A Place to Live
David Peterson / General
Happiness; Purpose; Heaven; Church; Mission / John 14:1–14
Introduction
I. A Place to Live Here and Now
1. The place to which was going was to the Father
The major premise running through these verses is that the Father and Son are in one another (vv. 10, 11, 20; cf. 10:38; 17:21). The precise nature of this unity is beyond our ability to comprehend. It is more than a simple relationship yet less than identity. The Godhead, while remaining three persons, is one in essence.
Mounce, R. H. (2007). John.
2. We are already lifted up in the heavenly places.
Some exegetes have interpreted οἰκία in a corporate sense, in the light of the concept of the Church as a spiritual house or temple of God (cf, e.g., 1 Cor 3:16–17; Eph 2:20–22; 1 Pet 2:5, also John 2:19–21); the promise in vv 2–3 is then thought to relate to the fellowship which will be possible through Christ’s departure and return through the Spirit (so R. H. Gundry, “In My Father’s House Are Many Monai,” 69–71.
Beasley-Murray, G. R. (1999). John (Vol. 36, p. 249). Word, Incorporated.
This special house or household where the son has a permanent dwelling place suggests a union with the Father reserved for Jesus the Son and for all those who are begotten as God’s children by the Spirit that Jesus gives. Thus there would be some precedent for reinterpreting “many dwelling places in my Father’s house” parabolically as possibilities for permanent union (monē/menein) with the Father in and through Jesus. (Gundry, art. cit., has independently proposed a similar interpretation: “… not mansions in the sky, but spiritual positions in Christ.”) Jesus is on his way to be reunited with the Father in glory (8:1) and to make it possible for others to be united to the Father—this is how he prepares the dwelling places. The variant reading for “in my Father’s house” is “with my Father” (see NOTE), and that is just the meaning that the phrase may have taken on as it was integrated into the overall Johannine theology of ch. 14. Jesus’ return after the resurrection would be for the purpose of taking the disciples into union with himself and with the Father, without any stress that the union is in heaven—his body is his Father’s house; and wherever the glorified Jesus is, there is the Father.
(Anchor Yale Bible)
II. Jesus is where we are to Live
1. We are to know the Father (God) in Jesus
The fifteenth-century Augustinian priest Thomas à Kempis (The Imitation of Christ [1441; repr., Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983], 208) joined the three as follows: “Without the way, there is no going; without the truth, there is no knowing; without the life, there is no living.”
Mounce, R. H. (2007). John.
2. There is a way of going (present ongoing sense), knowing, living
Truth Will Win the Struggle
Persons often speak of defending truth. Well and good, but truth is not so weak that it cannot defend itself. What is needed most is to declare the truth in love. If let loose in the arena of ideas, truth will defend itself. Truth is of God; falsehood is of Satan.
Hobbs, H. H. (1990). My favorite illustrations (p. 261). Broadman Press.
The greatest friend of truth is time.
—C. C. Colton
3. Life is a way of living, a life that fills us full
Our fixation on the visibly miraculous may well be due to “the scantiness of our knowledge or the vulgarity of our taste” rather than the intrinsic marvel of what takes place (Temple, 2:235). Conversion is the miracle of miracles in that it requires nothing less than the supernatural involvement of God himself in the inner reaches of the human soul. Physical healings and miracles of nature take place on a level much easier to grasp.
Mounce, R. H. (2007). John.
III. A Place to Live Beyond this Life
1. There is a going to be with Jesus.
Conclusion
Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 4367 Homesick for Heaven
Homesick For Heaven
Homesick sometimes,
Want to go home;
Aching with longing
Where’er I roam.
Weary sometimes,
Wishing to be
There in the glory
Eternally.
Coming sometime,
Great trumpet sound!
Glorious daybreak!
Joy will abound.
Trading sometime
Body of clay,
For one immortal;
Hasten blest day!
—Lilian Guthrie
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