"Orders of magnitude greater"

I sometimes feel like an interloper reading Conrad Gempf's online class postings, but I like what he said today about the introduction to John's Gospel. One noteworthy quality, Conrad says, is the Gospel's mystical opening:

But the second curious feature is the way that woven into the fabric of this mystical almost philosophical wandering is the human John the Baptist. Isn't that weird? I can easily imagine a Christian writer today getting as mystical about Jesus as the author of John's gospel, but I can't imagine someone today writing it in a way that brings J the B up every 3 paragraphs!

I think this implies either that John the Baptist was extremely important in the writer's own spiritual journey or else he reckons that J the B is important to his readers. And in either case, his message is that Jesus is orders of magnitude greater.

One striking trend all through the Bible is the failures and foibles of its heroes: Noah, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon, Elijah, Paul, Peter. All of them at one time or another committed what we might call conspicuous sins. But then there is Jesus, "orders of magnitude greater."