John 14:12

The disciples, as they were full of grief to think of parting with their Master, so they were full of care what would become of themselves when he was gone; while he was with them, he was a support to them, kept them in countenance, kept them in heart; but, if he leave them, they will be as sheep having no shepherd, an easy prey to those who seek to run them down. Now, to silence these fears, Christ here assures them that they should be clothed with powers sufficient to bear them out. As Christ has all power, they, in his name, should have great power, both in heaven and in earth.

I. Great power on earth (Joh 14:12): He that believeth on me (as I know you do), the works that I do shall he do also. This does not weaken the argument Christ had taken from his works, to prove himself one with the Father (that others should do as great works), but rather strengthens it; for the miracles which the apostles wrought were wrought in his name, and by faith in him; and this magnifies his power more than any thing, that he not only wrought miracles himself, but gave power to others to do so too.

1. Two things he assures them of: -

(1.) That they should be enabled to do such works as he had done, and that they should have a more ample power for the doing of them than they had had when he first sent them forth, Mat 10:8. Did Christ heal the sick, cleanse the leper, raise the dead? So should they. Did he convince and convert sinners, and draw multitudes to him? So should they. Though he should depart, the work should not cease, nor fall to the ground, but should be carried on as vigorously and successfully as ever; and it is still in the doing.

(2.) That they should do greater works than these. [1.] In the kingdom of nature they should work greater miracles. No miracle is little, but some to our apprehension seem greater than others. Christ had healed with the hem of his garment, but Peter with his shadow (Act 5:15), Paul by the handkerchief that had touched him, Act 19:12. Christ wrought miracles for two or three years in one country, but his followers wrought miracles in his name for many ages in divers countries. You shall do greater works, if there be occasion, for the glory of God. The prayer of faith, if at any time it had been necessary, would have removed mountains. [2.] In the kingdom of grace. They should obtain greater victories by the gospel than had been obtained while Christ was upon earth. The truth is, the captivating of so great a part of the world to Christ, under such outward disadvantages, was the miracle of all. I think this refers especially to the gift of tongues; this was the immediate effect of the pouring out of the Spirit, which was a constant miracle upon the mind, in which words are framed, and which was made to serve so glorious an intention as that of spreading the gospel to all nations in their own language. This was a greater sign to them that believed not (Co1 14:22), and more powerful for their conviction, than any other miracle whatever.

2. The reason Christ gives for this is, Because I go unto my Father, (1.) "Because I go, it will be requisite that you should have such a power, lest the work suffer damage by my absence." (2.) "Because I go to the Father, I shall be in a capacity to furnish you with such a power, for I go to the Father, to send the Comforter, from whom you shall receive power," Act 1:8. The wonderful works which they did in Christ's name were part of the glories of his exalted state, when he ascended on high, Eph 4:8.

II. Great power in heaven: "Whatsoever you shall ask, that will I do (Joh 14:13, Joh 14:14), as Israel, who was a prince with God. Therefore you shall do such mighty works, because you have such an interest in me, and I in my Father." Observe,

1. In what way they were to keep up communion with him, and derive power from him, when he was gone to the Father - by prayer. When dear friends are to be removed to a distance from each other, they provide for the settling of a correspondence; thus, when Christ was going to his Father, he tells his disciples how they might write to him upon every occasion, and send their epistles by a safe and ready way of conveyance, without danger of miscarrying, or lying by the way: "Let me hear from you by prayer, the prayer of faith, and you shall hear from me by the Spirit." This was the old way of intercourse with Heaven, ever since men began to call upon the name of the Lord; but Christ by his death has laid it more open, and it is still open to us. Here is, (1.) Humility prescribed: You shall ask. Though they had quitted all for Christ, they could demand nothing of him as a debt, but must be humble supplicants, beg or starve, beg or perish. (2.) Liberty allowed: "Ask any thing, any thing that is good and proper for you; any thing, provided you know what you ask, you may ask; you may ask for assistance in your work, for a mouth and wisdom, for preservation out of the hands of your enemies, for power to work miracles when there is occasion, for the success of the ministry in the conversion of souls; ask to be informed, directed, vindicated." Occasions vary, but they shall be welcome to the throne of grace upon every occasion.

2. In what name they were to present their petitions: Ask in my name. To ask in Christ's name is, (1.) To plead his merit and intercession, and to depend upon that plea. The Old Testament saints had an eye to this when they prayed for the Lord's sake (Dan 9:17), and for the sake of the anointed (Psa 84:9), but Christ's mediation is brought to a clearer light by the gospel, and so we are enabled more expressly to ask in his name. When Christ dictated the Lord's prayer, this was not inserted, because they did not then so fully understand this matter as they did afterwards, when the Spirit was poured out. If we ask in our own name, we cannot expect to speed, for, being strangers, we have no name in heaven; being sinners, we have an ill name there; but Christ's is a good name, well known in heaven, and very precious. (2.) It is to aim at his glory and to seek this as our highest end in all our prayers.

3. What success they should have in their prayers: "What you ask, that will I do," Joh 14:13. And again (Joh 14:14), "I will do it. You may be sure I will: not only it shall be done, I will see it done, or give orders for the doing of it, but I will do it;" for he has not only the interest of an intercessor, but the power of a sovereign prince, who sits at the right hand of God, the hand of action, and has the doing of all in the kingdom of God. By faith in his name we may have what we will for the asking.

4. For what reason their prayers should speed so well: That the Father may be glorified in the Son. That is, (1.) This they ought to aim at, and have their eye upon, in asking. In this all our desires and prayers should meet as in their centre; to this they must all be directed, that God in Christ may be honoured by our services, and in our salvation. Hallowed be thy name is an answered prayer, and is put first, because, if the heart be sincere in this, it does in a manner consecrate all the other petitions. (2.) This Christ will aim at in granting, and for the sake of this will do what they ask, that hereby the glory of the Father in the Son may be manifested. The wisdom, power, and goodness of God were magnified in the Redeemer when by a power derived from him, and exerted in his name and for his service, his apostles and ministers were enabled to do such great things, both in the proofs of their doctrine and in the successes of it.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Joh_14:12-14

He that believeth on Me the works that I do shall he do also.

The activity of the glorified Christ

I. ITS REALITY AND CERTAINTY. Verses 13, 14 show that Christ regarded Himself as the worker and His followers only as His agents.

II. ITS ORGAN AND INSTRUMENT. Our Saviours language

1. Does not mean that He will work through no other way than the collective Church, which is His body, and the believer who is a member of it; because in point of fact He does, as the Governor of the universe which He summoned into being.

2. Nor that everything done by the Church or the believer is a manifestation of His activity. To maintain this would be to open a wide door to fanaticism.

3. It does signify, however, that Christ uses His Church collectively and individually to operate on the earth; and that not merely as His representative, but as His body, pervaded by His power and swayed by His will. His own works indicate His unity with the Father (Joh_14:11): the works of believers their unity with Himself (Joh_14:12; Joh_14:20).

III. ITS NATURE AND EXTENT.

1. Its nature--The same works, etc. This was fulfilled in the miracles of the disciples after Pentecost. But that they performed no works, except as they were employed by Christ is shown by the fact they wrought no miracle to cure their friends (Php_2:26-27; 2Ti_4:20). They had no power to work indiscriminately.

2. Its extent. Greater works--not greater miracles, but such works as Peters at Pentecost, and Pauls in his missionary journeys.

IV. ITS MODE AND CONDITION. If Christ is the prime worker and the believer the instrument, connection must be established between them.

1. Christ must be able to reach the believer. This He does by the impartation of the Spirit (Joh_14:16-17).

2. The believer must be able to communicate with Christ. This he does by prayer (Joh_14:13-14). Nothing could be

(1) Simpler--it would be only needful that they should ask Mat_21:21-22; Mar_11:23-24).

(2) Ampler--all things should be done (Mat_7:7; Mat_18:19).

(3) Surer--Christ would Himself do what they asked.

(4) Freer--the only stipulation was that they should ask in

Christs name.

Lessons

1. The supreme divinity of Christ involved in all He here says about Himself.

2. The essential dignity of the Christian--a fellow worker with Christ.

3. The true doctrine of prayer--asking in the name of Christ.

4. The reason why miracles have ceased--the Holy Ghost does not consider them necessary. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)

The works of the ascended Christ

The keyword of this context is Believe! In three successive verses we find it, each time widening in its application--to the single disciple: Philip! to the whole group: and now, here, to whosoever believeth in Him. Our Lord has pointed to believing as the great antidote to a troubled heart, as the sure way of knowing the Father, as the better substitute for sight; and now here He opens before us still more wonderful prerogatives and effects. We have here

I. THE CONTINUOUS WORK OF THE EXALTED LORD FOR AND THROUGH HIS SERVANTS. These disciples, of course, thought that the departure of Jesus would be the end of His activity. Henceforward whatever distress or need might come, that voice would be silent, and that hand motionless. Some of us know how dreary that makes life, and we can understand how these men shrank from the prospect. Christs words tell them that in them He will work as well as for them, after He has departed.

1. Christs removal from the world is not the end of His activity in the world. We are not to water down such words as these into the continuous influence of His memory. That is true, but over and above that, there is the present influence of His present work. One form of His work was finished on Calvary, but there is another work, which will not be ended until the angel voices shall chant It is done, the kingdoms of the world are the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ. And therefore these disciples were not to be cast down as if His work for them were ended. It is clear, of course, that such words as these demand something perfectly unique in the nature of Christ. All other mens work is cut in twain by death. This man, having served his generation by the will of God, was gathered to his fathers. And he (and his work) saw corruption. That is the epitaph over the greatest, the tenderest, and most helpful. But Christ is living today, and working all around us. Now, it is of the last importance, that we should give a very prominent place in our creeds, and hearts, to this great truth. What a joyful sense of companionship it brings to the solitary, what calmness of vision, in contemplating the complications and calamites of the worlds history.

2. But not only for us, but on and in and therefore through us Christ is working. I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and through me, if I keep close to Him, will work mightily in forms that my poor manhood could never have reached. And now, mark that a still more solemn and mysterious aspect of this union of Jesus Christ and the believer. It is no accident that in one clause He says, I am in the Father, and the Father in Me. The words that I speak unto you, etc.; and that in the next He says, The works that I do shall He do also; and so bids us see in that union between the Father and the Son, a pattern after which our union with Him is to be moulded, both as regards the closeness of its intimacy and as regards the resulting manifestations in life. All the doings of a Christian man holding by Christ, are Christs doings, inasmuch as He is the Life and the Power which does them all. So let us curb all self-dependence and self-will that that mighty tide may flow into us; and let us cast from us all timidity, and be strong in the assurance that we have a Christ living in the heavens to work for us, and living within us to work through us.

II. THE GREATER WORK OF THE SERVANTS ON AND FOR WHOM THE LORD WORKS. Is, then, the servant greater than his Lord? Not so, for whatsoever the servant does is done because the Lord is with and in him. The contrast is between Christs manifestations in the time of His earthly humiliation and His manifestations in the time of His glory. We need not be afraid that such words trench on the unapproachable character of the earthly work of Christ. This is finished. But the work of Revelation and Redemption required to be applied through the ages. The comparison is drawn, between the limited sphere and the small results of Christs work upon earth, and the worldwide sweep and majestic magnitude of the results of the application of that work by His servants witnessing work. And the poorest Christian who can go to a brother soul, and draw that soul to Christ, does a mightier thing than it was possible for the Master to do whilst He was here. For the Redemption had to be completed in act before it could be proclaimed in word, and Christ had no such weapon as we have when we can say, We testify unto you that the Son of God hath died for our sins, and is raised again according to the Scriptures. He laid His hands on a few sick folk and healed them, and at the end of His life there were 120 disciples in Jerusalem and 500 in Galilee. That was all that Jesus Christ had done, while today, the world is being leavened, and the kingdoms of the earth are beginning to recognize His name.

III. THE CONDITIONS ON WHICH THE EXALTED LORD WORKS FOR AND ON HIS SERVANTS.

1. Faith, the simple act of loving trust in Jesus Christ, opens the door for the entrance of all His solemn Omnipotence, and makes us possessors of it. So if Christian individuals and communities are impotent, there is no difficulty in understanding why. They have cut the connection, they have shut the tap.

2. Prayer.

(1) Our power depends upon our prayer, Not Gods and Christs fulness and willingness to communicate, but our capacity to receive of that fulness, and so the possibility of its communication to us, depend upon our prayer. We have not because we ask not.

(2) The power of our prayer depends upon our conscious oneness with the revealed Christ. Christs name is the revelation of Christs character; and to do a thing in the name of another person is to do it as His representative, and as realizing that in some deep and real sense--for the present purpose, at all events--we are one with Him. Prayer in the name of Christ is hard to offer. It needs much discipline and watchfulness; it excludes all self-will and selfishness. And if, as my text tells us, the end of the Sons working is the glory of the Father, that same end, and not our own ease or comfort, must be the end and object of all prayer which is offered in His name. When we so pray we get an answer. And the reason why such multitudes of prayers never travel higher than the roof, and bring no blessings to him that prays, is because they are not prayers in Christs name.

(3) Prayer in His name will pass into prayer to Him. As He not obscurely teaches us here, if we adopt the reading, If ye shall ask Me, He has an ear to hear such requests, and He wields Divine power to answer. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Christian work with an absent Redeemer

I. THE BLESSINGS WHICH THIS PROMISE CONTAINS OR CONVEYS?

1. Ability to work. Professing Christians of a certain school speak scornfully of this to do, but this is to despise the words and things of God. He who redeems us works in us to will and to do.

