John 3:28

That Christ is the Bridegroom, having the Church as His bride, from which spiritual children were to be born. In Joel: "Blow with the trumpet in Sion; sanctify a fast, and call a healing; assemble the people, sanctify the Church, gather the elders, collect the little ones that suck the breast; let the Bridegroom go forth of His chamber, and the bride out of her closet." Also in Jeremiah: "And I will take away from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of the joyous, and the voice of the glad; the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride." Also in the eighteenth Psalm: "And he is as a bridegroom going forth from his chamber; he exulted as a giant to run his course. From the height of heaven is his going forth, and his circuit even to the end of it; and there is nothing which is hid from his heat." Also in the Apocalypse: "Come, I will show thee the new bride, the Lamb's wife. And he took me in the Spirit to a great mountain, and he showed me the holy city Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God." Also in the Gospel according to John: "Ye are my witnesses, that I said to them who were sent from Jerusalem to me, that I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before Him. For he who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom is he who standeth and heareth him with joy, and rejoiceth because of the voice of the bridegroom." The mystery of this matter was shown in Jesus the son of Nave, when he was bidden to put his shoes from off him, doubt less because he himself was not the bridegroom. For it was in the law, that whoever should refuse marriage should put off his shoe, but that he should be shod who was to be the bridegroom: "And it happened, when Jesus was in Jericho, he looked around with his eyes, and saw a man standing before his face, and holding a javelin in his hand, and said, Art thou for us or for our enemies? And he said, I am the leader of the host of the Lord; now draw near. And Jesus fell on his rice to the earth, and said to him, Lord, what dost Thou command unto Thy servant. And the leader of the Lord's host said, Loose thy shoe from thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." Also, in Exodus, Moses is bidden to put off his shoe, because he, too, was not the bridegroom: "And there appeared unto him the angel of the Lord in a flame of fire out of a bush; and he saw that the bush burned with fire, but the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will pass over and see this great sight, why the bush is not consumed. But when He saw that he drew near to see, the Lord God called him from the bush, saying, Moses, Moses. And he said, What is it? And He said, Draw not nigh hither, unless thou hast loosed thy shoe from off thy feet; for the place on which thou standest is holy ground. And He said unto him, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." This was also made plain in the Gospel according to John: "And John answered them, I indeed baptize with water, but there standeth One in the midst of you whom ye know not: He it is of whom I said, The man that cometh after me is made before me, the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to unloose." Also according to Luke: "Let your loins be girt, and your lamps burning, and ye like to men that wait for their master when he shall come from the wedding, that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him. Blessed are those servants whom their Lord, when He cometh, shall find watching." Also in the Apocalypse: "The Lord God omnipotent reigneth: let us be glad and rejoice, and let us give to Him the honour of glory; for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready."

"Ye yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before Him."

"If then ye hold to my testimony, (and ye even now produce it when ye say, 'to whom thou barest witness,') He is not only not diminished by receiving my witness, but rather is increased by it; besides, the testimony was not mine, but God's. So that if I seem to you to be trustworthy, I said this among other things, that 'I am sent before Him.'" Seest thou how he shows little by little that this Voice was divine? For what he saith is of this kind: "I am a servant, and say the words of Him that sent me, not flattering Christ through human favor, but serving His Father who sent me. I gave not the testimony as a gift, but what I was sent to speak, I spake. Do not then because of this suppose that I am great, for it shows that He is great. He is Lord of all things."

"Ye yourselves bear me witness that I said I am not the Christ." Thou art not the Christ; but what if thou art greater than He since thou didst baptize Him? "I am sent:" I am the herald, He is the Judge.

He brings his disciples to the recollection of the words which they have already often heard, partly reproving them rightly, as steeped in forgetfulness of things profitable, and slumbering in respect to this so most dread doctrine, partly persuading them to remember the Divine Scripture, as having been nourished in zeal for the knowledge of these things; Whom it preaches as the Christ to come, whom again as the Baptist the forerunner. For thus would they, having received knowledge of each, be in no wise angry, seeing them in the state befitting each. I shall need then, saith he, no other witnesses to this, I have my own disciples as ear-witnesses, I confessed my state of servitude, when I fore-announced, I was sent, I am not the Christ. Let Him overcome, prevail, shine forth yet more as Lord and God.

"You yourselves," he says, "know that I testified about Him that He is greater than me." So then, if you fully accept my testimony, then know that He is more honorable than me, and my joy consists in everyone coming to Him.

"You yourselves bear me witness that I said: I am not the Christ": in chapter 1: "And he confessed, that I am not the Christ." "But that I am sent before him," as a voice before the Word; in chapter 1: "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Make straight" etc.

Then follows the difference of their offices, when he says, You yourselves are witnesses. As if to say: From the testimony which I bore to him, you can know the office committed to me by Christ: for You yourselves are witnesses, i.e., you can testify, to the fact that I said: I am not the Christ—"He declared openly and did not deny" (above 1:20)—but the one sent before him, as a herald before a judge. And so from my own testimony you can know my office, which is to go before Christ and prepare the way for him: "There was a man sent by God, whose name was John" (above 1:6). But the office of Christ is to judge and to preside. If we look at this closely we can see that John, like a skilful disputant, answers them with their own arguments: "I judge you out of your own mouth," as said in Luke (19:22).