Many Dwelling Places – In Him

 

 

“In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” John 14:2 – 3.

 

There is a sense in which all that follows in John chapters 14 – 17 is the unfolding of these words of Jesus about His going and coming, our Father’s house, the Trinity living in us and us living in the Trinity; Jesus receiving us to Himself so that we may be always with Him. Jesus wants us to be with Him today and tomorrow and forever – do we realize this?

 

Jesus’ final words in Matthew’s Gospel are, “I am with you, always, even to the end of the age.” In John 17:24 Jesus prays, “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am…”

 

The heartbeat of Jesus Christ is that He may be with us and that we may be with Him. In John 15:4 Jesus says, “Abide in Me, and I in you.”

 

In the very first chapter of John, when two disciples ask Jesus, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” Jesus replies, “Come and you will see.”

 

O dear friends, everyday Jesus says to us, “Come and you will see.” Everyday Jesus comes to us, everyday Jesus calls us to Himself, everyday Jesus presents new opportunities for us to come and see Him. These opportunities are often not what we expect, they are often not what we immediately see and discern and understand – anymore than Jesus’ impending betrayal and torture and crucifixion and resurrection were things the apostles expected and “saw” and understood.

 

In Hebrews 3:6 we read that we are the House of Christ, and in Ephesians 2:19 – 22 we see that we are God’s “household” and that in Christ “the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you are also being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”

 

Peter writes that we are “living stones” and that we “are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood…” (1 Peter 2:5).

 

We are the Father’s House and the Trinity is our House.

 

If we never move beyond our cleansing in John Chapter 13, if we cannot see and live in the reality of justification, if we do not embrace the glory of 2 Cor. 5:21, we will never accept and see and live in the intimacy of John chapters 14 – 17.

 

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). Do we believe this? Do we see that this is imputed and imparted in Christ? Do we see our union with God in Christ, our blessed koinonia in the Trinity? A koinonia so sure and seamless that John says in effect, “If you have koinonia with us then you will have koinonia with the Father and the Son” (1 John 1:3).  

 

It is a scandal, or at least it ought to be, that we are not permitted to wear the white robes of righteousness with which Jesus Christ has clothed us. It is a tragedy that many who use the term “grace” refuse to live in the righteousness and holiness which the grace of Christ Jesus has imputed and imparted to us – and that they insist that others live in soiled garments. We may employ New Covenant terms but we function in the sin consciousness of the Old Covenant, a covenant of condemnation and sin and death! (2 Cor. Chapter 2; Hebrews chapters 7 – 10; Romans 3:21 – 8:39). It seems that every Sunday morning we sew up the veil (Hebrews 10:19 – 25), not permitting God’s People to enter into intimacy with Him.

 

Such thinking and teaching blinds us to the glories of John chapters 13 – 17; indeed, they blind us from the glory of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is like touring a stately mansion in which most of the building is roped off – you must stay on the walkway, you must not go beyond the ropes, you must not sit on the furniture and enjoy it! You may look but you may not touch!

 

Is it not absurd for the children of God not to be relaxed and joyful in the House of their Father, the House which their Lord Jesus Christ has brought them into? And then we wonder why we have such conflict in the professing church. Then we wonder why people leave congregations. Then we wonder why professing Christians fall into sin and apostasy. If we cannot sit on the furniture, if we cannot eat at our Father’s Table – then why are we here?

 

Is this not Babylonian captivity? Have we not been stripped of our inheritance in Jesus Christ? Are our harps not on the willow trees?

 

Jesus wants you to be with Him every hour and every moment of every day – every day He has places prepared for you.

 

Shall we go and see what Jesus has for us today? How shall He come to us today? How will He draw us to Himself? Where shall we discover Him?