2. Power to do good and to serve others. This was and is the great feature of Christs character.

3. Power to work as Jesus Christ wrought. There is an evident limitation here. Miracles cannot be perpetual; but if the working of miracles were at all desirable now, the power would be again given. Atonement for sin is another work which we cannot imitate. Still there is a path of work in which we may follow our Saviour. The blessing promised is

4. The power to work superior work. The greater here may, perhaps, point to more extensive service, but we think the word rather points to nobler and to higher service. Now, it is greater, to enlighten the mind than to open blind eyes; to create faith than to unstop deaf ears; to awaken praise than to loosen dumb tongues; to purify from sin than to cleanse from leprosy; to quicken the dead soul than it is to raise the corporeally dead.

5. Not an extraordinary blessing, but one that is the common heritage of all who believe. Great injury has been done to the Church, and to many not in the Church, by the fuss which is made about any man or woman who happens to try to be useful, So much is made of the mere human worker, as that He who works in, and by us all, becomes completely concealed. Now there are many persons who seem to think that admiring those who do Christian work a very blessed substitute for doing that work. We require in our churches less said about what is done, in order to begin to do more. It is thus too about giving. Men who give a little expect so much notice taken of that little, that their hands are closed by the mischievous power of that very expectation.

II. THE CIRCUMSTANCES IN CONNECTION WITH WHICH THE FULFILMENT OF THIS PROMISE IS SECURED. Because I go unto My Father. The Father is everywhere; but He is not in all places equally manifest. Where the manifestation of the Father is perfect, Jesus Christ now is. There He is seated on the throne of His Father.

1. With the Father, Jesus is absent from this earth, and

(1) His disciples are here as His representatives. Now, what would Christ have been doing on this earth were He here? He went about doing good. Perhaps some of you would be extremely surprised to find the eyes from which you have wiped away tears; or the mind to which you have given one religious idea; or the feet that you have turned from the path of iniquity into the path of redemption.

(2) He has received gifts for men, and is able from His throne to endow His disciples with all power.

(3) The providence of Jesus Christ is over the working of His disciples. I do not say that His providence prevents some wretched hand laying hold of portions of your work, and disturbing it, but I say that it secures a good general result. And you will work with much more courage if you feel this.

2. There is a close connection between believing on Christ and Christ-like work. Believing qualifies for it and impels to it.

3. This Christ-like work is a privilege and a blessing to the man who performs it.

4. Moreover, the Christian disciple has the highest power, and the largest resources, and the noblest motives in the direction of doing good. If a Christian cannot render service in this world of sin and sorrow, who can? Some of you will say, that Christians are not generally wealthy, and not generally in high social positions. Put your finger upon a passage in the New Testament that teaches you that these two things are essential to doing good, or that good is often done where these two things exist. One reason why many of our evangelistic operations are so blasted is to be found in this fact, that those who conduct our societies go hunting for what they call patronage. Patronage for the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ! Ones very heart is sick sometimes over this human patronage of Divine things.

5. Those who look for Christs coming again speedily, seem to think that that will bring an increase of the working power. We believe that all the power that Christians want now may be obtained now. Our tendency is continually to say that the time has not come, and we must wait for a larger outpouring of the Spirit? Is not the Spirit here? Will the Spirit ever be here more than He is now?

6. Do your work. I say it because some among you are spending your time in idleness. (S. Martin.)

The believer doing greater works than Christ

I. THE WORKS IN WHICH CHRIST AND THE BELIEVER HAVE SOMETHING IN COMMON.

1. In His greatest work of course Christ stands alone. He came to work out and bring in an everlasting righteousness; to be the embodiment of a perfect obedience. Further, He came to die as an atonement for sin, and to rise and ascend and plead its merits in heaven. In neither of these can the believer have any part. I have trodden the wine press alone. Mine own arm hath wrought salvation. And yet in the ministrations of truth, in the exemplifications of goodness, and in the triumphs of mercy in which that sacrifice shall demonstrate its power, and that righteousness find its embodiment, all believing souls are invited to take their share.

2. The apostles were endowed with the power of working miracles. In this sense the doing of the works of Christ was confined to them. But Christs miracles and theirs while real, and not to be spiritualized away, were physical types of spiritual. As bodily misery pointed out the misery of the soul, so healing symbolized salvation.

II. THE WORKS IN WHICH RELIEVERS, IN SOME SORT, SHALL EXCEL. To apprehend this, look at

1. The results of our Lords personal ministry. That cannot be regarded as unsuccessful. No doubt much of His teaching ripened after the rain of Pentecost, and those impressed before became converted afterwards. But during those three years how many benighted minds must have received light and foul hearts cleansing! Yet--as far as visible results now--how few even amongst the disciples, and of what a quality!

2. The results of the ministry of the Church. These great works are the burden of the Acts of the Apostles. How soon in the place where they murdered Christ were thousands won to His cause? Then the work spread to Samaria. Then the representative of far off Ethiopia was converted: then Cornelius the representative of Rome, and so on under the Apostles and their successors the tidal waves flowed on, until in the course of three centuries Christianity had overflown the world. Better still the nature of the results produced. The world was then at its very worst. At Thessalonica you have only a representation of what was universal. Men swallowed up in idolatry, but the Word came with the demonstration of the Spirit, etc. In Corinth philosophy was rampant on the one hand and vice on the other, but then people were washed, sanctified, etc. And thus from that time to this the gracious words have been fulfilled.

III. THE GROUND OF THIS. Because I go, etc.

1. Christ went from them, but for them. It was not His departure simply, but what followed upon it--the gift of the Comforter, the burden of this discourse. Christs departure was expedient

(1) In regard to their character, that they who had been so worldly, ignorant, and timid, might become spiritual, enlightened, and heroic.

(2) In relation to their work.

2. Christ went from them yet remained with them. This enigmatical form of speech occurs often. I go away. Lo, I am with you alway. Our Lord would not leave them to the miseries of defeat or to the calamity of self-sufficiency. He therefore resolved to abide with them, and by His Spirit to be in them, their energy, courage, wisdom, sanctifying power.

3. All this is guaranteed to us.

IV. THE RESPONSIBILITY THIS INVOLVES. If ye shall ask anything in My name, etc. You will prove your faith that you are Mine, and that I am with you, only as you, by grace work out these results. (J. Aldis.)

Greater than miracle

This is one of the reasons why the disciples, whom Christ was about to leave, were not to let their hearts be troubled. The discipleship to which He had called them was a very arduous one, but so long as He was with them, performing such miracles, they were safe. They would therefore think with dismay of His going away, inasmuch as this marvellous miracle working would cease, and they would be left to the merciless Pharisees. It was, then, fitting to tell them that they should do the miraculous works and greater things. The way in which our Lord speaks about miracles is striking. Had these narratives been a fiction, Christ would have spoken of miracles very differently. So far from magnifying them, He speaks of them as inferior things. Both Christ and His apostles appealed to men in two ways. Such as were unspiritual were appealed to by miracle; but He often told them that it was a higher and more spiritual thing to believe Him for His truths sake than for His works sake. So He tells His disciples here they should have power to work miracles, so far as this was needed to convince the unspiritual world; but they should have a greater power, viz., to do spiritual works in the conversion and sanctification of men. This is Christs meaning.

(1) Because He connected it with the gift of the Holy Spirit, whose work is to convince men of sin, and righteousness, and judgment.

(2) From the very nature of the case: no one can doubt that moral goodness is greater than miraculous works.

I. THE HISTORY OF THE APOSTLES ABUNDANTLY FULFILS THIS PROMISE. Depending upon His power, that is, believing on Him, they did the miraculous works.

1. Christ does not mean that these were greater than His own; no miracles may be compared with His.

(1) His were always wrought in His own name, and by His own power; those of the apostles always in the name and by the power of their Master.

(2) His were always full of great spiritual significance. Nature was moulded by Him into evangelical sermons.

2. But their spiritual achievements were to be greater than Christs miracles.

(1) The conversion of the three thousand on the day of Pentecost was a greater miracle than the feeding of five thousand in the wilderness; the conversion of a single soul is greater than the hushing of the storm. In the charge Christ gave to the seventy He makes the same distinction between the miraculous and the moral. He gave them power to heal the sick and to east out devils. The exercise of this power seems greatly to have elated them. He instantly turns their thoughts to spiritual things.

(2) It is a common, perhaps a correct impression, that the personal ministry of our Lord did not produce such great spiritual results as that of the apostles. The Holy Ghost was not yet given. We have no records of two and of five thousand converts at a time. The largest intimation of the spiritual results of His ministry is that after His resurrection He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once. And yet what preaching was ever like His preaching, in spiritual character, and depth, and earnestness?

Never man spake like this Man. And yet the Jews listened to His preaching and remained unconverted. Was it that Peter had a greater truth to proclaim than even Christ taught? Was it that no preaching can be powerful to save mens souls but the preaching of the Cross? Christ predicted His death, and spake of its atoning character, but He did not preach it to the people: the apostles preached Jesus and the resurrection; and even in their comparatively rude and unskilful hands it proved more powerful in subduing men than Christs Divine words. His own great prediction was fulfilled--I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.

II. OUR LORD INTIMATES A GREAT AND IMPORTANT PRINCIPLE IN THE SERVICE OF HUMAN LIFE--that grace is greater than gifts; that the ministry of moral truths and influences is greater than the exercise of the most brilliant talents. It is a great work to perform a miracle; but the credentials of a messenger are not so great as his message. It is an honour to be so employed and attested, but this is in order to the accomplishment of the mission. In Christ Himself miracles were the lowest manifestations of His glory. They showed that God was with Him; but His true glory was in His own character, and mission, and words. So it was with the apostles. Pauls shaking the viper off his hand is but a small thing compared with his sacrifice of his honours and emoluments for Christs sake. Peters healing of the lame man is but a small thing compared with the conversion of three thousand on the day of Pentecost. The moral sense of all men confesses this. There is constant danger lest we be led away by brilliancy, crowds, outward successes, intellectual miracles. Ministers sometimes so mistake, and others so mistake them. A man is lost as a minister of Christ who thinks about popularity or sets himself to seek it. The humble, obscure man is often greater than the prominent and brilliant one; he has greater aims, secures nobler things, bears a nobler character.

1. Conversion is greater than miracle

(1) In its sphere of operation. Miracle operates in the outer and physical world. Regeneration operates in the inner and moral world, amongst the passions and purposes of the soul.

(2) In the power that is put forth. In miracle Gods simple fiat is absolute; He commands the laws of nature--they instantly obey; but in regeneration Gods will encounters another will--a will that He has made free and powerful, and that He will not coerce. Nature never resisted Christs Word; the men of Jerusalem would not come to Him that they might have life. To convert a human soul, therefore, is infinitely greater than to create a planet: moral forces have to be used; it needs to be made willing, and this demands no less an agency than the Incarnation and the Cross.

(3) In its results. Miracles have fed the hungry, etc.; but conversion changes moral character, makes its subject a saint, and when he dies it secures his life with God in heaven.

2. Charity is greater than miracle (1Co_13:1-13). Moral excellencies have in them the quality of permanence; Christs miraculous acts have ceased. His love moved His power, which was miraculous; our love moves our power, which is not miraculous: the feeling and motive are the same, only the power and the form of the action differ. Christs disciples perpetuate His pitying love--they visit the sick, they relieve the poor, etc. And this is far grander than miracle: the aggregate benevolence of the Church of Christ is a nobler thing than the creation of a new world would be.

3. Patient submission to Gods will is greater than miracle. What can be nobler than a life wholly consecrated to God and to whatever is holy and benevolent? as life of self-sacrificing service in the Church, the school, or the mission field--a life that surrenders its dearest joys and interests for Christs sake? Perhaps the only nobler thing is, when devoted service is crowned by patient suffering.

4. Victory over death is greater than miracle. (H. Allon, D. D.)

The disciples work greater than his Lords

It is a common thought and remark with us, that the child and the day labourer now use forces and truths, and do works, without esteeming it unusual, which the earlier ages of science and thought, the ages of Copernicus and Columbus, were dimly and laboriously guessing and imagining and hoping. Those early masters laid down theories and principles, and they were ridiculed if not persecuted, misrepresented if not denied, obstructed if not stopped and interdicted. Their work was immense, greater than the work of their successors. It was the massive foundation. But their successors stand on a vantage ground. Slowly those beneficent theories have won acknowledgment. They had enlarged their sphere and field and power of operation. Their activity has increased till nothing now impedes. The noble originators have mounted into universal recognition. And their children daily develop the power which they made possible; make new applications as new exigencies arise and new fields open. Their successors and disciples do the same works in one sense, for it is the continuation of the same principle in activity: or, in one sense they do a lesser work, for it is less to continue than to originate. But in another sense they do greater works, for their activity is daily widening, daily less impeded, daily more and more encouraged by more auspicious surroundings. And yet they are not greater than the early originator, who cannot show the greater works which come so properly and naturally to them. They follow him. Yet they go beyond him. Nay, stranger still, they go beyond him only because they follow him, and are the disciples of and the believers in his first great underlying work. Apply this illustration to Christ and His disciples. True, His was the great spiritual, all-supporting work. The great problem was finished and enunciated at the Cross. It received its seal at the Easter. And yet the field of the Lords activity during His own earthly life was contracted to the smallest limits. He could not go beyond Judaea. His spiritual work found no spiritual surrounding, found no spiritual response, left no spiritual fruit (Joh_1:5; Joh_1:11; Mar_6:5). These were the judgments of His contemporaries upon Him (Mat_13:55; Mk Joh_9:29; Joh_7:47-48). Stop the world after Christs ascension, andask it how it had been the better for Christs living, and it would have nothing to show you. It would know of nothing done, but a few that were blind, now seeing, a few that were deaf, hearing, a few lepers cleansed, a few inanimates restored. And a single generation would have removed even these. Struggling as man in the world of men: bearing sin in the world of sin, Christ laid indeed the massive foundation of a worlds redemption; but it was a work wholly wrought out in and by Himself. None other knew of it. It hardly left any outward impression upon men and their lives. And what it did leave was vague, and easily lost. But at the Ascension a change begins. He goes to the Father. He is no more a mere single labourer, working out a great work among men; sufficient to do all, and doing all by Himself; but He has mounted to the seat of His power. And the Spirit of His power goes forth to create outward impressions upon men, to carry His work to others. In the first day of Peters preaching three thousand are converted; vastly more than Christ ever influenced; greater works than Christs, because He has gone to the Father. His successors and followers stood on a vantage ground of work. Their great, earlier Master had mounted into universal power. He was no longer compelled simply to suffer and submit as in the garden; but was omnipresent and omnipotent by His Spirit. And daily His Spirit makes new advances possible for them, which were not possible for Him when dwelling in the flesh. (Fred. Brooks.)

