Psalm 2 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 John 14:7-14
The Greater Works of the Church
Two weeks ago, we learned that those who are in Jesus are all together in one big house…the Father’s House. In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus teaches us that this house is a springboard from which we, as people regenerated, renewed, and revived in him, can be catapulted out into the world to do unprecedented things for the kingdom.
In these verses, Jesus spoke about the many great works the Father did through him during his time here on earth, but he also spoke of the subsequent greater works he would do through those who believe in him after he had returned to the Father. I believe these verses present us with one of the key thoughts in understanding our role as followers of Jesus in this world. Our role mirrors the role of our Lord during the years of his incarnation. In this respect, we are all instruments of revitalisation, renovation, and re-creation.
There are two astonishing promises Jesus made here. Firstly, he said that those who truly believe and trust him will do greater works than he did…and then, secondly, he said that he would do whatever we ask in accordance with who he is…whatever we ask in “his name”… to the glory of God the Father. In other words, powerful Christ-centred prayer coupled with audacious Christ-centred action will result in the exaltation of God.
But before we explore these remarkable promises, we need to set them in the context of the larger discourse. Remember, Jesus had just declared himself to be the only way to truth and to life…he is the only one through whom we may know what is real and what is eternal. There is simply no other way to the Father except through him. He is the door to the sheepfold. He is the stairway connecting heaven and earth. He is the resurrection and the life.
But here Jesus reveals why he can be all those things and more. “If you had known me,” Jesus told his disciples, “you would have known my Father also.” You see, Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. (Colossians 1:15) Jesus is the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of His person. (Hebrews 1:1-2) To know Jesus is to know the Father. Look at him and you will see God. Through the incarnation, Jesus has once and for all revealed and declared the Father to us because in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. (Colossians 2:9)
In Matthew 11:27 Jesus said that no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son wills to reveal him. Now, about two sermons ago we were told that Jesus specifically chose the twelve, each to his own purpose. So, if the revelation of the Father is according to the will of the Son, then it stands to reason that he could say that his chosen disciples knew the Father and had seen him because Jesus had revealed the Father to them.
So it is no wonder that Jesus said, in reply to Philip’s question, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?”
Now before we shake our heads at Philip, perhaps we should recall how many times we have asked similar questions during times of confusion or bewilderment. Something like, “Lord, please give me a sign that you are with me”. Didn’t he already tell us that he is with us always? Or “Lord, show me that you love me.” Well, what do we think he did at the cross? If that’s not love, what is? I think if we listen carefully, we may hear a similar reply from our Lord. “Have I been with you so long and still you don’t know me?”
But what is behind such statements as that of Philip and ours is a deep inner craving for security. That’s why we want to see God in a form that is personally undeniable.
I believe the origin of this craving to be secure comes from the time of the Fall. Prior to the disobedient and rebellious act of our forebears, God was known personally in a very intimate fashion. God walked with them. God talked with them. There was no hinderance, no veil, no separation.
But from the Fall on, we see that mankind seeks for God but is not able to find him unless he reveals himself to them. (1 Corinthians 2:14) This unaided “seeking” is the basis for all sorts of idolatrous practices. For instance, in Exodus 32 the Israelites wanted to see the God who had brought them out of slavery in Egypt and so they made a golden calf and worshipped it. They wanted to see something that would provide them with assurance that God was indeed with them. But their method was illegitimate, and they were disciplined for it.
But when Moses asked to see God’s glory in the very next chapter, God showed him his glory by revealing his character…and in Jesus’ reply to Philip, he indicated that we can only truly know someone when we know their character. Have I been with you so long and still you don’t know me? You know, I think you can get to know someone pretty well in three years, especially if they are intent on helping you get to know them beyond the exterior surface.
You see, Jesus was not a stained-glass window….he was not a painting…he had lived very closely with his followers for three long years, not just teaching them verbally about God but also revealing God to them through powerful demonstration. He had revealed to them the character of the one who had sent him. They had heard him speak, they had heard him teach, they had heard him admonish, they had heard him refute false teaching…but they had also seen him at work doing both what is mundane as well as that which is intensely profound.
So, that which humanity has searched for ever since the Fall, now stood before them…completely and finally revealed before their very eyes. Like God before the Fall, he walked with them and talked with them. God Almighty was expressed in a form they ought to have been able to comprehend. A tangible portrait of God, if you will. The Person of the Son revealed the Person of the Father perfectly because they are not two but one.
Of course, the concept of the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit has always proved to be a stumbling block for our finite minds, so Jesus graciously anticipated this struggle and added: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.”
If we examine the life of Jesus, we only have three basic options concerning his identity. C. S. Lewis once said that Jesus was either a liar of the worst degree, or a raving lunatic with grandiose delusions about himself, or he was who he said he was…the Lord of all creation. There can be no nonsense about him being a good man or a righteous teacher…he claimed to be God and allowed others to worship him as God. If he was not who he said he was he was neither good nor righteous. So, was he a liar, a lunatic, or was he Lord?
A liar is known to contradict himself often and to admit his lies if threatened, especially with torture and/or death. Jesus did neither of these. Liars are usually out to gain something for themselves. Jesus was always serving the concerns of others and gave his life for them. When he died, the only possessions he had were stripped from his tortured body. Besides, who would be willing to die such a death for something he knew was a lie?
