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
William Temple suggests that 'mansions' should be rendered 'resting-places' or 'stopping places', and that the reference is to places where pilgrims stop on their journey. But this must surely be a misunderstanding of our Lord's words here. He is not speaking about a journey but about a destination. The RSV differs from the AV in 2b, 'If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you,' and this, it seems, is the better translation. We need to be clear about what Jesus meant by the words 'I go to prepare a place for you'. It does not mean that, having gone through death, He goes to heaven to prepare a place for us, but rather that it is His death itself that prepares the place. But for the cross, there would be no place for any in the Father's house. There are three suggested meanings given to the words 'I will come again'. Some take it to refer to the resurrection, some to the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost, and some to the Second Coming. If the sentence merely read, 'I will come again', it could conceivably refer to Christ's resurrection, but what follows, 'and receive you unto Myself' can be understood only in the context of the Second Coming, and certainly have no meaning in relation to Pentecost. We should therefore take them, especially in conjunction with the words that follow, 'that where I am there ye may be also' to the ultimate union between believers and the Lord, the final gathering of the saints in the consummation of salvation.