John 14:1-7

GOING TO PREPARE A PLACE

Text 14:1-7

1

Let not your heart be troubled: believe in God, believe also in me.

2

In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.

3

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

4

And whither I go, ye know the way.

5

Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; how know we the way?

6

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by me.

7

If ye had known me, ye would have known my Father also: from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.

Queries

a.

What and where are the mansions?

b.

Which coming again is referred to in John 14:3?

c.

What is the significance of John 14:6?

Paraphrase

You must not let your hearts become distressed and discouraged within you over the things that are about to happen. You do believe in God, the Father; you must therefore trust in Me also as the Son of God. In Heaven, the house of my Father, are many permanent resting places. If there were no such places and no possibility of preparing them, I would most certainly have told you because the very purpose of My leaving you is to go and prepare a resting place for you. It is true that I am going away to prepare a place for you, and it is just as true that I am coming again to receive you into my own home, so that you may be where I am. You know where I am going and you also know the way! But Thomas interrupted, saying, Lord, we do not even know where you are going so how can we know the way? Jesus said to him, I, Myself, am the way and the truth and the life and no man is able to come to saving relationship with the Father unless he comes through My Mediatorship. If you had been learning of My true personality and nature you would have been recognizing my Father also. From now on you will know more fully that I and the Father are One and you will know that you have seen the Father.

Summary

A departing Father fortifies His children. He goes ahead to prepare them a place. He will come again to take them to the prepared resting place. He alone is able to provide the way. Yet, the children are not ready to place complete trust in Him. Their knowledge of Him and trust in Him will be completed soon.

Comment

One writer has paraphrased this first verse, Let not your heart be tossed and agitated like water driven by winds. Jesus knew that the impending storm of the cross would rage upon their hearts with a fierceness that would test their faith severely. He then seeks to remind them of His intimate, co-equal relationship to God the Father in Whom they believed. The word also in John 14:1 indicates that Jesus knows of their belief in God's omnipotence but also knows their faith in Him and in His mission needs to be strengthened. The way the original Greek is written in this first verse both believes might be imperatives or both might be present indicatives or a combination of both. We believe the context necessitates that Jesus is saying, You are believing in God (present indicative), you must believe in me also (imperative). With only cursory attention to the context of the fourteenth chapter the reader should realize that the burden of the exhortation is to establish Jesus-' divine omnipotence as equal with God'S.

The next two verses (John 14:2-3) contain one of those statements of Jesus which, this side of His resurrection, grips and electrifies the heart with love and hope because of the tenderness of the words. Of all the words quoted beside the death-bed, the open coffin and the grave-side these would probably be repeated most often. And well they should be, but as words of Life and Strength they should be preached, believed and practiced before the time of the open coffin.

The word translated mansion is monai in the Greek and means literally an abiding place; a resting place; a dwelling. The English mansion as it is connoted today does not represent what monai meant in New Testament times. The word originally meant a place to abide in, and was used of a resting place, a refuge, and in later ecclesiastical Greek a monastery.

The emphasis, as the context indicates, is on the abundance of eternal places of rest and refuge in the Father's house (Heaven). The kingdom of God is often referred to as a place of rest both here on earth and in Heaven (cf. Isaiah 11:1-16; Matthew 11:28-30; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-16; Revelation 14:13). The contrast is between the transitoriness of life and place on this earth with the permanence of the dwelling places in Heaven. The contrast is between the tribulation and wandering in this world with the sweet rest and refuge in the next world (cf. John 16:1-2; Hebrews 11:13-16).

Albert Barnes has a comment on this section which is worthy of consideration (Mr. Barnes paraphrases Jesus-' words) :

The universe is the dwelling-place of my Father. All is his house, Whether on earth or in heaven, we are still in his habitation, In that vast abode of God there are mansions. The earth is one of them, heaven is another. Whether here or there, we are still in the house, in one of the mansions of our Father, in one of the apartments of his vast abode. This we ought continually to feel, and to rejoice that we are permitted to occupy any part of his dwelling-place. Nor does it differ much whether we are in this mansion or another. It should not be a matter of grief when we are called to pass from one part of this vast habitation of God to another. I am indeed about to leave you, but I am going only to another part of the vast dwelling place of God. I shall still be in the same universal habitation with you; still in the house of the same God; and am going for an important purposeto fit up another abode for your eternal dwelling.

This paraphrase is in harmony with the Scriptures. Paul the apostle says that the church corporate and individual members may be habitations of God in the Spirit (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20). The same apostle says that God has prepared for us another tabernacle (dwelling-place) eternal in the heavens; that God dwelt in Christ (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:1-21). In John 14:23, the only other place where monai is used, we are told that God, the Son and the Holy Spirit will abide in us.