Greater works than Christs

What were the works that Jesus did? What was their very essence? We must look a little beneath the surface. Some minds are apt to confine their attention to the surface results of our Saviours wonderful course. They think of the leaping of the lame, the seeing of the blind, the hearing of the deaf, the speaking of the dumb, the rising of the dead, the conscious strength of the paralytic, and the emancipation of the demoniac. It is befitting to think of these things. Our Saviour wished them to be considered. They were as a voice from the excellent glory and drew attention to the fact that a gracious Divine Person was at work among men. And yet, comparatively speaking, they were but a voice drawing attention to something else. They pointed to something that was really higher and greater than themselves. It is good indeed that the lame should leap; but surely there is something better even for the lame. What if after leaping they hasten away to the haunts of dissipation! Of what very great benefit will their leaping be to them? It is true, too, that it is good for the blind to see, and to see clearly. But what if, after the first transports consequent on the restoration of vision, the eyes neither read the glory of God in the heavens, nor the glory of His grace on the pages of revelation? What if they lower with passion, or look out for opportunities of alluring the unwary to their destruction? There are surely better things still than mere seeing, hearing, speaking. Even life from the dead, if merely physical, is not the highest conceivable blessing. A new lease of life, if it turn, as may too often be the case, to be a lease misspent, is not the greatest possible benefit which can be conferred upon an immortal man. Neither is deliverance from demoniac torture and oppression the most glorious emancipation of which we can conceive. Surely, then, there was scope for the apostles doing even greater works than our Saviour performed when He scattered miracles of power all along the pathway of His terrestrial career. There was scope for those greater works, because the Saviour was resolved to go on, and yet further on, till He went up to His Father. Had He faltered in this resolution, had He shrunk when the crisis became imminent, had He refused to suffer and to die as an atoning Sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, then, not only would there have been no provision in Divine moral government for a repetition, or continuance, of such miracles of power, as were also miracles of mercy, but the door would have been actually closed upon hope in reference to deliverance from spiritual lameness, blindness, deafness, dumbness, paralysis, and death, and from all the spiritual demons of discord, and passion, and hate, and intemperance, and licentiousness, that are making demoniacs of myriads, and that would be in danger but for Christianity of making demoniacs of us all. Our Lord did not, however, repent of His high resolve. He did not draw back from the completion of His enterprise when the difficulty was at its climax, and the hosts of darkness had gathered around Him in their serried and most formidable array. Oh, no! He strode on to victory. And it was in view of that victory, and of its mighty moral influence in the Divine government, that He promised that all the blessings which He had conferred on individuals during the brief period of His own personal and preliminary ministry, should be but the precursory drops as compared with the plenteous rain that would by and by descend and refresh, not the laud of Palestine alone, but all the dry and thirsty lands on the face of the earth. The Saviour looked far and wide from His elevated standpoint and saw, as the consequent of His triumphal ascent to His Father, the overthrow of Phariseeism and Sadduceeism. That was a very great work. He looked further and saw the overthrow of Roman and Grecian and Scythian idolatry. What great works were these! He looked further and saw the destruction of slavery through the influence of His gospel of love as preached by His disciples. He saw too the gradual emancipation of the masses from the tyranny of tyrants, and their elevation into political and social privileges. He saw, besides, the erection of hospitals and other institutions of benevolence wherever His Cross should be planted fast and firm. He saw the establishment on the one hand of home missions descending to the hundreds of thousands who have lapsed, and the establishment, on the other, of foreign missions sending the gospel of His grace to the ends of the earth in hundreds of tongues. What wonder that He spoke of greater works than He Himself had performed on a few impotent folk round about the Sea of Galilee, and in a few other insignificant places within the narrow radius of the Holy Land? And then He looked still further forward, and saw His Church everywhere purified after it had passed through fiery trials. He saw, in that future, that just because He was about to go up to His Father, all demonism would be vanquished, all diseases would be healed; men and women everywhere would see right, and hear right, and speak right, and act right. He saw, as the grand conclusion of His enterprise, that men everywhere would be a brotherhood of love, no one acting selfishly, but each ministering benevolently to all around. (James Morison, D. D.)

Miracles in nature and grace contrasted

I. THE WORK OF CHRIST IN THE KINGDOM OF NATURE, CARRIED ON THROUGH HIS DISCIPLES.

1. The use of miraculous powers. Miracles were the credentials of Christs Messiahship. The words of the Saviour ought to have brought the world in homage to His feet. But seeing that men are held in bondage to sense He condescended to this weakness, and substantiated His preternatural knowledge by the exercise of preternatural power. When He added to His words this sign manual of Heaven, then numbers like Nicodemus said, No man can do these miracles, etc.

2. Their present disuse. They were only for the commencement of our religion. The pillar of a cloud and fire was Gods miraculous ratification of the authority of the Hebrew legislator. But that pillar was not a permanent gift. The Jews were trained to higher spiritual manifestations of the Divine presence, and then the cloud retired into the holy place and was seen no more. So the miracles of Christ and His apostles were the leading strings in which the infant Church was tenderly led until her inherent strength was developed, and she was enabled to walk alone in her spiritual might. The miracles in nature waned as the miracles of grace waxed, and the transforming influence of the gospel on the heart and life of a believer was left to be the worlds standing sign and proof that it was the power and the wisdom of God.

II. THE GREATER WORK OF CHRIST IN THE KINGDOM OF GRACE. The conversion of the soul is a greater work, because

1. It is wrought upon a greater object. Miracles were wrought upon material things; but conversion is wrought upon the soul. Who can calculate the vast superiority of spirit over matter? The soul allies us with Deity, for God is a spirit. It is the breath of the Almighty: matter is the rough clay in His hands. Hence the most degraded human being can say to the sun, I am greater than thou!

2. It demands more and greater attributes to effect it. Miracles were in the main displays of power. But in the conversion of our soul all the attributes of Jehovah are brought into play. Infinite wisdom must solve the problem, how the condemned can be pardoned, the lost saved, and the law honoured. Infinite power must work out the plan which wisdom has devised, and unite the Godhead and humanity in the person of Immanuel.

Infinite love must be manifested in the undertaking of such an amazing work.

3. It encounters greater difficulties. It was easier to make a world than remake a fallen soul. In miracles of nature there was nothing to resist the Divine will. But in the restoration of the soul difficulties on all sides were encountered. Divine justice and truth stood in the way. All the powers of darkness were marshalled against it. The soul opposes its own conversion. It required four thousand years to prepare for the coming of Christ, and after His coming His thirty-three years of humiliation, privation, and toil. It still requires the striving of the Spirit on earth, the unwearied intercession of Jesus above, and the process of earthly discipline before one soul can be brought to glory.

4. It secures a greater good. Even the miracles of Jesus secured only a temporal good, though they aimed at awaking desires after spiritual benefits. But conversion is mans highest good, securing the richest blessings.

5. It has a greater duration. A change of heart has imperishable results. Where are the few whom Jesus summoned from the grave? To the grave they were summoned again. Where is the crowd from whom disease fled? The forces of human affliction returned, and brought death as their leader. Where are those miraculously fed They hungered again.

III. THE ESSENTIAL QUALIFICATION FOR THIS WORK. He that believeth. One of the most prominent features in our Lords teaching is the importance attached to faith. With respect to outward miracles, none of His disciples could perform them, none of the multitude could enjoy them without faith. If confidence in Christ was so essential in outward miracles, much more is it essential

1. In the reception of the great miracle of grace.

2. To its instrumental accomplishment. The conversion of the world is entrusted to the Church as the instrument by which the Spirit effects this spiritual change. He that believeth, whosoever he may be, may aspire to this surpassing honour. There are three truths which should be deeply graven on our hearts.

(1) Faith in the adaptation of the gospel to meet the wants of men of every class and in every age.

(2) Faith in the fact that none are excluded from a participation in its saving blessings except through their own unbelief.

(3) Universal reliance or dependence on the Spirit of Christ in every work of faith and labour of love. If we put our faith in the splendour of our sanctuaries, the talent of our ministers, the respectability of our churches, the machinery of our religious societies, the purity of our creed, we are trusting to a broken reed.

IV. THE SOURCE OF ALL SUCCESS IN THIS WORK. The outpouring of the Spirit resulting from the exaltation of Jesus. For if I go not away, the Comforter, etc.

1. Our inward state requires this. To suppose a spiritual change without the Spirit is to suppose not only an effect without a cause, but an effect contrary to all causes.

2. Our outward state requires it. How can we conquer a hostile world, except by that Spirit who makes His strength perfect in our weakness?

3. Spiritual agency of a corrupting and deadly character shows our need of it. Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord.

Conclusion: Learn

1. The Divinity of Christ Jesus. Man, however gifted, is never able to impart at his will, his power to another. Napoleon could not bestow as a legacy on his faithful adherents his own genius. Christ says, The works that I do shall ye do also.

2. The honour and dignity of all believers. A greater miracle has been wrought on them than on the body of Lazarus.

3. The ennobling character of Christian work.

4. The lamentable condition of every unbeliever. (R. Best.)

The eclipse of miracle

I. The text presents us with a PARALLEL. Christ teaches that there shall be a relation of likeness or identity between His own personal works and the works carried on by believing disciples after His departure. He that believeth on Me, the works that I do, shall he do also. The terms in which Christ describes His own supernatural works are remarkable and suggestive. He scarcely ever speaks of them as miracles. He nearly always uses the quiet, unostentatious phrase employed in the text--works. The mere triumph over physical law seems to be forgotten, and there is a godlike unconsciousness of that which is extraordinary to us. The term is suggestive of calm power. These things are not miracles to Him, they were miracles only to the beholder. The word too is one that links His achievements with the achievements of the future Church. It expressed only that which should be common between the two. The miraculous element, in the popular sense of that word, was not the most conspicuous feature in the works. Christs thought would seem to have been fixed upon those elements in the works that embodied living relations. The eye of the child is caught by the glare of colour in the picture, and a little Red Riding Hood from an illustrated paper will fascinate it just as much as a Holy Family by Titian. The eye of the artist is riveted by the form and composition and delicate suggestion and sentiment with which the canvas has been made to speak. The first living relation in Christs works was with the Father. They were a continuous testimony of the Father to the Son before the world. The Father worketh hitherto, and I work. The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do. The Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works. The second living relation embodied in Christs works was with the Holy Spirit. Now these are the essential elements in Christs works, and the power of accomplishing such works is given just as much to us as to Jesus Christ. Through all the life of a man who believes in Jesus Christ the Father directly testifies concerning His Son. Whilst the man retains a loyal, believing relation to his great Head, the Holy Ghost is the sovereign guide of all his activity, and his works are as perfectly adapted to the removal of suffering, the destruction of unbelief, and the awakening of faith in those with whom he is associated, as were the most imperial works of the Son of God upon earth. The works that I do shall he do also. If we cannot do works upon which the miracle glory rests, we can do works upon which there rests a glory that in Christs view outshines and eclipses that of miracle, so that even that which was made glorious had no glory, by reason of the glory that excelleth.

