Scripture doesn’t give us many specific details about our future dwelling. Will we live in houses? Will they have shiplap? What about a white picket fence with beautiful bushes and glorious fruit trees? Will they be carpeted or wood flooring? We don’t know. But there is one word that does describe the place that Jesus is preparing for us.
Home.
That is the point of John 14. Jesus is taking us back to the Garden of Genesis 1 and 2. He is restoring to humanity our rest, our rule (our purpose), and our relationship. We will once again live happily in the presence of God. I don’t know all the details, but I know it will be glorious because Jesus is preparing it and He does all things well.
Pinning my hopes on a mansion in the sky is aiming a bit low, in my estimation. Rather God, in Christ, is giving us the greatest gift imaginable. Himself. I think John Piper says it well:
“…all the saving events and all the saving blessings of the gospel are means of getting obstacles out of the way so that we might know and enjoy God most fully. Propitiation, redemption, forgiveness, imputation, sanctification, liberation, healing, heaven — none of these is good news except for one reason: they bring us to God for our everlasting enjoyment of him. If we believe all these things have happened to us, but do not embrace them for the sake of getting to God, they have not happened to us. Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God. And people who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there, will not be there. The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God…”
Sources
Colin G. Kruse, John: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 4, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 292.
D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans, 1991), 489.
Piper, God is the Gospel, 47
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