Christ's Doctrine of Faith: A Study of "Believing" in John's Gospel (John 14:12)

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The eighty-fourth time “believing” occurs in the Gospel of John is John 14:12. Here, the Lord Jesus Christ tells His eleven disciples: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father” (KJV). So, as always, what is the immediate context, and what are some facts about faith we can draw from here?

First, what is the immediate context? Right after Jesus tells His disciples to believe Him that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him, or else to believe Him for the sake of His works, He emphatically declares to them that the one who believes on Him will do the works He does and will do greater works than these, because He goes to His Father. This is the immediate context of John 14:12!

Second, what are some facts about faith we can draw out here? This will be another one of those posts where it looks we will be able to talk about one fact, but that one fact is this: belief in Christ leads to doing His works and greater works. Indeed, in the KJV, the “works” in “greater works” in John 14:12 is in italics, so it appears the second half of this passage can be literally read as: “greater than these [works] shall he do; because I go unto my Father.” Now, I am not going to go into specifics on what these greater works are or how they are greater than the ones Jesus did. One, because I don’t want to twist this text by saying or implying it means more than what it says, and two, because I don’t want to twist this text by saying or implying it means less than what it says. All I will say is this: 1) we should take Christ at His Word, which we should do with all the parts of Scripture and Scripture as a whole; and 2) related to the last part, don’t interpret this text in any way that nullifies any other part of Scripture, and you will be on the right track to rightly interpreting it. This is a fact about faith from John 14:12!