Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 14:12
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.
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.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
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.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
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.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
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:-
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
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 Christs going to the Father had an influence upon that mission of the Holy Spirit.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
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.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| Christ’s Consolatory Discourse. |
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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. 13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
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 (v. 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, Matt. x. 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 (Acts v. 15), Paul by the handkerchief that had touched him, Acts xix. 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 (1 Cor. xiv. 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,” Acts i. 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. iv. 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. ix. 17), and for the sake of the anointed (Ps. lxxxiv. 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,” v. 13. And again (v. 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.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Shall he do also ( ). Emphatic pronoun , “that one also.”
Greater works than these ( ). Comparative adjective neuter plural from with ablative case . Not necessarily greater miracles and not greater spiritual works in quality, but greater in quantity. Cf. Peter at Pentecost and Paul’s mission tours. “Because I go” ( ). Reason for this expansion made possible by the Holy Spirit as Paraclete (16:7).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
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.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Verily, verily, I say unto you,” (amen, amen, lego humin) “Truly, truly, I tell you all plainly,” as He continued to comfort them, to give them comfort in their coming trials, 2Co 1:3-4.
2) “He that believeth on me,” (ho pisteuon eis eme) “The one who believes or trusts in me,” as they did, except for the continuing carnality of their old nature that still yielded to or was subject to temptations, Rom 7:18,25; 1Co 9:27.
3) “The works that I do shall he do also;” (ta erga he ego poio kakeinos poiesei) “The (kind of) works which I do, that one will also do,” referring to the miraculous works that He did to attest His having come from the Father, by which many believed, Joh 2:23; Joh 3:2; Mar 2:10-11; Joh 20:30-31.
4) “And greater works than these shall he do; (kai mezona touton poiesei) “And greater than these he will do,” meaning greater in number and over a greater, wider area after they had been empowered as a church, and as individuals, to go forth as witnesses; Mar 16:15-20; Heb 2:4. See also Act 3:6; Act 13:11-12; Act 19:11-12.
5) “Because I go unto my Father.” (hoti ego pros ton patera poreuomai) “Because I am going to the Father,” from where I came, Joh 14:28; Joh 16:17.
And after His going, the Holy Ghost that was given by promise to indwell and empower His church forever, Joh 13:16-17; through which He chose to give miraculous powers to the apostles and individuals, until the Bible was completed; 1Co 13:10; 1Co 13:13; Act 4:30; Act 5:12; Act 8:13; Act 14:3; Rom 15:19; 2Co 12:12; Heb 2:4. He gave these miraculous powers, through the church, as He had in olden times to Moses and Elijah, for a restricted time and particular purposes of attesting that they were from God.
PROMISED ANSWER TO PRAYER, v. 13-15
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
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, (Phi 2:10.)
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(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 Fathers 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 Fathers right hand, and will do whatsoever they shall ask in His name.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
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.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“Emphatically I tell you, he of you who goes on believing on me, the works that I do he will do as well, and he will do greater things than these because I go to the Father. And whatever you ask in my name, that I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you will ask anything in my name, that I will do.”
In the light of what was to happen that night Jesus promised that if they would have continual faith in Him, they would accomplish works like those that He had accomplished, and would indeed do greater works for they would occur worldwide. We need not doubt that this included miracles (although no such examples of ‘greater works’ have been given). However, the main part of the ‘greater works’ was probably to be found in the success of their preaching which would have great worldwide effects. This is why there is then added the assurance that in their mission they could be sure that whatever they asked in His Name He would do it, because it was His mission too. Note that it is Jesus Himself Who will respond to their prayer. As they pray it is He Himself Who will answer. It is gloriously true that in doing so He will bring glory to the Father, for He and the Father work as One, but the fact that essentially it is He Who will answer their prayers is repeated so that there might be no mistake about it. This in itself justifies prayer to Jesus Christ Himself, examples of which can be found in Act 7:59; Rev 22:20.
How careful we must be when we interpret these words. They are not a general promise that all Christians can demand to see fulfilled in their own lives whatever they wish for, in a multitude of ways, for that is clearly not the case. Heaven is not one huge superstore. It is rather a promise to supply all that is needed in our true service for God. But here the promise goes further than that.
“I will do anything that you ask.” What a huge promise. We could not be trusted with such a promise unconditionally, but these men had been especially prepared for a task and were wholly committed to it. They would not ask for anything for their personal benefit or gain, they would have considered it a trivialising of the words. They realised that the promise applied to the work that they had to do (see 1Jn 5:14-15), and the works by which they would accomplish it.
“The works that I do, he will do.” We must undoubtedly see this as including His miracles. So the Apostles are empowered to heal all who come to them, and Peter takes advantage of this power (Act 3:6) as do the others (Act 5:12). Because Peter and Paul are emphasised in Acts it is often overlooked how widespread was the ministry of all the Apostles, but the same book makes clear the wide influence of their ministry, albeit in summarised form. Manifested healings through the Apostles and their delegates were an essential part of the witness of the early church.
