Let us read on in chapter fourteen from verses 21 to 23: “He who has My commandments and keeps them, he is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him. Judas, not Iscariot, said to Him, Lord, and what has happened that You are to manifest Yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus answered and said to him, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him.” Abode here and abodes in verse 2—“in My Father’s house are many abodes”—are the same word in Greek. In verse 2 it is plural, but here it is singular. At this point you can realize that the abodes mentioned in verse 2 are a group of people who love the Lord, fellowship with the Lord, and live in the Lord, and to whom the Lord manifests Himself, as seen in verses 21 through 23. Abodes in verse 2 cannot refer to another entity—heaven—because they are mentioned in the same chapter of the Bible and in the same message given by the Lord Jesus. Therefore, we can say with certainty that the abodes do not refer to a place but to a person. The abodes are the group of people who believe in the Lord, love the Lord, have fellowship with the Lord, live in the Lord, and allow the Lord to manifest Himself to them and dwell together with them. This group of people is the many abodes in the Father’s house.
Let us read further. “Jesus answered and said to him,...He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me. These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you; but the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and remind you of all the things which I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. You have heard that I said to you, I am going away and I am coming to you. [This is the third time the Lord said that His going was His coming]. If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe” (vv. 23-29).
Brothers and sisters, let me ask you, according to the context, what was the thing that would happen when the Lord said, “When it happens you may believe”? Was it that the Lord would ascend to heaven? No, if you read from chapter fourteen through chapter twenty, you will see that the Lord was referring to His being resurrected from the dead to bring man into God and to bring Himself into man. When this would happen, the disciples would believe.
Now we go on to verses 30 and 31: “I will no longer speak much with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and in Me he has nothing; but this is so that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father commanded Me, so I do. Rise, let us go from here.”
By now I believe that you have understood the words in John 14. Let us go on to read chapter fifteen, which immediately follows chapter fourteen. “I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes it away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing” (vv. 1-5).
Because chapter fourteen already says that one day something in particular would happen—that the Lord would be resurrected from the dead and bring us into God, and that He Himself would also abide in us—in chapter fifteen there is the fact of the union of the vine and branches. The fact that we can abide in the Lord and the Lord can abide in us so that He and we can have a mutual abode is altogether the result of the Lord’s going and coming—His death and resurrection in chapter fourteen. Without the events in chapter fourteen, there cannot be the fact in chapter fifteen. The fact in John 15 is that we abide in the Lord and the Lord abides in us. Our union and mingling with the Lord is the same as the union of the branches with the vine. This union makes it possible for God and man to have a mutual abode and thereby accomplish the building of God.
That is why I repeatedly say that in chapter fourteen the Father’s house does not refer to heaven, and the many abodes do not refer to many rooms in heaven. The Father’s house refers to the building of God in the universe, and the many abodes are people who are mingled with God and who abide in God. Everyone who is mingled with God and abides in God is an abode in which God abides. At the same time, God is their abode because they abide in God. Only when we come to chapter fifteen do we have the utterance concerning mutual abiding: “Abide in Me and I in you” (v. 4).