The Father's House...

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In my Father's house are many mansions. I suppose most Christian people believe that when they die they will go to a splendid mansion in Heaven, situated on a golden street. I think this hope would be more meaningful to poor people than to the wealthy, who already may be living in a splendid mansion. Perhaps we have not thought carefully about this. Our idea of Heaven may be nothing more than a vague hope that somehow the future will be better than what we are experiencing right now.

(11/21/2010).

My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 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 14:2,3—NIV)

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. 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 14:2,3—KJV)

Notice that the NIV uses the term "rooms," while the King James says "mansions." Notice also that the NIV inserts the word "there" ("I am going there"), while the King James says "I go."

I believe both of these differences are significant. First, the Greek term translated "mansions," in the Kingd James Version, is best translated "abode," or "home." "Mansions" may have served in A.D.1610, but today it is misleading. The Greek word means "a place where people live," not an elaborate building.

Second, the insertion of "there" (I am going there"), in the NIV. This implies that Jesus is going to a distant place, to a far-off Heaven. But the simple "I go to prepare a place for you," of the King James, is to be preferred, I believe.

I think it is accepted generally that passages of the Scripture should be interpreted according to their immediate context, and according to the Scriptures as a whole.

Nowhere in the entire Bible can we find that mansions are being built for us in Heaven. The Bible does state that our conduct today is fashioning for us a house from Heaven. But this is referring to the spiritual body that will clothe our resurrected flesh and bones in the Day of Resurrection. Also, nowhere in the Bible is Heaven declared to be God's House.

The context of John 14: 2 includes verse 14:23. There we find that the Greek term translated "mansions in 14:2, is set forth as "abode," in 14:23.

John 14:2-23 show us that the Father's House is not Heaven but Christ Himself. Christ was not returning to Heaven, as to a place in the spirit world, but to the Father who is in Heaven. Christ is inviting us to be with Himself in the Father, not just to a place in the spirit world. This distinction is of great importance.

The hope presented continually in the Christian churches is that when a Christian dies he will go to Heaven; that Christ, being a carpenter, has built mansions for us there. How glad we will be to leave this present valley of the shadow of death in which we are attempting to survive, and go to a beautiful dwelling in the world of peace.

Can you see what I am saying? We do not care about going to Christ to be with Him ("that you also may be with me where I am"). That relationship is of supreme importance to Christ, who loves us dearly. No—what we want is a lovely home that we can show off to the neighbors, and not have any more worries about money or anything else. Tell me I am wrong.

Now let's think about what John 14:2-23 is declaring to us.

The Father's House is the Lord Jesus Christ. But He is not to be the only room in the Father's House. There are to be many rooms, many places in which the Father can dwell and find rest. Christ Himself is the Chief Cornerstone and the Capstone, the Alpha and Omega, of God's House. The individual believers are the rooms in the eternal House of God. The eternal House of God is Christ—Head and Body.

If my understanding is correct, the individual rooms, which are the personalities, including their bodies, of the believers, God's holy ones, will vary greatly according to the inheritance of the individual. Some of the rooms will be relatively small, containing the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, the believer himself, and a few people.

There will be larger rooms. Finally there will be great palaces also filled with God, the believer, and then millions of people. These believers will be the patriarchs of the future. As eternity unfolds, they will grow increasingly large until they are huge shining pillars from which the light of righteousness and holiness shine. As Daniel says, they will be as stars that shine forever and ever.

If I am not mistaken, the Lord Jesus Christ, who Himself is the greatest of all rooms in the Father's House, incorporates within Himself all the people and works of God's hands.

Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever. (Daniel 12:3)

Christ went to prepare a place for us so we may be rooms in the Father's House. Where did Christ go? First, He went to the cross on our behalf. Then He went to the right hand of God in order to purify the "heavenly things." Now the main point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by a mere human being. (Hebrews 8:23)

It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. (Hebrews 9:23)

Finally He comes to us as individuals so we may be qualified and competent to receive, in the Day of Resurrection, a body like His so we may be in His likeness. Then we are a living stone in God's House.

Can you see now how the insertion of the word "there" in the NIV is so misleading? It reinforces the traditional understanding that the Father's house is Heaven, and Christ is going up there somewhere to prepare mansions for us to live in. By and large the NIV is a good translation; but you have to watch out for these additions, as the translators try to help us out and do our thinking for us.

The Lord Jesus Christ is not the Way to Heaven, as such; He is the Way to the Father, exactly as He stated. John, Chapters 13-16, the immediate context of John 14:2, do not mention the word "Heaven."

The balance of Chapter Fourteen tells how the Father lives in Christ and did the works and spoke the Words that have changed the world over the last two thousand years.

Then Christ tells us He is giving to us the same Holy Spirit that is in Him to be with us forever. Christ is the Way to the Father, and His Spirit helps us on our journey along the way to the Father. The Father was with us in the Garden of Eden. Now we, through Christ are to make our way back to our Father.

We can't go to Heaven until we die. We can go to the Father today.

As we take up our cross and patiently follow Christ each day of our discipleship, we gradually learn to live by the Life of Christ. Living by His Life causes us to realize that Christ is in His Father, we are in Christ, and Christ is in us. This is our true goal.

Our Canaan, our land of promise, is not Heaven. Sin came into the earth from Heaven, and our going to Heaven will solve none of our problems and none of God's problems—the problems arising from man's insistence on living his life apart from the Presence of Christ and God.

Only Christ knows the Father, and those to whom Christ reveals Him. If we are to know the Father we must learn stern obedience to Him. God will not have fellowship with people who do not obey Him totally and completely.

Christ, the obedient One, died on our behalf so He might be able to restore us to the Father; not to Heaven, but to the Father. Now it is time, in the twenty-first century, to come to know the Father and to obey Him utterly. It is to accomplish this that Christ, in obedience to God, went to the cross.

In spite of the teaching about how Christ went to the cross because He loves us, the truth is He went to the cross in obedience to the Father! He would have thrown the cup away instead of drinking it, if it were not for His willingness to obey God.

John 14:23 tells us what all this means, where it is going.

Jesus replied, "Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them." (John 14:23)

The verse above is the spiritual fulfillment of the Jewish feast of Tabernacles.

If we want to make our way to the Father, we have to obey the teaching of His Son. This is why the current definition of grace, that it is an alternative to obeying God, has caused such moral destruction. The problem with the creation is disobedience to the Father, and when we disobey Christ we are disobeying the Father. God did not issue grace under the new covenant that we might live as we choose.

We do not show our love for Christ by talking about it or by worshiping with upraised hands in the sanctuary. We show our love by obeying the teaching of Him and His Apostles.

When we obey Christ, the Father loves us. The modern teaching that Christ and the Father are two expressions of the same Person is in error. Christ is a Person, and the Father is a person. Otherwise, much of the New Testament does not make sense.

The Father and Christ come to the obedient believer and make Their eternal home with him. Now three Persons are dwelling in us: the Spirit, the Father, and the Son. Now God has His eternal Throne, His eternal House, His eternal resting place. Only Christ is able to prepare us to be the eternal Tabernacle of God. And He will accomplish this preparation in us if we are willing and obedient.

Such is the mystery of the Gospel: Christ is in us, giving us the hope of being filled with all the Fullness of the Glory of God.

This is what the LORD says: Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be? (Isaiah 66:1

You can hear the morning sermon at morning. http://www.wor.org/audio/audio.htm

You can hear the evening sermon at evening. http://www.wor.org/audio/audio.htm

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