"I have already pointed out in a previous sermon that the key-word of this context is ‘Believe!’ In three successive verses we find it, each time widening in its application. We have first the question to the single disciple: ‘Philip! believest thou not?’ We have then the invitation addressed to the whole group: ‘Believe Me!’ And here we have a wholly general expression referring to all who, in every generation and corner of the world, put their trust in Christ, and extending the sunshine of this great promise to whosoever believeth in Him." -MacLaren
"Christ’s name is the revelation of Christ’s character, and to do a thing in the name of another person is to do it as His representative, and as realising that in some deep and real sense-for the present purpose at all events-we are one with Him." -MacLaren
"The express use of the name of Jesus therein is no specific token; the question is of the spirit and mind of him who prays” (Meyer).
Great point re "greater works": "It is greater to save souls than to heal bodies." -Believer's Bible
Paraphrase for my own benefit: Those who believe in Christ will "also do the works that I do." This much I can reconcile with my knowledge and experience, but then he says that they will do greater works than these because he's going to his father. Finally, he amplifies it further by saying, "if you ask me anything in my name." Help!!!??
This throws all my triggers. Anything. Yes, I understand the conditional, "in my name," but all the same, it's a crazy grand promise.
Ha! I found this comment by Luther: "Our Lord Christ foresaw that this article would go hard with human reason, and that it would be much assailed by the devil."
This helps too:
"The first of these evidences enumerated is the larger sphere of power granted to the believer. By this the Lord does not mean the disciples shall perform greater miracles, but that they shall produce moral and spiritual revolutions which are instinsically more divinely wonderful than miracles. For instance, at his death Jesus had converted about five hundred disciples, but at Pentecost the apostles converted three thousand in one day. The converts of Paul also greatly outnumbered those of Christ's own ministry." -Fourfold Gospel
"This they ought to aim at, and have their eye upon, in asking. In this all our desires and prayers should meet as in their centre; to this they must all be directed, that God in Christ may be honoured by our services, and in our salvation. Hallowed be thy name is an answered prayer, and is put first, because, if the heart be sincere in this, it does in a manner consecrate all the other petitions." -Matthew Henry
Jesus' personal ministry in the flesh must be a local ministry. Only under the dispensation of the Spirit could it be universal. -VWS
No comments:
Post a Comment