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 to my Father.” John 14:12.

Like so many of our Lord’s words, these seem to be beyond comprehension and possibility. What do these words mean? One good rule for explaining and understanding our Lord’s words is to see how the people who first received them understood and explained them. For example, the Lord said to His disciples gathered in the upper room—not to the apostles only, but to others, and to the women: “Whosesoever sins you remit, they are remitted.” What did He mean by that? The obvious way to find out is to turn over to the next book and see what they did. How did they remit sins and retain them? In Acts, chapter 2, we read that when the people cried out what they were to do, Peter said, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins”; and in the third chapter: “Repent ye therefore, and be converted . . . that your sins may be blotted out”; and in chapter 5: “Him has God exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel and remission of sins”; and again in the tenth chapter: “To Him bear all the prophets witness, that through His name every one that believeth on Him shall receive remission of sins.” So it goes through all through the Book.

The way that the apostles carried out that command of the Lord Jesus was to go and preach to the people how the remission of sins was to be received; and to tell those that took it that they had it, and that those who rejected could not have it; and so their sins were retained. Over and over again the Lord Jesus meant His words to the disciples to be understood when you see the way the disciples took them.

Let us look at “Greater works than these shall you do,” and turn to the Acts for their meaning. You will find there, in a whole series of chapters, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, and 14 to 19, the progressive stories of the growth of the Church. After three and a half years of ministry, the Lord had gathered some five hundred disciples, but what followed? First, 3,000 souls on the day of Pentecost; then 5,000, besides women and children; then “Multitudes both of men and women”; then “believers multiplied greatly”; then “there were many believers”; “great numbers believed”; “the Word of God grew and multiplied”; “many believed”; “they made many disciples”; “they increased in number greatly”; “great multitudes”; “many believed in Berea”; many in Corinth; “much people”; and “the Word of God grew and multiplied.” There must have been tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands by the time the story ends. If you ask how the Lord Jesus meant His words about the greater works to be carried out, that was the way. It must mean that, in every succeeding generation, in every place where souls are gathered to the Lord Jesus, there that word has its fulfilment. And it holds just as potential and as faithful, in which every believer is meant to share.

Look back at that time, and you will see those greater works have been done. Read the story of Darwin, who found the Patagonians so utterly and hopelessly degraded that he said it was impossible for them to be uplifted. A few years afterwards he went again, but meanwhile a missionary of the South American Missionary Society had been working there; and he saw those men, who were once cannibals, turn into bright Christians, with clean, new lives. Or take that story of 50 years ago, of Moffat and Africaner. The latter had been so tracted that he broke out in rebellion against the whites and murdered all he could meet. Moffat went to Africaner’s village, and while he preached Christ that robber-murderer repented, and afterwards preached the gospel to his people. Is it true that the Lord Jesus does through His people greater works than He did Himself? He told His people to be to the world what He was: “As my Father has sent Me, even so send I you.”

“As He is in this world, so are we. You do not get the fulness of blessing, and you will never know what it is, unless you come to understand what He means when He says He will indwell, dwell upon, and flow out through you. If there is one of you who says, ‘I have nothing to flow from me,’ then let something flow into you. It is perfectly simple. When you see the wonderful possibilities of His indwelling and abiding, it will be impossible to keep it in. The whole point is that it should flow out through us, when He has come to dwell in us.”

John 14:12-14: “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. And whatsoever you shall ask in My name, that will I do. If you shall ask anything in My name, I will do it.” Then 15:7: “If you abide in Me and My words in you.” The believing soul He calls and promises to do greater things than these; and whatsoever you ask the Father will do. Always therefore blessing in things. If you want to be what the Lord wants—the promise, the prayer, and the power; the Word of the Lord, the child of God, and the Spirit of God, then Christ in His fulness, the world in its need, and you just a channel between them.

On the one hand there is the need of a fainting world; on the other the prayer in His name of which you have charge, and of which you have a fulness of supply that is absolutely limitless. Always pray in His name as one who abides in Him and He in you; then His fulness is yours. In His name, that is, in His authority; and where do we find that? In His Word. If you abide in Him and His Word abides in you, then you will know what you can pray in His name; and in no other way. If you abide in Christ, and do not want anything outside that, you can ask whatsoever you will—what you will and whatsoever you will, and it shall be done. God’s people should stop talking about prayer and begin praying. Prayer is far and away the highest service we can render. Prayer is the mightiest factor in the work of God. Prayer has limitless achieving capacity, and on the day that the Church of Christ sets itself to the work of prayer, and with the same diligence that it does to other forms of Christian service, the coming of the Lord is just at hand. It is prayer that the Lord wants. He has chosen prayer as His instrument in the condition of His people’s prayer.

Ezekiel, chapter 36, has more individual promises in it than any other chapter in the Bible.

When you have gone through the list, which is long enough to satisfy Israel to the full, for remission, cleansing, the Holy Spirit, no more famine, no more want, no more bondage and the whole world glorifying God through them. Yet it says: ‘I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them.’ So, the Father’s table is spread before us, and the things He has promised for those who trust Him before the sons of men. He says, ‘Ask and ye shall receive.’ But sometimes we just look at the table and go away hungry; or look upon a hoard of treasure and read a list of its contents and remain just as poor as before. We must turn those promises into prayers that seize them and make them our own.

There is unbounded scope for prayer. “All the promises of God in him are yea.” “And whatsoever you ask in My name,” “all things are yours.” There is such a wonderful amount, enough to occupy you for all the time you can find for prayer, and then to send you on your way, desiring to get back for more as soon as possible. All great workers for God are great prayers to God. If you understand that, there will be great fruitfulness. In John, chapter 15, prayer and fruitfulness are joined closely together. In verse 1 every branch is meant to bring forth fruit; in verse 5 it is in how you can bring it forth, and verse 7, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you”: Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.” Real fruit for God is always the outcome of prayer, and the outcome of fruitfulness is glory to God. If he reaches down His promises, and you take them by prayer, then back they go in praise to Him. It seems to me that Moffat’s words meant always to take up again and again. One thing we want is prayer to look for greater works. . . . men, till the spiritual is so natural that we cannot do anything else.” Is that the way it is going to be with us? Is it going to shine out through us because the Lord has put it in us?

In some way or other it really all means witnessing Him. In John 15:26-27 the Holy Spirit shall bear witness, “and ye also shall bear witness.” “I will send him unto you”—yes, unto you and into you; and when He is come unto you, then He will convince the world of sin. You are not to sit still and watch Him work outside there, but you are to go in, and He is to work through you, convincing the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. What a rest for hearts that are conscious of their feebleness, faultiness, frailty, and foolishness, to be told that after all it is not you that speak; it is a Father that is going to do the work. The Holy Spirit is the witness, and He witnesseth through you, making it fresh and real to you every day. How is He going to take out of the nations a people for Himself? There is only one way: His members must go out and do the work, and He in them. “And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, . . . ,” and the way of it is that they who know Him must go and tell. “It is more blessed to give than to receive”; it is a bigger blessing than having the peace of God in your hearts to go and pass that peace to others; it is more rejoicing to fill than to be full yourself, to get others under the glory than to get there yourself. “That we being delivered from the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life.”