Even Greater Than Jesus
“…they will do even greater things…” (John 14:12).
The physical absence of Jesus is not the disadvantage it seems to be. Nor is the absence of miracles today a detriment to faith. To the contrary, the presence of Jesus on earth, and the working of miracles alone never did solve for lack of faith. Why?
For the most part, people inherently view the supernatural (or what is suspected to be supernatural) with much greater suspicion than the natural, and rightly so. Our faith is certainly supported by the miraculous, by the supernatural event of the resurrection no less, but it is firmly anchored in the bedrock of truth.
And inspired, written truth has a sort of endurance that miracles do not. The effect of a miraculous event entropies over time – sometimes quickly so, as the Scriptures reveal (Luke 7:19), while spiritual truth written in the hand of God by holy men calcifies (2 Pet. 1:21).
The preaching of the Gospel was going to be – in one sense – a greater work of mercy than even the miraculous ministry of Jesus had been. Those aren’t our words, but His:
Truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father (John 14:12).
At least part of those “greater things” involved the apostles doing something that Jesus never did: live and die for the testimony of the resurrected Jesus.
Another was the process of inspiration that resulted in the New Testament, the final pages of Holy Writ.
This was a body of truth that would endure (Luke 21:33; Psalm 119.89).
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