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About Jesus - Steve Sweetman Jesus
Comforts His Disciples (ch.
14:1-4) In
verse 1 Jesus says, "Do not let your hearts be troubled.", or,
as the Greek verb puts it, "stop letting your heart be
troubled." What just
happened with Judas was not only troubling to Jesus but very troubling and
very confusing to the disciples. Jesus
saw this and told them not to be troubled.
Things were looking pretty bleak to the disciples, but they would
get better. All these
bad things had to happen. They
were all the plan of God. Remember,
the current theology of the return of the Messiah and the Messianic
Kingdom was that there would be a man, not God in man, who would rise from
among the Jews, lead a rebellion, and restore the nationhood of Then
Jesus says this. "Trust
in God, trust also in me." Some
translations use the word "believe" instead of the word
"trust." Whatever
the case, the Greek word translated as "trust" or
"believe" here is the Greek present active indicative verb
"pistueo." This
word is the verb form of the Greek noun "pistis" which simply
means "trust." The
verb tense here states that right here in present time, the disciples were
to stop fearing and start trusting. The
indicative part of this verb means this is a command.
It is not optional.
These
men understood to a degree what trusting in God meant.
Throughout Jewish history In
verse 2, after telling the Eleven to trust Him, Jesus then tells them
something they should trust Him for. He
says that in His Father’s house are many rooms, and that He is going
there to prepare a room for them. The
KJV uses the word "mansion" instead of the word room as we see
here in the NIV. The Greek
word here suggests a dwelling place or an abode.
I guess translating this as "mansion" or "room"
is your prerogative.
If
there wasn’t rooms in God’s house then Jesus would have long since
told them that, but this was not the case.
Jesus was about to leave and go to be with His Father.
While there He would prepare some kind of dwelling place for these
eleven men, and of course, for us too. In
verse 3 Jesus continues by saying if He is going to prepare a place for
these men, He would certainly return to take them to this place.
I believe that Jesus is speaking of His return to earth here,
although, there are some Pentecostal and Charismatic teachers who say that
He is speaking of returning in the form of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
They say this because of the verb "where I am" which is
present tense. In short they
say that where Jesus is they will be, but be in spirit.
I understand this thinking, but I tend to believe Jesus is talking
about His second coming. This
is the traditional view of this verse. Concerning
the rooms or the mansions that Jesus is preparing; you might want to think
more about this. Is He in the
human sense of the word building a room or a house for us in Heaven, or,
is what He doing in Heaven at the moment simply preparing the way for our
future home, which, if you read the last two chapters of the book of
Revelation tell us is on the new earth.
Many Christians believe they will spend eternity in Heaven in big
houses. They believe this
because of this verse. I
believe the book of Revelation makes it clear that we will be spending
eternity on the new earth, and not in Heaven.
So, I'm not convinced that Jesus is building rooms and houses for
us in Heaven right now, unless, they are temporary dwelling places.
His present work in Heaven might well be paving the way for our
future dwelling place here on earth.
In
verse 4 Jesus says that "you know the way to the place where I am
going." At this point the
disciples were once again totally confused.
Why would Jesus say that they knew the place and thus the way to
that places that He was going? I
doubt that Jesus didn't know their confusion on this point.
His statement might just have been the way to carry on the
conversation and to straighten them out on this matter.
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