The Comfort and the Caution of Christ’s promise, John 14:1-6

When I was a boy, I remember my Dad, who was the pastor of our church, saying that his favorite song was “Mansion over the Hilltop.”  He wasn’t a very good singer, but when the church would sing that song, he really seemed to enjoy it. The lyrics were not the most doctrinally correct perhaps, but the sentiment was sound.  It went something like this:

“I'm satisfied with just a cottage below
A little silver and a little gold
But in that city where the ransomed will shine
I want a gold one that's silver lined”
Chorus
“I’ve got a mansion just over the hilltop
In that bright land where we'll never grow old
And some day yonder we will never more wander
But walk on streets that are purest gold”

Today we are looking at a passage in which that promise of a mansion in heaven found it’s origin.  And there is a great controversy among theologians and commentators as to how the word translated mansions in the KJV should actually be rendered.  Most of them say it should be rooms or dwelling places.  And that may be more accurate.  But I would suggest that a room in heaven is more than equal to a mansion on earth.

However, rather than quibbling over semantics, today I want expound this text in light of the greater context of this passage, which is difficult because we don’t have time to teach the entire Upper Room Discourse in one sitting.  But one of the problems with studying passages like the one in front of us today is that we tend to look at it in isolation and as a result we can end up with a distorted doctrine.

So as an attempt to bring the proper context to these verses, I want to remind you that Jesus says these words in response to his earlier declaration in ch.13 that He was going away, and the dismay on the part of the disciples upon hearing that.  Peter in particular said he wanted to go with the Lord, and Jesus said ““Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow later.”

Now the question is, where was Jesus going?  Many people seeing the earlier statement He made that the time had come for Him to be glorified assume that it meant that He was going to heaven.  And indeed Jesus does go to heaven eventually in His ascension.  But the path He would take to heaven would be circuitous.  First He would go to the cross.  He would suffer and die there and be buried.  And then while His body was in the tomb, Peter says in 1 Peter 3:18,19  that “having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison,” speaking of Hades.  Then on the third day He rose from the dead, appeared to the apostles for 40 days, and then in the presence of 500 witnesses, ascended into heaven.  So as Jesus says in vs.12, “I go to the Father.”  But it was not immediately.

Nevertheless, the disciples hear Him say that He is going away and they cannot come with Him.  They heard Him speak about His betrayal and death.  And so they are troubled by those statements.  If they understood Him properly, Jesus, who they believed was the Son of God, the Messiah, who had walked on water, who had fed multitudes, who had healed the sick and raised the dead, was Himself going to die.  And so they were confused.  They were troubled.  They didn’t understand.  They began to realize that they were going to be bereft of their Master and Lord and they did not know how to handle that.

So Jesus statement in 14:1 is meant to assuage their fears, to offer them comfort.  Jesus says, “Let not your heart be troubled.” I have heard sanctimonious Christians say that it is sinful to worry or to fret about the future.  And there may be a sense in which it can indeed lead to sin.  But I would suggest that to worry about the future is human nature.  It is a weakness of the finite human condition, but it is not necessarily sinful.  

Furthermore, I would point out to you that three times in the preceding three chapters, John says that Jesus Himself was troubled.  In John 11:33, when Jesus saw the grief of the mourners for Lazarus, it says He “was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled.”  In chapter 12, vs.27, Jesus Himself said that “Now My soul has become troubled,” when He considered His impending death.  And in chapter 13 vs 21, knowing that the time had come when Judas would betray Him, it says, “He became troubled in spirit.”  So because we know that Jesus was sinless, then I can say confidently that to become troubled, or upset, or even to worry about an impending event, is not sinful.  And that Jesus has compassion, not condemnation, for those who are troubled.

So He says, “Let not your heart be troubled, believe in God, believe also in Me.”  So first off, our hearts may not be troubled because Jesus has gone before us. We can face the uncertainty of our future because according to 1John 2:1 we have an advocate with the Father which is Jesus Christ the righteous. We may not be troubled about the future because we have an Advocate with the Father, eternal in the heavens, who has gone before us and taken the sting of death upon Himself, taken our punishment upon Himself, who was the first fruits of the resurrection and who lives evermore to make intercession for us.  Because He overcame sin, we can overcome sin.  Because He overcame the grave, we will overcome the grave.  Because He lives, we will not die, but live forever with Him.  So to believe in Him is to be comforted, because though He says in this world we will have trouble, He has overcome the world.

