The Kinfolk Said, Jed...
In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. (John 14:2 KJV)
In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? (John 14:2 ESV)
In John 14 Jesus is comforting His disciples. He is shortly going to be betrayed and crucified. He tells them about the Father's house. It is big. Many times when we get older we downsize. We realize we do not need 4 bedrooms anymore. We do not want many stairs. There is no reason to clean 3 bathrooms in our senior years. Why heat or cool three times the square footage that we really need? Even though the Father has been around a long time, He is serious about adding on to His house. The entire family is going to live in the Father's house.
There is, in recent years, the idea of a large country estate, a mansion. This is assumed to be our personal heavenly destination. Where did this idea of a mansion come from? In part, it comes from the King James translation using the word mansion. It means a dwelling place or an abode. A nest is the dwelling place of a bird. A hole in the ground is the manor or manse (old English) of foxes.
The other origin of the idea of a large private house is The Beverly Hillbillies, a TV sitcom from the 1960s. If you want to hear a dignified old lady cuss out loud in church [I don't know why you ever would] just touch her mansion. In the TV series, Jed Clampett and family lived in a 32 room house. Is a person really going to use 14 bedrooms as a private residence in the afterlife? Are we going to sleep? There is no night there. Do we need a kitchen? We certainly could eat but we do not have to. There seems to be a lot of feasting going on but the angels will prepare and serve it “family style”. My mother had 4 children. It seems like I remember her having the attitude, I spend eternity cleaning the bathrooms around here! How would you like to literally spend eternity cleaning the bathrooms? Someone says, “Don't be silly. We won't have the same biological needs then as we do now”.
Is not going to Beverly Hills, California when you die being silly?
How many of the 32 rooms would be obsolete? Jesus thinks we need a room in His Father's house. He is preparing one for you. Also, did you actually send enough money ahead for the angelic construction crew to build you a 32 room house? You might be disappointed to see your actual final results, in a sowing and reaping sense. I could guarantee, however, that you will not be disappointed with the work of Jesus. I am not saying there is no architecture in heaven, there is. But is Jesus preparing something greater than that for eternity?
When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. (Luke 11:24)
An evil spirit thinks that the body of a person that he is thrown out of is his house. A body is the house of a spirit, human or otherwise.
Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me. (2Pet 1:14)
Peter revealed that his body was like a tent, a temporary house for his spirit to live in for a while.
The Lord God filled the tabernacle of Moses. He later filled the house (temple) that King Solomon built for Him.
For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (2Cor 5:1)
Paul says that if this present house (for our spirit) dies (is dissolved), we have a new house that God has built. Paul says it again in a slightly different way:
For we that are in this tabernacle (temporary house) do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. (2Cor 5:4)
For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: (2Cor 5:2)
Could this be our heavenly “house” and not a Beverly Hills mansion? Some people are bummed. They were looking forward to “swimming pools, movie stars”. Jesus said it was a room in the Father's house.
Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. (John 14:23)
This is the same Greek word as mansion in verse 2. Jesus promised this to us today! God's dwelling place is inside the believer today. Will we dwell inside the Father's house in the future? God inside of us inside of God, etc., etc. (ad infinitum). It seems too good to be true. Maybe Jesus knew what He was saying when He made the very wordy prayer:
That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. (John 17:21)
The Holy Spirit was sent from the Father and the Son to indwell the believer (John 15:26). Someday we will make our dwelling in the Father's house. It will like one of His rooms. The infinite Father can dwell with each believer individually as well as with all His family at once.
And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. (Rev 21:3)
Dec. 21, 2023