Like Jesus | Do As He Did
About this series:
Jesus calls each of us to become more like him - by being with him, learning from him and imitating him. This is sometimes known as the process of spiritual formation or the process of sanctification, where we progressively leave a self-focussed life and adopt a Jesus-focussed lifestyle. That’s because, just as he called his first disciples, he calls us to “Come, follow me” (Matthew 4:19), a journey John Mark Comer describes as being with Jesus, becoming like him and doing as he did (see Practicing The Way).
And deep within every true Christian is a desire, put there by God, to change in a Christ-like direction. In the new covenant we are transformed into people who want to be with him and want to become like him - “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33); “I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws” (Ezekiel 36:27).
But this process of transformation is not only the work of the Holy Spirit within us. In partnership with God, it is the fruit of us aligning ourselves with his plan to transform us to be like Jesus. How this all works and how we are changed to become more like Jesus will be explored through this series.
About this talk:
The ultimate aim of a disciple who was set on becoming like their teacher was to imitate them and therefore to do what they did. Jesus is, of course, uniquely the Messiah, the one and only truly pure, obedient Son. Ours is a journey of becoming like him without ever being who he uniquely is. So Jesus sent his disciples to do what he was doing in word and deed - “he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal those who were ill” (Luke 9:2).
There is much debate around how much of what Jesus did we can expect to do. If he healed all who came to him for healing, can we expect to see the same? If he could perform miracles, should we do the same? And Jesus seems to indicate that we should expect to “do the works I have been doing, and...do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12). We then have to ask what he means by saying that? Clearly his ascent to the Father is critical here - “because I am going to the Father” - most likely meaning that he will then have sent the Holy Spirit upon his disciples through whom they will be empowered to do what Jesus had been doing (see John 7:39; Acts 2:33). To “do the works I have been doing,” then, is what an apprentice has been trained to do. We could sum this up by remembering the greatest commandment - to love God and love our neighbour. That is what Jesus has been doing supremely and modelling to his disciples. This includes, of course, preaching the gospel, loving the broken, embracing the outcast, healing the sick, casting out demons, etc.
But what are we to make of doing “even greater things”? Does he mean greater in type? If so, it is hard to imagine greater things than raising the dead, healing all who came to him and walking on water! Does he mean greater in extent? If so, we can then imagine that collectively his disciples (first the 12 and then all his followers through time) will do a greater volume of similar works as those he had been doing. Perhaps he means the scope of evangelistic work throughout church history. Or maybe this is yet to be fulfilled in a future time of unprecedented supernatural power at work through the church. Or it is possible that “greater” refers to the age of the new covenant (ie. following the death and resurrection of Jesus) in the same way that “whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than [John the Baptist].” In that sense, everything is “greater” in the new covenant.
So Sam Storms writes, ‘what makes the works we do “greater” is that they are done in the aftermath of the final accomplishment of redemption and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. They are “greater” because they are done in an era or age that doesn’t look forward to the payment of a ransom for sin but looks backward at it. The message you preach will be the message not of a promised ransom but a paid ransom, not of a future payment for sin but a finished payment for sin. The works are “greater” because they are performed in the age of fulfillment, the age of the New Covenant, an age that transcends anything that has come before in God’s redemptive purposes. Unlike anything that has happened up until now, says Jesus, you will do “works” that point people to a finished work of atonement and an empty grave and a risen and glorified Saviour and you will do it in the fullness of the Spirit’s presence and power. On this view, these works are “greater” because of when they take place, not because of what they are. They occur in the age of the Spirit.’ If this view is correct, the early disciples did in fact do the works Jesus had been doing and they were, in the sense Storms highlights, greater.
Even without John 14:12, it is perfectly clear that the goal of an apprentice was to become like his teacher (Matthew 10:25). Matthew 28:18-20 is a more familiar passage, but clearly points to the expectation of obeying all that Jesus taught his disciples. True faith obeys and in so doing leads us towards doing as Jesus did.
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