`I go unto the Father!' Or, Power for Praying and
Working.
`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.
And whatsoever ye shall ask in my Name, that will I do.'--JOHN xiv. 12,
13.
AS the Saviour opened His public ministry with His
disciples by the Sermon on the Mount, so He closes it by the Parting Address
preserved to us by John. In both He speaks more than once of prayer.
But with a difference. In the Sermon on the Mount it is as to
disciples who have only just entered His school, who scarcely know that God is
their Father, and whose prayer chiefly has reference to their personal needs.
In His closing address He speaks to disciples whose training time is now
come to an end, and who are ready as His messengers to take His place and His
work. In the former the chief lesson is: Be childlike, pray
believingly, and trust the Father that He will give you all good gifts.
Here He points to something higher: They are now His friends to whom
He has made known all that He has heard of the Father; His messengers, who have
entered into His plans, and into whose hands the care of His work and kingdom on
earth is to be entrusted. They are now to go out and do His works, and in
the power of His approaching exaltation, even greater works: prayer is now
to be the channel through which that power is to be received for their work.
With Christ's ascension to the Father a new epoch commences for their
working and praying both.
See how clearly this connection comes out
in our text. As His body here on earth, as those who are one with Him in
heaven, they are now to do greater works than He had done; their success and
their victories are to be greater than His. He mentions two reasons for
this. The one, because He was to go to the Father, to receive all power;
the other, because they might now ask and expect all in His Name. `Because
I go to the Father, and--notice this and--and, whatsoever ye shall
ask, I will do.' His going to the Father would thus bring the double
blessing: they would ask and receive all in His Name, and as a
consequence, would do the greater works. This first mention of prayer in
our Saviour's parting words thus teaches us two most important lessons. He
that would do the works of Jesus must pray in His Name. He that
would pray in His Name must work in His Name.
He who
would work must pray: it is in prayer that the power for work is
obtained. He that in faith would do the works that Jesus did, must pray in
His Name. As long as Jesus was here on earth, He Himself did the greatest
works: devils the disciples could not cast out, fled at His word.
When He went to the Father, He was no longer here in the body to work
directly. The disciples were now His body: all His work from the
throne in heaven here on earth must and could be done through them. One
might have thought that now He was leaving the scene Himself, and could only
work through commissioners, the works might be fewer and weaker. He
assures us of the contrary: Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that
believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also, and he shall do greater
works.' His approaching death was to be such a real breaking down and
making an end of the power of sin; with the resurrection the powers of the
Eternal Life were so truly to take possession of the human body and to obtain
supremacy over human life; with His ascension He was to receive the power to
communicate the Holy Spirit so fully to His own; the union, the oneness between
Himself on the throne and them on earth, was to be so intensely and divinely
perfect, that He meant it as the literal truth: `Greater works than these
shall he do, because I go to the Father.' And the issue proved how true it
was. While Jesus, during three years of personal labour on earth, gathered
little more than five hundred disciples, and the most of them so feeble that
they were but little credit to His cause, it was given to men like Peter and
Paul manifestly to do greater things than He had done. From the throne He
could do through them what He Himself in His humiliation could not yet
do.
But there is one condition: `He that believeth on
me, he shall do greater works, because I go to the Father; and whatsover ye
shall ask in my Name, that will I do.' His going to the Father would
give Him a new power to hear prayer. For the doing of the greater works,
two things were needed: His going to the Father to receive all power, our
prayer in His Name to receive all power from Him again. As He asks the
Father, He receives and bestows on us the power of the new dispensation for the
greater works; as we believe, and ask in His Name, the power comes and takes
possession of us to do the greater works.
Alas!
how much working there is in the work of God, in which there is little or
nothing to be seen of the power to do anything like Christ's works, not to speak
of greater works. There can be but one reason: the believing on Him,
the believing prayer in His Name, this is so much wanting. O that every
labourer and leader in church, or school, in the work of home philanthropy or
foreign missions might learn the lesson: Prayer in the Name of Jesus is
the way to share in the mighty power which Jesus has received of the Father for
His people, and it is in this power alone that he that believeth can do the
greater works. To every complaint as to weakness or unfitness, as to
difficulties or want of success, Jesus gives this one answer: `He that
believeth on me shall do greater works, because I go to the Father, and
whatsoever ye shall ask in my Name, that will I do.' We must
understand that the first and chief thing for everyone who would do the work of
Jesus, is to believe, and so to get linked to Him, the Almighty One, and then to
pray the prayer of faith in His Name. Without this our work is but human
and carnal; it may have some use in restraining sin, or preparing the way for
blessing, but the real power is wanting. Effectual working needs first
effectual prayer.
