《The Biblical Illustrator – John (Ch.14b~15)》(A Compilation)
14Chapter 14 b
Verses 12-14
John 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 Saviour’s 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 (John 14:11): the works of believers their unity with Himself (John 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 (Philippians 2:26-27; 2Timothy 4:20). They had no power to work indiscriminately.
2. Its extent. “Greater works”--not greater miracles, but such works as Peter’s at Pentecost, and Paul’s 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 (John 14:16-17).
2. The believer must be able to communicate with Christ. This he does by prayer (John 14:13-14). Nothing could be
Christ’s 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. Christ’s words tell them that in them He will work as well as for them, after He has departed.
1. Christ’s 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 men’s 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 world’s 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 Christ’s 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 Christ’s 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 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. 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.
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 Christ’s 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
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! One’s very heart is sick sometimes over this human patronage of Divine things.
5. Those who look for Christ’s 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 Christ’s 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 Lord’s 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. Christ’s departure was expedient
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 truth’s 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 Christ’s meaning.
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.
2. But their spiritual achievements were to be greater than Christ’s miracles.
“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 men’s 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 Christ’s Divine words. His own great prediction was fulfilled--“I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.”