No one who lays claim to healing powers today could make a claim like this. Rather they have to regret how comparatively few are healed (they can never say that all who came to them were healed) although the less spiritual try to blame the failure on other’s lack of faith. But Jesus and the Apostles never had to make this excuse. If men had even a little faith, the faith to come, they were healed. The fact is that apart from the Apostles and a few chosen men, gifts of healing were severely restricted, both in the early church and now.
Yet it is noteworthy how little is made by the Apostles’ of their works of healing. They had learned from their Master not to trust in signs as a method of converting people. Their healings were works of compassion and mercy.
So these “works” described here go wider than just healing. They include the totality of their ministry, both in practical ministry and in powerful words (Mat 5:16; Mat 16:27; Joh 5:20; Joh 5:36; Joh 6:28; Joh 8:39; Joh 9:4; Joh 10:25; Joh 10:32; Joh 10:37-38). They have been called to be an example to the world by the lives that they lead, and to proclaim the Good News that Jesus has taught them. The Good News is that the Kingly Rule of God has come for those who will respond, that men can now come to Him in obedience and trust and enjoy His rule, that the power of Satan is broken, and that God has walked among men, and through His death and resurrection has opened the way to forgiveness and eternal life.
“And greater works than these shall he do because I go to the Father.” How could the Apostles do greater works than Jesus? Certainly not in the field of the miraculous. Rather it was in the fact that they would reach out to many nations with the Good News, while Jesus had been restricted to Palestine and the surrounding areas. Success would accompany them on every hand. This would now be possible because He was going to His Father by way of the cross. The barriers will be broken down (Eph 2:11-22), and the work of the Spirit, which began in Palestine in the ministry of Jesus, will reach out to the ends of the earth through the work of His Apostles and their helpers.
“And whatever you ask in my name, that I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” This is not a blanket promise that God will give us anything we ask ‘if we go about it in the right way’. It is not a ‘key’ for obtaining whatever WE want. It was a promise to dedicated, chosen men that, as they carried out their ‘impossible’ task, all the resources of Heaven would be at their disposal. They would come and ‘ask in His name’, and Jesus Himself would do it, because they were doing His work. He would do it because what they were doing they were doing for Him, in fulfilment of His command.
Someone who works for a modern company may well be given the authority to obtain ‘whatever he needs’ as he goes about the company’s business, but he knows, and all know, that this means ‘whatever he needs to carry out his duties for the company’. Thus the disciples know that they can only ask for the kind of thing that He would ask for, for the aim of it is the Father’s glory, and that alone. This then is the promise, that they will have available to them all that they need in the fulfilling of their task. What strength this must have given them in the face of impossible odds.
Yet the promise is to ‘the one who goes on believing’. Firstly and primarily it reminded the Apostles that they could only benefit as they continued to be those who fully believed, to be those who were totally committed to Him and His work. However, in a secondary way it can be applied to all who believe and go on believing, but only on the same conditions of discipleship. It is a promise that as we seek to serve the Father in true faith we too may seek His strength and help, and will receive what we need, but only within the limits of our responsibility.
Certainly this gives us no right to claim prosperity, or an easy path, or things for our own pleasure, and we note that the Apostles sought none of those. It does not refer to personal benefits but to what is needed to do the Father’s will. The Apostles expected to be in need, to suffer, to go without the good things in life, and to have nothing (1Co 4:11-13). What they sought was heavenly things, and to this the promise applied.
“If you ask me anything in my name, that I will do”. We notice here that Jesus stresses again that it will be He Who will respond to the prayer, which is seen as made to Him. As they pray in His name they are praying to Him. But again it is in His name, as those who have been appointed by Him. Thus they are praying, ‘because I belong to Jesus and because I am doing the work He has called me to do, give me what I will need to accomplish that work.” His promise then is that He will. (The “Me” is absent in some manuscripts but has very strong support and ‘that will I do’ supports it).
Note On The Effectiveness of the Ministry of All the Apostles.
We tend to overlook the work of all the Apostles because of Luke’s emphasis on Peter and Paul, but we should note the emphasis in the early part of Acts of the ministry of all the Apostles, including Matthias. Thus:
They stood alongside Peter on the day of Pentecost and had their own ministry through tongues (Act 2:14).
They taught the early believers (Act 2:41).
Wonders and signs were done through them all (Act 2:43).
They were God’s servants through whom it was prayed that God would cause His word to be spoken boldly, accompanied by signs and wonders in the name of God’s holy Servant, Jesus (Act 4:29-30).
They stood and preached in Solomon’s porch when none dared join with them, and were held in high honour by the people (Act 5:12).
They were arrested and imprisoned, and were released from prison by an angel during the night (Act 5:18-19), and went back at daybreak to the Temple, boldly to continue their ministry (Act 5:21).
They were set before the council and questioned (Act 5:27), and when they were reminded that they had been charged not to preach in the name of Jesus, they replied that they had no alternative (Act 5:28-32).
They were beaten and charged not to speak in the name of Jesus, and were then let go, and subsequently rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for the Name, and continued preaching and teaching (Act 5:40-42).
They stressed that no hindrance should be put on their teaching ministry (Act 6:2)
They remained in Jerusalem when persecution caused the believers to be scattered (Act 8:1). It may well be that the persecution was at this time mainly aimed at the Hellenists (those influenced by Greek ideas).
