THE GREATER WORK IS HERE

In John 14:15 Jesus said to His apostles that those who love Him will “keep my commandments.” What did Jesus mean by that? Was he holding over His disciples’ heads a mandate to full obedience as a test of their devotion to Him? If this were the case, the test resulted in universal failure.  None of the apostles could ever keep all the commandments of Christ. What Jesus is saying, however, is “if you love me (which the apostles most certainly did) you will keep my commandments.” As a gentle leader about to leave his devoted followers, Jesus wishes to encourage the eleven apostles (Judas has already departed), not to brow beat them with law. But is the translation “you will keep my commandments,” grammatically possible?  And the answer is yes. In the original Greek the imperative mood (command) and the indicative mood (a statement) have the same form in the present tense. Thus the phrase could be rendered, “you must keep my commandments” (imperative) or “you will keep my commandments” (indicative). Given the mood of the entire passage, the latter option seems more probable. Indeed this interpretation is more in line with the overall context of the Upper Room Discourse. So here in chapter 14, Jesus is encouraging His sorrowing disciples by telling them that despite his soon departure better days are coming.  In verses 12-14 he says these amazing words, “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. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.” As their loving Shepherd Jesus wants to give them the best news possible. His promise to them is that they will perform greater works for the kingdom than they ever did while He was with them.  It is abundantly evident that Jesus is NOT giving His disciples last minute commands that they could never keep on their own. So then the question is, “How exactly will they do greater works after He leaves?”  So he tells them. He will send to them “another Comforter,” that is, He will dispatch to them His own replacement who will be able to do more than He did while in the flesh. And who is that Comforter? Jesus tells them in verses 16 & 17, “And I will pray the Father and He will give you another Helper that He may abide with you forever; the Spirit of truth who the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him.” A new era is coming, says Jesus.  It will be an era where the apostles will do greater works by the enablement of ‘another’ Comforter, the Holy Spirit.  But Jesus is not done with His encouragement. He goes on to tell them what the commandments are which they will do in order to set this Spirit into action. If we go back to verse 11, we find that Jesus has already given the apostles two commandments. He says, “Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.” Twice Jesus commands the sorrowing apostles to believe in Him and in His works. This means the commandment that the disciples will most certainly keep is to BELIEVE IN HIM!  And as the apostles continue to believe, even after Jesus has left, they will have free access to Him through the Spirit by means of prayer. No longer will they follow Jesus around Palestine doing what He can as a man bound by space and time.  But now, in this new age, they will access Him in heaven and ask Him to empower them by the Spirit.  This prayer will unleash a flurry of power that will extend to places that never could have been reached by Jesus in His earthly ministry. It is the Holy Spirit who will perform “greater works than these.” And Jesus is guaranteeing that great work will happen. Why? Again consider.  Jesus’ leaving is what activates the entire work of the Spirit.  After that, that which connects the disciples to Christ is their faith, which Jesus has already promised to give them. And that faith will express itself in believing prayer, and believing prayer will ascend to the enthroned Jesus who will answer it. So consider, dear believer.  All these promises made in the Upper Room Discourse are yours as well.  Jesus still sits enthroned in the heavens. He still bestows the gift of faith on His children. And the promise is still that when His children pray in faith, He will hear them and answer.  And the answer will be the powerful, life-changing, renewing ministry of the Holy Spirit.  In this we see the Trinity at work, all three members conspiring to ensure that this program of kingdom expansion will never fail. The Father sends the Son. The Son performs His redemptive works on earth which become the substance of the saving message.  He goes back to the Father and sends His Spirit to finish that work in a greater way than He could have done while on earth.  And the Spirit uses the very redemptive life of the Son as the message to restore humanity. Dear church of God, with all these divine assurances our mission cannot fail. So ask the Son that He might send the Comforter who will surely accomplish all that the Triune God planned to do from eternity past.