The Daily Word of Righteousness

In My Father's House, #2

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. (John 14:1)

Here was a man (Jesus) in his early thirties asking other men to trust in Him as they did in God. That is a lot to ask of devout people.

But Jesus knew something they did not know. He knew He is the Fullness of the Godhead in bodily form. These men had been created by Him. The Creator was asking for love and trust from His creatures.

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. (John 14:2)

What is the Father's house?

In Old Testament days there were the Tabernacle of the Congregation, David's Tabernacle, and Solomon's Temple. These were the houses of God in their time.

Herod's Temple was standing in Christ's lifetime. But that magnificent edifice was as the name indicates—Herod's Temple. It was not God's Temple.

When Jesus spoke of the Father's house He was referring to Himself. God the Father dwells in His fullness in Christ. Christ is the only true and eternal House of God.

Several verses in John, Chapters 14 and 17 mention our abiding in Christ and Christ's abiding in us. Sometimes these verses are explained as meaning Christ is coming to take us to Heaven where we shall live in beautiful homes.

It is this author's opinion, based not on the Scriptures but on the visions and dreams of Christian believers, that it is possible the saved will live in beautiful homes in Heaven when they die, there to await the Day of Resurrection.

But this is not the meaning of the Gospel of John. The meaning here is, Christ is returning to the Father and He will make it possible for us also to go to the Father and to dwell in the Father through Himself.

Deep in every person's heart there is a hunger. We spend our lives playing with the toys of the world hoping to satisfy that hunger. But the hunger can be satisfied only with rest in the heart of God.

Christ Himself is the Way to the Father, the Truth from the Father, and the Life of the Father. No man can come to the Father except through Christ. Heaven is a place; the Father is a Person.

Christ's goal is not to bring us to beautiful homes in Heaven but to the place of rest in the Father. It is the same rest Jesus enjoys—God resting in Him and He in God.

Christ was returning to the Father, and that is where He is bringing us. Christ is bringing us to the Father now, not just when we die physically. The day will come when we shall go to the Father in a fuller measure.

Jesus, although filled with the Father's Presence, went to the Father after His resurrection. We, although filled with Christ's Presence, will go to Christ when we die physically, and again in the resurrection.

To be continued.