In the next four messages we will consider the aspects of the experience and enjoyment of Christ in chapters fourteen through seventeen of the Gospel of John.
Chapters fourteen through seventeen reveal Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God.
Chapter fourteen unveils that Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God is the Father’s house. The Father’s house signifies the mingling of the Triune God with His redeemed people; this is the mutual abode where God dwells in man and man dwells in God (vv. 2, 20, 23).
The Father’s house is Christ enlarged with His believers to be God’s fullness (the Body of Christ as God’s full expression) through His going—His death, and in His coming—His resurrection (Eph. 3:19b). In John 14:2 and 3 the Lord Jesus told His disciples, “In My Father’s house are many abodes; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again and will receive you to Myself, so that where I am you also may be.” According to 2:16, My Father’s house in 14:2 refers to the temple, the body of Christ, as God’s dwelling place. At first the Father’s house as God’s dwelling place was only the individual body of Christ (2:16, 21). But through Christ’s death and resurrection, the body of Christ has increased to be His corporate Body, which is the church, including all His believers, who have been regenerated through His resurrection (1 Pet. 1:3). In Christ’s resurrection the church is the Body of Christ, which is the house of God (1 Tim. 3:15; 1 Pet. 2:5; Heb. 3:6), God’s habitation (Eph. 2:21-22), God’s temple.
Furthermore, the many abodes in John 14:2 are the many members of the Body of Christ (v. 23; Rom. 12:5), which is God’s temple (1 Cor. 3:16-17). The Father’s house is the resurrected temple—Christ raised up with His members, His believers (John 2:19-21). According to Ephesians 2:6 and 1 Peter 1:3, we, the members of Christ, have been raised up with Him. As members of the Body of Christ raised up with Him, all the believers in Christ are the abodes, the rooms, in the Father’s house. Hence, the Father’s house is Christ enlarged with His believers to be God’s fullness, the Body of Christ as the full expression of God.
It was through His death and in His resurrection that Christ was enlarged with His believers to be the Father’s house—a mutual abode where God abides in man and man abides in God. Speaking of His death, the Lord said in John 14:2, “I go to prepare a place for you.” The Lord’s going was to pave the way for man to be in God, that is, to bring man into God for the building of His dwelling place. For man to allow God to dwell in him, man must firstly get into Him. If man does not get into God, God will not get into man. Once man dwells in God, then God will dwell in man. But between man and God there were many obstacles, such as sin, sins, death, the world, the flesh, the self, the old man, and Satan. For the Lord to bring man into God, He had to solve all these problems. Therefore, He had to go to the cross to accomplish redemption that He might open the way and make a standing for man, that man might enter into God. This standing in God, being enlarged, becomes the standing in the Body of Christ. Anyone who does not have a standing, a place, in God does not have a place in the Body of Christ, which is God’s dwelling place. Hence, His death—His going in order to accomplish His redemption—was to prepare a place in His Body (the Father’s house) for the disciples.