Secondly, we can be untroubled about our trials because Jesus is God. “You believe in God, believe also in Me.”  This statement teaches us the doctrine of Christ’s divinity.  We can be untroubled about our trials because as John 1:1 says He was with God, and He is God. We can be untroubled about our trials because Jesus and God are united in person and in power, as Jesus said in John 10:28, “I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”  We are doubly secure in the love of God.

Thirdly, we can be untroubled by our trials or future because Jesus is preparing a place for us. Vs.2, “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.”  Hebrews 11:8 says, “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.”  But God had prepared a place for him and for his descendants.  It was about 500 years before Abraham’s seed inherited the promised land.  But when they entered into it, each family was given property, an inheritance as the Lord had promised.  Vineyards they had not planted, cities they had not built.  A land flowing with milk and honey.  

In like manner, Jesus has gone before us to prepare a place for us, a dwelling place for His church, and inheritance, said Peter in 1Peter 1:4, “an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.”  So we are not troubled by the trials of this world because as Hebrews says of Abraham in chapter 11, we are “looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”  We “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.”

Hebrews 11 goes on to say that those Old Testament saints persevered in this life, recognizing that they were strangers and aliens in this world.  That is I think the secret to not being troubled by the trials and pressures of this world.  It is not to simply think that God will somehow work all of it out so that we can get on with our prosperity and success and enjoy life.  But it is not having  your hope set on earthly things but your focus on heavenly things. 

Paul said he was torn between staying here on earth or going to be with the Lord.  He said to be absent from the body was to be present with the Lord, and that was very much better.  But if he was to stay on in this world, then it would mean fruitful labor for him.  And that is a good illustration of what it means to be heavenly minded.  It means kingdom minded.  Keeping your focus on what you can do to build the kingdom of God, and to manifest the kingdom of God to the world until Christ takes you home.

Last week was the anniversary of William Tyndale’s martyrdom.  Tyndall was an Anglican priest in the Church of England in the 1500’s.  And he became convinced that the Bible should be translated into English from Greek and Hebrew.  He wanted to do that himself, but he knew that it wasn’t possible in England due to the feelings of the church about keeping the Bible in Latin.  So he traveled to Germany where he translated the Bible, and eventually the first five books of the Old Testament.  But to do that, he had to move constantly for fear of retaliation and arrest by the church.  Eventually however, they arrested him, having been betrayed by a friend for the reward offered. and he spent about a year in prison awaiting trial.   Finally, in 1536 he was convicted of heresy and executed by strangulation, after which his body was burnt at the stake. His dying prayer was that the King of England's eyes would be opened and this prayer seemed to be answered just two years later with King Henry's authorization of the Great Bible for the Church of England, which was largely from Tyndale's own work. Hence, the Tyndale Bible, as it was known, played a key role in spreading Reformation ideas across the English-speaking world and, eventually, to the British Empire.  In 1611, the KJV Bible was produced and printed, which borrowed significantly from Tyndale’s work.  Tyndale was a man who lived his life in expectation of the reward, he was looking for a city and a country which has foundations, whose architect and builder was God.  And I think we can be confident the such a man received a great inheritance in the kingdom of heaven. 

Fourthly, our hearts are not troubled by this world because we know that Jesus is coming back to take us to be with Him.  Notice that Jesus doesn’t really talk about heaven.  He simply says that He will take us to be with Him.  Heaven is where God is.  And though I believe that heaven is a real place, I don’t think it aligns with our common understanding of it.  I believe a lot of people misapply the visions of John regarding streets of gold and gates of pearls to a literal place that matches that description.  But if you read that account in Revelation 21, you will discover that it is describing the bride of Christ, called the New Jerusalem, which will come down out of heaven to replace the earth after it is burned up.  

Peter had this to say about this end of the age, in  2Peter 3:10, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.”

I don’t want to use this time today to give you a discourse on heaven.  The Bible actually has very little specifics on the subject.  But suffice it to say that where Christ is, that is where heaven is.  Jesus said to the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with Me in Paradise.”  And Paul said, “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.”  It doesn’t matter where it is, as long as Christ is there it is heaven.

But I do believe that the Bible teaches that there will be a second coming of Christ and a resurrection.  1Thess. 4:13 says, “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”   

That is our comfort.  That belief that Christ is coming back for us is how we can keep our hearts from being troubled in a world of chaos and confusion.  Paul said in 1 Thess. 1: 9, that we that are saved are to turn from idols and serve God and “wait for God’s Son from heaven whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come.”

