Can believers do greater works than Jesus did?

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PetriFB

Registered Senior Member
In modern times, among believers, there is an ever increasing number of arguments and teachings, according to which believers would be capable of doing qualitatively greater works than the Lord Jesus did. When we study this in regard to what the Bible in full says and witnesses about this topic, we can see that the disciples of the Lord Jesus are not capable of doing greater works, i.e. greater in power (the Holy Spirit) than what Jesus did. Instead, the word "greater" refers to powerful works that are done through the Holy Spirit and that are greater in number and done by a bigger number of people. Spend time in prayer and compare the present text to what the Bible teaches us.



More info: http://www.kotipetripaavola.com/canbelieversdogreaterworksthanjesusdid.html
 
PetriFB said:
In modern times, among believers, there is an ever increasing number of arguments and teachings, according to which believers would be capable of doing qualitatively greater works than the Lord Jesus did.
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And the practical value of undermining such interpretations that an equal and superior qualitative magnitude is possible would be to help impede the development of schisms and other doxastic offshoots from the mainstream / dominant institution. "Observe the mighty works of Jung Sook Hyang, which rival those of the original Deliverer! Let us a form a new sect around his lectures!"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_messiah_claimants

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mahdi_claimants
 
PetriFB said:
In modern times, among believers, there is an ever increasing number of arguments and teachings, according to which believers would be capable of doing qualitatively greater works than the Lord Jesus did. When we study this in regard to what the Bible in full says and witnesses about this topic, we can see that the disciples of the Lord Jesus are not capable of doing greater works, i.e. greater in power (the Holy Spirit) than what Jesus did. Instead, the word "greater" refers to powerful works that are done through the Holy Spirit and that are greater in number and done by a bigger number of people. Spend time in prayer and compare the present text to what the Bible teaches us.



More info: http://www.kotipetripaavola.com/canbelieversdogreaterworksthanjesusdid.html
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What is the 'Holy Spirit', what is it's power, and how do we communicate with it???

Jan.
 
kx000 said:
Can God be greater than All Things including God at the same time?
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"Greater" as in superordinate? To be entertained as a meaningful query, the sentence implies that the token of "God" must actually represent different or distinct things in its two instances in the sentence (God-1, God-2). The second occurrence of "God" is part of the set of "All Things". Accordingly it's of lesser rank to that category which it is a member of. So to be primal, the first occurrence of "God" would therefore have to be a hypernym that subsumes "All Things" in order to be greater than both that and God-2 (not simply beyond or outside "All Things" without any family affiliation).

For God-1 be excluded itself from membership in the set of All Things, the latter can't be as supremely dominant as the expression suggests. One might assert that it indicates "all material things" (things with extension slash outer appearances or at least spatiotemporal location) and not immaterial things. With God-1 being a resident of the latter category. In order for God-1 to avoid being subservient to the immaterial set, it must be the only member and thereby is what instantiates immateriality or is synonymous with it.

Immaterial must be defined: "What is size-less, universal (without specific location), what does not fall out of or depend upon extrinsic relationships for its identity (lacks outer / concrete appearance, lacks body-hood), etc. "Principle" might qualify as a tentative example in the sense that it can regulate a world without being found anywhere as a local / empirical object itself (apart from expressing it descriptively or as a linguistic and symbol mediated concept).

But this would still be unlikely to settle God's primary ranking among abstract-o-philes. Other principles will have to be subsumed under that Supreme Principle or Ultimate General Entity, which may raise questions of "Is God-1 a composite of them?" or can the set of "all immaterial things" really be constricted to a single member?
 
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PetriFB said:
Can believer do greater works than Jesus did?
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That depends on what 'works' means and on what we believe about Jesus.

Assuming that he wants to, a contemporary billionaire can pay for medical care or medical research that heals far more people than all of Jesus' healing miracles combined.

But... if we follow the Christian tradition and say that Jesus' death on the cross somehow effected a huge cosmic reconciliation between God and man, then no, probably not.
 
Mathew 17:20. And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
 
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