These are words to strengthen in an impending hour of despair. They are intended to promise the apostles the reality of security, refuge, rest in spiritual dwelling places more concrete and real than earthly tabernacles and dwelling-places. The reality of these eternal places of abode are based upon the divine omnipotence of Jesus Christ. One thing is certain, there are places of abodeHeaven is not just an idea or an ideal. The places may or may not be material places (remember, a new heaven and a new earth)but they will be where Jesus is!

It is nothing short of perversion of the Scriptures to contend that the many of John 14:2 means men of all kinds of opinions, convictions, religions, beliefs will have a place in Heaven. It is manifestly clear from the context that only those who believe and obey Christ will be with Him there, for He is the only way!

Another important truth revealed by Jesus here is that Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people! God prepared a Passover lamb and delivered His nation under Moses. Then He prepared a land of rest and led them into it (cf. Exodus 23:20). This was all to typify the One Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, who was given a prepared body (Hebrews 10:5-10) that He might prepare a resting place for us. One of the greatest preachers of a few years ago, Alexander Maclaren, points to three steps in the preparation process of Christ's going away. (1) He must go away (die upon the cross) to prepare our salvation. Only His meritorious sacrifice is sufficient atonement for our sins. Only by offering Himself as a prepared sacrifice may we be saved by grace. (2) He must go away (by His resurrection and ascension) to take captivity captive (Ephesians 4:8) to triumph over principalities and powers (Colossians 2:15) and allow us even now to sit with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:6). (3) He must go away (unto the right hand of the Father's throne) to constantly minister for us.

All three of these ideas are strongly inferred throughout Chapter s 14, 15, 16, and 17 of the gospel according to John. It goes without saying that Christ's substitutionary death and conquering resurrection prepared a place of atonement, forgiveness and salvation for all who will accept. And so, He looks forward to His immediate going away (death, resurrection and ascension) here in John 14:1-31. But He also looks forward to His High Priestly preparation of these places of rest for all believers. We suggest a few of the preparations Jesus is now making as our Leader, Forerunner and High Priest. He is preparing both the places of rest and the people who hope soon to rest in them:

(a)

He succors the weak (Hebrews 2:14-18).

(b)

He intercedes (Hebrews 4:15-16; 1 John 2:1-2).

(c)

He chastens (Hebrews 12:7-11).

(d)

He sends ministering angels (Hebrews 1:14).

In this fourteenth chapter of John, Jesus promises two returns. Here in the third verse He speaks of His bodily return when time will cease with the general resurrection of the saints and the judgment (cf. Acts 1:9-11; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, etc.). The other promised return is the sending of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost and subsequently into the life of each Christian through the preached and obeyed Word of God and this promise is in John 14:18. We shall discuss this in our comments on John 14:18. John does not record much of Jesus-' teaching on the Second Coming. In fact, the only specific words of Jesus on the subject, recorded by John, are in John 14:3 and John 21:23. Here in John 14:3 Jesus bases the reality of His bodily return squarely upon His going away which is His death, resurrection and ascension. In other words, men are to look forward to the reality of the Second Coming on the basis of historical, eyewitnessed evidence to His divine omnipotence. If Jesus could go away (conquer death and ascend bodily into the heavens) and men could see it with their eyes (cf. 1 John 1:1-4) then men could know with certainty that He would return bodily just as He promised.

We notice in John 14:2 that the reality of Heaven and His preparations there are based on His claim to absolute knowledge and complete trustworthiness! If it were not so, I would have told you, says Jesus. In other words, I have demonstrated to you disciples prior to this by miracle and prophecy that I am completely trustworthy and that what I say is divine truth. I have never misled you, I have never lied, I have never been mistaken. Therefore, if what I now say were not true I would not be telling it to you.

We do not believe it ever redundant to repeat that all the promises Jesus makes concerning Salvation, Heaven, Hell, Judgment, Second Coming, etc., are to be believed upon the basis of historical, eyewitnessed demonstrations of His Deity (cf. 1 Peter 1:3-5). The gospel according to John is, perhaps, the greatest of all writings on the deity of Jesus Christ and it is replete with one discourse after another on that one central theme. All life worth living here and all hope for the future life of glory has its foundation in this factJesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God!

The words of Jesus in promising to come and take believers into His presence (John 14:3) remind us of the words of Paul when he wrote that Christians would, at His Second Coming, be caught up to meet the Lord in the air and be always with Him there (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18).

The place (Heaven) to which Jesus is about to go has a Way that must be traveled. And the disciples know that Way. Jesus has been teaching them this Way, leading them upon this Way ever since they joined themselves to Him. They had once acknowledged that only He had the words of eternal life (John 6:68-69). He told them that His way was the cross and any man who follows Him in this Way must take up his cross daily (Luke 9:23), but they rejected that as out of harmony with their concept of the Messianic kingdom.

So the problem with Thomas (and the other disciples) is that, clinging to their hopes for a temporal kingdom, they could not (or would not) understand His going away (His death). And if they did not know where He was going and why, how could they know the way? Their problem was, not knowing the goal they could not know the way. They knew that Jesus was headed in the direction of establishing the throne of God the Father in a Messianic kingdom, but they had no idea where it would be and how it would be.