They were still in Jerusalem, no doubt continuing their effective ministry, when they determined to send Peter and John to oversee the ministry among the Samaritans (Act 8:14). (Note there how Peter is subject to the authority of all the Apostles).
They helped to call Peter to account for his actions in going to Cornelius (Act 11:1-18).
In chapter 15 many of them would possibly be a part of the general assembly that made the decision to accept Gentiles without circumcision and not put on them the whole burden of the ceremonial Law.
A glance through these activities will reveal how assiduously all the Apostles were involved in a teaching and healing ministry after the resurrection in fulfilment of Jesus’ words here.
End of note.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
2). The Demands that He Makes and the Provision That He Is Making For Their Fulfilment ( Joh 14:12-26 ).
Jesus now stresses what He is expecting from His disciples and assures them that full provision has been made for their future. As His ambassadors they can call on His Name for anything that they will require (Joh 14:12-14), and as those who speak on His behalf they will be given the Spirit of Truth Who will be continually with them (Joh 14:16-17). Indeed let them recognise that in the coming of the Spirit He Himself is coming to them (Joh 14:18; Joh 14:21; Joh 14:23). For where the Spirit is, there are the Father and the Son (Joh 14:23).
Jesus Stresses That They Can Partake In The Miraculous Activity Which He Has Enjoyed. Full Provision Is Theirs (Joh 14:12-14).
Having made known to them Who He was in a way that He had not done before (although had they had eyes to see it they could have known it from His declarations to the Judaisers (Joh 5:17-29; Joh 8:28-59; Joh 10:30-39)) Jesus now tells them of the provision He is making as they carry out His work.
And here we must be careful in our interpretation, for in essence these words are not just general spiritual guidance for all of us, but were specific promises made to those whom He had trained and chosen out for the foundational work ahead. These are chosen men, men who have put everything aside for Him. They want nothing other than to do what He wants them to do, and their goal is the establishment of His Rule on earth at whatever cost. And that is what they have been chosen for.
They are learning not to consider their own advantage and gain, but to be single-minded in pursuit of His will. And they have a task never to be repeated, the task of laying the foundation for the belief of the early church, and in the end for the formation of the New Testament writings. It is thus to His Apostles, as such, that He makes these promises. The early church itself recognised this when it insisted that only writings which could be seen as having an Apostolic source could be included in the Scriptures.
It has often been asked why these chapters of Jesus’ words in the Upper Room did not form a part of the teaching of the early church and thus find their way into the first three Gospels. The answer would seem to lie in the very nature of the words. They were private instructions to the Apostles and Apostle specific. It is true therefore that we can gain from them general spiritual guidance, but what we cannot do is apply them all specifically and strictly to ourselves. In their strictest sense much is for the Apostles only. A recognition of this fact will prevent us from taking up foolish positions on the basis of them.
Thus it was only when the Apostles were dying out that they were written down by one who was probably the last of the Apostles to die, so that the early church would know how secure were the foundations of their faith as a result of the assurances to the Apostles. That is why in what follows we will have to seek to establish what Jesus specifically promised His Apostles, which does not refer to any others, after which we can consider the general lessons from what is said in as far as they can apply to all Christians.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
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.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Joh 14:12. He that believeth on me, &c. It is evident in fact, that though this promise be expressed in indefinite language, it must be limited in some such manner as follows: “He that believes in me, that is, many of my disciples in these early ages, and each of you in particular, shall receive such an abundant communication of the Spirit, that the miraculous works which I perform, he shall perform also; yea, works, in some respect, greater than these shall he perform, because I go to my Father, who has thought fit to reserve the most stupendous gifts of the Spirit to honour the entrance of my glorified humanity into the heaven of heavens.” How fully Jesus performed this promise, is plain from the history of the Acts throughout, particularly ch. Joh 5:15-16 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: as also, Ch. 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 to others. Yet, if these miracles are not thought, to shew greater power than Christ exhibited, we may refer the greatness whereof he speaks, to the effects which they were to produce on the minds of men, through divine grace accompanying them. For, in that respect the miracles of the apostles were vastly superior to those of Christ, converting through grace more people in one day, than was done by all the miracles that Jesus performed during the course of his ministry. Under the divine blessing 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.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Joh 14:12-13 . Truly, on the compliance with this 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 .
. ] intended not to have a general application, but to refer (comp. Joh 14:11 ; Joh 14:13 ) to the disciples . On , Bengel aptly remarks: “qui Christo de se loquenti (see . , Joh 14:11 ), in Christum credit.”
] he also , in comparison, emphatically repeating the subject. Xen. Mem . i. 2. 24.
] heightening the effect: and besides, indeed . See Hartung, Partikell . I. p. 145 f.
] greater than these , , 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 Peter’s shadow, Act 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 is the notion of expanded , so that its predominant signification is not that of miraculous deeds in the narrower sense (as in ), 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 of a greater kind than the miracles proper which Jesus wrought, [146] and which also, categorically, those of the apostles resembled.
