 By James H. Cagle |
“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. 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. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14: 1-3 KJV).
“Prepare” means to make ready before hand. There is a lot of planning and hard work that goes into our preparation. We get ready or prepare before church, before a meal (meal preparation), sporting events, and many other events. We go to the place where the event is going to be held and set everything up in preparation for the event.
Heaven is a prepared place that Jesus has prepared for Christians who are, through regeneration, a prepared people. We often hear someone through songs or sermons refer to a mansion being built every time someone receives Christ. But according to the Bible there is no construction going on in Heaven. God knew in eternity past how many people would be saved and how many mansions would be needed and spoke it into existence. If there was no construction noise allowed on the Temple site in Solomon’s day in Jerusalem, there is certainly not any construction noise being made in Heaven. “And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought hither: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building” (I Kings. 6:7).
And when John saw that holy city some two-thousand years ago he saw no construction being done but a completed dwelling place for the redeemed (Rev. 21: 2).
What Jesus meant by “I go to prepare a place for you” was that He was going to Calvary to shed His blood for our redemption and thereby prepare a way to give access to God that didn’t exist beforehand. Jesus is the firstfruits and went before the harvest of souls to prepare things made ready for their coming. “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming” (1 Cor. 15: 22, 23).
Christians are people who are prepared for Heaven. They are prepared by first coming to know Christ as their Savior. They are further prepared through sanctification by the work of the Word and the Spirit and are getting prepared to meet the Bridegroom. “And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he hath afore prepared unto glory” (Romans 9: 23).
And I believe final preparations are being made for the marriage of the Bride and the Bridegroom. And the Bride of Christ will soon be called to the side of her Beloved (Rev. 21: 2, 9). Are you prepared to meet Jesus, the One who died for you?
