Yohanes 7:31

7:31 Yet many of the crowd ¹  believed in him and said, “Whenever the Christ ²  comes, he won’t perform more miraculous signs than this man did, will he?” ³ 

Yohanes 9:16

9:16 Then some of the Pharisees began to say, ⁴  “This man is not from God, because he does not observe ⁵  the Sabbath.” ⁶  But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform ⁷  such miraculous signs?” Thus there was a division ⁸  among them.

Yohanes 14:12

14:12 I tell you the solemn truth, ⁹  the person who believes in me will perform ¹⁰  the miraculous deeds ¹¹  that I am doing, ¹²  and will perform ¹³  greater deeds ¹⁴  than these, because I am going to the Father.

[7:31]  ¹ tn Or “The common people” (as opposed to the religious authorities).

[7:31]  ² tn Or “the Messiah” (Both Greek “Christ” and Hebrew and Aramaic “Messiah” mean “one who has been anointed”).

[7:31]  sn See the note on Christ in 1:20.

[7:31]  ³ tn Questions prefaced with μή (mh) in Greek anticipate a negative answer. This can sometimes be indicated by using a “tag” at the end in English (here it is “will he?”).

[9:16]  ⁴ tn As a response to the answers of the man who used to be blind, the use of the imperfect tense in the reply of the Pharisees is best translated as an ingressive imperfect (“began to say” or “started saying”).

[9:16]  ⁵ tn Grk “he does not keep.”

[9:16]  ⁶ sn The Jewish religious leaders considered the work involved in making the mud to be a violation of the Sabbath.

[9:16]  ⁷ tn Grk “do.”

[9:16]  ⁸ tn Or “So there was discord.”

[14:12]  ⁹ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[14:12]  ¹⁰ tn Or “will do.”

[14:12]  ¹¹ tn Grk “the works.”

[14:12]  ¹² tn Or “that I do.”

[14:12]  sn See the note on miraculous deeds in v. 11.

[14:12]  ¹³ tn Or “will do.”

[14:12]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “greater works.”

[14:12]  sn What are the greater deeds that Jesus speaks of, and how is this related to his going to the Father? It is clear from both John 7:39 and 16:7 that the Holy Spirit will not come until Jesus has departed. After Pentecost and the coming of the Spirit to indwell believers in a permanent relationship, believers would be empowered to perform even greater deeds than those Jesus did during his earthly ministry. When the early chapters of Acts are examined, it is clear that, from a numerical standpoint, the deeds of Peter and the other Apostles surpassed those of Jesus in a single day (the day of Pentecost). On that day more were added to the church than had become followers of Jesus during the entire three years of his earthly ministry. And the message went forth not just in Judea, Samaria, and Galilee, but to the farthest parts of the known world. This understanding of what Jesus meant by “greater deeds” is more probable than a reference to “more spectacular miracles.” Certainly miraculous deeds were performed by the apostles as recounted in Acts, but these do not appear to have surpassed the works of Jesus himself in either degree or number.