, . . .] assigns the reasons of the preceding assurance, . . (not merely the , for which limitation no reason presents itself), and this statement of reason continues to the end of Joh 14:13 , so that , still depends on . 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 will be justified. So, substantially, Grotius, Lcke, Olshausen, De Wette, Ewald, Godet, comp. already Cyril. Considering the internal coherence, and the immediately continuative , Joh 14:13 , it is incompetent to separate Joh 14:13 , as if it were independent, from Joh 14:12 , whereby . . . is taken either merely in the sense: , (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.
] In opposition to the , who continue their activity on earth.
] Comp. Joh 15:16 , Joh 16:23 . The prayerful request to God (for it is to God that the absolute 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., , . 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 would be inappropriate to a self -hearing; and essential prayers like those for the forgiveness of sin would be excluded.
] 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 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 : . . 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 ; Phi 2:11 ; Rom 16:25 ff.; Gal 1:5 ; Eph 3:21 . Note the emphatic collocation , where, however, the main stress lies upon .
[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.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
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.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Joh 14:12 . . 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 . 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”.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
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.
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.
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.
‘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.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
Verily, verily. The twenty-second occurance. See on Joh 1:51.
the works, &c.: i.e. similar works, e.g. Act 3:7; Act 3:9. as.
he do also = he also do.
greater. Not only more remarkable miracles (Act 5:15; Act 19:12) by the men who were endued with power from on high (pneuma hagion, App-101.), but a more extended and successful ministry. The Lord rarely went beyond the borders of Palestine. He for-bade the twelve to go save to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Mat 10:5, Mat 10:6); after Pentecost they went “everywhere” (Act 8:4), and Paul could say, “your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world” (Rom 1:8).
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Joh 14:12. , , 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.-, 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.]-, 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 Pauls 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.-, he shall do) through faith in Me.
[348] Propositiones; the Statements of His subject.-E. and T.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Joh 14:12
Joh 14:12
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also;-Jesus advances another step in his instruction. Not only did God work through Jesus, but he would work through all those that believe in him. Through the believers after his return to his Fathers throne he would send the Spirit that would guide the apostles into all truth and would abide with his church forever.
and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto the Father.-During the life of Jesus on earth his work was restricted to the limitations of his physical presence. After he ascended to his Father and the Holy Spirit came in his name, a greater and more extended work would be done by the fuller inspiration of the apostles, and the more extended mission they would fill. Then when miraculous gifts should cease altogether, the church through its members would enter upon its world-wide mission of carrying the truth of God to the world. This last, performed through the regular working of the laws of the Spirit, would be more far reaching than the miraculous manifestations. It is comparable to the works of God in the natural world. Jesus by the exercise of miraculous power created food to feed the multitudes; but this, while more showy and calculated to attract attention, was not so effective as the regular workings of God through the laws of nature. [At the time he was crucified Jesus had, so far as we know, only about five hundred disciples; but on the day of Pentecost the apostles converted three thousand. It was necessary that the Son return to the Father to enable his disciples to do these greater works.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
the Spirit of Truth
Joh 14:12-24
There is no adequate translation for the word Paraclete. It may be rendered interpreter, comforter, advocate, but no one word suffices. The Greek means one whom you call to your side in the battle or law-court. His advent depends upon the praying Christ (I will pray the Father), and upon the praying Church (ye shall ask). The Holy Spirit must be a person, or He could not be compared as another to Christ. It is characteristic of this dispensation that He shall be in us, and His indwelling brings with it that of the Father and the Son.
We will make our abode. That word abode is the same Greek word as is rendered mansions in the former part of this chapter. God prepares a mansion for those who believe in Christ, and asks in return that we shall prepare our hearts as guest chambers for Him to dwell in. As He enters the loving, cleansed, and believing heart, we hear Him say: This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it, Psa 132:14. And what a word is that, my Father will love him. That He should love the world is wonderful, but that He should love us would be incredible, were He not infinite, and did He not see us in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
the: Mat 21:21, Mar 11:13, Mar 16:17, Luk 10:17-19, Act 3:6-8, Act 4:9-12, Act 4:16, Act 4:33, Act 8:7, Act 9:34, Act 9:40, Act 16:18, 1Co 12:10, 1Co 12:11
greater: Act 2:4-11, Act 2:41, Act 4:4, Act 5:15, Act 6:7, Act 10:46, Act 19:12, Rom 15:19
because: Joh 14:28, Joh 7:39, Joh 16:7, Act 2:33
Reciprocal: 2Ki 2:9 – Elisha said 2Ki 2:14 – smote 2Ki 20:10 – General Mat 5:18 – verily Mat 11:5 – blind Luk 9:1 – gave Joh 1:51 – Verily Act 1:15 – an Act 2:43 – many Act 3:16 – through Act 4:31 – spake Act 5:16 – bringing Act 14:10 – Stand Act 19:11 – General
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
GREATER WORKS
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.
Joh 14:12
It is a mysterious saying; what did our Lord mean by it?
