VIII

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 shall he do;  because I go unto the Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in My name, that will I do.’—John 14:12-14.

In the words (ver. 10) ‘The Father abiding in Me doeth the works,’ Christ had revealed the secret of His and of all Divine service—man yielding himself for God to dwell and to work in him. When Christ now promises, ‘He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also,’  the law of the Divine inworking remains unchanged. In us, as much as in Him, one might even say a thousand times more than with Him, it must still ever be: The Father in me doeth the works. With Christ and with us, it is ‘the same God who worketh all in all.’

How this is to be, is taught us in the words, ‘He that believeth on Me.’ That

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does not only mean, for salvation, as a Saviour from sin. But much more. Christ had just said (vers. 10, 11), ‘Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me: the Father abiding in Me doeth the works.’ We need to believe in Christ as Him in and through whom the Father unceasingly works. To believe in Christ is to receive Him into the heart. When we see the Father’s working inseparably connected with Christ, we know that to believe in Christ, and receive Him into the heart, is to receive the Father dwelling in Him and working through Him. The works His disciples are to do cannot possibly be done in any other way than His own are done.

This becomes still more clear from what our Lord adds: ‘And greater works shall he do; because I go unto the Father.’ What the greater works are, is evident. The disciples at Pentecost with three thousand baptized, and multitudes added to the Lord; Philip at Samaria, with the whole city filled with joy; the men of Cyprus and Cyrene, and, later on, Barnabas at Antioch, with much people added to the Lord; Paul in his travels, and a countless host of Christ’s servants down to our day, have in the ingathering of souls, done what the Master condescendingly calls greater works than

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He did in the days of His humiliation and weakness.

The reason why it should be so our Lord makes plain, ‘Because I go to the Father.’ When He entered the glory of the Father, all power in heaven and on earth was given to Him as our Redeemer. In a way more glorious than ever the Father was to work through Him; and He then to work through His disciples. Even as His own work on earth ‘in the days of the weakness of the flesh, had been in a power received from the Father in heaven, so His people, in their weakness, would do works like His, and greater works in the same way, through a power received from heaven. The law of the Divine working is unchangeable: God’s work can only be done by God Himself. It is as we see this in Christ, and receive Him in this capacity, as the One in and through whom God works all, and so yield ourselves wholly to the Father working in Him and in us,’ that we shall do greater works than He did.

The words that follow bring out still more strongly the great truths we have been learning, that it is our Lord Himself who will work all in us, even as the Father did in Him, and that our posture is to be exactly what His was, one of entire receptivity and dependence. ‘Greater works

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shall he do, because I go to the Father, and whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do.’ Christ connects the greater works the believer is to do, with the promise that He will do whatever the believer asks. Prayer in the name of Jesus will be the expression of that dependence that waits on Him for His working, to which He gives the promise: Whatsoever ye ask, I will do, in you and through you. And when He adds, ‘that the Father may be glorified in the Son,’ He reminds us bow He had glorified the Father, by yielding to Him as Father, to work all His work in Himself as Son. In heaven Christ would still glorify the Father, by receiving from the Father the power, and working in His disciples what the Father would. The creature, as the Son Himself can give the Father no higher glory than yielding to Him to work all. The believer can glorify the Father in no other way than the Son, by an absolute and unceasing dependence on the Son, in whom the Father works, to communicate and work in us all the Father’s work. ‘If ye shall ask anything in My name, that will I do,’ and so ye shall do greater works.

Let every believer strive to learn the one blessed lesson. I am to do the works I have seen Christ doing; I may even do

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greater works as I yield myself to Christ exalted on the throne, in a power He had not on earth; I may count on Him working in me according to that power. My one need is the spirit of dependence and waiting, and prayer and faith, that Christ abiding in me will do the works, even whatsoever I ask.

1. How was Christ able to work the works of God? By God abiding in Him! How can I do the works of Christ? By Christ abiding in me!

2. How can I do greater works than Christ? By believing, not only in Christ, the Incarnate and Crucified, but Christ triumphant on the throne.

3. In work everything depends, O believer, on the life, the inner life, the Divine life. Pray to realise that work is vain except as it is in ‘the power of the Holy Spirit’ dwelling in thee.