14.02.14 JESUS TO PREPARE A HEAVENLY PLACE[1]

Bill Heinrich  -  Dec 21, 2015  -  Comments Off on 14.02.14 JESUS TO PREPARE A HEAVENLY PLACE[1]

14.02.14 Jn. 14:1-4

 

JESUS TO PREPARE A HEAVENLY PLACE[1]

 

1 “Your heart must not be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if not, I would have told you. I am going away to prepare a place for you. 3 If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come back and receive you to Myself, so that where I am you may be also. 4 You know the way to where I am going.”

 

The phrase “to prepare a place for you” is wedding imagery that everyone in His audience understood. Verse 4 is the typical “stealing of the bride” when the bridegroom came with his friends to “capture” the love of his life and the entire group then went off to the wedding feast. But before that happened, a first century bridegroom would prepare a place adjacent to his father’s house or nearby where he and his bride would live side-by-side with or close to his father.[2] Visitors to the Middle East today will frequently see the house of an extended family, where parents live and several children have built additions to the home when they were married.  Likewise, Jesus will prepare “an addition,” or to use the biblical term, “a room,” or “an abode,” (Gk. mone, 3438) in heaven for each of His believers,[3]  which are more accurate descriptions than the term “mansions,” as used in some translations.[4]

[1].  The significance of the messianic banquet was very important to Jesus (Heb. Yeshua). The wedding imagery between Himself and His church as it was reflected in a first century Jewish wedding is discussed by Dr. John Fischer, a messianic scholar and rabbi at 09.03.04.V1 and Professor John Metzger in video 14.02.05.V2. See the following as well: Wedding garments needed at the wedding in Mt. 22:1-14 (13.03.07); discussion of the “best place” in Lk. 14:7-14 (12.02.05); the great messianic banquet in Lk. 14:15-24 (12.02.06); the wise and foolish virgins in Mt. 25:1-13 (14.01.07); only the father knew Mt. 24:36 (14.01.05).

 

[2]. Harrison, E. A Short Life of Christ. 180; Packer and Tenney, eds., Illustrated Manners. 434.

[3]. Lang, Know the Words of Jesus. 214; Vine, “Mansions.” Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary. 2:392.

 

[4]. Vine, “Abide, Abode.”Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary. 2:2, and “Mansion.”2:392.

 

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