Anyone who believes in the present day ministry of miracles will quote John 14:12, eventually and probably often. “He who believes in me, the works that I do he will do also, and greater works than these, because I go to the Father.”   We often quote this verse but rarely take time to break it down, so lets take a closer look.

Jesus begins by defining who would do the works he did. He did not say, “my apostles, those who have been following me for three years, a few super-Christians,” etc. He simply says, “He who believes in me.” The NIV translates the phrase as, “Anyone who has faith in me…” The potential for doing what Jesus did, and even greater things, rests in every believer. The potential rests there because the Holy Spirit indwells there. Jesus said that his promise was true because he was going to his Father.

The promised event that would occur as Jesus returned to the Father was the sending of his Spirit and the power that would attend the Spirit. In John 16, Jesus told his disciples, “It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you” (Jn.16:7). After his resurrection and ascension back to the Father, Jesus told his disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they received power after the Spirit had fallen on them. After the power of the Spirit was released, miracles began to happen.

Anyone who has the Spirit of Christ has the potential to do the works of Christ. What were the works? Preaching the Kingdom, healing, cleansing lepers, raising the dead, calming storms, walking on water, feeding the multitudes, etc. The works of Jesus were the very things that destroyed or reversed the works of the devil, which is the very thing Jesus came to do (1 Jn.3:8). It’s important to notice what Jesus did not say in John 14:12. Jesus did not say that those who believe could do the works he did, but that they would do the works he did. Jesus has an expectation that those who have faith in Him will do the very things he did while he was on the earth – and even greater things.

Many evangelicals have cast this verse as a promise of extensive evangelism. They say that the verse will be fulfilled when we have reached more people than Jesus was able to reach while he was on the earth. In their version, the “greater works, ” would simply be more evangelism. There is no doubt that Jesus has called us to reach more people, but that alone does not constitute the works that Jesus had been doing. The miraculous works of Jesus accompanied and facilitated evangelism, but were not simply the preaching of the good news alone.

In addition, the idea of doing “greater works” is not just quantitative in nature. It is not just doing more of what Jesus did. The word translated as “greater” in the text is mizon. It is used numerous times in the New Testament and always carries the idea of quality vs. quantity. Jesus didn’t say that believers would do more things than he did; he said that they would do even greater things than he did.

If Jesus had that expectation, then we should also carry that expectation. I said earlier in this blog that every believer has the potential to do greater works. The potential for all things in the kingdom is released not only through faith that God can do something but also through expectation that God will do something. Most believers have no doubt that God can do anything, but have been taught not to expect God to do those things. That is why the potential has not been released in many or most believers in the western world.

It is a simple verse. It is straightforward. If we take Jesus at this word, believers should be doing what he did and doing even greater works. Whenever the works of Jesus are not occurring, something is wrong or incomplete in those who believe. The problem is that much of the church believes that when the works of Jesus are occurring, there is something wrong.

Let me encourage you to not only believe that God can do miracles, but to ask the Holy Spirit to give you an expectation that he will. The needed transformation in the church will probably not come from the pulpits down, but from the pews up. In other words, most pastors will continue to preach what they were trained to believe in seminary. If they begin to preach something else, they will most likely be asked to step down. When the ordinary believer begins to walk with the expectation of miracles, God will honor that expectation and as those who sit in the pews on Sunday, begin to move in the power of God, leadership may be changed by their testimony.

Regardless of leadership’s expectation, we must honor the Savior’s expectation for his people and his expectation is for every one of us to be doing the works he did. Be blessed today and expect!