In John 14:6 we have one of the great seven I AM'S of the gospel of John (cf. John 6:48; John 8:12; John 10:9; John 10:11; John 11:25; John 15:1). When Jesus said I am the Way. the original Greek is so written to place heavy emphasis on the pronoun I and would literally read, I, even I Myself, am the Way. He does not merely show the way, but He is the Way. He is the Way in His own Person. As others have said, we are not saved by a principle, but by the Person, Jesus Christ. By His personal meritorious work we are saved by grace through faithHE is the Way. This Way was prophecied in Isaiah 35:8 and described in its fulfillment in Hebrews 10:19-25. Since the Way is a Person being in the Way demands a personal relationship to the Way. We have access by faith into this grace in which we stand (cf. Romans 5:1-2). We are in Him (the Way) when we love Him and keep His commandments (cf. John 14:21-24). Trust (faith), love and obedience are commitments of one personality to another, they are the bonds of living fellowship and they are what Jesus seeks in every believer.

The arrangement of this phrase (John 14:6) in the original Greek is interesting. All three predicates are preceded by the definite article which means that the subject and the predicates are both identical and interchangeable. I am the Way and I am the Truth and I am the Life; the Way is Me and the Truth is Me. the Way is the Truth. The Truth is the Life, etc.

What is said of the Person of Jesus being the Way also applies to His being the Truth and the Life. In His Person He embodied the Truth. The Word became flesh (that is, the Divine Personality was expressed or revealed to man in the flesh, cf. John 1:14-18). Truth is a representation of the reality of things. The life, and teaching of Jesus Christ is the most complete and perfect fulfillment of the types and figures of all other revelations concerning the reality of all things that can ever be presented to man, this side of Heaven (cf. Colossians 2:3; Hebrews 1:1-3).

He is the Life. Not merely physical life nor is He merely the source of the spiritual life of every man although He is the source of both of these. But He is the Life as opposed to Death. Only by faith in Him may men be assured of Eternal Life and fellowship with the Father. Without Him men are assured of eternal death and separation from God and all that is good and right. He is the Bread of Life; He is the Light of Life; He is the Resurrection and the Life; and those who believe in Him shall Live (cf. John 5:25; Ephesians 2:1-7).

Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Immanuel, The Word made flesh, is the Way, the Truth and the Life. There can be no other Way to God except through His Only Unique Son. He is the New and Living Way and this access to God is made through His meritorious accomplishments in the incarnation of fleshly service (cf. Hebrews 10:20-23; Acts 4:12). There are two aspects of our approach to the Father through the Son, We must accept by faith His sacrificial death in our place as an atonement for our sins which we could never accomplish by any merit of our own. Then, if one died for all, then were all dead. That is, our old man was punished in Christ and died there on His cross. But those who accept this death by faith, also are alive by faith and henceforth live not unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:14-21). Christ's death took away our sins and by His sacrifice we come unto the Father, but by faith we are to abide in His Word and live unto Him and thus by our new life in Him we also come unto the Father.

As Hendriksen puts it, John 14:6 b teaches unequivocally both the absoluteness of the Christian religion and the urgent necessity of Christian Missions. There is no religion on the face of the earth that can save a man's soul except faith and obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. Moslems are lost, Buddhists are lost, Jews are lost, all who have never come to a personal commitment of faith, love, trust and obedience to the Divine Personality, Jesus Christ, and to His revealed Word, are LOST! They have no access or communion with God their Father and Creator.

The disciples-' comprehension of the fullness of His deity is not yet complete. Their minds are still cluttered with the cobwebs of the Jewish concept of a Messiah separated from God the Father, ruling in an earthly kingdom. Their understanding of His true personality and nature was still limited. This limitation was due both to God's own plan in giving a progressive revelation and to their preconceived ideas about the Messiah. Jesus indicates that if they had really given themselves to knowing and experiencing His personality and nature (instead of speculating about their idea of a Messianic kingdom), they would have had some knowledge of the personality and nature of God the Father in respect to the way of salvation by grace and faith. Jesus also promises that from that night onward they will know more fully that He and the Father are One. From that night forward they shall know that they have seen God incarnate and have walked with Him and talked with Him (cf.1 John 1:1-4). For a discussion of the oneness of Jesus and the Father see our comments on John 10:30-38.

Quiz

1.

What is the primary objective of the whole discourse by Jesus in this 14th chapter?

2.

What is the meaning of the word mansion in the text?

3.

What is the contrast Jesus probably intended to make when He told of going away to prepare a place for the disciples?

4.

If Heaven is a prepared place, what of its inhabitants?

5.

Give four preparations Jesus is now making as our Living High Priest in His ministry in Heaven.

6.

How many returns are promised by Jesus in this 14th chapter? What are they?

7.

Since the emphasis in John 14:6 is on the Person of Jesus, what is demanded of those who desire to follow Him?