II. The text contains a CONTRAST. There is to be a splendid advance in the character of the believers achievements, an advance that will make them transcend even the Lords own personal works amongst men. Greater works than these shall he do. Christ had always thought more of the moral elements and relations in His works and those of His disciples, than of the merely miraculous. The time Christ spent in teaching men was enormous, compared with the time spent in healing disease. A second sufficed to touch a leper with His restoring hand: it sometimes cost Him days to do the yet greater work of touching a polluted soul with heavenly light. In the Acts of the Apostles we find the space occupied by narrating the work of miracle small, and that occupied by the work of conviction increasingly large, in comparison with the relative spaces they fill in the synoptical gospels. The apostles were beginning to enter into Christs estimate of the relative value of the two types of work. The physical conditions that constituted Christs works miraculous are often realized in connection with spiritual work upon a much more commanding scale. Did some of Christs works, such as turning the water into wine and feeding the multitudes, imply mastery over creative processes? Whilst fruitful seasons and food and gladness are given by the loving Father to good and evil alike, I have no doubt, the cry of the scientists notwithstanding, they are given in conspicuous degrees to the piety and prayers of Gods people. And not to speak of the supernatural influence of Christianity, how much of the wealth of the world is due to the thrift and righteousness growing up out of its conversions! Take away its presence from the earth, and nations that now overflow with luxury would be represented by groups of scattered savages gnawing roots and uncooked carrion. It is Christianity that is feeding the nations. By its uplifted hands of righteousness and prayer it is multiplying bread for thousands in comparison with whom the crowds Christ fed were but as units. And is not this a greater thing than the miracle on the tableland of Bethsaida or the plain of Gennesaret? Did the largest group of Christs miracles imply command over disease and death? How much has that active sympathy, which is the outcome of faith in Christ, done to limit the ravages of disease and add to the length of human life? The evils turned back by the conversion of those present in thousands of Christian congregations are as ghastly and as terrible and manifold as the evils that shrank before Christs word in the days of His flesh. For Christian faith and love to put healing hands upon human sickness and infirmity, to prevent in incalculable degrees human pain, to add year by year to the length of human life in all quarters of the globe, is it not a greater work than Christs comparatively circumscribed work of healing the sick and raising the dead when upon earth? The spiritual works effected by believers in Jesus Christ bring about that conviction which is the great end of miracle by more effective methods. In miracle the work of the Spirit came before the eye. Miracle left the man more or less the victim of his own prejudice, unbelief, self-will. Miracle was only occasional in its appeal. The demonstration of the Spirit in the heart of man was a power that outlasted the believing prayers and labours to which its first coming was a response. If our faith reach up to the full evangelical altitude, we may do by the instantaneous help of the Spirit what it cost Christ years full of pains and sighs and toils to accomplish. Our work transcends miracle because the spirit, which is the special sphere touched by it, is more delicately sensitive than the body, which is the sphere in which miracle was wrought. The unseen part of a mans nature has capabilities of enjoyment or suffering which are indefinitely in advance of the part of his nature represented by the senses; the work of saving and tranquillising it must be indefinitely higher in both process and result. In comparison with the agony of a wounded spirit, physical suffering is a mere pin prick. To impart health by miracle to a diseased frame is a work unspeakably inferior to that of ministering salvation to diseased souls, plucking out rooted sins from the memory in which they rankle, and freeing the conscience from the haunting sense of eternal wrath. The spiritual works it is the believers high privilege to do outshine Christs personal miracles, because spiritual work is the key to the final destruction of all physical evil and disability at the last day. In spiritual miracle, the sentence is pronounced that shall then be carried out, and evil is virtually dead for the man whose nature has been touched by the works we do through our believing fellowship with Christ. The miracle was only respite. Lo! disease and death come back to undo the triumph of the vanished wonder worker. By the power I wield as a believer in Jesus Christ I work irreversible miracles. I dismiss disease and death into a realm from whence they can never return. The inward miracle of regeneration is the mainspring of that climatic miracle which sums up all other acts of healing power, when sickness and sorrow and sighing shall be swept forever away. This is the true virtue radiated from the ascended Saviour, imparted freely to all His disciples, and perpetually reflected from every quickened Church in fellowship with its Lord. It pulsates unseen in our midst lust now, but a few transient breaths must come and go before it can be seen that the flush of immortal health has been restored to the universe.

III. The text points out THE SECRET OF THIS CONTRAST between Christs works and those of His favoured followers. The secret has a Divine and a human side. Christs presence at the right hand of the Father is the pledge and sign that sin has been dealt with, mans unfitness to receive these high and holy gifts has been taken away, the burden which crushed human nature into impotence removed, and the Fathers hand opened to His reconciled people in more than its ancient wealth of blessing. This secret of transcendent power has an earthly as well as a heavenly side. And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do. Some of the natural forces of the universe can only be manifested through the special elements and agencies that are adapted to transmit them. Electricity must have a pathway of susceptible matter over which to travel, even if that pathway be one of indefinitely minute particles of ether only. So with the spiritual forces of the universe. If the power of the mediatorial presence have no conducting lines of faith along which to travel, it must sleep forever, and the world be left to swing on in its old grooves of evil and death. The manifestation of all the energies of that presence can only come through the believing request of the disciples. Prayer, bound only by the holy instincts of the faith that inspires it, and the rights of the name in which it is presented, is a thing of illimitable power. Let us never forget the dignity and beneficence of all spiritual work. This promise suggests the plenary character of the Pentecostal endowment. (T. G. Selby.)

Because I go unto My Father

I. COMPLETING MY WORK IN THE FLESH.

II. ACCEPTING MY PLACE AT THE THRONE.

III. BEQUEATHING MY WORK TO THE CHURCH.

IV. ENDURING MY SAINTS WITH THE SPIRIT. (S. S. Times.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 14:12-14. Verily, he that believeth on me, &c. — Having mentioned his miracles, Jesus proceeds to promise, that he would endow his apostles with a power of performing even greater wonders than any they had ever seen him do. He made them this promise to animate them in their work, and that they might not despond in his absence, when they received such tokens of his remembering them, and such proofs of his power with the Father. “How fully,” says Macknight, “Jesus performed this promise, is plain from the history of the Acts throughout, particularly Joh 5:15, where we find, that the very shadow of Peter, passing by, cured the sick on whom it fell, and who were laid in the streets for that purpose: also from Joh 19:12, which informs us, that handkerchiefs and aprons, which had touched the body of Paul, being applied to the sick and possessed, banished both the diseases and the devils. Nor should we, on this occasion, forget the gift of languages bestowed on the apostles, and which they were enabled to communicate unto others. Yet if these miracles are not thought to show greater power than Christ’s, we may refer the greatness, whereof he speaks, to the effect which they were to produce on the minds of men. For, in that respect, the apostles’ miracles were vastly superior to Christ’s; converting more people in one day, than was done by all the miracles that Jesus performed during the course of his ministry. They converted thousands at once, made the gospel to fly like lightning through the world, and beat down every thing that stood in opposition to the faith of their Master.” And whatsoever ye shall ask — Under the influence of my Spirit, and subservient to the great end of your life and ministry; that will I do — Although the promise is here conceived in general terms, yet the subject treated of directs us to understand it especially of miracles wrought in confirmation of the gospel; that the Father may be glorified in the Son — Who, when he is ascended up to heaven, will from thence be able to hear and answer prayer, and, even in his most exalted state, will continue to act with that faithful regard to his Father’s honour, which he has shown in his humiliation on earth. If ye ask any thing, &c. — I repeat it, for the encouragement of your faith and hope, that I will be as affectionate and constant a friend to you in heaven, as I have ever been on earth.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John

CHRIST’S WORKS AND OURS

Joh 14:12 - Joh 14:14.

I have already pointed out in a previous sermon that the key-word of this context is ‘Believe!’ In three successive verses we find it, each time widening in its application. We have first the question to the single disciple: ‘Philip! believest thou not?’ We have then the invitation addressed to the whole group: ‘Believe Me!’ And here we have a wholly general expression referring to all who, in every generation and corner of the world, put their trust in Christ, and extending the sunshine of this great promise to whosoever believeth in Him. Our Lord has pointed to believing as the great antidote to a troubled heart, as the sure way of knowing the Father, as the better substitute for sight; and now here He opens before us still more wonderful prerogatives and effects of faith. His words carry us up into lofty and misty regions, where we can neither breathe freely nor see clearly, except as we hold to His words. Therefore He prefaces them with His ‘Verily, verily!’ bidding us listen to them with sharpened attention as the disclosure of something wonderful, and receive them with unfaltering confidence, on His authority, however marvellous and otherwise undiscoverable they may be.

What is it, then, that He thus commends to our acceptance? If I may venture a paraphrase which may at least have the advantage of being cast into less familiar words, it is just this, that because of, and after, Christ’s departure from earth, He will, in response to prayer, work upon faithful souls in such a fashion as that they will do what He did, and in some sense will do even more.

I. We have here the continuous work of the exalted Lord for and through His servants.

These disciples, of course, were trembling and oppressed with the thought that the departure of Jesus would be the end of His ceaseless activity for them, on which they had depended implicitly for so long. Henceforward, whatever distress or need might come, that Voice would be silent, and that Hand motionless, and they would be left to face every storm, uncompanioned and uncounselled. Some of us know how dreary such experience makes life, and we can understand how these men shrank from the prospect. Christ’s words give strength to meet that trial, and not only tell them that after He is gone they will be able to do what they cannot do now, and what He used to do for them, but that in them He will work as well as for them, and be the power of their action, after He has departed.

For, notice the remarkable connection of the words with which we are dealing. ‘He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do,’ and the ground of that is ‘because I go to My Father,’ and whatsoever the believer ‘shall ask, I will do.’

So, then, there are here two very distinct paths on which Christ represents to us that His future activity will travel; the one, that of doing for us, in response to our prayers; the other that of working on us and in us, so that our acts are His and His acts are ours. We may look at these two for a moment separately.

Here, then, there is clearly stated this great thought, that Christ’s removal from the world is not the end of His activity in the world and on material things, but that, absent, He still is a present power, and having passed through death, and been removed from sense, He can still operate upon the things round us, and move these according to His will. We are not to water down such words as these into any such thought as that the continuous influence of the memory and history of His past will be a present power in all ages.

That is true, gloriously and uniquely true, but that is not the truth which He speaks here. Over and above that perpetual influence of past recorded work, there is the present influence of His present work, and to-day He is working as truly as He wrought when on earth. One form of His work was finished on Calvary, as His dying breath proclaimed; but there is another work of Christ in the midst of the ages, moving the pawns on the chessboard of the world, and presiding over the fortunes of the solemn conflict, which will not be ended until that day when the angel voices shall chant, ‘It is done! The kingdoms of the world are the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ.’ The living Christ works by a true forth-putting of His own present power upon material things, and amidst the providences of life. And therefore these disciples were not to be cast down as if His work for them were ended.

Now it is clear, of course, that such words as these do demand for their vindication something perfectly unique and solitary in the nature and person of Jesus Christ. All other men’s work is cut in twain by death. ‘This man, having served his generation by the will of God, fell on sleep and was gathered to his fathers, and saw corruption,’ that is the epitaph over the greatest thinkers, statesmen, heroes, poets, the epitaph for the tenderest and most hopeful. Father, mother, husband, wife, child, friend, all cease to act when they die, and though thunders should break, they are silent and can help no more. But Christ is living to-day, and working all around us.

Now, brethren, it is of the last importance for the joyousness of our Christian lives, and for the courage of our conflict with sorrow and sin, that we should give a very prominent place in our creeds, and our hearts, to this great truth of a living Christ. What a joyful sense of companionship it brings to the solitary, what calmness of vision in contemplating the complications and calamities of the world’s history, if we grasp firmly the assurance that the living Christ is actually working by the present forth-putting of His power in the world to-day!

But that is not all. There is another path on which our Lord shows us here a glimpse of His working, not only for us, but on and in and therefore through us, so that the deeds that we do in faith that rests upon Him are in one aspect His, and in another ours.

‘The works that I do shall He do also’; because ‘whatsoever ye shall ask I will do it.’

We have not to think only of a Lord whose activity for us, beneficent and marvellous as it is, was finished in the misty past upon the Cross, nor have we only to think of a Lord whose activity for us, mighty and comforting as it is to all the solitary and struggling, is wrought as from the heights of the heavens, but we have to think of One who is beside us and in us and knows the hidden paths that no eye sees, and no foot but His can tread, into the inmost recesses of our souls, and there can enter as King and righteousness, as life and strength. This is the deepest of the lessons that He would teach us here. ‘I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me,’ and through me, if I keep close to Him, will work mightily in forms that my poor manhood could never have reached. The emblem of the vine and the branches, and the other emblem of the house and its inhabitants, and the other of the head and the members, all point to this one same thing which shallow and unspiritual men call ‘mystical,’ but which is the very heart of the Christian prerogative and the anchor of the Christian hope. Christ in us is our present righteousness and our hope of a future glory.

And now mark that a still more solemn and mysterious aspect of this union of Jesus Christ and the believer is given, since it is set forth as resulting in our doing Christ’s works, and Christ doing ours; and therein is paralleled with the yet more wonderful and ineffable union between the Father and the Son. It is no accident that in one clause He says, ‘I am in the Father, and the Father in Me. The words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself, but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works’; and that in the next He says, ‘The works that I do shall he do also’; and so bids us see in that union between the Father and the Son, and in that consequent union of co-operation between Him and His Father, a pattern after which our union with Him is to be moulded, both as regards the closeness of its intimacy and as regards the resulting manifestations in life. Christ is in us and we in Christ in some measure as the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son. And the works that we do He does in some fashion that faintly echoes and shadows the perfect co-operation of the Father and the Son in the works that the Christ did upon the earth.

All the doings of a Christian man, if done in faith, and holding by Christ, are Christ’s doings, inasmuch as He is the life and the power which does them all. And Christ’s deeds are reproduced and perpetuated in His humble follower, inasmuch as the life which is imparted will unfold itself according to its own kind; and he that loves Christ will be changed into His likeness, and become a partaker of His Spirit. So let us curb all self-dependence and self-will, that that mighty tide may flow into us; and let us cast from us all timidity, distrust, and gloom, and be strong in the assurance that we have a Christ living in the heavens to work for us, and living within us to work through us.

There is no record of the Ascension in John’s Gospel, but these words of my text unveil to us the inmost meaning of that Ascension, and are in full accord with the great picture which one of the Evangelists has drawn-a picture in two halves, which yet are knit together into one. ‘So then, after He had spoken unto them, He was received up into heaven, and sat at the right hand of God; and they went forth and preached everywhere.’ What a contrast between the two-the repose above, the toil below! Yes! But the next words knit them together-’The Lord also working with them, and confirming the word with signs following.’

II. Note, in the next place, the greater work of the servants on and for whom the Lord works.

‘Greater works than these shall he do.’ Is, then, the servant greater than his Lord, and he that is sent greater than He that sent him? Not so, for whatsoever the servant does is done because the Lord is with and in him, and the contrast that is drawn between the works that Christ does on earth and the greater works that the servant is to do hereafter is, properly and at bottom, the contrast between Christ’s manifestations in the time of His earthly limitation and humiliation, and His manifestations in the time of His Ascension and celestial glory.

