John 14:1-3 Many Mansions in my house
How big is God’s house? Very big!
John saw a huge house called the “New Jerusalem while in his vision on the Isle of Patmos. (Rev. 21:2). With the overwhelming power of the vision John was experiencing, an angel came and measured the city for him. “The city is laid out as a square; its length is as great as its breadth. And he measured the city with the reed: twelve thousand furlongs. Its length, breadth, and height are equal. Then he measured its wall: one hundred and forty-four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of an angel.” (Rev. 22:16-17 [NKJV]). Using our standard measurements of today, the city is about 1,400 miles wide, 1,400 miles long and 1,400 miles high. This is big, really big.
“How big is it”, you ask? A friend of mine did some math for us. “1400 miles by 1400 miles is 1960000 square miles, or, multiplying by 640 acres per square mile is 1,254,400,000 acres. If we assume it is like an office building with about 12 feet between floors, and 1400 miles high, we find the following. The height would be 1400 X 5280 feet per mile = 7,392,000feet, and dividing by 12 feet per floor = 616,000 floors. The total acreage of these floors would be 616,000 X 1,254,400,000 acres per floor = 7.7271 E 14, or, 772,710,000,000,000 or 772 trillion acres. If this were equally divided between 10 billion people, each person would have 77,271 acres. You can play all sorts of speculative games with this data. For example, let’s say you wanted room for trees to grow and since its easy math, assume 180 feet between each floor. Therefore, since the height of 180 is 15 times greater than 12, the area per person would decrease by 15 times, or 77,271 / 15 = 5151 acres each.”[1] I asked “google,” “What is the approximate number of people who have ever lived since Adam and Eve?” The answer was 117 billion. There are a lot of people and God has a very big house. This leaves room for about 7,000 acres per person in God’s Big House.
John 14:1-3 “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.”
Does John 14:1-3 prove one goes to heaven because Jesus is going there to prepare a place for all Christians? Answer: no.
- Jesus said, “No man has ascended up to heaven”. On the very first new covenant Pentecost Peter said David is dead and buried and his grave is with us today (Acts 2:29,34). The writer of the book of Hebrews after naming the righteous of God said, “And these all, having obtained a good report received not the promise” (Heb. 11:39). Since no one has ascended to heaven after they died their physical death, John 14: 1-3 can NOT be saying Jesus is preparing a place IN HEAVEN for His saints to go to. See the one-page article “Heaven” at coscog7.org.
- John 14:2…”in my house are many mansions”. Which “house is Jesus referring to? Jesus called the temple, “My Father’s house” in John 2:16. He never called heaven his “house” nor is the word “heaven even mentioned in these verses of John 14:1-3. The cultural historical context of the day is the Temple was surrounded by homes which were attached to and built around the exterior of the temple to house priests, Levites and worshippers. Any resident of Jerusalem of the time would have known exactly what Jesus was referring to, the temple. Note also the Greek word translated as “mansion” is “mone”. This Greek word can also be translated as “room, dwelling place, abode or mansions” (Strong’s #3438). Because it was translated from the Greek into English as “mansions” we tend to think of this verse as showing we will all have great homes and peace in heaven. Yet the context of the verse in the Greek and the cultural historical context says nothing of the sort.
- Where will Jesus be when we receive our reward which He has prepared for us and will we be with Him? John 14:3 Jesus says, “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”. Quite clearly Jesus goes away and prepares a place of abode for His saints and then He returns and the saints “mone” (room, dwelling place) with Him. His triumphant return is pictured in I Cor. 15:23-24; 51-54; I Thes. 4:15-17; Rev. 19:11-16).
- Where will this “dwelling place be”? While the apostles were standing on the Mount of Olives, they witnessed Jesus ascending up to heaven. Two angels suddenly appeared and told the Apostles that as Jesus went away, He shall in like manner come back again (Acts 1:9-11). This event will occur on the Day of the Lord and His return is shown in Zechariah 14:4. “And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives…”
We have clearly seen the future abode of the saints is NOT in heaven as some want to say but here on earth with Jesus. In His house is room for all. Jesus goes away to prepare for His return and with Him will be the reward of the saved, to live with Him forever more.
Mike Wallace
[1] Math computations by Merwin Jones and his son Brett Jones. The original question was “Concerning the New Jerusalem being 1,400 miles wide, long and high, how many square acres are in the cube we think of the New Jerusalem?”
