The Real Mansions

You won’t find your mansion in heaven, and no cabins either.

__________________

John 14:2 – 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.

___________________ 

I remember as a child hearing an old gospel song with words that said, “Lord, build me a cabin in the corner of glory land.”  While that may have sounded humble to some people, I must tell you that such thinking is totally absurd.  But there is another, loftier view of heaven that is just as erroneous.  It is the view that says, “I’ve got a mansion just over the hilltop.”  Let’s look at the Word of God rather than songs that struck some emotional tone for hearers.  There are three words we need to examine: (1) house (Fathers’); (2) mansions; and (3) place.

• HOUSE – this is “Father’s house” (Greek – oikia) – an inhabited edifice; the inmates of a house; family.
• MANSION – (Greek – monay) – abiding place of the Holy Spirit indwelling believers.
• PLACE – (Greek – topos) – portion, or space marked off; an inhabited place; a city; a place in a book; a space limited by occupancy.

Now let’s put it together in simple terms.  “In My Father’s FAMILY (HOUSE) are many HOLY SPIRIT INDWELLING BELIEVERS (MANSIONS): if it were not so, I would have told you.  I go to prepare a MARKED OFF SPACE; A CITY; A SPACE LIMITED BY OCCUPANCY (PLACE) for you.”

What do we see in this rendering using the defined Greek terms, HOUSE, MANSION, & PLACE, from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance?  We see that the “mansions” of “Father’s house” are, in reality, believers (those in whom Holy Spirit dwells).  And what of the “place” He has gone to prepare for us?  It is each believer’s place at the table of the marriage supper of the Lamb; it is the city of New Jerusalem, a city Whose builder and maker is God; your name written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, and in the book of remembrances in which the Lord records every word you speak about Him, and every thought you think about Him.

I know this is greatly different from what we have traditionally heard.  But think of this.  Why would Jesus build mansions in heaven for all the members of His body when “heaven and earth shall pass away”?  Paul writes that “in a great house” there are vessels of honor and dishonor, and that if a man would purge himself of certain things, he would be “a vessel of honor, sanctified and meet for the Master’s use.”  The “great house” of which Paul writes is “Father’s house.”  And those “vessels of honor” are the “mansions” of which Jesus spoke.  And consider further the Lord’s call for us to build our house (our life) on the rock by being doers of the Word.  He also added that when one of His people build on the sand, their house (life) will fall, and “great will be the fall of it.”  That speaks to the fall of a “mansion.”  Will you be one of His mansions?  It’s your choice.  He is preparing a place just for you.  Be faithful. 

Manna for Today – John 14:1-14; 2 Timothy 2:20-21; Matthew 7:24-27; Malachi 3:16-18

http://www.eaglesnestforum.com – http://www.facebook.com/eaglesnestforum