I. What were the greater works?On the first reading this saying of our Lords seems to apply to His miracles and to the miracles which His followers should work in His Name, and I suppose it was inevitable that those who first heard the saying must have understood it in this way. On this account it must have constituted some sort of embarrassment to those who were advocating the claims of Christianity. For we may note at once that the saying will not bear this interpretation. We should come nearer to our Lords true meaning if we reflect that this saying does not stand alone in the Gospel, but is one of many sayings in which our Lord refers to a great future in which the work of His own ministry was to be in some sense surpassed and transcended. It is in Johns Gospel that we find all the references to the Comforter, Who was the Holy Ghost, Who was to teach the Apostles all things. The day of greater things was yet to come.
II. Christ as the Sower.Putting the miracles aside, let us consider what was the work of Jesus in the three years of His ministry. Surely it was the sowing of the seed rather than the reaping of the harvest. He did not found a new Church; He did not enrol multitudes as adherents to a new faith. He was more careful to impart His revelation to a few chosen witnesses, more careful for that than for what we should call numerous conversions. His teaching was indeed a leaven in the hearts of the people, but it was a leaven that needed time to work. Not until the Holy Ghost was given on the day of Pentecost could the Kingdom of God come with power.
III. The Holy Ghost the instrument of the greater works.Christ connects His own departure with the coming of the Holy Ghost. The greater works are to be accomplished not because Christ has gone, but because the Holy Ghost has come. Therefore are the works of Christ in His ministry on earth surpassed not by any mere activity of man, but by that office of God the Holy Ghost which it is the part of the believer to promote. When we speak of God in us, God enabling us, God convincing us, God suggesting that which is good to us, we mean God the Holy Ghost; and when we try to do any good work for God and for Christ, to fulfil the will of the Father and to further the cause of the Son in the saving of souls, that upon which we rely is the Presence of God the Holy Ghost, that power within us both inspiring the good purpose and enabling us to bring it to good effect.
IV. The greatest miracle in the world.The greatest miracle in the world is that by which the sinner becomes the saint. But though every saint is made a saint by the Holy Ghost, no saint is made a saint without his own co-operation with the Holy Ghost.
Prebendary Whitworth.
Illustration
Men sometimes discuss the utility of Christian missions as if Christian missions meant human effort, and human influence, and human testimony, and no more. How different it all seems when we think of the human agent as being called and sent by the Holy Ghost, the same Holy Ghost continually working with him and in him to convince the believer of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. How melancholy would our position be, preaching Sunday after Sunday, if the only fruit of our labour were that which results from the wisdom or the foolishness of our own words. Rather we must rest upon the hope that we may be allowed to set in motion some of the operations of God the Holy Ghost. And how hopeless would our pastoral work be if we did not believe in the working of God the Holy Ghost! The work is not ours: it belongs to the Holy Ghost, and if it be taken out of our hands it is still in His hands. We must have faith to leave it to Him.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
2
The greater works the apostles were to perform were not what are commonly called miracles. Jesus had raised the dead, cast out devils and cured all manner of diseases. No greater miracles of that kind could be performed by anyone. The key to this statement of Jesus is in the words, because I go unto the Father. The absence of Jesus did not enable the apostles to do any miracle that was greater than the ones referred to above. But Jesus could not bring men and women into the church, because that institution was not in existence until He had gone unto the Father. After that, the apostles could and did bring people into the kingdom of Christ by the preaching of the Gospel. Those were the greater works that Jesus promised they would be able to do after he had gone to his Father.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
These verses are an example of our Lord’s tender consideration for the weakness of His disciples. He saw them troubled and faint-hearted at the prospect of being left alone in the world. He cheers them by three promises, peculiarly suited to their circumstances. “A word spoken in season, how good is it!”
We have first in this passage, a striking promise about the works that Christians may do. Our Lord says, “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.”
The full meaning of this promise is not to be sought in the miracles which the Apostles wrought after Christ left the world. Such a notion seems hardly borne out by facts. We read of no Apostle walking on the water, or raising a person four days dead, like Lazarus. What our Lord has in view seems to be the far greater number of conversions, the far wider spread of the Gospel, which would take place under the ministry of the Apostles, than under his own teaching. That this was the case, we know from the Acts of the Apostles. We read of no sermon preached by Christ, under which three thousand were converted in one day, as they were on the day of Pentecost. In short, “greater works” mean more conversions. There is no greater work possible than the conversion of a soul.
Let us admire the condescension of our Master in allowing to the ministry of His weak servants more success than to His own. Let us learn that His visible presence is not absolutely necessary to the progress of His kingdom. He can help forward His cause on earth quite as much by sitting at the right hand of the Father, and sending forth the Holy Ghost, as by walking to and fro in the world. Let us believe that there is nothing too hard or too great for believers to do, so long as their Lord intercedes for them in heaven. Let us work on in faith, and expect great things, though we feel weak and lonely, like the disciples. Our Lord is working with us and for us, though we cannot see Him. It was not so much the sword of Joshua that defeated Amalek, as the intercession of Moses on the hill. (Exo 17:11.)
We have, secondly, in this passage, a striking promise about things that Christians may get by prayer. Our Lord says, “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do. . . If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.”
