- John 14.1-3 KJV
- 1Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. 2In 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. 3And 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.
Jesus made this statement the night he was betrayed; since Jews figured days began and ended at sunset, this’d also be the day he died. He had just told them he was leaving, and they couldn’t follow; Jn 13.33 Simon Peter protested he’d follow him anywhere, and Jesus told him he wouldn’t last the night. Jn 13.37-38 But the very next verse, he said, “Let not your heart be troubled,” and the rest. He wasn’t leaving them forever; he’d be back. And when he was raptured a month and a half later, he again isn’t leaving us forever; he’ll be back.
What’s he doing in the meanwhile? Well, directing his church. Advocating for us with his Father. 1Jn 2.2 And as he tells the first Christians in this passage, getting our place ready in New Heaven.
Because the KJV translates μοναὶ/moné, “rooms,” as “mansions”—which, in King James English, meant “suite” or “apartment,” not “massive house”—you’ll hear many a Christian claim when we get to New Heaven we’re each getting a big giant house. A big giant house within our Father’s house? Well, they figure, our Father’s house is all of heaven, so yeah.
But the materialistic dream of a big giant house is a fleshly desire; same as a lot of the other Christian myths about what heaven will be like. These same Christians keep talking about receiving a golden crown covered in jewels; a jewel for every person we led to Jesus. Sometimes they say once we get these crowns, we’ll just give ’em back to Jesus, like the 24 elders and their crowns. Rv 4.10 Jesus does talk about giving us crowns, Rv 2.10, 3.11 as do the apostles, 1Co 9.25, 2Ti 4.8, Jm 1.12, 1Pe 5.4 but there’s nothing about ’em being gold; they’re the leafy crowns which represent victory, not monarchy. There’s so much Mammonism in popular depictions of heaven; so much talk about our “heavenly reward” and wealth and luxury. But the actual point of New Heaven is we get to live there with Jesus. He wants the same thing he’s always wanted: For us to be where he is; for him to be our God, and we to be his people. Ex 6.7, Lv 26.12, Jr 7.23, 11.4, 30.22, Ek 36.28
If that’s not what we want as well—if all our hopes and dreams about heaven involve material wealth—good gravy are we so not gonna be ready for it. Or happy there. Might be better off outside it.
Bringing heaven to earth.
In Revelation, John had a vision of New Heaven—and New Earth, because they were now one and the same. Whole new planet. No more Mediterranean. Rv 21.1 New Jerusalem, which Jesus had prepared in the current heaven, Rv 21.2 was ready to be inhabited. Because God was now gonna live with humanity—“and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, [and be] their God.” Rv 21.3 KJV He’s been looking forward to it a mighty long time.
So—jumping back to John 14—part of the way Jesus is preparing this place in New Jerusalem for us, is in preparing us. Right now. He wants us to believe in him, so that we could do good works, and miraculous works, in his name. Jn 14.12-14 He wants us to keep his commands. Jn 14.15 He’s granted us the Holy Spirit, who will live within us forever, Jn 14.16-17 and remind us of Jesus’s teachings. Jn 14.26 And if we follow Jesus, love him, and love his Father, Jesus will reveal himself to us. Jn 14.21 He’ll fulfill his statement about preparing a place for us:
- John 14.23 KJV
- 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.
Jesus is getting us Christians ready for New Heaven. We need to help him get us ready for it. Not presume he’ll do all the work of salvation, and therefore we needn’t produce any good fruit, nor do any good works. Not presume his grace will be so abundant, it’s okay if we’re lousy human beings who haven’t improved at all since we said the sinner’s prayer. He wants eager followers who love him, not Christians in name only who don’t care about Jesus, and only care about avoiding hell and getting one of those heavenly mansions.
Because again: The goal is for us to live together with Jesus, forever. Is this what we really want? Or are we figuring that’d be nice and all that, but what we really want is the great big house. If living with Jesus isn’t our goal too, let’s stop deluding ourselves and make it our goal.