We need not be afraid that such great words as these in any measure trench on the unique and unapproachable character of the earthly work of Christ in its two aspects, which are one-of Revelation and Redemption. These are finished, and need no copy, no repetition, no perpetuation, until the end of time. But the work of objective Revelation, which was completed when He ascended, and the work of Redemption which was finished when He rose-these require to be applied through the ages. And it is in regard to the application of the finished work of Christ to the actual accomplishment of its contemplated consequences, that the comparison is drawn between the limited sphere and the small results of Christ’s work upon earth, and the worldwide sweep and majestic magnitude of the results of the application of that work by His servants’ witnessing work. The wider and more complete spiritual results achieved by the ministration of the servants than by the ministration of the Lord is the point of comparison here. And I need only remind you that the poorest Christian who can go to a brother soul, and by word or life can draw that soul to a Christ whom it apprehends as dying for its sins and raised for its glorifying, does a mightier thing than it was possible for the Master to do by life or lip whilst He was here upon earth. For the Redemption had to be completed in act before it could be proclaimed in word; and Christ had no such weapon in His hands with which to draw men’s souls, and cast down the high places of evil, as we have when we can say, ‘We testify unto you that the Son of God hath died for our sins, and is raised again according to the Scriptures.’ Nor need I do more than remind you of the comparison, so exalting for His humility and so humbling for our self-exaltation, between the narrow sphere in which His earthly ministrations had to operate and the worldwide scope which is given to His servants. ‘He laid His hands on a few sick folk, and healed them’; and at the end of His life there were one hundred and twenty disciples in Jerusalem and five hundred in Galilee, and you might have put them all into this chapel and had ample room to spare. That was all that Jesus Christ had done; while to-day and now the world is being leavened and the kingdoms of the earth are beginning to recognise His name. ‘Greater works than these shall he do’ who lets Christ in him do all His works.

III. Lastly, notice the conditions on which the exalted Lord works for and on His servants.

These are two, faith and prayer.

‘He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also.’ Faith, the simple act of loving trust in Jesus Christ, opens the door of our hearts and natures for the entrance of all His solemn Omnipotence, and makes us possessors of it. It is the condition, and the only condition, and plainly the indispensable condition, of possessing this divine Christ’s power, that we should trust ourselves to Him that gives it. And if we do, then we shall not trust in vain, but to us there will come power that will surpass our desire, and fill us with its own rejoicing and pure energy. Faith will make us like Christ. Faith is intensely practical. ‘He that believeth shall do.’ It is no mere cold assent to a creed which is utterly impotent to operate upon men’s acts, no mere hysterical emotion which is utterly impotent to energise into nobilities of service and miracles of consecration, but it is the affiance of the whole nature which spreads itself before Him and prays, ‘Fill my emptiness and vitalise me with Thine own Spirit.’ That is the faith which is ever answered by the inrush of the divine power, and the measure of our capacity of receiving is the measure of His gift to us.

So if Christian individuals and Christian communities are impotent, or all but impotent, there is no difficulty in understanding why. They have cut the connection, they have shut the tap. They lack faith; and so their power is weakness. ‘Why could we not cast him out?’ said they, perplexed when they had no need to be. ‘Why could you not cast him out? Because you do not believe that I, working in you, can cast him out. That is why; and the only why.’ Let us learn that the secret of Christians’ weakness is the weakness of their Christian faith.

And the other condition is prayer. ‘Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name I will do it,’ and He repeats it, for confirmation and for greater emphasis. ‘If ye shall ask anything in My name,’ or, as perhaps that clause ought to be read with some versions, ‘If ye shall ask Me anything in My name I will do it.’

Three points may be named here. Our power depends upon our prayer. God’s and Christ’s fullness and willingness to communicate do not depend upon our prayer. But our capacity to receive of that fullness, and so the possibility of its communication to us, do depend upon our prayer. ‘We have not because we ask not.’

The power of our prayer depends upon our conscious oneness with the revealed Christ. ‘If ye shall ask in My name,’ says He. And people think they have fulfilled the condition when, in a mechanical and external manner, they say, as a formula at the end of petitions that have been all stuffed full of self-will and selfishness, ‘for Christ’s sake. Amen!’ and then they wonder they do not get them answered! Is that asking in Christ’s name?

Christ’s name is the revelation of Christ’s character, and to do a thing in the name of another person is to do it as His representative, and as realising that in some deep and real sense-for the present purpose at all events-we are one with Him. And it is when we know ourselves to be united to Christ and one with Him, and representative in a true fashion of Himself, as well as when, in humble reliance on His work for us and His loving heart, we draw near, that our prayer has power, as the old divines used to say, ‘to move the Hand that moves the world,’ and to bring down a rush of blessing upon our heads. Prayer in the name of Christ is hard to offer. It needs much discipline and watchfulness; it excludes all self-will and selfishness. And if, as my text tells us, the end of the Son’s working is the glory of the Father, that same end, and not our own ease or comfort, must be the end and object of all prayer which is offered in His name. When we so pray we get an answer. And the reason why such multitudes of prayers never travel higher than the roof, and bring no blessings to him who prays, is because they are not prayers in Christ’s name.

Prayer in His name will pass into prayer to Him. As He not obscurely teaches us here {if we adopt the reading to which I have already referred}, He has an ear to hear such requests, and He wields divine power to answer. Surely it was not blasphemy nor any diversion of the worship due to God alone, when the dying martyr outside the city wall cried and said, ‘Lord Jesus! receive my spirit.’ Nor is it any departure from the solemnest obligations laid upon us by the unity of the divine nature, nor are we bringing idolatrous petitions to another than the Father, when we draw near to Christ and ask Him to give us that which He gives as the Father’s gift, and to work on us that which the Father that dwelleth in Him works through Him for us.

Trust yourselves to Christ, and let your desires be stilled, to listen to His voice in you, and let that voice speak. And then, dear brethren, we shall be lifted above ourselves, and strength will flow into us, and we shall be able to say, ‘I can do all things, through the Christ that dwells in me and makes me strong.’ And just as the glad, sunny waters of the incoming tide fill the empty places of some oozy harbour, where all the ships are lying as if dead, and the mud is festering in the sunshine, so into the slimy emptiness of our corrupt hearts there will pour the flashing sunlit wave, the ever fresh rush of His power; and ‘everything will live whithersoever it cometh,’ and we shall be able to say in all humility, and yet in glad recognition of Christ’s faithfulness to this, His transcendent promise, ‘I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me,’ ‘because the life which I live in the flesh I live by faith of the Son of God.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

14:12 Jesus promised that anyone who believes in him would perform great miracles and experience answers to their prayers (see 1 Jn 5:14). These things would become possible when Jesus went to the Father, because he would send the Holy Spirit to empower the works (John 14:16). • The greater works will not outdo Jesus’ work, but regular people empowered by the Spirit will be doing them. God promised that in the era of the Spirit, he would bring his Kingdom and power into the world in a way not seen before.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Joh 14:12. Ἀμὴν, ἀμήν, verily, verily) There follow most sweet promises and exhortations mixed together; and in such a way, that, whilst speaking, He from time to time [“subinde”] touches upon those topics, which in the progress of His discourse form the very subjects proposed for discussion.[348] For instance, Joh 14:15, as to love, “If ye love Me, keep My commandments:” with which comp. Joh 14:21, “He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me.” And He also repeats some things by way of recapitulation. The Evangelist and Apostle also imitates this method of our Lord: 1Jn 2:20, note.—ἅ, those which) i.e. equally great. [Comp. ch. Joh 5:20; Joh 5:25, “The Father showeth the Son all things that Himself doeth; and He will show Him greater works than these:—The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live.”]—μείζονα, greater) for instance, Act 5:15, “They brought forth the sick into the streets, that at the least the shadow of Peter in passing by might overshadow some of them;” Joh 19:12. “From Paul’s body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed;” Mar 16:17, the end of the ver., “They shall speak with new tongues.”—ποιήσει, he shall do) through faith in Me.

[348] Propositiones; the Statements of His subject.—E. and T.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh_14:12-13. Truly, on the compliance with this πιστεύετέ μοι there awaits an activity like my own, yea, and still greater. What encouragement to fidelity in the faith! Schott, Opusc. p. 177, imports the meaning: neque ad ea tantum provoco, quae me ipsum hucusque vidistis perficientem, imo, etc. Comp. also Luthardt, according to whom Jesus proceeds to a still further demonstration of His fellowship with God.

ὁ πιστ. εἰς ἐμέ] intended not to have a general application, but to refer (comp. Joh_14:11; Joh_14:13) to the disciples. On εἰς ἐμέ, Bengel aptly remarks: qui Christo de se loquenti (see πιστ. μοι, Joh_14:11), in Christum credit.

κἀκεῖνος] he also, in comparison, emphatically repeating the subject. Xen. Mem. i. 2. 24.

καί] heightening the effect: and besides, indeed. See Hartung, Partikell. I. p. 145 f.

μείζονα τούτων] greater than these, ἂ ἐγὼ ποιῶ, comp. Joh_5:20, and on the thought, Mat_21:21-22. It is not, however, to be referred to single separate miracles, which are reported by the apostles; Ruperti names the healing power of Peters shadow, Acts 5, and the speaking in foreign tongues, which latter Grotius also has in view; Bengel appeals to Act_5:15; Act_19:12; Mar_16:17 ff. A measuring of miracles of this kind by their magnitude is throughout foreign to the N. T. Rather in μείζονα τούτων is the notion of ἔργα expanded, so that its predominant signification is not that of miraculous deeds in the narrower sense (as in ἃ ἐγὼ ποιῶ), but in a broader sense, the world-subduing apostolic activity. generally, produced by the Holy Spirit (Joh_16:18 ff.) in the diffusion of the gospel, with its light and life, amongst all peoples, in the conquest of Judaism and paganism by the word of the cross, etc. The history of the apostles, and especially the work of Paul, is the commentary thereon. These were ἔργα of a greater kind than the miracles proper which Jesus wrought,[146] and which also, categorically, those of the apostles resembled.

ὅτι, κ.τ.λ.] assigns the reasons of the preceding assurance, τὰ ἔργα ἃ ἐγὼ ποιῶ … μείζ. τούτ. ποιήσει (not merely the μείζονα, for which limitation no reason presents itself), and this statement of reason continues to the end of Joh_14:13, so that καὶ ὅ, τι ἂν still depends on ὅτι. Since He is going to the Father, and is thereby elevated to the position of heavenly rule, He will do all that they shall ask in His name, there can be no doubt that the assurance of those ἔργα will be justified. So, substantially, Grotius, Lücke, Olshausen, De Wette, Ewald, Godet, comp. already Cyril. Considering the internal coherence, and the immediately continuative καί, Joh_14:13, it is incompetent to separate Joh_14:13, as if it were independent, from Joh_14:12, whereby ὅτι ἐγὼ πρὸς τ. π. πορ. is taken either merely in the sense: ὑμῶν λοιπόν ἐστι τὸ θαυματουργεῖν, ἐγὼ γὰρ ἀπέρχομαι (Chrysostom, so Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Erasmus, Wolf, Kuinoel, Ebrard, and several others); or more correctly, because really assigning a reason, with Luther: for through the power that I shall have at the right hand of the Father, … I will work in you, etc. Comp. Calvin and several others, including B. Crusius, Luthardt, Hengstenberg.

ἐγώ] In opposition to the πιστεύοντες, who continue their activity on earth.

ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου] Comp. Joh_15:16, Joh_16:23. The prayerful request to God (for it is to God that the absolute αἰτήσητε refers, comp. Joh_15:16) is made in the name of Jesus, if this name, Jesus Christ, as the full substance of the saving faith and confession of him who prays, is in his consciousness the element in which the prayerful activity lives and moves, so that thus that Name, embracing the whole revelation of redemption, is that which specifically measures and defines the disposition, feeling, object, and contents of prayer. The express use of the name of Jesus therein is no specific token; the question is of the spirit and mind of him who prays. The apostolic mode of expression is analogous: to be, have, say, do, anything, etc., ἐν Χριστῷ, ἐν κυρίῳ. Comp. on Col_3:17, and see also Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 357, and generally Gess, d. Gebet im Nam. Jesu, 1861. The renderings: invocato meo nomine (in connection with which reference is irrelevantly made to Act_3:6, Chrysostom, Nonnus, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Maldonatus, and several others); me agnoscentes mediatorem (Melanchthon); ut mea causa faciat (Grotius); per meritum meum (Calovius and several others); in my mind, in my affairs (De Wette), and the like, are partly opposed to the words, partly too narrow, and comprised in the foregoing explanation. But if we proposed to interpret, with Godet: in my stead, that is, in such a way as though I myself were the subject that prays through you,[147] the first person ποιήσω would be inappropriate to a self-hearing; and essential prayers like those for the forgiveness of sin would be excluded.

τοῦτο ποιήσω] nothing else. This definite and unlimited promise rests upon the fact that the petition of him who prays in the name of Jesus is in harmony with the will of Christ and of God, but in every case subordinates itself in the consciousness of him who prays to the restriction: not my, but Thy will! hence also the denial of a particular petition is the fulfilment of prayer, only in another way. Comp. 2Co_12:8-9.

That Christ asserts the ποιεῖν of Himself (Joh_15:16, and Joh_16:23 of the Father), lies in the consciousness of His unity with God, according to which He, even in His exalted condition, is in the Father, and the Father is in Him. Hence, if, through the fulfilment of these petitions, the Son must be glorified, the Father is glorified in the Son; wherefore Jesus adds, as the final aim of the τοῦτο ποιήσω: ἵνα δοξασθῇ ὁ πατ. ἐν τῷ υἱῷ. Comp. Joh_13:31. The honour of the Father is ever the last object of all that is attained in the affairs of the Son, Joh_12:28; Joh_11:4; Php_2:11; Rom_16:25 ff.; Gal_1:5; Eph_3:21. Note the emphatic collocation ὁ πατὴρ ἐν τῷ υἱῷ, where, however, the main stress lies upon ὁ πατήρ.

[146] For He assumed only a small corner for Himself, a little time for His preaching and working of miracles; but the apostles and their successors went through the whole world, etc.Luther.

