Is it really possible for Christians to do greater works than Jesus?

His answer to Philip's question shows that He was grieved. Yet how gentle the rebuke, "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." It is another great witness of His oneness with the Father. "I am in the Father and the Father in me." And His own belonging to Him, know the Father in Christ and are His. (Solemn truth it is: "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father." (1 John 2:23.) "And ye are Christ's and Christ is God's." (1 Corinthians 3:23.) Verse 12 has been a difficulty to many. What did our Lord mean when He said: "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"? Christian Scientists and extreme faith-healers claim that He meant His actual works of healing and Christians should do now the same works and even greater works. But how could a believer do a greater work than the raising of Lazarus from the dead? The promise "the works that I do shall he do also" was fulfilled immediately after the day of Pentecost. The sick were healed by Peter's shadow, the lame man was healed, demons were driven out, and the dead were raised. Were these miracles to continue to the end of the dispensation? There is nowhere a statement in Scripture that this should be the case. "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"--(Thoughts on the Gospel of John.) The "greater works" are spiritual works. The thousands saved in the beginning of the dispensation, the preaching of the Gospel far hence among the Gentiles and the gracious results, are these greater works.

Again He speaks with conclusively absolute words, this time saying that believers, after He returned to His Father, and because of this, would do the same works as He Himself had done. None before had ever done such works (John 15:24); but after His resurrection and ascension His disciples would do even greater works than these. Why? Because they were identified with so glorious a person, then to be at His Father's right hand, having accomplished the greatest work that eternity can ever know, in the sacrifice of Himself.

What greater works have His disciples done after His resurrection than He had done before His death? This cannot refer to physical miracles, for He did more of these (including raising the dead) than did his disciples. But the disciples were used, by the power of the Spirit of God, in the conversion of great numbers of people, three thousand on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2), large numbers at Samaria, through Philip (Acts 8), the Gentiles at Caesarea (Acts 10) and later at Antioch (Acts 11); and also in the marvelous unity produced by the Spirit of God between Jewish and Gentile believers through the ministry of Paul (cf. 1 Cor. 12 & 13).

His words and works corroborated the great claim which the Lord twice makes here. As to essential being and life and nature, He was "in the Father," as also the Father was in Him, in manifestation and display. The disciples should believe this just because His own lips stated it; but if not, they should receive the evidence of His works, which so plainly declared it. And more than this, the day was coming, as stated in verse 12, when similar and even greater works should be done through the disciples, and that because He was going to the Father, which as we have learned in John 7, meant the coming of the Spirit. At that day the disciples would discover themselves to be in Christ and Christ would be in them (see verse 20), and this doubtless explains the "greater works." Before His death and resurrection the Lord was "straitened" (Luke 12:50); but once that was accomplished and the Spirit given, He could freely operate by the Spirit through His disciples. There was no day in the Lord's ministry when 3,000 souls were converted as on the Day of Pentecost; nor did His labours cover the mighty circuit of "from Jerusalem, and round about to Illyricum," as did those of Paul.

At first sight it seems impossible: how can it be true that those who believe in Christ should do greater works than He Himself? But we know from the Acts of the Apostles that this did indeed happen: men and women came to faith in droves – 3000 of them through a single sermon! Even the shadow of an apostle or a cloth he touched healed the sick or cast out demons. Extraordinary miracles took place (Acts 2:41; 5:14,15; 19:11,12). We are not told anywhere that such miracles were wrought while Christ was still on earth. The question is not whether these greater works happened, but why.

The Lord Himself gives the answer. It is encapsulated in the short sentence "because I go to the Father". Of course, He far surpasses all who came after Him, both in personal glory and in moral beauty. The reason for the greater works that were to follow had little to do with the servants who were used to perform them. Rather, the greater works flowed from the glory of Christ. They reflected the fact that He was no longer on earth, in lowliness, but glorified by and with the Father.

And this the Lord follows up with His formula of special solemnity in verse 12, wherein He intimates the testimony that would be rendered to the glory of His Person when, and because, He was going to the Father; the power which should invest the believer, and enable him to do not only what they had seen Jesus do, but things greater still in honour of His name. And this was to the letter fulfilled. For never do we hear of the Lord's shadow healing the sick, nor were napkins taken from His body (save in lying legends) to cure disease, or expel demons, not to speak of the multitudes which were brought in far and wide by apostolic preaching. What greater proof of Divine power than to work as He Himself did, and yet more by His servants! and more, again, when He went on high, than when He sent them out from His presence on earth! But if the power displayed — if the works were to be greater, who could compare himself with the Lord in self-renouncing love, dependence, and obedience? Certainly none that believed on Him, none that through Him wrought so mightily.

