“And I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and its lamp is the Lamb. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.” (Revelation 21:14) This is a spiritual city, one lit by the glory of God, which shines into it through Jesus, the Lamb of God (verse 22 & 23).
“I go to prepare a place for you…” We are God’s household, and are “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone. In whom all the building, fitly framed together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In whom you also are being built together for a habitation of God through the spirit.” (Ephesians 2:20-22)
Clearly, Jesus is telling his disciples that he is going to prepare a place for them in this heavenly temple. Your place in Christ is far better than any mansion in the Deep South of the United States, or anywhere else.
Do you know your place in Christ? Do you know who you are “in him”? The “mansions” that Jesus has prepared are places in the holy city, the New Jerusalem, the temple of God, the dwelling-place of God by His Spirit. “For you are the temple of the living God; as God has said, ‘I will dwell in them’…” (2 Corinthians 6:16) The Temple in the earthly Jerusalem provided rooms for its serving priests, and New Jerusalem also has rooms. 1 Peter 2:5 & 9, informs us that every believer serves as a royal priest in the household of God. Jesus has provided a place for you in the Father’s House!
You may be thinking that I am spiritualizing the “mansion” that God has waiting for you in heaven, and in so doing making it much less real than Jesus promised it would be. But I am simply saying that your “mansion” or room is your present place in Christ. I am not dismissing a future “mansion” but emphasising a present one. The Lord’s promises are real.
The Lord’s second coming will be physical. He will return in the same way he left (Acts 1:11). Spiritual things are no less real than physical things — they are just different in nature.
“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” You may have thought that this refers to the Second Coming — but does it? Please bear with me, while I present a case for the spiritual coming of Christ into our hearts now, as well as but as distinct from his physical return to earth, which is a future event.
“I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” (John 14:18) Well, you might say: Jesus came to them after he rose from the dead; and yes, he did. But read on, from verse 18. “Yet a little while, and the world sees me no more: but you [will] see me: because I live you shall live also. In that day you shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”
Jesus prays for this same unity in John 17:21-23, and in verse 24 prays: “Father, I will that they also, whom you have given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which you have given me.” Jesus said the meek shall inherit the earth, and that they will reign over it with him. So, when Jesus speaks of us being with him where he now is, his words have to apply to the present rather than to the future. Now we are with him where he is in heaven, but after his coming will be with him here on earth.