[147] So also Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 272, who regards the works only as the object of prayer. But for this the expression is too general; just as general, Joh_16:23 ff. The works are subsumed under the general statement.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 14:12 . ἀμὴν … ποιήσει . The first encouragement is the assurance that through Christ’s absence the disciples would be enabled to do greater works than Jesus Himself had done. These “greater” works were the spiritual effects accomplished by the disciples, especially the great novel fact of conversion. See this developed in Parker’s The Paraclete . Such works were to be possible ὅτι … πορεύομαι . It was by founding a spiritual religion and altering men’s views of the spiritual world Christ enabled His followers to do these greater works. Here this is explained on the plane of the disciples’ thoughts and in this form: “I go to my Father, the source of all power, and whatever you ask in my name I will do it”.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vv. 12-14. “Verily, verily, I say unto you; He that believes on me, he also shall do the works which I do, and he shall do still greater things than these, because I go to the Father, 13. and whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.”

The question of Thomas respecting the way had brought Jesus to speak of the work by which He leads His own to communion with the Father; that of Philip had brought Him back to what He had already been here on earth, as the perfect revelation of the Father. He had thus been turned aside from the essential object of the conversation: the encouragement to be given to the disciples, in view of the separation which was distressing them (Joh 14:1). He now resumes this subject, and adds to the promise of a future reunion in the Father’s house that of a much nearer meeting, that in which He will return to dwell in them through the Holy Spirit and will continue through them here on earth the work which He has Himself begun here. Such is the thought of the whole following passage, Joh 14:12-24. The question of Judas does not introduce a new subject; it affords Jesus the occasion of finishing the preceding development.

According to Keil, Joh 14:12 has as its purpose to reassure the disciples with regard to their future apostolic activity, respecting which they were anxious. According to Weiss, Jesus desires to show them how their own works will take the place of His, which are about to fail them and by reason of which, nevertheless, they are attached to Him. But there is no longer a question of these ideas in what follows. The question is now of the spiritual reunion which will follow the impending separation, and which will prepare the way for the final reunion promised in Joh 14:1-3. Joh 14:12 forms the transition to this new promise. Jesus begins by setting forth the effect (the works which they will do), in order to go back to the cause (His power acting in them). The expression: shall do the works which I do, refers to miracles similar to those of Jesus, which were wrought by the apostles, and the following expression: he shall do even greater things, refers, not to more extraordinary outward works—the greatness of miracles is not thus measured (Weiss)—but to works of a superior nature even to corporeal healings. What St. Peter did at Pentecost, and St. Paul did throughout the world,—what a simple preacher, a simple believer effects in causing the Spirit to descend into a heart—Jesus could not do during His sojourn on earth. For, in order that such things should be realized, it was necessary “that the wall of separation between God and men should have been destroyed and the Holy Spirit have been given to mankind” (Gess); in other words, that, as the end of the verse says, the glorification of Jesus should have been accomplished: “because I go to the Father;” comp. Joh 7:39. The branch, united to the vine, can bear fruits which the vine itself cannot bear. Greater does not, therefore, mean here: more stupendous, but more excellent; and this term does not refer merely to the extension of the apostolic ministry beyond the limits of the theocracy, as Lucke, Tholuck, Olshausen, de Wette understand it—this difference is here only secondary— but to the nature of the works accomplished.

This superiority of spiritual productiveness promised to the disciples will be founded upon the exaltation of Christ’s own position: “Because I go to the Father.” We see clearly here that the expression: to go to the Father, denotes not death only, but death and the ascension together.— Jesus says, according to the Alexandrian authorities: to the Father, not: to my Father. Indeed, God shows Himself, in thus acting, as the Father of the disciples no less than of Jesus Himself.

We must not close the explanation which the because leads us to look for with Joh 14:12, by making Joh 14:13, as Westcott would still have it, a principal clause. Joh 14:13 necessarily belongs to this explanation. It is not sufficient that Jesus should be exalted; it is necessary that He should still act from the midst of His glory: because I go...and...I will do it. Καί : and thus. Whatsoever you shall ask indicates the disciple’s part in these works; it must not be passed over in silence; otherwise Jesus could not say they will do them (Joh 14:12).

This part will be simply prayer. The believer asks, and the all-powerful Christ works from the midst of His glory. But the question here is not of prayer in general. It is to prayer of a special kind that Jesus attributes this efficacious co-operation with Him, to prayer in His name. To ask in the name of any one is, in ordinary life, to ask in place of a person, as if on his part, and applying to oneself, in virtue of His recommendation, all his titles to the favor demanded. If we had only this passage in which the expression: to pray in the name of Jesus, were used, we should accordingly think that to pray thus is to ask something in the assured consciousness of our reconciliation with God and our adoption in Christ, to pray to God as if we were the representatives, and, in some sort, the mouth of Jesus. But is this explanation, in itself very natural and the one which I adopted in the preceding editions, applicable to the passage Joh 14:26 : “The Holy Spirit whom my Father will send in my name”? It does not seem to me so. The other explanations do not appear to satisfy this requirement any more fully; thus those of Chrysostom, “pleading my name;” of Calov, “on the foundation of my merits;” of Lucke, Meyer, Gess, etc., “praying in communion with me, from the midst of the spiritual element of my own life;” of de Wette, “in view of my cause;” or of Weiss, “in so far as it is a matter of works done for the accomplishment of the mission which I give you.”

All these explanations are true, certainly, but they touch only one side of the idea, not the centre. I think, therefore, that we must rather abide by that of Hengstenberg, Keil and Westcott (with differing shades): to ask a thing of God as Father on the foundation of the revelation which Jesus has given us of Himself and of His work, or, as Keil says, “plunging by faith into the knowledge which we have received of Him as Son of God humbled and glorified.” By acting thus we necessarily address to God a prayer which has all the characteristics set forth in the preceding explanations. This sense answers also to that of the term the name in the Scriptures. For the name sums up the knowledge which we possess of a being; it is his reflection in our thought. This sense applies very satisfactorily to the formula of Joh 14:26.— I will do it, says Jesus; He thus sets forth the greatness of His future position as the organ of omnipotence acting in the service of the fatherly love of God. Had He not said in Joh 14:1 : “Believe in God, and believe also in me.”

And all this will take place, Jesus adds, for the glory of the Father in the person of the Son, for the Son does not dream of founding a kingdom here on earth which shall belong to Him alone.

ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

Vv. 12-14.

1. The word μείζονα is not improbably to be taken as an independent neuter adjective; but, whether thus taken or as agreeing with an ἔργα to be supplied, it must be understood as having a more extended meaning than the ἔργα of the previous clause. The miracles wrought by the apostles were not greater than those which Christ performed. The reference here is to the success which they would have in their work as preachers of the Gospel in the extending of the Divine kingdom.

2. The verb ποιήσω of Joh 14:13 is probably to be joined immediately with πορεύομαι of Joh 14:12, and made, like the latter verb, dependent on ὅτι . The grounds of assurance of their success are: that He is going to the Father (His exaltation to heaven), and that, in connection with and as resulting from this, their prayers will be answered. Whether this is the true construction of the passage or not, however, the close union of the sentences shows that the answer to prayers here referred to is that which is connected with the labors of the apostles in the carrying forward of the Messianic work. With regard to these prayers two points must be noticed:—first, that they are in the name of Christ, and, secondly, that they are in the line of spiritual things. The idea that every prayer of every individual believer will certainly be answered by a granting of the particular request which is made, is one which is not set forth in the New Testament, and one which would make the mind of the petitioner determine the order of events. The Christian idea of prayer cannot be inconsistent with the submission of all requests to the will of God; infinite, not finite wisdom must govern the world.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

That is, not I only do them, but I can also give other men power to do greater.

The approving of the virtue of Christ is not included within his own person, but it is spread through the body of his whole Church.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 12. And greater works than these] The miracles which I have wrought could not have been wrought but by the omnipotence of God; but that omnipotence can work greater. And those who believe on my name shall, through my almighty power, be enabled to work greater miracles than those which l have ordinarily wrought. An impostor might seduce the people by false miracles; but he could not make his power and cunning pass to all those who were seduced by him: but I will give you this proof of the divinity of my mission and the truth of my doctrine.

Perhaps the greater works refer to the immense multitudes that were brought to God by the ministry of the apostles. By the apostles was the doctrine of Christ spread far and wide; while Christ confined his ministry chiefly to the precincts of Judea. It is certainly the greatest miracle of Divine grace to convert the obstinate, wicked heart of man from sin to holiness. This was done in numberless cases by the disciples, who were endued with power from on high, while proclaiming remission of sins through faith in his blood.

Some account for the greater works thus:

1. The very shadow of Peter healed the diseased, Ac 5:15.

2. Diseases were cured, and demons cast out, by applying to the persons handkerchiefs and aprons that had before touched the body of Paul, Ac 19:12.

3. By the word of Peter, Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead, Ac 5:5; Ac 5:9-10.

4. Elymas the sorcerer was struck blind by the word of Paul, Ac 13:11.

5. Christ only preached in Judea, and in the language only of that country; but the apostles preached through the most of the then known world, and in all the languages of all countries. But let it be remarked that all this was done by the power of Christ; and I think it still more natural to attribute the greater works to the greater number of conversions made under the apostles' ministry. The reason which our Lord gives for this is worthy of deep attention:-

Because I go unto my Father.] Where I shall be an Intercessor for you, that:-

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

12. Verily, verily, I, tell you. All that he had hitherto told his disciples about himself, so far as it regarded them, was temporal; and, therefore, if he had not added this clause, the consolation would not have been complete; particularly since our memory is so short, when we are called to consider the gifts of God. On this subject it is unnecessary to go to others for examples; for, when God has loaded us with every kind of blessings, if He pause for fourteen days, we fancy that he is no longer alive. This is the reason why Christ not only mentions his present power, which the Apostles, at that time, beheld with their eyes, but promises an uninterrupted conviction of it for the future. And, indeed, not only was his Divinity attested, so long as he dwelt on the earth, but after he had gone to the Father, striking proofs of it were enjoyed by believers. But either our stupidity or our malice hinders us from perceiving God in his works, and Christ in the works of God.

And shall do greater works than these. Many are perplexed by the statement of Christ, that the Apostles would do greater works than he had done I pass by the other answers which have been usually given to it, and satisfy myself with this single answer. First, we must understand what Christ means; namely, that the power by which he proves himself to be the Son of God, is so far from being confined to his bodily presence, that it must be clearly demonstrated by many and striking proofs, when he is absent. Now the ascension of Christ was soon afterwards followed by a wonderful conversion of the world, in which the Divinity of Christ was more powerfully displayed than while he dwelt among men. Thus, we see that the proof of his Divinity was not confined to the person of Christ, but was diffused through the whole body of the Church.

Because I go to the Father. This is the reason why the disciples would do greater things than Christ himself. It is because, when he has entered into the possession of his kingdom, he will more fully demonstrate his power from heaven. Hence it is evident that his glory is in no degree diminished, because, after his departure, the Apostles, who were only his instruments, performed more excellent works. What is more, in this manner it became evident that he sitteth at the right hand of the Father, that every knee may bow before him, (Philippians 2:10.)

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(12) Verily, verily, I say unto you.—Comp. Note on Joh_1:51.

He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also.—He that by faith becomes one with the Son shall have the Son, and therefore also the Father, dwelling in him (Joh_14:11; Joh_14:20; Joh_14:23), and shall himself become an instrument through which God, who dwelleth in him, shall carry into effect His own works. He shall, therefore, do works of the same kind as those which the Son Himself doeth.

And greater works than these shall he do.—Comp. Notes on Joh_5:20, and on Mat_21:21-22. The explanation of these greater works is not to be sought in the individual instances of miraculous power exercised by the apostles, but in the whole work of the Church. The Day of Pentecost witnessed the first fulfilment of this prophecy; but it has been fulfilled also in every great moral and spiritual victory. Every revival of a truly religious spirit has been an instance of it; every mission-field has been a witness to it. In every child of man brought to see the Father, and know the Father’s love as revealed in Jesus Christ, has been a work such as He did. In the world-wide extent of Christianity there is a work greater even than any which He Himself did in the flesh. He left His kingdom as one of the smallest of the influences on the earth; but it has grown up as a mighty power over all the kingdoms of the world, and all that is purest and best in civilisation and culture has found shelter in its branches.

Because I go unto my Father.—The better reading is, because I go unto the Father. The words are to be connected not with one clause only, but with all the earlier parts of the verse. They are the reason why the believer shall do the works that Christ does, as well as the reason why he shall do greater works. The earthly work of Christ will have ceased, and He will have gone to the Father. The believers will be then His representatives on earth, as He will be their representative in heaven. Therefore will they do His works, and the works shall be greater because He will be at the Father’s right hand, and will do whatsoever they shall ask in His name.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

12. Verily, verily] See notes on Joh_1:51.

the works that I do shall he do also] i.e. like Me, he shall do the works of the Father, the Father dwelling in Him through the Son (Joh_14:23).

and greater works than these] There is no reference to healing by means of S. Peter’s shadow (Act_5:15) or of handkerchiefs that had touched S. Paul (Act_19:12). Even from a human point of view no miracle wrought by an Apostle is greater than the raising of Lazarus. But from a spiritual point of view no such comparisons are admissible; to Omnipotence all works are alike. These ‘greater works’ refer rather to the results of Pentecost; the victory over Judaism and Paganism, two powers which for the moment were victorious over Christ (Luk_22:53). Christ’s work was confined to Palestine and had but small success; the Apostles went everywhere, and converted thousands.

because I go unto my Father] For ‘My’ read ‘the’ with all the best MSS. The reason is twofold: (1) He will have left the earth and be unable to continue these works; therefore believers must continue them for Him; (2) He will be in heaven ready to help both directly and by intercession; therefore believers will be able to continue these works and surpass them.

