individuals, but of several churches. Paul writes to the churches of the Galatians, in the plural, see Galatians 1 verse 2, The group effect bringing them together.

In the first chapter of the Galatians, after introducing himself:
The apostle Paul gets to the heart of the matter and says:
" I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel» (Galatians 1/6)

The central point of the Gospel is the word of the cross. It’s a power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. (Romans 1/16; 1Cor 1/18)

So the Galatians had been called by the grace of Christ, they thought they believed in Jesus, and yet they turned away from the true and only Gospel.
Many Christians today think they believe in Jesus, which may be true, but you cannot claim to believe if you do not obey all that Jesus says and does.

Jesus who is The Way, that means that he shows us the example, by his life, he set an example, he is completely dead, he was completely dead before being resurrected.
We too to be resurrected in Him and with Him must completely die in Him and with Him by faith. Without death there is no new life.

Jesus tells us:
" No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment" Or:

“Neither is new wine put into old wineskins." (Matt 9/16 and 17) Or:

" Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.." "(Mat 10/39)

We continue the Galatians:
In verse 7 of Galatians 1 the apostle says that among the churches of Galatians there are troublemakers, people who overthrow or who want to overturn the gospel.
It is well known, that we do not attract flies with vinegar, those who overturn the gospel, must be attractive, sympathetic, They can have charisma and / or power, they may even act in good faith, but they overturn the gospel. And Paul declares them anathema in verse 9.

The apostle does not try to be kind, he tells us:
In verses 10 and 11 of Galatians 1 “If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel.”
And in the following verses, up to Galatians chapter 2 verse 10, the apostle Paul shares his

journey, then from verse 11 he tells how and why he rebuked the apostle Peter, and he begins his teaching, on the law and faith, for the Galatians.

In verses 16 of Galatians 2 Paul writes:

"Nevertheless, knowing that it is not by the works of the law that man is justified, but by faith in Jesus Christ, we too have believed in Jesus Christ, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because no flesh will be justified by the works of the law. ”

I think the Galatians should be filled with good intentions, maybe they even thought they were walking by faith? yet they practiced works of the law that could not justify them.

It's subtle, but there is no place between faith and the law, we cannot be in between, it's impossible, either it's one or it's the other.

To believe in Jesus Christ, in order to be justified by faith, as the apostle Paul describes it means to believe in what He did in us and for us, on the cross, that is to say the putting off the body of the flesh (Col 2/11 and 12), add nothing to it and remain in the faith.

Adding that the stripping of the body of the flesh is done little by little thanks to our works, turns us away from the faith, to place us under the law, in the flesh.

Next in verse 18 of Galatians 2 the apostle Paul writes:

" For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor."

Understand that if I apply the verse of John the Baptist, "He must increase but I must decrease", in my life, I rebuild the things that I destroyed or that Jesus destroyed in my life.

In the sense that I continue to believe in the living existence of my old self or my old nature, or my sin then that Jesus destroyed it on the cross.

See above Romans 6/6 and 7 and Colossians 2/12 which are in summary: (buried with him by baptism, my body of sin was destroyed”

When I believe my old self is still alive.
1 I no longer walk by faith.
2 I take another path, to ensure my sanctification, try to decrease my old self little by little,a path invented by the flesh.

3 I walk under the law, therefore by the flesh.

So we walk under the law, but we delude ourselves, thinking that we live by faith. There is, as I said, no middle path between law and faith.

In Galatians Verse 19 Paul writes: " For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God.”
This verse 19 is well explained by the apostle Paul in Romans 7, which I translate as I experienced it.

It was by applying myself to want to follow the law that I became aware of the sin that was in

me. The more I wanted to obey God's Law, the more evident the sin in me became. Without the Law, I was alive, but under the Law, I became more and more aware of my sin. And it was at this moment in my deep misery that I accepted by faith my death, once and for all, with Christ on the cross. (Romans 7/8 and 9) and (Romans 7/24)

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2 Timothy 2/11 it says:

“The saying is trustworthy: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; and if we deny it, he also will deny us "

There is no other choice to live with him you have to die with Him.
If the grain of wheat does not die it cannot bear fruit. Jesus tells us in John 12/24

It is by a revelation from the Holy Spirit that I can today confidently and truthfully confess verse 20 of Galatians 2 for my life.

Verse 20:

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God,

In this verse, when Paul says, "I now live in the flesh, it is obvious that he is not talking about the flesh, old self, but about his physical body.

Today we live in the flesh, that is to say in our physical body, but we live in faith in the son of God who made us new creatures, not new creatures in spirit, as we hear it sometimes, but entirely new creatures, spirit, soul and body. By faith.

“We walk by faith and not by sight,” 2 Corinthians 5/7)

Contrary to what this pastor said that I quoted at the beginning of my speech, I believe that this verse from Galatians 2/20 is the real standard for a child born of God, rooted in the preaching of the cross.
When I have the assurance of being crucified with Christ in any cases I cannot confess for my life: "He must increase but I must decrease". (John 3/30).

