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"He must grow, but I must decrease."
13th February 1842. morning from 9 to 1/2 11
Writer: Ans. H. The servant of the Lord dictates about John 3:30: "He must increase, but I must decrease."
[1] This text seems to be an extremely easy comprehensible one for many people. Only this is by no means the case. This text is only fully understood when it has passed over to the active living conditions of someone. Nevertheless, the true understanding of this text shall follow here.
[2] But, in order to grasp this text thoroughly, one must first penetrate into the science of his inner feeling, who first of all is John or the ‘I’, and who, according to this, is the actual ‘He’, who should grow there, as the ‘I’ should decrease.
[3] John is the symbol of the outer man, who is in need of repentance, which in and of itself is nothing other than the living conversion of man from the world over to God. So also John has preached repentance so that people should put off their worldly things and put on the spiritual. He himself was the symbol of the most severe penance.
[4] What is therefore John for the people? John for the people is the actual, rightly formed ‘I’ or the life of the flesh, when the spirit and the soul do not yet live for themselves, but for the flesh. Admittedly, it would certainly be considered by some people here: such life still can impossibly be a true life, pleasing to Me. But it is in the nature and order of all things, not otherwise possible. In order to recognize this truth completely, everyone may only turn his eyes to the plant-world, and he will even see the ‘I’ and the ‘He’ clearly.
[5] Consider whatever blossom – what will become of the fruit, if the blossom does not diminish and wither? See here the ‘I’ and the ‘He’. Furthermore, when the flower has already fallen off completely and the body of the fruit or the actual peel in which the fruit is hidden is increasing and growing, there is still little to see of the actual inner fruit, in which the ‘He’ is enclosed. But when the peel as this second body also begins to decrease, so that it withers and thus becomes dead, then only then grows and matures in the conditions as the outer ‘I’ decreases, the inner ‘He’, which is the living fruit.
[6] See now that here previously the life of the soul and of the spirit had to work outwardly, you have seen with the blossom and the subsequent fruit peel; but that with this life it has not to remain outwardly, you may well have noticed in the decay of the blossom and finally also that of the peel. If someone interprets this parable correctly, he will certainly not find John too heavy in himself.
[7] Behold, but such is John: Someone reads the word from the beginning to the end, there he has read it first with the eyes after all, then with the mouth, and thus also with the ears. Behold, if he did this with great attention, there was soul and spirit directed outwardly, paying attention to the flesh, how it absorbed the word according to the letter. Behold, is not this the blossom? But what happens afterwards, if the word has already been read? Look at just one flower, and a spring breeze begins to slowly move its calyxes. Doesn't the fertilizing pollens fall from the outer male blossom threads onto the female blossom fibre, whereby the new life germ for the formation of the actual inner fruit is only then placed in the barely visible formation of the peel?
[8] Behold, this is the reception of the word into the inner emotional life. When the word has taken root there, it begins to grow and become greater and greater, and only then in this way forms a body – a body of repentance, into which body thus all that of the outer body has passed. This body is then the actual John.
[9] But does not anyone here want to ask, why should this noble body then also begin to decrease again, and what is the He that thereby is supposed to grow? Behold, if the word is fully developed in the life of feeling, what becomes active there or where does the feeling aim to? Can the feeling well be enough for itself? Or must it not have another object that it grasps and finally passes over into it completely?
[10] So that you again understand this all the more thoroughly, I will give you a new parable. A bride receives from far away land a letter from her groom. She reads every word with great attention. But as she has read through the letter, so also immediately thereafter a being has formed in her from this word – namely, an emotional man like that of her bridegroom, into which man her whole outer flower-life has now passed, namely so, that she now lives, breathes, thinks, and feels merely in this second man.
[11] Behold, this man is therefore also a John in the bride, who through his preaching of repentance compelled her to withdraw from all other world and unite with this new man in her. But now I ask further: Will the bride then be satisfied with this man educated in her, who still makes up the ‘I’? No, but she will in this new man very soon begin to perceive the living fruit of love even mightily to the ‘He’, namely so, that she will pass over completely into this love to the ‘He’. Out of this ‘He’, her desire for the real him will express itself more and more alive and vividly, and will never rest until the real ‘He’ has come and she has become completely one with him.
[12] Behold, thus it is also the case with the word in man, since it has first passed over into the living feeling. There will be no rest in the new emotional man, until he has found the actual great and holy ‘He’ in himself. But when he has found this ‘He’ in himself, say and judge for yourselves, will he not want to pass over into this ‘He’ completely? Behold, such things are founded in the nature of all things, and there is no other difference between them and man, than that this must happen with the things, but with free man it remains an arbitrary condition of his life.
[13] And so the ‘I’ must decrease, so that the ‘He’ may grow in man. And if the I does not diminish, then everything will pass over outwardly into the bark, blossom, and peel, but the fruit of life will never appear.
[14] You may scatter the most beautiful flowers in the earth, but never will any fruit appear there, but they will all rot in the earth. But when you take the ripe seed and put it into the earth, then you will still visibly convince yourselves that the completely whole outer life had to pass over into this seed; for, if this were not the case, how would out of the seed again the same plant, the same flower, and the same former everything of the plant, come to the new living appearance?
[15] If you consider this rightly, you will also understand perfectly well this text of Scripture, which thus reads: He that loves his life shall lose it; but he that flees it shall receive it. So here, through John, in every human being is shown the way in which life is to be fled from. So do accordingly, let also your ‘I’ decrease, so I too will grow in you and increase into infinity, as the scripture-text on which this is based, teaches you. Amen.