It is doubtful whether there should be a comma or a full stop at the end of this verse. Perhaps our punctuation is better; but to make the ‘because’ run on into the next verse makes little difference to the sense.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me,.... Having mentioned his miracles as proofs of his deity, he assures his disciples, in order to comfort them under the loss of his bodily presence, that they should do the same, and greater works; for we are not to understand these words of everyone that believes in Christ, of every private believer in him, but only of the apostles, and each of them, that were true believers in him: to whom he says,

the works that I do shall he do also; he shall raise the dead, heal all manner of diseases, and cast out devils; things which Christ gave his apostles power to do, when he first gave them a commission to preach the Gospel, and when he renewed and enlarged it: and which they did perform, not in their own name, and by their own power, but in the name, and by the power of Christ:

and greater works than these shall he do; meaning, not greater in nature and kind, but more in number; for the apostles, in a long series of time, and course of years, went about preaching the Gospel, not in Judea only, but in all the world; "God also bearing them witness with signs and wonders, and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost", Heb 2:4, wherever they went: though perhaps by these greater works may be meant the many instances of conversion, which the apostles were instrumental in, and which were more in number than those which were under our Lord's personal ministry: besides, the conversion of a sinner is a greater work than any of the miracles of raising the dead, &c. for this includes in it all miracles: here we may see a sinner, dead in trespasses and sins, quickened; one born blind made to see; one who was deaf to the threatenings of the law, and to the charming voice of the Gospel, made to hear, so as to live; and one that had the spreading leprosy of sin all over him, cleansed from it by the blood of the Lamb yea, though a miracle in nature is an instance and proof of divine power, yet the conversion of a sinner, which is a miracle in grace, is not only an instance of the power of God, and of the greatness of it, but of the exceeding greatness of it: and the rather one may be induced to give in to this sense of the passage, since it is added, as a reason,

because I go to my Father; and upon my ascension the Spirit will be given, to you, which shall not only enable you to perform miracles, as proofs of your apostleship, and the doctrine you preach, but which shall powerfully attend the Gospel to the conversion of multitudes of souls.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.

Ver. 12. And greater works than these] Greater in regard of the matter, as converting 3000 souls at a sermon, reducing a great part of the world to the obedience of Christ, &c. But yet less than those Christ did, for the manner. For, 1. They did not them in their own name, but in his. 2. They preached not that they were gods, as he, but they preached Christ the only Lord, and themselves the Church’s servants, for Jesus’ sake. They were the white horses on which Christ rode abroad the world, "conquering and to conquer," Rev 6:2. In memory whereof, as it may seem, the Saxon princes, having borne a black horse till then in their military ensigns, did, after they had received the faith and were baptized, bear a white horse, and gave it for their arms. And Tertullian could say in his time, that Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo tamen subdita. To the Romans, Britian was an inaccessable place, yet it was subdued by Christ.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He that believeth on me - This promise had doubtless special reference to the apostles themselves. They were full of grief at his departure, and Jesus, in order to console them, directed them to the great honor which was to be conferred on them, and to the assurance that God would not leave them, but would attend them in their ministry with the demonstrations of his mighty power. It cannot be understood of all his followers, for the circumstances of the promise do not require us to understand it thus, and it has not been a matter of fact that All Christians have possessed power to do greater works than the Lord Jesus. It is a general promise that greater works than he performed should be done by his followers, without specifying that all his followers would be instrumental in doing them.

The works that I do - The miracles of healing the sick, raising the dead, etc. This was done by the apostles in many instances. See Act 5:15; Act 19:12; Act 13:11; Act 5:1-10.

Greater works than these shall he do - Interpreters have been at a loss in what way to understand this. The most probable meaning of the passage is the following: The word “greater” cannot refer to the miracles themselves, for the works of the apostles did not exceed those of Jesus in power. No higher exertion of power was put forth, or could be, than raising the dead. But, though not greater in themselves considered, yet they were greater in their effects. They made a deeper impression on mankind. They were attended with more extensive results. They were the means of the conversion of more sinners. The works of Jesus were confined to Judea. They were seen by few. The works of the apostles were witnessed by many nations, and the effect of their miracles and preaching was that thousands from among the Jews and Gentiles were converted to the Christian faith. The word “greater” here is used, therefore, not to denote the absolute exertion of power, but the effect which the miracles would have on mankind. The word “works” here probably denotes not merely miracles, but all things that the apostles did that made an impression on mankind, including their travels, their labors, their doctrine, etc.

Because I go unto my Father - He would there intercede for them, and especially by his going to the Father the Holy Spirit would he sent down to attend them in their ministry, Joh 14:26, Joh 14:28; Joh 16:7-14. See Mat 28:18. By his going to the Father is particularly denoted his exaltation to heaven, and his being placed as head over all things to his church, Eph 1:20-23; Phi 2:9-11. By his being exalted there the Holy Spirit was given Joh 16:7, and by his power thus put forth the Gentiles were brought to hear and obey the gospel.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

And greater than these shall he do, because I go to the Father. Christ speaks of the greatness of visible miracles, and tells them, that after his ascension, they shall be enabled, even to do greater miracles than he has yet shewn to the world. He would give this power to his disciples, who were to convert the world; and perhaps the greatest miracle of all, was the conversion of the whole world. (Witham) --- Behold another proof of my divinity, viz. the wonderful miracles those perform, who believe in me. An impostor may seduce the vulgar with false miracles, or, perhaps, with real wonderful prodigies; but he cannot confer that power on others. Behold, I have performed miracles by my own power, without any deceit, and always with a sovereign authority. I have given those, who believe in me, power to work in my name, as great, and even greater miracles, than I have done myself. All this I have done, to shew you, that I am equally God with the Father. I truly am so, then, for it would be impossible for God to assist an impostor, a liar, and an enemy to his honour and glory. (Calmet)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

He that believeth on me; not every individual soul that believeth on me; but some of those, particularly you that are my apostles, and shall be filled with the Holy Ghost in the days of Pentecost; you shall preach the gospel, and work miracles for the confirmation of the truth of the doctrine of it. Yea, and you shall do

greater works than I have done: not more or greater miracles: the truth of that may be justly questioned; for what miracle was ever done by the apostles greater than that of raising Lazarus? Much less do I think that it is to be understood of speaking with divers tongues. It is rather to be understood of their success carrying the gospel to the Gentiles, by which the whole world, almost, was brought to the obedience of the faith of Christ. We never read that of Christ which we read of Peter, viz. his converting three thousand at one sermon.

Because I go unto my Father, he afterwards expounds, telling us, that if he did not go away, the Comforter would not come. The pouring out of the Spirit in the days of Pentecost, was the proximate cause of those great works. Now Christ’s going to the Father had an influence upon that mission of the Holy Spirit.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

12. Greater works than these shall he do—The miracles of Jesus were indeed greater displays of power than any wonder-worker, whether prophet, priest, or saint, ever wrought. Yet they were but the preparatory apparatus of Christianity. They were provisional and temporary. From them was to proceed the greater work, through the power of the Spirit and the agency of men, of establishing and fully completing the wide-spread conversion of souls, and the conquering of the world to Christ. His miracles and his words, divinely limited to a narrow territory, converted but few. They were but the bud to the flower and the fruit. Hence greater works are performed by the Church after his ascension than were performed by himself in the day of his humiliation.

Because I go unto my Father—But these greater works of the future Church, after all, spring from the power of the ascended and exalted Son. It is because he goes to the Father and leaves the Spirit and the Church to labour, that the great work is performed under his divine Headship, of taking a world of free agents, and, without destroying their freedom, winning their free obedience to his Father and God.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vers. 12-15. (b) The greater works, and their conditions and issues, He offers a fresh ground of consolation, based on the double consideration, first of his departure from them and abiding presence with them, and then on the reflex effect on their own faith and on the world of their consciousness of union with him. He throws the arms of his love round about, not only the eleven disciples, but all believers on him, and in a sense draws them up into his own Divinity. With these words must be compared the closely parallel words addressed to them (as preserved by Mat_21:22, Mat_21:23) a few days before. This was a saying at once explaining the reference to the "greater works" and also to the power of prayer (see Hengstenberg"s masterly treatment of this passage).

Verily, verily with a fresh emphasis he turns now, not from Philip to the eleven, but from the eleven to all who will believe on him through their wordI say unto you, He that believeth on me observe here a nominative absolute, which gives great emphasis to the universality of the reference; the form is slightly varied, eiv eme , in place of moi , Ver. 11, believeth, trusteth on me, confides in me, by reason of believing mehe also shall do the works that I do. (see for similar emphasis procured by the word kakeinov , Joh_6:57 Joh_9:37 Joh_12:48) The disciples might naturally have reasoned on this wise: "Our Master is the incarnate Word, the very Hand and Grace of the Father; but he is going to the invisible Father, and wilt be lost in light. His series of proofs will be at an end; we shall only have the memory of them. The glory of God is great, but, like a gorgeous sunset, its flames will die away into the night." To rectify such fear for all the ages of the Church, he adds, "The very works of healing and helping men, even of raising the dead, and preaching glad tidings to the poor and needy, these will be proofs of the union of the believer in all time with me and with my Father." In the case of such believer, as well as in my case, the works may increase the faith of others. They are not indispensable, but comforting and reassuring, and they show that every believer is near to the heart of the Father and wields the power of God. But the full force of this somewhat perplexing sentence is heightened and to some extent explained by the addition: And greater works than these he shall do; because I am going to the Father.

Greater works than any wrought by the Lord in the days of his humiliation are predicted of Messiah. He is to be the "Light of the Gentiles". (Isa_42:6; cf. Psa_72:8, 11 Ps 110) He is to rule the world, to cover the earth with the glory of God. How he was to do this was hidden from the disciples, but it would soon appear that they were the instruments, in his loving hands, for world-victories. Nay, more than that, Jesus (Joh_4:36-38) had told these disciples that they might reap what he had sown. These rather than other and more surprising prodigies of supernatural energy (as even Bengel supposed was his meaning, pointing, to the healing energy of Peter"s shadow, etc.) were the greater works to which he probably (Joh_5:20) referred, though he gives a reason which would check all presumption: Because of going to the Father. The contrast, then, is between the humiliation and exaltation of Christ, between works wrought in his flesh and those that would be done by him when at the right hand of power. Without him, separated from him, independently of his continued and augmented energy working through them, they would do nothing. (Joh_15:5; comp. here Mat_21:21, Mat_21:22) In the last passage, in answer to believing prayer, the disciples were told that they would do greater things than wither up the fig tree, or remove the mountain into the sea. Probably (see Hengstenberg) these terms, "fig tree," "mountain," "sea," were used in their prophetic-symbolic sense, and were not hyperbolic promises, but definite prophecies of the overthrow of the Jewish state, and the fall of the Roman power under the word of those who believed on him. These vast privileges and functions are here attributed to "believers," not merely to the apostles, or princes in his kingdom. This extraordinary pro-raise is no disparagement of his supreme authority, but will be proof that he sitteth on the right hand of the Majesty on high.

The greater works.

Our Lord Jesus when on earth was during the whole of his ministry a Worker. He spoke of his works, and of his resolve to work the works of the Father. In the text there is no disparagement of these displays of power power to teach, to heal, to rule, to conquer. They were works worthy of him who wrought them, and they answered the purposes for which they were intended. They were not only advantageous and beneficent to men; they were a witness to Christ"s claims, for he himself made the well-founded appeal, "Believe me for the works" sake." Yet in this passage our Lord affirms the superiority of the works of his disciples to his own.

I AN UNEXPECTED AND WONDERFUL SUPERIORITY. The master may naturally be expected to excel the servant, the teacher to excel the scholar, the leader to excel the follower. The reverse, however, was designed in the Christian dispensation. This very marvelous arrangement is to our mind a proof of the Lord"s confidence in himself, and in the certainty of his expectations regarding the future of his cause. This is one of those many and instructive instances in which God"s ways are not as our ways.

II A REASONABLE SUPERIORITY. Below the superficial difficulty just mentioned there is a deep-rooted reasonableness in this arrangement. As explained in the text the conditions of this superiority are twofold.

1. They who do the greater works are believers on Christ. Faith is ever the inner power of works, both material and moral. It is the union with the Lord himself that makes his people strong to do the greater works; so that, in fact, they are not their works, but his, who works in and by his own faithful servants. Faith as a grain of mustard seed enables a disciple to remove mountains.

2. They who do the greater works are possessed and inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Lord himself assigns the reason: "Because I go unto the Father." The ascension of Christ secured the bestowal of the Spirit, and the influences of the Spirit enabled the richly endowed and blessed to do great marvels. "Strengthened with all might" by the Holy Spirit, they were made fit for the great enterprise committed to them. Feeble in themselves, they were strong in their Lord.

III A PROVED SUPERIORITY. When Jesus uttered this assurance, it was received by those who heard it in faith, because they credited the Divine Speaker. But we have the evidence of the facts that followed the proclamation of the gospel, and of the facts of Christian history. By "greater works" we do not understand works more striking and marvelous in themselves, but more glorious in their effects upon human society and upon the progress of God"s spiritual kingdom. The contrast between the signs and wonders recorded in the four Gospels and those recorded in the Acts of the Apostles is mainly in the spiritual results by which they were accompanied and followed. As their Lord foretold, the apostles received power to heal the sick, to expel demons, to raise the dead. They spake with tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews best explains these greater works, when he writes of the great salvation, that it was confirmed unto us by them that heard, God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by manifold powers, and by gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will" Thus it was that the moral and spiritual changes, wrought by the agency of the apostles, were astounding to a mind capable of measuring and appreciating wonders of this kind. The works of this nature wrought by them were great indeed. Souls were awakened, taught, counseled, renewed, and saved. The few who were spiritually blessed by the ministry of Jesus were but the firstfruits of a great harvest reaped in the ministry of his apostles. A vast variety of classes was reached. Gentiles as well as Jews received the gospel; great centers of civilization were attacked by the aggressive, apostolic host. Complete change of character was effected in unnumbered instances by this consecrated and inspired agency. Social improvements followed in the train of Christian evangelization ameliorations which were the earnest of the most amazing transformations which the world has witnessed. Fully to realize these "greater works," it is necessary to take a survey of the history of Christendom. The glimmering dawn has been followed by the glorious day.

