Do we receive mansions in heaven?

"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). The Jews were accustomed to the idea that heaven was the dwelling-place of God, and the disciples had been taught to pray thither. In modern English, the word "mansions" implies the qualities of size and ornate display. But in the English of A.D. 1611, the word meant no more than the meaning that the original language would convey, viz., "resting-places," "abodes" or "dwellings." The only other usage of the word in the New Testament occurs in the 23rd verse of the same chapter and is there translated "abode." "Many" should not be understood as indicating diversity of condition, but rather abundance of accommodation. There would be room not only for the Lord, but room for all them also. There would be no risk of that house being overcrowded as the inn at Bethlehem had been at His first advent.

(V. 2). Second, for the comfort of our hearts the Lord discloses to us the new home, "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." Not only have we Christ in the glory our unfailing resource, but we have the Father's house as our abiding home. For let us note that the word 'mansions' is really 'abodes' — a home which once it is reached will never more be left — there we shall abide. On earth we have "no continuing city." We are pilgrims and strangers here. Our abiding home is in the Father's house. Moreover in the Father's house there are "many" abodes. On earth there was no room for Christ, and little room for those who are Christ's, but in the Father's house there is room for all that are Christ's — the great and the small. If it were not so He would have told His disciples. He would not have gathered His disciples around Himself, and led them outside this world, were He not leading them into a scene of blessedness well known to Him as the Father's house. To this home the Lord was going. On the cross He prepared His people for the place; His presence in the glory prepares the place for His people. Thus we are lifted above the weakness and failure of all things earthly, carried beyond the changing scenes of time, to enter in spirit a better world, there to find a home prepared in the Father's house.

We come now to another scripture, to the Gospel of John. What do we find there? Righteous government? Not at all. It is not so that the coming of the Lord is ever presented — as far as I know, never — in his Gospel "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions." What has this to do with righteous government? What claim have I to be in the Father's house? None but what grace has given me. I have never done anything, I have never deserved anything, which would give me even the smallest plea why the Father should put me in the same house with the Son. How is it then that any could be brought into such unspeakable nearness and intimacy with the Father? Simply because of His own grace. "In my Father's house," says our blessed Lord, "there are many mansions." He would not have us think that all the scene of goodness was for Him alone. "In my Father's house are many mansions." There is room for us as well as for Christ. "If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you; and if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself." It is not to make us rulers: there is no allusion to government or its awards here. It is purely the heavenly ground of divine grace, where all other considerations vanish.

The Lord is capable of taking food. He partook of a piece of honeycomb and a fish; but this was not because He required them, but because they required to learn that He was truly risen from the dead. His, we know, is a spiritual body glorified in heaven. And so shall we be; but the Lord here speaks of our faith meanwhile. "Ye believe in God, believe also in me." Although He had taken a body, and although He was to take that body after the resurrection, still He would be invisible by going to heaven. It is the Christian's faith contrasted with Jewish sight of the Messiah reigning visibly over the earth. "In my Father's house are many mansions." He was going thither. Observe the statement, "there are many mansions," signifying that there is room for you as well as for Him. Room enough and to spare — room for all the faithful. "If it were not so, I would have told you." I would not implant in you a desire that could not be realised. "I go to prepare a place for you."

There was nothing like this in the tabernacle, for the tabernacle symbolizes God's dwelling among a pilgrim people on earth, who had tents rather than any settled dwelling place. The temple pictures the Father's house in heaven. In the temple, however, there could only be a limited number of rooms used by the priests, who were serving in the temple at a given time. But the Lord Jesus says, "In My Father's house are many mansions" (Jn.14:2). Thus the type is only a faint picture of the reality. The Lord is virtually saying there is room for all His redeemed people there. The word for "mansions" is better translated "abodes," permanent dwelling places. All believers will have their place there, for all are priests of God and in glory will function in the full capacity of priests, mainly in offering up spiritual sacrifices to God.

The first thing that He declares to them, in His grace, is, that if He was going away, it is not to abandon them, but to prepare them a place elsewhere, that is, in His Father's house. There, there was not room for Him alone (perhaps He alluded to the temple?) but abodes for them also; and then He Himself would come for them, so as to have them with Him where He was Himself. He could not dwell with them down here, but they should be with Him; and He would not send to seek them, but He would come Himself to take them to Himself. Precious and tender love that associated His own with Himself, according to the place they had in His heart, and according to the eternal counsels of the love of God. Instead of the kingdom of an earthly Messiah, they would have the eternal and divine glory of the Son of man in heaven, to be like Him, and with Him. Man having entered there, consequent upon redemption, the place was prepared for them. It was not a question of preparing them for the place (that is the subject of chapter 13), but of preparing the place for them. The presence of their Forerunner, where He was going, accomplished it. The blood made peace according to divine righteousness, the water prepared them to enjoy it. The entrance of Christ left nothing to be done that they might enter; only the co-heirs must be gathered, and till then, the Lord remains seated on His Father's throne.

The Lord, in the fourteenth of John, tells His disciples that He is going away. The way in which He breaks the news is like Himself He produces a void to more than fill it again. "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 to myself; that where I am there ye may be also." And is that place prepared, or is it being got ready? Clearly, the former, I judge. You might say, How? It was prepared, I apprehend, when, as the victorious Son of Man, the Lord stepped up into the Father's house, entering the glory as the head of a new race, a new creation, a new order of things. When, as man, He passed into God's glory righteously, and on the ground of that redemption by which God was glorified, the place was prepared for us, and we prepared for it. The very fact of His thus entering into it, and His being there, is the title of the believer in Him to be where He is. His going there on the ground of redemption gives us title, and fits us, as brought into His new place, to be there. In John 13 He prepares us for the enjoyment of the place, and in John 14 prepares the place for us; His entrance leaves nothing to be done for us to enter, save His coming back to gather in the co-heirs with Himself

"In my Father's house," said Jesus, "there are many mansions" [many abodes]; and "I go to prepare a place for you." There are many abodes in heaven, but there is a special place for the Church; and He is gone to prepare that place, that where He is there we may be also. You will be there, fellow Christian, as certain as you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. His word is true; His promise is sure; He cannot deny Himself. You will be there in the Father's house, and in that very place which Jesus has prepared for you by His own presence, and the sacrifice of His own blood.

"In My Father's house are many mansions." The Lord was not leaving His disciples alone in the world as though there was only room for Him and none for them in the Father's House. There was room for them all, had there not been He would have told them long ago, and not have drawn them after Him as He had done. He had won their hearts, because He wanted them THERE. They had looked for a place here in an earthly kingdom, He was going to prepare a place for them there, in the Father's house. They had looked for honour and power on earth, He had something better for them in heaven. He had a home for them there — home and love; His own home, His Father's love. This they were to share with Him, for nothing would satisfy His love but sharing it with them. And this is our prospect. The light of it shines with a soft and comforting radiance into our hearts, it fills us with longing for its realization, for the longing to have us there is in His heart.

Nor was this all. He whose presence here had been the revelation of a place so new to the thoughts of His people, was now going to take His place as man, as the revealed and known centre of all the joy and blessedness and glory of that place. For "I go to prepare a place for you" — Himself the home-link, so intimate and precious, of their and our hearts with the place, as His going there was all the preparation possible or needed, to give us our place there in spirit with Him, till He comes to receive us to Himself. Hence the word never speaks of our going to heaven, but to Christ. The person makes the place, even in natural things, how much more in divine!