In John 14, the Lord Jesus begins a long discourse about the way things were going to change in the relationship between Him and His disciples. He had just told them that He would be with them only a little while longer. "You will look for Me, He said, but where I am going, you cannot come" (13:33).

As far as the disciples were concerned, that was the end of everything. From their point of view, there was no future without Jesus. They could not conceive of any­thing but a future that went on the way the past three years had gone — travelling with Jesus throughout Palestine, while He taught the people, and healed the sick. Eventually, somehow, He would establish His king­dom, and then they would enjoy everything that He had promised them.

They loved Him, and they believed in Him. And when He said, "I will be with you only a little while longer," they heard Him say, "You won't have Me anymore. Our life together is over. And nothing that I promised you will ever take place."

Jesus' answer to their ques­tions begins in the first verses of chapter 14: "Do not let your hearts be troubled ­trust in God; trust also in Me." Obviously, Christ is making a claim to divinity here. But He does that in other places, too. The point that He's making here is that the disciples' relationship to Jesus has to mature, and deepen.

In other words, "The time has come for you to believe in Me, even though you don't see Me. The time has come for you to follow Me, even though I'm not physically here to lead you. You won't see Me because I have to go to where My Father is, because I have work to do there, for your sake. I have to go and do that work, because if I stay, I won't be able to keep My promises, and estab­lish My kingdom."

And this is the remarkable way in which the Lord Jesus described that work: "In My Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you."

Maybe the words are so familiar that we don't see how remarkable they are. But this is how Jesus talks about heaven: it is "My Father's house." A house is a place where a family lives. A house is a place where a man and wife lives. A house is a place where people who love each other share their lives, a place where they display and experience their unity, where they live in mutual affection and service.

And Jesus says, "That's what heaven is — My Father's house." Heaven is the place where the Father and the Son and the Spirit live in unity, love, and intimate fellowship. Jesus speaks about His rela­tionship to the Father throughout the gospel of John. A little later in Chapter 14, answering Philip, He says, "Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me?"

When we try to take in the meaning of those words, and all of the other ways in which the Lord Jesus spoke about His relationship to the Father, we are not able to grasp it. The communion between the Father and the Son is too wonderful for us to begin to comprehend or explain. The love that the Lord Jesus has for His Father is revealed in His words, and worked out in His life and death. And the love that the Father had for His Son is equally manifest.

And that makes Jesus' words to His disciples, and to us, in John 14:2 all the more wonderful. "In My Father's house are many rooms. I am going there to prepare a place for you. If I go and pre­pare a place for you, I will come back, and take you to be with Me, that you also may be where I am."

We could say, this is the gospel! Heaven, the place where the Father and the Son live in perfect unity and affection, is a house, and in that house there are many rooms. And the rooms are waiting for children, for innu­merable children of God. This is why the Father sent the Son. To find His children, and bring them home. The Father wants His children to come and live with Him.

If Christ in these words is reflecting the wonderful bond of love and unity between Himself and the Father when He says that heaven is His Father's house, then, when He says, "In My Father's house are many rooms," He is saying, "You are also taken up into this wonderful com­munion and love of the Father and the Son. We are included in that life and fel­lowship. We are welcomed into their home, as children."

That this is true is confirmed by what Jesus says in John 14:21: "He who loves Me will be loved by My Father." In verse 23, He says, "If anyone loves Me, He will obey My teaching. My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our home with him." And in John 16:27 He says, "The Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came from God."

And in the so-called, High Priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus in John 17, He speaks about His disciples as those who have been brought into the circle of fellowship between the Father and the Son: "Now they know that everything You have given Me comes from You. For I gave them the words You gave Me, and they accepted them. I am coming to You now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of My joy within them. I have made You known to them, and will con­tinue to make You known in order that the love You have for Me may be in them."

The glory and the joy of heaven is not that we've got a "mansion just over the hill­top", where "someday yon­der we'll never more wander, but walk the streets of pure gold." That was not the joy of heaven for Jesus. Heaven is a wonderful place for us for the very same reason that it's a wonderful place for Jesus: because it's our Father's house. Because it's the place where our Father lives, where we can go and be with Him forever, where we will live together with Him as His family, where we will live in His love, and where we, final­ly, will know how to love Him as we should.

Jesus is going to prepare a place, but the construction work that needs to be done is not in heaven, but on earth. We're not ready to live there yet. But He can't do it while He's on earth. "I tell you the truth — it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you" (John 16:7).

In order to make us fit to live with Him and His Father, He had to go to the cross, and the grave, and then, to His Father. He had to go, carrying His own blood, to open the way into the Most Holy Place, to be our High Priest, Who lives to make intercession for us. He had to go to be enthroned at the right hand of God, to take the place of power and authority, from where He can rule all things for the church, which is His body. He had to go, in order to be rewarded for His faithfulness over God's house as a Son, with the gift of the Holy Spirit, Whom He is allowed to pour out on His church, in order that through the work of the Holy Spirit, we may be like Him, and become faithful, obedient, loving children of God.

And then, these wonderful words: "You know the way to the place where I am going." In other words, "The way to this wonderful house, with many rooms, is not a mystery to you. You don't have to dis­cover the way, and you don't have to make your own way there. You know it already."

"If you are in Me, if you believe in Me, if you have received My Spirit, if this earth is not your home, and you feel like an alien and a stranger here, if you, like a child, cry out, 'Abba, Father,' then you already know the way, and you're already on the way. Indeed, I am the Way."

This is the great comfort, and joy of the ascension of the Lord Jesus. Here is the gospel that Christ gives us, even as He says, "Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you can follow later." "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many room, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back, and take you to be with Me, that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going."