The Coming to the Disciple
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. (John 14:3—NIV)
Because of the wording of the New International Version (above) the impression is left that Jesus is going to Heaven to prepare a place for us in Heaven. Then He is going to return and bring us to Heaven so we can be with Him where He is in Heaven.
This is not what Jesus meant at all. The King James Version is closer to the truth. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. (John 14:3—KJV)
If the student will search the fourteenth through the seventeenth chapters of the Gospel of John he will discover the Lord never spoke of going to Heaven, only to the Father. This is not the same thing. The Lord had said, "In my Father’s house there are many rooms. I go to prepare a place for you." The Father’s house, the eternal Temple of God, is not Heaven. This is not scriptural. The Father’s house is a central concept of the Scriptures, Old Testament and New.
The Lord Jesus Christ Himself is the chief Cornerstone of the eternal House of God. Jesus went to the cross to prepare a place for us as living stones in the Temple of God, the Tabernacle of God that one day will descend through the new sky and be located for eternity on the new earth.
Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2:20-22—NIV)
Each one of us is to be a room in the Father’s House, the Church, the Body of Christ, the new Jerusalem. The Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross, and then to the Presence of the Father in Heaven, sprinkling His blood in the Most Holy Place in Heaven. By this atonement He prepared a place for us in Himself and in the Father. This is the meaning of John 14:3.
The Greek term translated "mansions," in John 14:2 of the King James Version, is translated "abode," in John 14:23, revealing that the Lord is not speaking of going to Heaven to build houses there but of preparing a place for us in Himself that the Father and He might find their rest in us. This is the meaning of John 14:2 through Jn 14:23. Now we are speaking of the personal coming of Jesus to His disciples prior to His historic coming to the earth in the clouds of glory. The personal coming is a genuine coming, just as much a coming as the historic coming, only a coming in the Spirit to His disciples and not to the world. I think the personal coming is beginning now and we need to look to the Lord for this experience, just as we did salvation and the baptism with the Holy Spirit.
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6—NIV)
Can you see in the above verse that the Lord is not speaking of going to Heaven as a place but to the Father as to a Person? Our goal is not to go to another place, it is to enter the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ. This takes place today, not after we die.
To be with Christ where He is, is to be in the center of God’s Person, as well as at His right hand with Christ. It is the entrance into God that is all important—that God in Christ may be dwelling in us in His Fullness and we in Christ in God in untroubled rest.
Going to Heaven is not our goal, it is God who is our Goal! After all, sin began in Heaven around the Throne of God, so going to Heaven solves nothing for us. It is God in Christ who solves everything for us. Don’t you believe I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. (John 14:10—NIV) Can you see in the above that Christ is the eternal House of God? While Christ was on earth He was the only living Stone in the Father’s House. Now Christ is the chief Cornerstone of the eternal temple of which we are being made living stones.
Notice carefully:
"If you love me, you will obey what I command." (John 14:15—NIV)
The importance of keeping the commandments of Christ and His Apostles cannot possibly be overemphasized. When we insist that all we have to do is believe in Jesus we are not being scriptural. It is true we have to believe the promises of God, just as did Abraham. But we also have to obey the commandments of God, just as did Abraham. Abraham was blessed, received fruitfulness and dominion, and became the source of eternal life to the nations, all because He obeyed God—not because he believed the promise but because he obeyed the command to offer Isaac as a living sacrifice.
Our threadbare teaching of today that advises us to believe in Jesus apart from obeying the commandments of Christ and His Apostles is destroying the strength of the Church. It is not scriptural, as the hastiest review of the New Testament will reveal.
We of America must begin to keep the commandments given in the New Testament or our nation is doomed. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— The Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. (John 14:16,17—NIV)
If we keep the commandments of Christ He will give us the Holy Spirit to dwell in us forever. We already have the Holy Spirit and through Him we put to death the sinful deeds of our body; through Him we minister to our fellow members of the Body of Christ; and through Him we bear witness to the ends of the earth of the atoning death and triumphant resurrection of the Lord.
Now we are saved and filled with the Spirit. But there is a further work—a work that will prepare us to return with the Lord and establish the Kingdom of God on the earth.