IV AN INSTRUCTIVE SUPERIORITY. These greater works which we witness, and in the production of which we are called upon to bear our part, have practical lessons of value for us in this spiritual dispensation.

1. They remind us of the dignity, power, and glory of the Savior. Promised by him, they are evidences alike of his faithfulness and of his power. He by his Spirit reveals his presence in his Church.

2. They impress upon us our own responsibility. The provision having been made for the continuance of these spiritual operations, Christ"s people are called upon to prepare themselves to act as agents in the establishment and extension of his Church on earth. The possession of spiritual gifts ought not to minister to our pride; it should remind us of our dependence and of our duty.

3. They encourage us to cherish a bright and glorious hope. What works have yet to be wrought before the purpose of God is achieved, before the sufferings of Christ are rewarded, before the work of the Church is completed! T.

The greater works of the believer.

I THE NEED OF THESE GREATER WORKS. We know the works of Jesus in the flesh certainly not all he did; but still we know the kind of things he did. And we know, too, that if nothing more had been done, the greatest things would have been left undone. A diseased and defective body is bad, a physical leprosy is a great pollution; but a distracted, passion-ruled heart is infinitely worse. The miraculous healings and alleviations worked out by Jesus are very beautiful, but they were only deeds by the way; having in them something preparatory and illustrative, but always looking to fundamental renovations, which would bring all other renovations in due course. We should ever aim to look at need according to the gradation which Jesus gives. We easily become "the fools of time and sense." What shall it profit a man if he practically learns the secret of vigorous health, and a long, enjoyable physical life, if it leaves him, all through, self-indulgent and self-asserting? The abiding ministry of Jesus, through the ministry of those in every generation whom he chooses and qualifies, is a ministry to the greatest needs of men. For temporal and physical needs they can often do little or nothing; but Jesus fills them with a spiritual energy which works out results, making many increasingly grateful to them, and through them to the supreme Savior himself.

II THE PERFECT SUBORDINATION OF THE SON TO THE FATHER. What consciousness there is here of a plan and an order! What humble and beautiful recognition of the place of Jesus and of his servants respectively! Jesus says it without the slightest hesitation that his servants would do greater things than himself. Here are the words of One who was ever thinking, first of all of the glory and will of his heavenly Father. So the thing be done, what matters it whose is the visible hand? Nothing good can be done, whether in higher or lower degree, without the enabling energy from on high. So long as the greater works are continually going on, and men being regenerated and sanctified, what we may call the mere reputation of Jesus is a small matter. There is no fear but what Jesus will get full recognition from those in whom the greater works are being done. Such recognition is no trivial part of the proof that the greater works are being done.

III THE CAUSE OF THE GREATER WORKS. The apostles do not merely take the place of Jesus. His departure out of the ordinary conditions of human life is part of the qualification of his servants for the greater works. He is with the Father now in a sense in which he was not while here in flesh and blood. Even as Paul said, "Absent from the body, present with the Lord," so Jesus, absent from the body, was present with the Father. Let us, indeed, fully admit that the cause Jesus here gives is one we are little able to comprehend. But it is the real cause, and we should rejoice in its being mentioned; for what we know not now we shall know hereafter. Y.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Greater works than these shall he do - So one apostle wrought miracles merely by his shadow, Acts v, 15; another by handkerchiefs carried from his body, Acts xix, 12; and all spake with various tongues. But the converting one sinner is a greater work than all these. Because I go to my Father - To send you the Holy Ghost.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

The promise of greater works:

v. 12. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto My Father.

v. 13. And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

v. 14. If ye shall ask anything in My name, I will do it.

In connection with the mention of works which He was performing to testify in His own behalf, Jesus here gives His disciples of all times a glorious promise of works which they should. do in their office as His ministers. Most solemnly He assures them, and comforts them by the assurance, that every believer in Him would be enabled to perform the same works that He had done, and even greater works than He had performed before them. The apostles and the disciples, especially of the early Church, performed miracles like those of Christ they healed the diseased, they cast out demons, they raised the dead; and all this to testify to the truth of their teaching. Every believer in Christ is, however, by that token, filled with power from on high not only to testify of Christ, but, in so doing, to do greater signs than the Master Himself, namely, to awaken men from spiritual death. To convert sinners, to rescue lost and condemned men from damnation, that is a greater, a more important miracle than healing from bodily infirmities and awakening from temporal death. Not as though Jesus had not converted men by His preaching. But the great work of the New Testament, the gathering of the Christian Church through the preaching of the Gospel, did not really begin until after Pentecost. And the reason why the believers can perform these great works of saving souls is found in the fact that Jesus is going to the Father. Also according to His human nature He will then make constant use of His divine power and majesty, and will be able to impart to the believers in Him this wonderful power which He here promises them. The great works of converting sinful men are in reality works of the exalted Christ. And in case the disciples, the believers, at any time feel their own weakness and inability perform the great works which have been given to them, they should merely ask, they should bring the matter to His attention; He will attend to the rest. He fixes no limit in giving this promise except that the prayer must be made in His name, which excludes all sinful and arrogant petitions. Jesus hears every true prayer, but in His own manner and at His own time. And by doing so, since the Father works in Him, the Father is glorified in the Son. The final purpose of all the great works which Jesus promises to His believers is the glory of God. But He repeats His promise to hear their prayers; for the repetition is intended to impress the great truth upon them more strongly. Note: The fact that a Christian’s prayer must be made in the name of Jesus cannot be emphasized too often. Only such prayers are acceptable as are made in faith in the Redeemer, the one Person whose complete atonement has given us the right to address God as our Father, and as are made in the name of the exalted Son of Man, whose providence and rule now extends over the whole world.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Here Christ gives his disciples a promise of enduing them with power after his departure to work miracles in some respects greater than what he wrought himself; not greater in regard of the manner, for he wrought by his own power, and they wrought all in his name, but greater in regard of the matter of them; particularly, their speaking with strange tongues, their giving the Holy Ghost by laying on of hands, their healing diseases by the very shadow of their bodies, but especially by their wonderful conversion of the Gentiles from idolatry to serve the living God.

When St. Peter converted three thousand at one sermon, then Christ made good his promise; the disciple at that time appeared to be above his Master: Christ all this time was angling for a few fishes, and catched but an hundred and twenty, Act 1:15 whilst Peter comes with his drag net, and catches three thousand at one cast; the reason might be, because Christ was not properly to be the builder, but the foundation itself. He subjoins the reason of all this: Because I go unto my Father: that is, to send down, and pour forth upon you my apostles, the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost which was the great cause of the apostles miraculous operations.

Hence learn, That it pleased the wisdom of Christ to do greater things by the hands of his weak servants here in the world, than he was pleased to do himself, who was God over all, blessed for evermore.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

12. Greater works than these shall he do, because I go to my Father. Those who believe shall have power given to do works, in some respects greater; not greater miracles, but to effect greater moral and spiritual revolutions. At the time of his death, as far as we know, he had only about five hundred disciples, but he “went to his Father” and “shed forth the things seen and heard” on Pentecost, and the eleven apostles converted three thousand in a single day.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Truly, truly

See how you translated this in John 1:51.

believes in me

This means to believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

Whatever you ask in my name

Here "name" is a metonym that represents the authority of Jesus. AT: "Whatever you ask, using my authority" (See: Metonymy)

so that the Father will be glorified in the Son

You can translate this in an active form. AT: "so I can show everyone how great my Father is" (See: Active or Passive)

Father ... Son

These are important titles that describe the relationship between God and Jesus. (See: Translating Son and Father)

If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it

Here "name" is a metonym that represents the authority of Jesus. AT: "If you ask me anything as one of my followers, I will do it" or "Whatever you ask of me, I will do it because you belong to me" (See: Metonymy)

translationWords

amen

name

glory

Son of God

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

12. κἀκεῖνος ποιήσει. Comp. Joh 6:57 and Joh 14:21; Joh 14:26: see on Joh 1:8; Joh 1:18. ‘Like Me, he shall do the works of the Father, He dwelling in him through the Son. Comp. καθὼς ἐκεῖνός ἐστι, καὶ ἡμεῖς ἐσμεν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ τούτῳ (1Jn 4:17).

καὶ μείζονα τούτων. No reference to healing by means of S. Peter’s shadow (Act 5:15) or of handkerchiefs that had touched S. Paul (Act 19:12). Even from a human point of view no miracle wrought by an Apostle is greater than the raising of Lazarus. But from a spiritual point of view no such comparisons are admissible; to Omnipotence all works are alike. These ‘greater works’ refer rather to the results of Pentecost; the victory over Judaism and Paganism, two powers which for the moment were victorious over Christ (Luk 22:53). Christ’s work was confined to Palestine and had but small success; the Apostles went everywhere, and converted thousands. The reason introduced by ὅτι is twofold: (1) He will have left the earth and be unable to continue these works; therefore believers must continue them for Him; (2) He will be in heaven ready to help both directly and by intercession; therefore believers will be able to continue these works and surpass them. But note that He does not say that they shall surpass His words. He alone has words of eternal life; never man spake as He did (Joh 6:68, Joh 7:46).

It is doubtful whether there should be a comma or a full stop at the end of this verse. Our punctuation seems the better; but to make ὅτι run on into the next verse makes little difference to the sense.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

12. ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, the customary prelude to a solemn and unexpected saying. See on 1:51.

He had appealed to His ἔργα. He now assures His hearers that the Christian believer shall be endued with power to do the like or even greater things, and in particular that he shall have the secret of efficacious prayer (vv. 13, 14).

ὁ πιστεύων εἰς ἐμέ This He had bidden them all to do (v. 1), and He returns to the phrase, which involves more than πιστεύετέ μοι of v. 11 (see on 1:12). But, as Bengel says, “qui Christo de se loquenti credit, in Christum credit.”

τὰ ἔργα ἃ ἐγὼ ποιῶ κἀκεῖνος ποιήσει. He had already given such power to the Twelve (Mar 6:7, Mar 6:13), and in [Mk.] 16:17 it is recorded that He renewed this assurance after His Resurrection.

καὶ μείζονα τούτων, “greater things,” not necessarily more extraordinary “miracles,” to the eye of the unspiritual observer. These works of wonder, healing the blind and the sick, etc., were not reckoned by Jesus among His own “greater” works (see on 5:20). The “greater things” which the apostles were to achieve, were the far-reaching spiritual effects which their preaching was to bring about. The teaching of the Incarnate Son was confined to one country, and while He was in the flesh His adherents were few. But His Church made conquest of the nations of the world.

ὅτι ἐγὼ πρὸς τὸν πατέρα πορεύομαι. His departure from their visible presence increased the apostles’ spiritual power (see on 16:7 above). As He goes on to explain (vv. 13, 14), their spiritual effectiveness in prayer will be increased beyond all limits hitherto presupposed, for their prayers will be offered “in His Name.”

For πρὸς τὸν πατέρα πορεύομαι, cf. v. 28; and see on 16:28.

12. ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, the customary prelude to a solemn and unexpected saying. See on 1:51.

He had appealed to His ἔργα. He now assures His hearers that the Christian believer shall be endued with power to do the like or even greater things, and in particular that he shall have the secret of efficacious prayer (vv. 13, 14).

ὁ πιστεύων εἰς ἐμέ This He had bidden them all to do (v. 1), and He returns to the phrase, which involves more than πιστεύετέ μοι of v. 11 (see on 1:12). But, as Bengel says, “qui Christo de se loquenti credit, in Christum credit.”

τὰ ἔργα ἃ ἐγὼ ποιῶ κἀκεῖνος ποιήσει. He had already given such power to the Twelve (Mar 6:7, Mar 6:13), and in [Mk.] 16:17 it is recorded that He renewed this assurance after His Resurrection.

καὶ μείζονα τούτων, “greater things,” not necessarily more extraordinary “miracles,” to the eye of the unspiritual observer. These works of wonder, healing the blind and the sick, etc., were not reckoned by Jesus among His own “greater” works (see on 5:20). The “greater things” which the apostles were to achieve, were the far-reaching spiritual effects which their preaching was to bring about. The teaching of the Incarnate Son was confined to one country, and while He was in the flesh His adherents were few. But His Church made conquest of the nations of the world.

ὅτι ἐγὼ πρὸς τὸν πατέρα πορεύομαι. His departure from their visible presence increased the apostles’ spiritual power (see on 16:7 above). As He goes on to explain (vv. 13, 14), their spiritual effectiveness in prayer will be increased beyond all limits hitherto presupposed, for their prayers will be offered “in His Name.”

For πρὸς τὸν πατέρα πορεύομαι, cf. v. 28; and see on 16:28.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Greater works. Not more remarkable miracles, but referring to the wider work of the apostolic ministry under the dispensation of the Spirit. This work was of a higher nature than mere bodily cures. Godet truthfully says : "That which was done by St. Peter at Pentecost, by St. Paul all over the world, that which is effected by an ordinary preacher, a single believer, by bringing the Spirit into the heart, could not be done by Jesus during His sojourn in this world." Jesus ' personal ministry in the flesh must be a local ministry. Only under the dispensation of the Spirit could it be universal.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.