1 "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.”
Jesus has just told his innermost circle of believers that one will betray him, he is going away, and that Peter will deny him three times before morning. Their hearts are troubled. They are confused and need assurance. My head would be spinning if I were in their place. Having discipled a person for a couple of years and then having that person abruptly cut off the process over a matter of doctrine, I can understand how hearts can be troubled. But my trouble is nothing to be compared to theirs.
Jesus points his disciples back to the fundamentals. And this is what we all need to do when our hearts are troubled by doctrines, world events, relationships, or anything else. What do we believe? Jesus was unraveling a mystery from the Old Testament, namely the Trinity. He has been showing and telling his disciples that he is the Son of God and by that, he is God incarnate. When these troubles come, doubts about God come. If Jesus is really who he says, then how could he be leaving? How could he be betrayed and denied? It just didn’t make sense. Fall back on God the Father. We believe in him. In the same way believe in Jesus. Don’t let doubts dimmish your faith in Jesus.
2 “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.”
Do you ever look in the newspaper at the real estate section and see pictures of multimillion dollar estates? Or maybe you’ve seen pictures of them on TV? (I’m dating myself here.) You get the idea. If not, look up the Biltmore estate in Ashville, North Carolina.
The 250-room French Renaissance chateau includes 35 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, and 65 fireplaces. Over the years, Biltmore has grown to include Antler Hill Village & Winery, which includes Antler Hill Farm; overnight accommodations, including The Inn on Biltmore Estate–our Forbes Four-Star property, Village Hotel on Biltmore Estate, and our historic Cottages on Biltmore Estate; Equestrian Center; numerous restaurants; event and meeting venues; and a licensed products division.[1]
I point this out to demonstrate that even this “house” has much more than a building with some rooms. The Biltmore estate sounds impressive, but God the Father has an estate that far out shadows this human accomplishment. What we have waiting for us in heaven exceeds this paltry building by a magnitude of ten on just the first floor of the New Jerusalem. The original Biltmore house was only 175,000 square feet but the New Jerusalem is 1,380 square miles or 38,472,000,000 square feet. God’s heavenly house is also 1,380 miles high. Jesus wasn’t kidding when he said there were “many” mansions or rooms in the Father’s house. There is enough room there for every person who has ever lived to have a mansion with plenty of room left over.
On his honor, Jesus is telling the truth. He wouldn’t lie. We can bank on the fact that we will have a place in that estate. That settles the issue of where Jesus is going and why the disciples couldn’t go with him at that time. But what does it mean that he is going to prepare a place. I don’t think he was talking about becoming a heavenly carpenter. I don’t think he hasn’t come back again because it is taking a long time to build this magnificent city. He could do that with one word. His preparation is for us to be holy because no unholy thing can enter the Father’s house. “But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life” (Rev 21:27 ESV). Our names are in the book of life, but Jesus had to die on the cross, taking on our sin so that we could have his righteousness, making us holy and clean to enter the Father’s house. He was talking about his impending death as the preparation he would be making.
There is one more thing about preparing a place for us. That is, we are the temple of God as Paul tells us, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Cor 3:16 ESV). And Peter tells us, “You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:5 ESV). Therefore, since Jesus is preparing this house, this temple, he is not coming back until it is finished. It won’t be finished until all those who have been written in the Lamb’s book of life have been included in this house. How many of them haven’t even been born yet? Who knows? It could be tomorrow.
3 “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”
Here is the comfort that Jesus provides for us. He said, “If I go.” He wasn’t expressing doubt about whether he would go but expressing the fact that he had to go to do this. If he wasn’t going to go, he wouldn’t prepare a place. He wouldn’t die for our sins. He wouldn’t come back and take us to be with him.
Jesus’ promise to come back and take us to be with him is one of the great hopes of the Christian faith. Sure, Jesus lives in us now and has sent his Holy Spirit to guide us and direct us. He gives us the fruit of the Spirit to live godly lives. All these things are precious for us. But we all yearn for the day when we will go to be with him in the resurrection when he returns. Of course, we will be with him when we die because he will never leave us or forsake us (Heb 13:5). But that day when we receive the final resurrected bodies will be even more special.
People often question what it will be like in heaven. They ponder doing different things, being able to learn to play the violin, unending horse rides, traveling to distant galaxies to view God’s wondrous creation, play golf well, and all sorts of things. But Jesus tells us here what the best part of heaven will be like. We will be with him.
Other people have negative thoughts about going to heaven. They think of it in the worldly stereotyped sitting on clouds playing harps. They don’t want to be bored.
Paul contemplated the possibility of his impending death and wrote, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (Phil 1:21-23 ESV). The reality for most of us is that Jesus coming back for us will happen when we die. Can we echo the thoughts of Paul? He knew that being taken to be with Jesus will be far better for us than we can imagine because we will be with Jesus. Golf, harps, and all the other stuff aside, is being with Jesus why you look forward to heaven? If all that awaited you was to be in his presence, would that be enough?
4 “And where I go you know, and the way you know." 5 Thomas said to Him, "Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?"
Thank you, Thomas, for being honest. He didn’t have the foggiest idea what Jesus was talking about. He didn’t grasp the concept that Jesus’ Father’s house was in heaven. I don’t understand how he could have missed that, but knowing the way, that is still a problem for many people. We fortunately know what Jesus is talking about because we can read ahead, come back to this passage, and understand.
However, knowing the way is much harder to fathom. We think in physical terms. Many people think heaven, the New Jerusalem, is on some planet out in space. I edited a book for a Christian author who put forth this idea. I was shocked and had a long conversation with her. If she could miss this, then I suspect Thomas was thinking of a physical location as well. In that case he wanted the GPS coordinates.
6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. 7 If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him."
Jesus is the way. He is the only way to have a relationship with God the Father. He is the only way to have eternal life and live in the presence of God the Father. If we were to appear before the Father without Jesus, we would be unable to stand in the presence of his glory and holiness. We would be consumed by fire just as were Nadab and Abihu when they came before the Lord and tried to offer incense that was not according to the Law (Lev 10:1-2). In a way they represent anyone who tries to come to the Father by their own good deeds or some other way than trusting in Jesus alone for their salvation. Jude 24-25 tells us that Jesus Christ is the one who can present us before the glory of the Lord without any blame. What a marvelous day that will be for us when Jesus escorts us to meet his Father face to face.
Jesus is the truth. There can be no falsehood in him. What he says is true. He has already made it clear that he is God in the flesh. Many people falsely say that Jesus never claimed this for himself. Jesus is either God and Savior or he is a liar, and the New Testament is a fake or it is true. Jesus was raised from the dead proving he was not a liar. So, who is lying? Those who say Jesus is not God.
Jesus is the life. Over and over, Jesus has expressed this. It is one of the thesis statements John stated in John 1:4, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” (ESV). Without Jesus, there is no life now and especially for eternity.
If we know Jesus, we will also know the Father. Jesus will explain more about this in Chapter 17. But for now, suffice it to say that since Jesus is God in the flesh, then knowing him must also include knowing the Father. The disciples have seen Jesus in the flesh, but they didn’t recognize that they were seeing the very image of the invisible God (Col 1:15, Heb 1:3). When we trust Jesus as our Lord and Savior alone for our salvation, then we will not just know Jesus, but the Father as well.
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