Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on
me,
&c.] Having mentioned his miracles as proofs of his deity, he
assures his disciples, in order to comfort them under the loss of
his bodily presence, that they should do the same, and greater
works; for we are not to understand these words of everyone that
believes in Christ, of every private believer in him, but only of
the apostles, and each of them, that were true believers in him:
to whom he says,
the works that I do shall he do also;
he shall raise the dead, heal all manner of diseases, and cast
out devils; things which Christ gave his apostles power to do,
when he first gave them a commission to preach the Gospel, and
when he renewed and enlarged it: and which they did perform, not
in their own name, and by their own power, but in the name, and
by the power of Christ:
and greater works than these shall he do;
meaning, not greater in nature and kind, but more in number; for
the apostles, in a long series of time, and course of years, went
about preaching the Gospel, not in Judea only, but in all the
world; "God also bearing them witness with signs and wonders, and
divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost", ( Hebrews 2:4 ) ,
wherever they went: though perhaps by these greater works may be
meant the many instances of conversion, which the apostles were
instrumental in, and which were more in number than those which
were under our Lord's personal ministry: besides, the conversion
of a sinner is a greater work than any of the miracles of raising
the dead for this includes in it all miracles: here we may see a
sinner, dead in trespasses and sins, quickened; one born blind
made to see; one who was deaf to the threatenings of the law, and
to the charming voice of the Gospel, made to hear, so as to live;
and one that had the spreading leprosy of sin all over him,
cleansed from it by the blood of the Lamb yea, though a miracle
in nature is an instance and proof of divine power, yet the
conversion of a sinner, which is a miracle in grace, is not only
an instance of the power of God, and of the greatness of it, but
of the exceeding greatness of it: and the rather one may be
induced to give in to this sense of the passage, since it is
added, as a reason,
because I go to my Father;
and upon my ascension the Spirit will be given, to you, which
shall not only enable you to perform miracles, as proofs of your
apostleship, and the doctrine you preach, but which shall
powerfully attend the Gospel to the conversion of multitudes of
souls.