“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.” John 14:12.
This verse is hard to interpret; not so much because of its difficulty, but because so many denominations have been built around it. A definitive answer will only please a few and offend the rest.
“Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe’s household, that there are contentions among you. Now I say this, that each of you says, ‘I am of Paul,’ or ‘I am of Apollos,’ or ‘I am of Cephas,’ or ‘I am of Christ.’ Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” 1 Corinthians 1:10-13.
“But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so.” James 3:8-10.
“Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him. Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks. For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living. But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.” Romans 14:3-10.
Christ gave His church a commandment.
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35.
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me…” John 14:12a.
“…he who believes in Me” relates to anyone who has accepted Christ as their savior; beginning with His disciples and continuing on to any who become disciples throughout the age.
According to the dictionary a disciple is a pupil or an adherent of another, in this case Christ. A pupil or an adherent is someone who is always learning from and is focused on, their master, again, our Master is Jesus Christ.
The church today has fallen into a great error by allowing the world to press it into its mold, becoming the church’s master.
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” Romans 12:1-2.
In an effort not to offend anyone the message preached from the pulpit has become, “Accept Jesus as your savior and you will have a good life, and then you will go to heaven.”
All true enough, except you may not have a good life, it will become better because God the Father is in it; however it could still become quite difficult. The difference is that you will have Christ with you at all times, in the form of the Holy Spirit, the comforter.
Folks might accept Christ on this basis well enough, but then when the hard times hit they become discouraged because God did not live up to His promise of a good life, and fall away.
If they truly accepted Christ to begin with, they will go to heaven just the same, but they would have lost their opportunity to serve and glorify God and they would never have had the privilege of becoming a disciple.
Here is an interesting thought; and let this sink deeply into your heart; this life is the only time in all of eternity when you will have an opportunity to serve Jesus completely on faith.
Once you set eyes on Him, it will be entirely impossible to do this again. I have found over the years that God is big on faith.
When we speak of faith, it does not mean, blind faith, or the leap of faith. Blind faith is a worldly term and has no part in Christianity; the leap of faith is a philosophical term and should never be used by the Christian when referring to belief in God, or accepting Christ as savior, never.
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1.
If we were to insert the marginal notes in the New Kings James Bible, this verse would be rendered this way; “Now faith is the realization of things hoped for, the confidence of things not seen.”
“But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.” Hebrews 11:6.
Believing in God is a no brainer, look around you, examine your world carefully, it is far too complex to just be here; ignore the lie of the God hating atheists that God’s existence cannot be proved.
Examine the theory of evolution, it is a myth made up by the God haters to demean God and cripple those who would believe in Him. Take a page out of their own book, “Question authority!”
If in the beginning there was only the planet and inorganic elements, how did man evolve from a rock?
When the very first primitive cell evolved, what did it eat?
It takes DNA to reproduce, how did something that complex evolve in the very first cell?
Animals make carbon dioxide and plants convert it into oxygen, what did the first cells breath after they had used up all the oxygen on the earth?
This is why Intelligent Design is not permitted in schools; it would completely destroy evolution and give children a chance to form their own beliefs.
This is why God made space so vast, and earth so complex; so no one could say that, “time, plus chance, plus the impersonal” made all of this.
Faith in God is as rock solid as faith in the very ground you stand on. Do not just believe professors and assorted wonks when they parrot these “facts” without being able to honestly answer questions about their facts; “Question the authorities!”
Sermons like, “Accept Christ as your savior and you will have a good life and then go to heaven”, are wrong because, in an effort not to offend, they leave out a crucial element, hell.
Hell is beneath your feet my friend, and if you had super hearing you could put your ear to the ground and hear the unending screams of misery coming from that awful place.
It is real and they are real dead people, you will see them on Judgment Day. The question that should be shouted from every pulpit is; will you be among them, or standing beside Jesus Christ on that day?
One might say, “Well, that offends me”; well enough. Are you offended because you cannot jump off a cliff unassisted without being killed, or that you cannot swim to the bottom of the ocean without drowning?
If these deadly realities do not offend you, why should the reality of hell?
As Ronald Reagan said, quoting John Adams: “Facts are stubborn things”; hell offends me too, but it still remains that sin offends God.
“Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.” 1 John 3:4.
If these lawless sinners were allowed to enter heaven, it would be no better place than earth and in time during eternity heaven would eventually become more like hell.
The main reason hell is so awful is that there is no God there, another reason hell is so awful is because it is full of lawless sinners.
Look at the world around you, why do you suppose it is so awful? It is because sin is running amuck, hell is a necessary place. But there is a solution. Look at the very next verse in 1 John 3.
“And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.” 1John 3:5.
If folks were taught that Jesus not only died to give us a good life and an eternity in heaven, but more importantly He died to save us from an eternity in the misery of hell and eventually the lake of fire. Men and women might just value their salvation a little bit more.
People need to realize that Jesus experienced the same horrors of hell, the punishment for our sins while nailed to the cross, abandoned by God, mocked by men, desolate, alone, and in agony.
Nailed to a cross made from trees He created, held by nails mined from ore He placed in the ground, on a hill, part of a topography which He ordained in His sovereign will, and with all things being held together by His own hand He passed from life to death without letting go and destroying all of creation.
Christians who realize that they were rescued from the burning fires of hell will love Jesus more.
They will endure adversity more, they will have greater compassion on those who doubt, and they will strive to convince the unsaved of Christ’s salvation, and, “…others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.” Jude 23.
“…he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also”; the difference between Christians who are disciples and Christians who are indeed saved, but do not grow in Christ, just going to church, believing that is all that is required of them, is that this latter group will never experience the full power of what they are capable of in Christ.
The pity is that the body of Christ, which is the believing church, needs every one of its members to come up to full speed and use their God given potential in Christ to combat the flood of evil overflowing this world today.
Greater Works than These, John 14:12a taken from godisrevealed.com posted on 3-28-13, updated on 1-30-18.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version, copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission, all rights reserved.