John 14:12

Jesus prefaced another startling and important revelation with His customary phrase that John noted often in his Gospel. He stressed the importance of believing what He revealed about His divine identity by unveiling the consequences of believing that He was the divine Messiah.

The interpretation of the works that those who believe on Jesus would do, which commentators have found difficult, depends on how Jesus described them. He said that the basis for these and greater works would be His going to the Father. After Jesus ascended into heaven, the Father sent the Holy Spirit to indwell every believer (Acts 2:3; cf. Romans 8:9; 1 Corinthians 12:13). This divine enablement empowered believers to do miracles that only Jesus Himself could do previously. The Book of Acts records the apostles doing many of the same miracles that Jesus had done in the Gospels.

The disciples would do even greater works than Jesus in the sense that their works would have greater effects than His works had. During Jesus’ earthly ministry relatively few people believed on Him, but after His ascension many more did. The miracle of regeneration multiplied after Jesus ascended to heaven and the Father sent the Holy Spirit. Three thousand people became believers in Jesus on the day of Pentecost alone (Acts 2:41). The church thoroughly permeated the Roman Empire during the apostolic age whereas Jesus’ personal ministry did not extend beyond Palestine. The whole Book of Acts is proof that what Jesus predicted here happened (cf. Acts 1:1-2; Acts 1:8). The mighty works of conversion are more in view here than a few miracles of healing.

Jesus probably did not mean that His disciples would do more stupendous miracles than He did. Feeding multitudes from a small lunch and raising people from the dead are hard miracles to supersede. We should not assume either that Jesus meant that these miracles would continue throughout church history as they existed in the apostolic era. Church history has shown that they died out almost entirely after the apostolic age, and the New Testament, while it does not specifically predict that, implies that they would (1 Corinthians 13:8; Ephesians 2:20; Hebrews 2:3-4).