14 "“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also."
John 14:1-3
Jesus' words in 1 have been a comfort in sorrow to countless saints down the ages in their griefs and woes, but, as yesterday's Note made clear, they have a more particular connotation in their true context, which indicates that not only comfort, but strength, is the keynote of the chapter. Here, then, is the first great answer to human frailty and failure, the word of grace to men who have failed and denied their Lord: 'Believe in Me, I am the source of strength. I am the faithful, trustworthy One.' But we may discern another great answer to shiftlessness and inconsistency in 2, 3: 'In My Father's house are many mansions....I go to prepare a place for you'. It is the hope of glory. In Hebrews 6:19, we read which hope we have as an anchor of the soul. Peter needed an anchor that day! We are taught here that, in times of temptation and struggle, we are to fix our eyes steadfastly on the hope set before us. This is undoubtedly what gave perspective and a sense of dignity to the life of the early Church. Their roots were in eternity, and they could not be moved. And the prospect of Christ's coming (3) is everywhere in Scripture held out as an incentive to holy and steadfast living (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:5). We should not miss, in passing, the wonderful teaching about heaven and the hereafter in these verses. Someone has pointed out that most of the teaching about heaven in the scriptures is couched in negatives (cf. Revelation 21/22, 'no more death, no more pain, no more tears'), but here it is very positive. Heaven is 'the Father's house', it is 'home'. This is the great testimony of the Scriptures. They portray mankind as strangers and pilgrims upon the earth. 'Man goeth to his long home'. It is this that explains the sometimes inexplicable and unbearable yearnings in our spirits for we know what; it is the homesickness of the soul for God and home. 'Believers are in a strange land and at school in this life; in the life to come, they will be at home'.