Thus had the Lord guaranteed the solemn and withal cheering promise, that His proceeding to the Father was in no way to stem and dry up the mighty stream of gracious power in which He had wrought here below. The believer on Him was to do what He did, and yet greater things. This He now follows up and explains by the place given to that exercise of faith which issues in prayer, henceforth to have its fullest character in His name Who had glorified the Father to the uttermost.

"G. I. H." You desire to know the meaning of John 14:12. We believe it teaches us that the works wrought by the Holy Ghost, as the witness of Christ's exaltation, were greater than those wrought by Himself in the days of His flesh. Your difficulty arises from comparing the works viewed abstractedly. You say, "We know that He gave sight to the blind, raised the dead," etc. Yes but He was down here, whereas now He is at the right hand of the Father, and the Holy Ghost is here as the witness of His glorification. This makes all the difference. The descent of the Holy Ghost, on the day of Pentecost, placed the disciples on advanced ground as to everything.

And the Lord adds to this, that because He was going to the Father, in testimony of the Father's delight in that glorious work achieved, even these poor disciples of His should do greater works than He Himself had done. The thousands converted at Pentecost, compared with the "labor for nought" of which He complains through Isaiah as characterizing His own life-toil, already illustrate this; while beyond lay that Gentile harvest which, even while Israel was reaping the fruit of her rejection of Him, would anticipate the final world-harvest. These things are, no doubt, the "greater works," while the miracles that He did His disciples also did, even to the raising of the dead, the healing by the shadow of Peter, or the communication of curative power to handkerchiefs or aprons by the body of Paul. This was still the Son's own work, all things being put into His hand as the Fulfiller of the Father's purpose, and received by Him to glorify the Father in the accomplishment of His blessed will. Whatever therefore they should for this end in His Name ask of the Father, He, the Son, would do it; that in the Son the Father might be glorified. And He repeats again, to emphasize it, "If ye shall ask anything in My Name, I will do it."

And so it was here. This multitude of men and women, I have no doubt, were a great comfort to those that had the feelings, the sympathies, the grace of the Lord, strong in their souls. And what is more, there was mighty power that accompanied it this time, and one remarkable fact which I do not think is mentioned about any other person is that the shadow of Peter healed. just think of that! We never heard of that about the Lord. We never heard that the Lord's shadow healed people. Perhaps you think that I am exalting man against the Lord. I am exalting the words of the Lord, who said, "Ye shall do greater works than these, because I go to the Father." Now I say that that does exalt the Lord, and exalts Him particularly because people may have thought that the Lord was only, so to speak, like a great magnet that could affect only what was near it. Not at all. Because He went they did greater works than His. That is to say, it was the power of the Lord showing itself perfectly superior to everything of nature. Distance and time had nothing to do with it. It was Christ.

If the healing of the impotent man at Bethesda manifested that the Father was working in grace towards men, it also declared His thoughts of the One through whom the divine power had been expressed. The healing of a man who had been infirm for thirty-eight years was a notable sign of Jehovah's presence; but the Lord announced that there would yet be greater works to make the Jews wonder. No doubt the Lord was specially referring to the raising of Lazarus from the dead, as the following verse suggests: "For as the Father raises the dead … ": but these "greater works" may also include the feeding of the five thousand as recorded in the next chapter, and the opening of the eyes of the man who was born blind (John 9).

(Vv. 12-14). Yet further, if on earth the Son had glorified the Father, in making known His heart through His words, still more would the Father be glorified by the Son when, taking His place on high, He would, through the "greater works" of the disciples, still declare the Father's heart; and further would glorify the Father in answering requests made to the Father in the name of Christ.

At this point in the discourse the Lord ceases to speak of the experiences of His words and works which the disciples had enjoyed while He was yet with them, and passes on to speak of the new and deeper experiences of His power after His departure to the Father. The change in the discourse is marked by the words, "Verily verily" — words generally used to introduce some fresh truth. Thus the Lord reveals to His amazed disciples the new truth that after His departure the believer in Jesus would do the works that Jesus had done in person, and, more surprising still, would do greater works.