These words are a direct encouragement to the simple, yet great duty of praying. Everyone who kneels daily before God, and from his heart “says his prayers,” has a right to take comfort in these words. Weak and imperfect as his supplications may be, so long as they are put in Christ’s hands, and offered in Christ’s name, they shall not be in vain. We have a Friend at Court, an Advocate with the Father; and if we honor Him by sending all our petitions through Him, He pledges His word that they shall succeed. Of course it is taken for granted that the things we ask are for our souls’ good, and not mere temporal benefits. “Anything” and “whatsoever” do not include wealth, and money, and worldly prosperity. These things are not always good for us, and our Lord loves us too well to let us have them. But whatever is really good for our souls, we need not doubt we shall have, if we ask in Christ’s name.
How is it that many true Christians have so little? How is it that they go halting and mourning on the way to heaven, and enjoy so little peace, and show so little strength in Christ’s service? The answer is simple and plain. “They have not, because they ask not.” They have little because they ask little. They are no better than they are, because they do not ask their Lord to make them better. Our languid desires are the reason of our languid performances. We are not straitened in our Lord, but in ourselves. Happy are they who never forget the words, “Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.” (Psa 81:10.) He that does much for Christ, and leaves his mark in the world, will always prove to be one who prays much.
We have, lastly, in this passage, a striking promise about the Holy Ghost. Our Lord says, “I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, . . . even the Spirit of truth.”
This is the first time that the Holy Ghost is mentioned as Christ’s special gift to His people. Of course we are not to suppose that He did not dwell in the hearts of all the Old Testament saints. But He was given with peculiar influence and power to believers when the New Testament dispensation came in, and this is the special promise of the passage before us. We shall find it useful, therefore, to observe closely the things that are here said about Him.
The Holy Ghost is spoken of as “a Person.” To apply the language before us to a mere influence or inward feeling, is an unreasonable strain of words.
The Holy Ghost is called “the Spirit of truth.” It is His special office to apply truth to the hearts of Christians, to guide them into all truth, and to sanctify them by the truth.
The Holy Ghost is said to be one whom “the world cannot receive and does not know.” His operations are in the strongest sense foolishness to the natural man. The inward feelings of conviction, repentance, faith, hope, fear, and love, which He always produces, are precisely that part of religion which the world cannot understand.
The Holy Ghost is said to “dwell in” believers, and to be known of them. They know the feelings that He creates, and the fruits that He produces, though they may not be able to explain them, or see at first whence they come. But they all are what they are,-new men, new creatures, light and salt in the earth, compared to the worldly, by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost.
The Holy Ghost is given to the Church of the elect, “to abide with them” until Christ comes the second time. He is meant to supply all the need[s] of believers, and to fill up all that is wanting while Christ’s visible presence is removed. He is sent to abide with and help them until Christ returns.
These are truths of vast importance. Let us take care that we grasp them firmly, and never let them go. Next to the whole truth about Christ, it concerns our safety and peace to see the whole truth about the Holy Ghost. Any doctrine about the Church, the ministry, or the Sacraments, which obscures the Spirit’s inward work, or turns it into mere form, is to be avoided as deadly error. Let us never rest till we feel and know that He dwells in us. “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” (Rom 8:9.)
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Notes-
v12.-[Verily…works…shall he do also.] Here we have another comforting word addressed to the disciples. They must not suppose there would be an end of miraculous works when their Master went away, and that they would be left weak and helpless, and unable to do anything to arrest the attention of an unbelieving world. On the contrary, our Lord assures them, with two emphatic “verilys,” that miracles would not cease with His departure. He would take care that believers should have power to do works like His own, and to confirm their word by signs following.
I cannot doubt that this promise refers to the miraculous gifts which the first generation of Christians had power to exercise, as we read every where in the Acts of the Apostles. That the sick were healed, the dead raised, and devils cast out by disciples after the Lord ascended, is quite plain, and this fulfilled the words now before us.
I can see no reason to suppose that our Lord meant the promise to be fulfilled after the generation He left on earth was dead. If miracles were continually in the Church, they would cease to be miracles. We never see them in the Bible except at some great crisis in the Church’s history. The Irvingite theory, that the Church would always have miraculous gifts if men only had faith seems to me a violent straining of this text.
[And greater works…do.] The meaning of these words must be sought in the moral and spiritual miracles which followed the preaching of the Apostles after the day of Pentecost. It could not be truly said that the physical miracles worked by the Apostles in the Acts were greater than those worked by Christ. But it is equally certain that after the day of Pentecost they did far more wonderful works in converting souls than our Lord did. On no occasion did Jesus convert 3000 at one time, and a “great company of priests.”
[Because I go…Father.] These words must point to the great outpouring of the Holy Ghost which took place after our Lord’s ascension into heaven, whereby the miracles of conversion were wrought. There was an immediate and mysterious connection, we must remember, between our Lord ascending up on high and “receiving gifts for men.” If He had not gone to the Father the Spirit would not have been sent forth. (Eph 4:8.)
Melancthon thinks the promise of this text is clearly bound up with the following verse, “He shall do greater works because I go to the Father, and because then whatsoever ye shall ask I will do.”
v13.-[And whatsoever…ask…will I do.] Here comes another great piece of comfort for the troubled disciples: viz., a promise that Christ will do everything for them which they pray for in His name and for His sake. Whatever help, or strength, or support, or guiding they need, if they ask God for it in Christ’s name, Christ will give it.