I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. (John 14:18—NIV)
"I will come to you." Jesus is not referring to the Holy Spirit, the Counselor, the Spirit of truth. He is referring to Himself. The Holy Spirit and the Lord Jesus are not the same Person. The Holy Spirit brings us to Jesus. It is Jesus who is the Bridegroom.
This is the same coming we noticed in verse three: "And if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am, there you may be also."
There is a definite coming of Christ to His disciples, a coming that will occur before His historic coming in the clouds. It is not a "rapture" of the believers to remove them from trouble. It is an inner work that will enable the believer not only to stand triumphantly in Christ throughout the dark days that are ahead, but also to be a source of deliverance when Antichrist has driven the true Christians into the wilderness areas of the earth.
It is deliverance by the Presence of Christ rather than deliverance by escape. A much better deliverance, don’t you agree?
Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. (John 14:19—NIV)
I think the Lord is drawing close to us these days. I know Jesus is more real to me than He ever has been. I do not claim to be able to "see" the Lord as well as I would like. But I am looking each day for an increase in His Presence in my life until my thoughts, words, and actions are proceeding according to His felt will and Presence. I want to be able to know what He is doing so I can do the same. How about you? This is the eternal Sabbath rest of God—to cease from our own works and faithfully and diligently do what He is impressing us to do. On that day you will realize I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. (John 14:20—NIV)
"On that day." "That day" is our personal day of the Lord, not the Kingdom-wide Day of the Lord but our personal day, when the Day Star, Christ, rises in our heart to herald the dawn of the Kingdom-wide Day. When all of our idols have been thrown down we will know that Christ is in His Father, and we are in Christ, and Christ is in us.
Salvation introduces us to Christ.
The baptism with the Holy Spirit introduces us to the Spirit. Now we are moving forward to the spiritual fulfillment of the Jewish feast of Tabernacles. We are being introduced to the Father.
Of course, the Father, Son, and Spirit are the Divine Godhead. Yet, as we press forward in God, we begin to realize there are three distinct Persons. How wonderful to know the Father! He is the Father of Jesus Christ! He also is our Father! There is nothing more wonderful than this!
"Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him." (John 14:21—NIV)
Again, we absolutely must keep Christ’s commandments, we must obey them, if we claim to love Him. When we love Christ the Father loves us. Also, Christ will love us and reveal Himself to us. All depends on our obeying His commands. It is not enough to believe the promises. We must also obey the commands. If we do not obey the commands we are part of the great rebellion of the last days, the rebellion that will open the way for Antichrist to be revealed.
The Father loves us. Christ loves us. Do you see that two different Persons are being spoken of here? Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, "But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?" (John 14:22—NIV)
Can you see in the above that the Lord Jesus will reveal Himself to His disciples before He reveals Himself to the world? This is a definite coming of the Lord to His disciples in advance of His coming in glory to the world. Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him." (John 14:1- 23—NIV)
As I stated previously, the word "home" in the above verse is the same Greek term as the word "rooms" in John 14:2 of the New International Version. This is the only time in the New Testament this noun is used, although the same word appears as a verb in John 15, where it is translated "abide" or "remain." If we love Jesus we will obey His teaching. If we obey His teaching His Father will love us. Then the Father and Christ will come to us and make Their home in us.
This verse may be the clearest expression in the New Testament of the spiritual fulfillment of the Old Testament feast of Tabernacles.
There were three major feasts in the Jewish calendar. Three times a year all your men must appear before the LORD your God at the place he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles. No man should appear before the LORD empty-handed: (Deuteronomy 16:16—NIV)
• The feast of Unleavened Bread symbolizes the salvation experience.
• The feast of Weeks, or Pentecost, symbolizes the baptism with the Holy Spirit.
• The feast of Tabernacles symbolizes the coming of the Father and the Son to dwell in us, to tabernacle in us.
Those of us who are saved and have been baptized with the Holy Spirit are to press forward in the Lord. Christ wants to come to us in a greater way than ever before.
As we keep Christ’s commandments He is formed in us. As Christ grows to maturity in us the Father and the Son come through the Holy Spirit and make Their dwelling in that which has been formed in us. This is the spiritual fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles and the climax of the Divine redemption. All that remains is the raising of our flesh and bone body from its place of interment and the clothing of our resurrected body with its house from Heaven. The house from Heaven is fashioned from our actions on the earth. Thus we shall be clothed, in the day of resurrection, with our own behaviour.