In my Father's house are many mansions; or, abiding-places, homes of rest and peace and sojourn. "My Father" is the grandest name of all—the Divine fatherhood, as conceived in the consciousness of Jesus and revealed to them.
Had not he who dwelt for ever in the bosom of the Father come forth, as he alone could, to reveal "the Father" and what the Father had been to him in the eternities? "My Father's house" is the dwelling-place in which devout believing souls would abide forever (Psalms 23:6; Psalms 90:1).
In the vast home filled by my Father's glory and lighted by his smile of recognition and reconciliation, in the high and holy place (Isaiah 63:15; Deuteronomy 26:15), are "many mansions" prepared from the foundation of the world (Matthew 25:34).
Heaven is a large place; its possibilities transcend your imagination and exceed your charity. Thoma quotes all the grand hopes which Paul's Epistles and that to the Hebrews contain, that Jesus made heaven and home by his presence there (Philippians 1:23; 1 Thessalonians 4:14, 1 Thessalonians 4:17), and he supposes that the Johannist put these words into the lips of Jesus.
One conclusion forced upon the reader, so far as this passage is concerned, is that there is no reason why this Gospel may not have been written long before the close of the first century. If it were not so; i.
e. if there were any doubt about it, if the revelations already made do not avail to prove as much as this, if you have been cherishing nothing better than vain illusions on this subject, I would have told you, for I came forth from God, and know these many mansions well.
I would have told you, for all things that I have heard from the Father (up to this time possible for you to receive) I have made known to you. Here surely is a colon, if not a period. Many interpreters, by reason of the ὅτι £ which Lachmann, Tischendorf, Westcott, and Meyer believe to be the correct reading, link the following sentence in different ways to the preceding; e.
g. some say ὅτι is equivalent to "that," and read, "I would have told you that I go, etc.; but against this is the simple statement of John 14:3, where Jesus proceeds to say that he is going to prepare, etc.
Others, translating ὅτι "for," differ as to whether the departure of Jesus and his preparation of a place for his disciples refers to the first or second part of the sentence. Surely the ὅτι, "because" or "for," opens out a new thought based on the whole of that sentence: "Because, seeing if it were not so, I would have told you," because our relations are so close as to have involved on your part this claim on my frankness, for I am going to prepare a place—to make ready one of these many mansions—for you.
Over and above the vague mystery of the Father's house, my departure is that of your "Forerunner," and my presence will make a new resting-place—it will localize your home. As you have made ready this guest-chamber for me, I am going to make ready a presence-chamber for you in the heavenly Jerusalem.
Lange objects to this view of Lucke, Calvin, and Tholuck, that it involves a diffusion of knowledge and revelation among the disciples, of which there is no proof. This does not seem bettered by another rendering preferred by him, viz.
"If it were not so, would I have told you I go to prepare a place for you?" But then this mode of interpretation implies a previous definite instruction as to the part he himself was going to take in the furnishing of the heavenly mansion.
Of that most certainly there is no proof.