This is one of those texts which authorizes all prayers being made through Christ’s mediation, as in Prayer-book collects.
The “whatsoever” must of course be taken with the qualifying condition, “whatsoever really good thing ye ask.”
The connection with the end of the preceding verse should not be overlooked, “When I go to the Father I will do whatsoever ye ask.”
[That…Father…glorified…Son.] This is a difficult sentence. The meaning probably is, “I will do whatsoever ye ask, that my Father may be glorified by my mediation, by sending into the world a Son through whom sinners can obtain such blessings.” Christ’s power to do anything that He is asked, brings glory to Him who sent Him.
v14.-[If…ask any thing…will do it.] This verse is a repetition of the preceding, to give emphasis and assurance to the promise. It is as if our Lord saw how slow the disciples would be to believe the efficacy of prayer in His name. “Once more I tell you most emphatically, that if you ask anything in my name, I will do it.”
We should notice both in this verse and the preceding one, that it is not said “If ye ask in my name, the Father will do it;” but “I will do it.”
v15.-[If ye love…keep…commandments.] Here we have a direct practical exhortation. “If ye really love Me, prove your love not by weeping and lamenting at my departure, but by striving to do my will when I am gone. Doing, and not crying, is the best proof of love.” The commandments here mentioned must include all the Lord’s moral teaching while on earth, and specially such rules and laws as He had laid down in the “Sermon on the Mount.”
I cannot but think that in this verse our Lord had in view the disposition of His disciples to give way to grief and distress at His leaving them; and to forget that the true test of love was not useless and barren lamentation, but practical obedience to their Master’s commands.
Let us notice how our Lord speaks of “my commandments.” We never read of Moses or any other servant of God using such an expression. It is the language of one who was one with God the Father, and had power to lay down laws and make statutes for His Church.
v16.-[And I…pray the Father, etc.] This verse holds up to the eleven another grand consolation, viz., the gift of another abiding Comforter in place of Christ, even the Holy Ghost. “When I go to heaven I will ask the Father to give you another friend and helper, to be with you and support you in my stead, and never leave you as I do.” In this remarkable verse several points demand special notice.
One principal point is the mention of all the three persons in the blessed Trinity, the Son praying, the Father giving, the Spirit comforting.
When our Lord says, “I will pray the Father and He shall give,” we must needs suppose that He accommodates language to our minds. The gift of the Holy Ghost was appointed in the eternal counsels of the Trinity; and we cannot literally say that the gift depended on Christ asking. Moreover, in another place our Lord says, “I will send Him.”
Burkitt remarks that the future tense here points to Christ’s continual intercession. As long as Christ is in heaven, Christians shall not want a supply of comfort.
When we read of the Holy Ghost being “given,” we must not think that He was in no sense in the Church before the day of Pentecost. He was ever in the hearts of Old Testament believers. No one ever served God acceptably, from Abel downwards, without the grace of the Holy Ghost. John the Baptist was “filled” with Him. It can only mean that He shall come with more fullness, influence, grace, and manifestation, than He did before.
When we read of the “Spirit abiding for ever” with disciples, it means that He will not, like Christ after His resurrection, return to the Father, but will always be with God’s people until Christ comes again.
The word “Comforter” is the same that is translated “Advocate,” and applied to Christ Himself in 1Jn 2:1. This has caused much difference of opinion. The word is only used five times in the New Testament, and is four times applied to the Holy Spirit.
Some, as Lightfoot, Bishop Hall, and Doddridge, maintain that our translation here is right, and that it is the office of the Spirit to comfort and strengthen Christ’s people.
Others, as Beza, Lampe, De Dieus, Gomarus, Poole, Pearce, Stier, and Alford, maintain that the word here should have been rendered “Advocate,” as in John’s Epistle; and that this word aptly expresses the office of the Spirit as pleading our cause, and making intercession for the saints, and helping them in prayer and preaching. (See Rom 8:26; Mat 10:19-20.) I decidedly prefer this latter view. Those who wish to see an able argument in its favour, should study Canon Lightfoot’s volume on New Testament Revision (p. 55).
Lampe sensibly remarks that the word “another” points to the phrase meaning “Advocate” rather than “Comforter.” That Jesus is our “Advocate” all allow. “Well,” our Lord seems to say, “you shall have another ‘Advocate’ beside myself.” Why use the word “another” at all, if “Comforter” is the meaning?
It is only fair to say that “the consolation of Israel” was a Jewish name of Messiah (Luk 2:25), and that some think that Christ was one Comforter and the Holy Ghost another. But I do not see much in this.
v17.-[Even the Spirit of truth.] The Holy Ghost is most probably so called because He brings truth specially home to men’s hearts,- because truth is His great instrument in all His operations,-and because He bears witness to Christ the truth. Elsewhere we read, “It is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.”(1Jn 5:6.)