A lunatic, especially one with delusions of grandeur, is always irrational, demanding to be treated with great respect by those he considers his inferiors, raging against them if they do not, calling down fire and brimstone and all manners of threats on those who reject him, and he will always try to prove his claims if challenged by performing death defying feats…like jumping off the pinnacle of a Temple. Jesus refused to let others put him to the test. Lunatics also like to be known and praised by everyone. In contrast, Jesus’ life was mostly lived in obscurity and humility, and he constantly reminded his followers not to reveal him as the Messiah.
That only leaves us with one option. He had to be telling the truth about himself. And in these verses, he offered his disciples an easy way to figure this out. His words were the same as the Father’s words. But just in case they didn’t know enough Scripture to make that connection, he offered them a second way. His works were the same as the Father’s works. Only God could change water into wine. Only God could open the eyes of a man born blind. Only God could raise to life a four-day old rotting corpse.
The claim of Jesus regarding his divinity has been challenged by unbelievers throughout all time. By the Jews in the First Century, the Arians of the Fourth Century, all the way through to the Schweitzer’s, Spong’s, Dawkins’, and Hitchens’ of modern time. The Divine nature of Jesus is greater than human minds can comprehend and greater than what human reason and logic and language can express…but that is because he is God. If we could define and explain him, he would not be God, would he?
But what really gets me about militant atheists is that they get angry when I tell them that a God they don’t believe in, says in a book they don’t accept as authoritative, that unless they repent and believe in him, they will spend eternity in a place they don’t believe exists. How can you deny something you do not believe is real? Could it be possible that they are so scared that they are wrong that the only way they can make themselves feel right is to rant and to rave because the alternative is too petrifying to contemplate? They are very similar to a foreign tourist in a foreign country simply shouting the same foreign words louder thinking that they will be understood, because the alternative would be to accept that they are incomprehensible because they are ignorant of the foreign language of the foreign country they are visiting.
Observe the life of Jesus. Did he conform to the Word of God, or did he contradict it? Did he honour God in what he said and did, or did he dishonour him? Even his adversaries admitted that the only correct response to the works of Jesus was to give glory to God. But they simply were not willing to connect the dots, so to speak. But others did…an unfortunate Samaritan woman at a well, an unlearned blind beggar, and simple fishermen. They connected the dots because God chose to reveal himself to them. Belief that Jesus is who he claimed to be is a ravine that can only be spanned with the help of the Holy Spirit because only he can break down the barriers we have erected.
Throughout the Gospels Jesus revealed himself to be one with the Father. For those who struggled with his claims, he offered his works…works that could only be done by God. Works which Jesus said God did through him. Works that would be continued on a greater scale by those who believe in him and obey him.
Now, it might be helpful to ask what works Jesus was talking about here. He did some pretty amazing things in his lifetime here on earth…are we meant to do more amazing things than he did? How does one beat raising the dead?
Perhaps if we look at the goal of the works of Jesus, we might begin to understand what he meant by saying our works would be greater than his. The first clue is to see that the works Jesus was speaking about here were works done by the Father through the Son. “The Father who dwells in me does his works.”
What primary work did the Father do through the Son? Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:19 that “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself”. Reconciling the world to himself was the ultimate goal of all the works of Jesus…all his works pointed forward to his one final and great work of reconciliation. His sacrificial work of salvation on the cross. Paul describes the outcome and the purpose of this great work of Jesus in these words: “For we are his workmanship, created (or recreated) in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10)
So, let’s unpack his statements in verses 12-14, shall we? “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.”
There are a number of things we need to take note of here. Firstly, who will be doing the works we are supposed to be doing? Yes, Jesus will be working through those who believe in him as they need to ask him and he will do what they ask. This is paralleled by the way the Father worked through the Son. So, we need to ask, what did Jesus ask for the Father to do through him? This will help us understand what we are to ask and to do.
Psalm 2:8 gives us a clue. “Ask of me,” the Father says to the Son, “and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.” Sounds a lot like what Jesus said in Acts 1:8, doesn’t it? You are my witnesses even to the ends of the earth. And Matthew 28 where he tells us we are to disciple the nations. We’ve already seen that the work of the Father through the Son was a work of reconciliation…a work that has now been given to us to complete. Jesus’ main objective in coming to the world was to reconcile God and humanity…that was his principal task.
How is it then that our work is greater than that of Jesus? Well, for one, through sheer numerical number…from Pentecost on the work of reconciliation spread throughout the world…from one disciple to another disciple to another disciple…multiplying as men and women obediently continued their work of disciple making. Isn’t that the work we were commanded to do shortly before the ascension? Jesus commanded us to make disciples of the nations. So, his work that was local became, through us, global.
But the important thing to note here is who is the author of our works. Just as Jesus asked the Father and the Father in turn worked through him, so we too are to ask in his name and he will work his work in and through us.
Obviously, this does not mean he is obliged to do everything we ask for simply because we add his name to our list of requests…like a signature of a deed. No, what it means to ask in his name is to ask in line with his aims. God’s goal has always been to reconcile the world to himself. From his promise in Genesis 3:15 to the present day, God’s will was and is for all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:4)
Jesus teaches us that the Father’s house is a springboard from which we, as people regenerated, renewed, and revived in him, can be catapulted out into the world to do unprecedented things for the kingdom. He told his followers to wait in Jerusalem for the promised outpouring of the Holy Spirit who would empower them to be what they were intended to be…what the Church is intended to be…witness to the ends of the earth…disciple makers of the nations.
Like Jesus, we are to be instruments through which the Father does his work of reconciliation in the world. These are the greater works we are called to do. To ask for the nations for his inheritance…to be witnesses to him…and to teach others to do the same.
That, dearest beloved brethren, is the greatest work of the Church.
Shall we pray?
© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2024
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