Then in vs.4, Jesus says, “And you know the way where I am going.”  As I was studying this verse I could not help but think that the sentence construction was odd.  It just didn’t seem to sound like the best way of expressing what I thought Jesus meant.  At first glance, you would suppose He is saying the disciples know where He is going, and they know how to get there.  That is obviously how Thomas interpreted it.  He said, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?”

But Jesus isn’t talking about a destination.  Jesus was referring to the way of salvation.  He is saying, you know the way of salvation.  You know the way into the kingdom of God.  And an illustration of that is that in Acts we have six times I believe when Christianity was called The Way.  Paul said he persecuted unto death those of The Way.  That meant Christians.  It wasn’t until Acts 11 in Antioch that they were first called Christians.  Prior to that, it was called the Way.  And perhaps that name finds it’s origin in Jesus’s statement right here.  “You know the Way where I am going.” The Way then is not just a destination but a means to get there.  A path.  Jesus had been preaching for three and a half years concerning how to enter the Kingdom of God.  And so the disciples knew the way into the kingdom.  It was by Jesus and through Jesus only.

And Jesus confirms that in vs.6, saying, ““I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”    Jesus is the Way, with a capital W.  He is not necessarily making three parallel statements in this declaration.  But I think He is making a declarative statement in I am The Way.  He is saying, I am the means of salvation, the way to God, the entrance into the Kingdom of God.  The Way to God is only through Me.  

But then Jesus adds two explanatory clauses to clarify The Way; 1)the truth, and 2)the life.  The Way is the truth, and the Way is the life.  I think that is how He means it.  He is saying this; that the Way is the truth in a world full of deception.  Proverbs 14:12 says “There is a way that seems right to a man, but it’s end  is the way of death.”  This is the lie of Satan since the beginning of time.  He told Eve that if she disobeyed God, then it would mean she would be wise like God.  He told her that she would not die.  But Satan lied, as he is the father of lies and the truth is not in him.  And what promised life for Eve resulted in death.  

Satan has propagated his lies throughout the earth.  He promises life, happiness, wisdom, but it produces only death, despair and foolishness. Jesus, on the other hand, it says in John 1:14, was full of grace and truth.  He spoke the truth of God.  Jesus is The Way and the Way  is the  truth of God. 

And so logically, The Way produces life.  Because God is life.  John says in chapter 1 that Jesus is the source of life. “In Him was life and the life was the light of men.”  And there cannot be life without truth.  That is why we put such an emphasis here on preaching the full truth of God’s word.  Without the truth, there can be no life.  A partial truth is just a concealed lie, and that cannot bring about life. 

So the Way results in life, not just earthly life, but eternal life, abundant life.  When you believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, you receive life.  Eternal life.  Abundant life.  Real life.  What this world offers is only temporal life. It’s like life in black and white, like a dumb animal kind of life, without reason, without wisdom,  being subject to the passions and lusts of the flesh and being held  captive under the bondage of sin.  There may be a sense in which one doesn’t realize that his life is futile and finite. I don’t think my dog realizes that he is a dog.  But that doesn’t change the fact that he is an animal. He is not of higher intelligence.  And I think the unsaved are like animals in a sense.  They are ignorant of the life of God. They live in darkness.  But there will be a day when the light of Christ  will make their ignorance apparent.  And at that point, the Bible says that the world will mourn Him who they pierced. 

That certainty of Christ’s coming is a comfort for those of us who have trusted in Jesus as our Savior.  But the certainty of Christ’s coming should be a cause for concern as well, because it means judgment for those who have rejected Jesus as Lord and Savior. I think while many Christians agree in doctrine with the exclusivity of the statement that Jesus made,  yet in practice they seem to imagine that there will be an escape clause somehow for their loved ones who are not saved.

But Jesus makes it clear, no one comes to the Father except through Him.  Those who are not found dressed in His righteousness alone by faith, will be cast out into outer darkness.  They will have no inheritance in the Kingdom of God.  They have no part in the family of God.  They will not dwell there, but will dwell in eternal darkness, separated from God for eternity.

So while we are to be comforted by Christ’s words, we should also be warned.  Jesus told us to expect Him to come at an hour we did not suspect.  He is coming soon.  Let us be about the Kingdom of God.  Let us keep our focus on the city without foundations, whose architect and builder is God, and let us bring as many as we can to faith in Jesus Christ while it is still day, for the night comes when no man can work.