The Father’s House and Many Mansions

This was an illustration our Lord employed while still in conversation with His own, in those final and intimate hours before He passed to His Cross. He referred to His going, and told them quite plainly, "Whither I go, ye cannot come." That statement of our Lord led to discussion. Only four men spoke, and our Lord answered them: Peter, Thomas, Philip, and Jude. In the course of His replies this symbolic illustration occurs.

These words are like a parable, and they were intended to illustrate. "In My Father's house are many mansions." We must bear in mind that it was a strangely perplexing hour for the disciples, as shown in the things they said to Him when He told them He was going. They could not understand "Where I am going, you cannot come." We are familiar with what happened. Peter said, "Where are You going?" Thomas said, "We do not know where You are going, how can we know the way?" Philip said, "Show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us." Jude said, "How can it be that You will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?" Their perplexity is self‑evident.

All these questions were concerned with spiritual matters. Peter knew that Jesus was going to death. He had been told that again and again for six months. Now they knew perfectly well His enemies were waiting for Him, and that He was going to death. When Peter said, "Where are You going?" he was peering out into the unknown mysterious spaces. Jesus answered him, and in the course of that answer He employed the words we are looking at.

If Peter was trying to visualize a destination, Thomas, not knowing the destination, was perplexed about the way. How can we know the way, if we do not know where You are going? Jesus replied to him.

Then Philip, that quiet, unobtrusive soul, who thought great and profound things, and did not talk much about them, blurted out the whole of the need of humanity, "Show us the Father, and it is enough for us."

Then Jude, facing the practical present, asked his question. He looked round about the world again, and faced the practical issue of it all.

Let us recognize that their immediate trouble was earthly. They were losing Him. After three and a half years in His close company, travelling here and there; watching Him, listening to Him; now He is going; they are going to be left. That was their trouble.

Yet it was quite evident from everything that He had been saying to them He was going forward with majesty. There was no cringing. He told them He was going to suffer. He told them He was going to death. He told them He was going to resurrection. They never seem to have grasped the fact of the resurrection.

To Peter He said, "Where I am going, you cannot follow Me now, but you shall follow afterwards." Peter then replied, "Lord, why cannot I follow You even now? I will lay down my life for You." He never said a finer thing, and he meant it. Our Lord replied, "Will you lay down your life for Me? Verily, verily, I say to you, the cock shall not crow, till you have denied Me three times.... Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions." That is where He was going. "If it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto Myself."

In these words He was illuminating their whole thinking. They were in the presence of ineffable sorrow at His departure. They would be here in the world wondering. They would not be able to talk to Him, and to watch His deeds. He will be gone, where to? It was in answer to that wonder that He used this illustration.

The figure of speech He employed was "In My Father's house are many mansions." 'House' is the simple word for a dwelling place, a place of abode. It was the word oikos, house. They all lived in houses. 'Mansions' - the word has unfortunate connotations. Some people think the house is a villa residence. Some people have sung about the mansions over yonder. The word is mone, which means simply an abode. It only occurs in the New Testament here and in one other place, in verse twenty three; both times from the lips of Jesus. "In My Father's house are many mansions"; "We will come. ..and make Our abode with him."

We see at once that the term 'house' is inclusive. I prefer to use for that the word 'dwelling place,' and for the word 'mansions,' 'abiding places'. "In My Father's dwelling place there are many abiding places." The dwelling place is greater than the abiding places. All the abiding places are in the dwelling place.

Twice in the course of the ministry of our Lord He made use of that phrase, "My Father's house." The first is in the second chapter of this Gospel. When He was cleansing the temple, He said "My Father's house." There He was referring to the temple. He said it here, "In My Father's house are many mansions."

The figure is that of the temple itself. He referred to the temple as "the house of God" on other occasions. He called it the house of God in Matthew (12. 4). He spoke of it as His own house, assuming the place of God. At the terrible end He referred to the temple not as My Father's house, or My house, but "your house is left unto you desolate." His references were all to the temple. He was familiar with it, and often went into it. We have accounts of His having been in three parts of the temple. At the feast of tabernacles He was in the treasury. At the feast of dedication He was in Solomon's porch. In the case of the widow He was over against the treasury, sitting there.

The temple has often been described as it existed then. It was in process of building. It was not finished until ten years after the crucifixion of Jesus. There it was, a wonderful building. A quotation from Jerusalem by George Adam Smith may help us to see it. "Herod's temple consisted of a house divided like its predecessor into the Holy of Holies, and the Holy Place; a porch; an immediate forecourt with an altar of burnt offering; a Court of Israel; in front of this a Court of Women; and round the whole of the preceding a Court of the Gentiles." Again, "Chambers for officials, and a meeting place for the Sanhedrin. Against the walls were built side‑chambers, about thirty eight in all." The temple was a house. There were many abiding places in it. I believe that that temple, as a figure of speech and symbol, was in the mind of our Lord when He said, "In My Father's house there are many abiding places."

But it is equally certain that He saw the temple in its true significance, and understood its symbolism. Go back to the first words about the construction of that temple, in Exodus. "And let them make Me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them." He saw it as the house of God.

The temple was patterned after things in the heavens. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." When you read that next do not think merely of that wonderful stretch of sky some night when the moon is at the full, and the stars are out, a more wonderful sight than in the day; but all the ultimate beauty is seen in the heavens. That temple, like the tabernacle, and all the account of it is there, is according to the copy of things in the heavens; and it was called the house of God. It had many parts, many sections, many places, all having their value, all having their place. "In my Father's house are many mansions." As though He had said, 'You go up to the temple, and you go into many parts and divisions and rooms. There are many abiding places in the house'.

Then of what was He talking to them? What was the meaning of it all to those men questing after the beyond, and yet earthbound in their vision and thinking? He was going. They said, 'When He is gone we have lost Him'. He gave them the universe in a flash, "My Father's house." In that whole universe there are many abiding places. This earth is one, but it is not the only one. All the symbolism of the tabernacle is inadequate to represent the vastness of the universe. There are many abiding places, and He was showing them that He was merely leaving one abiding place in the house to go to another. They could not go then, but they should go; and He was going to another abiding place within the house. What for? To prepare a place for them.

What a wonderful expression that is, "To prepare a place for you." Somewhere out in the house of God, that vastness that baffles us, somewhere, that we cannot understand, He is going there to get a place fully furnished for you. How does He do it? By being there. As though He said to them, 'You will come presently, and when you come you will be at home because you will find Me there, somewhere in the Father's house'. He did not tell them the locality. He did not tell them what they wanted to know, some description of locality. He said, It is all in the Father's house. There are many abiding places. He was going to prepare a place for them, and He would come again and receive them.

Abridged from G. Campbell Morgan. The Parables and Metaphors of our Lord