My Father’s House
by Hugh DeLong
Jesus said: “In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2)
Dwelling places: Mansions (KJV), or ‘rooms’ (ESV/NIV), or ‘dwelling places’ (NASB95)?
This is translated from the Greek noun ‘mone’; and the verb form ‘menw’ means to stay, remain, or abide. Hence the noun means
- a state of remaining in an area,
- a place in which one stays.
Jobes remarked: Since mone is used in the context of ‘the house of my Father,' rooms is an appropriate translation.
What about the KJV “Mansions”? That comes from the Latin Vulgate: mansions. When the King James was translated, it meant simply a place to stay, without the connotation of opulence. But that understanding is almost unknown for the English word ‘mansion’ today.
Note also John 14:23: “Jesus answered him, 'If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home (Greek: ‘mone’) with him.'” Here we have the second use of the Greek word ‘mone’. Here it is a mutual or reciprocal relationship: the disciples will ‘abide’ (have an abiding place in Christ), and the Father and Son have an abiding place in the disciples.
Gundry: “The plural form monai in verse 2 emphasizes the individuality of the places which all believers have in Christ.” The church is the temple, a dwelling place for God in His people.
“I go” to prepare. It is, in fact, the act of his going that prepares the abiding place, i.e., His coming-announced death.
Floyd Thompson once explained this passage, saying: “No one really thinks that Jesus went to do a remodel job on heaven!”
His coming again, reuniting, and abiding is through the resurrection. Hence, in John 14:23, the Father and the Son will come and make their home with us. And so it is!
Does that then ‘exclude’ any understanding of ‘heaven’? No, for Gundry points out that the “concept of heaven as a house is found elsewhere in Jewish writings.
Abide (the related verb menw) appears 16 times in the NASB95 version of John.
His word is to abide in us (John 5:38). Those who feed upon him are the ones who abide in him and he in us (John 6:56). It is by abiding in his word that we are His disciples (John 8:31). Then the discourse on the vine, the branch, and the need of fruit-bearing uses the concept of ‘abiding’ many times: John 15:4, 5, 6, 7, 9,10, 16.
The Way? His death, burial, and resurrection is the way, and there is no other way! Thus He is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). When we are converted, we then have our relationship with Jesus, and we must abide in Him– and He in us.