A long time ago in an inter-denomination convention, when I was still a member of a denomination, I heard the pastor who preached on Sunday, quoted this verse, from Galatians 2/20 that I have just quoted.
By specifying that it was the apostle Paul who said that and not him, implying that he as a denomination pastor, has been not crucified with Christ. At the time it didn't bother me, I didn't experience it either and I found it normal.

In reality, this pastor although he thought, certainly to live by faith, he lived under the law.

In the denominations most, are in the same situation as this pastor and the Galatians, walking under the law while deluding themselves walking by faith.

However, justice is not obtained by law, otherwise Christ died in vain, tells us Paul, at the end of Galatians 2.

It is because of their life under the law that the apostle Paul severely admonish the Galatians in Galatians 3

" O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Galatians 3/1 to 3)

As I said before, "To be under the law is equivalent to live by the flesh. "

In Galatians 3 Paul explains the law and the faith and in verses 9 to 11 He writes :

" So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith."

If we place ourselves under the law we are under the curse and we cannot live by faith.

In verse 13:

" Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”

When we get attached to the works of the law, we are under the curse.
It is by dying with Jesus, by faith, when he was hanged on the tree, that we are redeemed from the curse of the law. (Romans 6 verses 1 to 8)

And in Galatians 3/23 and 24 Paul writes to us the essential role of the law:

“Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith."

The law is therefore a pedagogue who leads us to Christ, this is what the Apostle Paul wrote a little higher in Galatians 2/19.
" For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God.”

I continue Galatians 3
Galatians 3/25 to 27
“But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.”
“For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”

You know that water baptism is the commitment of a good conscience towards God, and not the purification of the defilements of the body (1Peter 3/21)

But it is not about this baptism which is question here, It is question of Baptism in Christ of which Jesus spoke to the children of Zébédée, marc 10/39:

“And Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized".

Or of which Jean Baptiste spoke in Mat 3/11 et 12:

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

It is by believing in the preaching of the cross, which is a power of God, that we enter this baptism.

Romans 6 verse 3: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?"

It is this baptism that we must receive by faith and It is by this baptism, in his death, that we are no longer under the teacher of the law.

Romans 7/4:

" Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ,”

It doesn't say: "Decrease little by little, because even almost dead, we are still alive and still under the law. But he writes: "put to death" by the body of Christ. " (version Second)

Galatians 3 ends with verse 29 which is:
"And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. "

We belong to Christ once we have passed through this baptism in his death.

Conclusion.

Early Galatians 5
We see that the Galatians wanted to be circumcised, certainly they thought that circumcision would help them to get closer to Jesus.

Likewise today, Christians believe that doing works could help them to strip themselves of their old self in order to grow in Jesus Christ.

But in either case the apostle Paul responds in the following verses which I transpose for today.
Every man who practices works of the law in order to draw closer to God, he is bound to practice the whole law, we are separated from Christ, when we seek justification in the law, we are fallen from grace.

" For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness."

Gal 5/5

And in Galatians 5/16 to 18:

" But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these

are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.”

And Galatians 6 verse 8

For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.

If the reality of your life is represented by: "He must increase but I must decrease. "
By thinking about decreasing your old self little by little, you live, by the works of the law, in the flesh. Period.
Some might think of living in the spirit from time to time and in the flesh, from time to time, but that’s wrong.
When you have not entered faith in the preaching of the cross, you are under the law, in the flesh, and you fulfill the desires of the flesh.

This is what the apostle Paul explained in Romans 7/5

" For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death."

We can see that the apostle Paul speaks about a state that has passed or ended, we were in the flesh, it used to be before, and if we continue reading, he writes in:

Romans 7/6

“But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code."

So now when we live in the faith in the preaching of the cross, we are dead to our old self who was under the law, we are free from the law and therefore from the flesh and we serve in a new spirit, we walk by the Spirit.

Remember that:
Your old self, will never decrease little by little, except, perhaps, in your dreams, by taking this path, in 50 years your old self will always be there, He will never die.
Remember that Jesus said:
If the grain of wheat does not die it cannot bear fruit. (John 12/24)
Or what Paul wrote to Timothy: "If we be dead with him, we will also live with him." (2Timothy 2/11)

If you do not change your attitude, you will remain under the law, in the flesh and die under the law.

But God did not call you to stay under the law in the flesh, the law being a teacher to lead us to Christ, we always have the possibility of coming to faith, to believe and live in the truth of preaching of the cross.

To walk in the Spirit, we must be crucified with Jesus Christ that's what Paul writes in Galatians 2/20 cited above, which is the spine of every child born of God.

As well as in Galatians 5 in verse 25.

“And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

(Gal 5/25)

And in Galatians 6/14
“But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

May the Lord bless you
I hope you enjoy this video Amen!