And now the second lesson: He who would pray
must work. It is for power to work that prayer has such great
promises: it is in working that the power for the effectual prayer of
faith will be gained. In these parting words of our blessed Lord we find
that He no less than six times (John xiv. 13, 14, xv. 7, 16, xvi. 23, 24)
repeats those unlimited prayer-promises which have so often awakened our anxious
questionings as to their real meaning: `whatsoever,' `anything,' `what
ye will,' `ask and ye shall receive.' How many a believer has read
these over with joy and hope, and in deep earnestness of soul has sought to
plead them for his own need. And he has come out disappointed. The
simple reason was this: he had rent away the promise from its surrounding.
The Lord gave the wonderful promise of the free use of His Name with the
Father in connection with the doing of His works. It is the
disciple who gives himself wholly to live for Jesus' work and kingdom, for His
will and honour, to whom the power will come to appropriate the promise.
He that would fain grasp the promise when he wants something very special
for himself, will be disappointed, because he would make Jesus the servant of
his own comfort. But to him who seeks to pray the effectual prayer of
faith, because he needs it for the work of the Master, to him it will be given
to learn it; because he has made himself the servant of his Lord's interests.
Prayer not only teaches and strengthens to work: work teaches and
strengthens to pray.
This is in perfect harmony with what
holds good both in the natural and the spiritual world. Whosoever hath, to
him shall be given; or, He that is faithful in a little, is faithful also in
much. Let us with the small measure of grace already received, give
ourselves to the Master for His work: work will be to us a real school of
prayer. It was when Moses had to take full charge of a rebellious people
that he felt the need, but also the courage, to speak boldly to God and to ask
great things of Him (Ex. xxxiii. 12, 15, 18). As you give yourself
entirely to God for His work, you will feel that nothing less than these great
promises are what you need, that nothing less is what you may most confidently
expect.
Believer in Jesus! You are called, you are
appointed, to do the works of Jesus, and even greater works, because He has gone
to the Father to receive the power to do them in and through
you.
Whatsoever ye shall ask in my Name, that will
I do. Give yourself, and live, to do the works of Christ and you will
learn to pray so as to obtain wonderful answers to prayer. Give yourself,
and live, to pray and you will learn to do the works He did, and greater works.
With disciples full of faith in Himself, and bold in prayer to ask great
things, Christ can conquer the world.
`LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY.'
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O my Lord! I have this day again
heard words from Thee which pass my comprehension. And yet I cannot do
aught but in simple childlike faith take and keep them as Thy gift to me too.
Thou hast said that in virtue of Thy going to the Father, he that
believeth on Thee will do the works which Thou hast done, and greater works.
Lord! I worship Thee as the Glorified One, and look for the
fulfilment of Thy promise. May my whole life just be one of continued
believing in Thee. So purify and sanctify my heart, make it so tenderly
susceptible of Thyself and Thy love, that believing on Thee may be the very life
it breathes.
And Thou hast said that in virtue of Thy going to the
Father, whatsoever we ask, Thou wilt do. From Thy throne of power Thou
wouldest make Thy people share the power given Thee, and work through them as
the members of Thy body, in response to their believing prayers in Thy Name.
Power in prayer with Thee, and power in work with men, is what Thou has
promised Thy people and me too.
Blessed Lord! Forgive us all that
we have so little believed Thee and Thy promise, and so little proved Thy
faithfulness in fulfilling it. O forgive us that we have so little
honoured Thy all-prevailing Name in heaven or upon earth.
Lord!
Teach me to pray so that I may prove that Thy Name is indeed
all-prevailing with God and men and devils. Yea, teach me so to work and
so to pray that Thou canst glorify Thyself in me as the Omnipotent One, and do
Thy great work through me too. Amen.