[Whom…world cannot receive…knoweth Him.] Here our Lord teaches that it is one great mark of the unbelieving and worldly that they neither receive, nor know, nor see anything of the Holy Ghost. This is strikingly true. Many false professors and unconverted people receive Christ’s name and talk of Him, while they know nothing experimentally of the operations of the Holy Ghost. It is written, “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them.” (1Co 2:14.)
[But ye know…dwelleth…shall be in you.] Our Lord’s meaning here must be that the eleven knew something experimentally of the Spirit’s work. They might not be fully acquainted with Him; but He was actually in them, making them what they were, and He would remain in them, and carry on the work He had begun to a glorious end. “Whether you know it thoroughly and rightly or not, He is actually in you now, and shall always be in you and never leave you.”
Let us mark in this and in the preceding verse how our Lord speaks of the Holy Spirit as “a Person.” We should never speak of Him as a mere “influence,” or dishonour Him by calling Him “it.”
Let us never forget that “having the Spirit, or not having the Spirit,” makes the great distinction between the children of God and the children of the world. Believers have Him. Worldly and wicked people have Him not. (Jud 1:19.)
Fuente: Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels
Joh 14:12. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth in me, the works that I do shall he also do; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto the Father. It seemed to the disciples that, by the departure of Jesus, all the glorious manifestations of the Divine which they had beheld in Him would be brought to an end. So far is this from being the case that these shall not only continue but become even more glorious than before. By works we are obviously to understand something wider than miracles, for the promise is to all believers, and it cannot be said that they in any age have wrought greater miracles than their Lord. What Jesus speaks of is the general power of the spiritual life, not only as it exists in the breast of the believer, but as it shows itself in all life and action corresponding to its nature. What He had been and had done was to be exhibited in the disciples themselves. They were to be put into His position, to take His place, to be sustained in all inward strength and outward manifestation as He had been. Nay more, He was going to the Father,not the verb of chaps, Joh 13:33; Joh 13:36, Joh 14:4-5, but another, suggesting less the thought of what He was leaving than the thought of what He was going to; and He was going to the Father, not His own Father only, but One who stood in the same relation to all the members of His body. Therefore what He had been and had done would be still more gloriously unfolded in them than it had been as yet in Him. When He went to the Father, His life would be set free from the struggles and sufferings by which its power and glory had been obscured on earth. But His disciples were one with Him, and what He was they should be. They are the organs not of a humbled only but of an ascended Lord; and through what He is at the right hand of the Father they shall do greater works than He did in the world. The same great truth is expressed in 1Jn 4:17, Because as He is (not was), so are we in this world. How little do Christians realise their position and their privileges!
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
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.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
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 Christs, 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 Christs; 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 Fathers 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.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
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 worksthe 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 heartJesus 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 itthis 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. : 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 is not improbably to be taken as an independent neuter adjective; but, whether thus taken or as agreeing with an to be supplied, it must be understood as having a more extended meaning than the 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 of Joh 14:13 is probably to be joined immediately with of Joh 14:12, and made, like the latter verb, dependent on . 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.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
Verse 12
Greater works; greater achievements in extending and establishing the Redeemer’s kingdom; for the word works seems to refer, here, not to miracles, but to efforts in general made to bring men to repentance and salvation.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
14:12 {5} Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and {f} greater [works] than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
(5) Christ’s power is not only shown within his own person, but it is spread through the body of his entire Church.
(f) That is, not only do them, but I can also give other men power to do greater.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Jesus prefaced another startling and important revelation with His customary phrase that John noted often in his Gospel. He stressed the importance of believing what He revealed about His divine identity by unveiling the consequences of believing that He was the divine Messiah.
The interpretation of the works that those who believe on Jesus would do, which commentators have found difficult, depends on how Jesus described them. He said that the basis for these and greater works would be His going to the Father. After Jesus ascended into heaven, the Father sent the Holy Spirit to indwell every believer (Act 2:3; cf. Rom 8:9; 1Co 12:13). This divine enablement empowered believers to do miracles that only Jesus Himself could do previously. The Book of Acts records the apostles doing many of the same miracles that Jesus had done in the Gospels.
The disciples would do even greater works than Jesus in the sense that their works would have greater effects than His works had. During Jesus’ earthly ministry relatively few people believed on Him, but after His ascension many more did. The miracle of regeneration multiplied after Jesus ascended to heaven and the Father sent the Holy Spirit. Three thousand people became believers in Jesus on the day of Pentecost alone (Act 2:41). The church thoroughly permeated the Roman Empire during the apostolic age whereas Jesus’ personal ministry did not extend beyond Palestine. The whole Book of Acts is proof that what Jesus predicted here happened (cf. Act 1:1-2; Act 1:8). The mighty works of conversion are more in view here than a few miracles of healing.
Jesus probably did not mean that His disciples would do more stupendous miracles than He did. Feeding multitudes from a small lunch and raising people from the dead are hard miracles to supersede. We should not assume either that Jesus meant that these miracles would continue throughout church history as they existed in the apostolic era. Church history has shown that they died out almost entirely after the apostolic age, and the New Testament, while it does not specifically predict that, implies that they would (1Co 13:8; Eph 2:20; Heb 2:3-4).