A staying.
Some years ago my weekday routine involved a commute from my home on the Kapiti Coast to my work in Wellington City. I tried several different types of transport – train, bus, car-pooling and my own car. This was in the days before the new highway made car travel more reliable between Wellington and Kapiti. The old road – ‘Centennial Highway’ – was pinched into two, narrow lanes which ran between a steep embankment and the rocky seacoast for a stretch of several kilometres. Needless to say, even a minor ‘nose-to-tail’ accident on the narrow road could cause a hold-up, and due to the high volumes of commuter traffic this quickly turned into a lengthy delay, with cars crawling along at walking pace. The train seemed to have many issues of its own, so the daily trip always held an element of uncertainty. Nonetheless, cheaper housing, beachside living and better weather meant the Coast retained its appeal for many as place to live, though work was often to be found in the capital.
The ’rush hour’ from the Kapiti Coast was early – 6:15am was my pickup when I car-pooled. Once through the choke points, commuters found themselves ahead of the Wellington rush hour closer to the city which only began in earnest after 7. When I followed this routine in my own car I would often stop at a picturesque, coastal inlet where I could park and have a coffee from my thermos beside the water no more than 100 metres from the highway. At certain times of the year I would reach the place around dawn, and the sunrise over the inlet was a scene of great beauty. My stop at the inlet often also became my ‘quiet time’ to pray and read the Bible.
On my way back from Wellington one day, as I approached the point where the highway passed the inlet, I was overcome by a tremendous sense of ‘home’ which seemed to fill my whole being. The feeling was one of great permanence, peace and belonging. I did not at the time associate this with the location. The feeling was spiritual, though it filled all my senses, and it seemed centred within, not in my surroundings. But in years since I have wondered what was the significance of that particular time and place when I had this profound experience. I certainly have wished I had taken time to pull over at my morning break spot which I passed soon after, even if just to reflect on what I was feeling. I was too captured by my routine to think of it at the time.
Profound feelings such as I describe above have happened rarely in my life, when a powerful, inner ‘knowing’ and awareness has saturated my being. I can remember less than five occasions. I often experience the presence of God in church meetings, and at other times, and I do not say that is a lesser experience. But these were occasions when a powerful, spiritual ‘event’ broke through into my daily life when I was least expecting it.
If I can share anything I have learned from these few experiences, it is, stop. Pause. Take time to fully soak up and contemplate what you are experiencing. In years following I have come to see meaning in these events, and not always how I interpreted them at the time. In my view, they are sovereign acts of God in a person’s life. They happen at times of significance and places of significance to God, not necessarily of any particular significance to us. So the meaning of these events – and their timing and location – must be sought from God.
One thing I have taken from my spiritual encounter with ‘home’ was simply a revelation of what it is like to have one. My own story is that I was adopted as a baby no more than a few weeks old, and while I was well cared for in my adopted home, and felt no trauma from knowing I was adopted (which I had always known since before I can remember) I did not bond to my adopted family in the way I now understand people can bond. I did not ever miss my family if separated from them. Which is not to say I did not care for them. But neither did I feel special attachment to the place I lived with my family. And in fact, in all my life since, there has never been any physical place I have felt to be home. So the spiritual revelation of home which I received from God has made known to me something otherwise completely outside my experience, and which I do not think I will otherwise experience this side of eternity.
The Bible teaches that my lack of a feeling of belonging is something others of faith have experienced. Hebrews 11 notes that Abraham, to whom the land which became Israel was promised by God, dwelt there as a stranger, owning only the field of Machpelah with the cave where he buried Sarah his wife, and where he himself was later buried.
‘By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.’ (Hebrews 11:9-10)
‘These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.’ (Hebrews 11:13-14)
When asked by Pharaoh how old he was, Jacob (whom God had re-named Israel) replied:
‘The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.’ (Genesis 47:9)
A pilgrimage is not a home; it is a journey. And though these patriarchs of all men had more reason than any other to count a place as home – the place promised them by none other than God – yet they did not count themselves as having arrived, though they spent time in an earthly version of that very place. And truly, though our home and theirs be in a world to come, the region of this present earth given by God to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was and is indeed promised to them.
Recently I heard preaching about the home given to us by God. The message drew on the following scripture.
‘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. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.’ (John 14:1-4)
The preacher asserted that the word ‘mansion’ was an error made by the translators of the King James Bible, which should rather have been translated as ‘dwelling place’ or ‘room’. Furthermore, according to the preacher, the subject of the passage was not so much about a dwelling place in a world to come, but in this world now.
Those who know me a little will anticipate that statements about mistakes in the Bible, in particular the King James Bible, suggesting that the reader of such will be lead astray without the superior knowledge and instruction of scholars, linguists, and in particular the maker of such statements – you may know that this type of teaching is to me as ‘a red rag to a bull’. (And that is not to cast doubt on other English translations; I simply have limited personal experience of those so cannot testify of them in the same way.) So a rant of sorts by me can be anticipated, and here it is, following.
From my forty or so years of reading the King James Bible I can say that God, in his dealings with me, stands by every word of it. In English.
Concerning the Old Testament scriptures, Jesus said, ‘Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.’ (Matthew 5:18)
And when Jesus speaks of ‘jots’ and ‘tittles’ I understand these are references to punctuation marks i.e. written language. What are we to make of this then? That God purposed to present a perfect Old Testament in written form, so much so that the very punctuation marks were inseparable from its perfect form – but was unable or unwilling to present the New Testament, the testimony of Jesus himself, the Son of God, as anything more than flawed, human scholarship and effort? Or that, having conveyed the New Testament scriptures perfectly in the original languages, be they Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic I have heard it said (I am no scholar of the languages myself) – having translated the Bible, as it were, from heaven to earth – God was unable to arrange an accurate translation into English?
I expect it is likely that so far as the works of men are concerned, mistakes were made in the translation of the Bible, including the King James version. Is that not how God works perfectly through our lives every day and every hour? That in his divine genius and astonishing grace, God accomplishes perfect works through the actions of fumbling servants such as ourselves?
But even more worrying – though not, in my view surprising – is that the preacher of this message not only favours the thoughts and words of men over those of God, but presents a view of this whole passage of scripture which seems to ignore its obvious purpose, at least as originally spoken by the Lord. (I say not surprising because, as soon as one hears men exalting their knowledge over the clear statements of God, worse folly is sure to follow.)
In actual fact, I should note the preacher whom I heard in this instance is to my knowledge not such an unhelpful person as I seem to be suggesting, but I expect was simply repeating the contorted imaginings of some preacher or other on YouTube or similar, no doubt with thousands or millions of ‘views’ to their name.
The passage where Jesus speaks of ‘mansions’ (that is the word which is to become more the subject of this writing once I have purged myself of frustration and fury at its misrepresentation) is a discourse given by Jesus to his disciples on the eve of his crucifixion and death, followed by his resurrection, and sometime later by his ascension. So before any blind leaders of the blind would have us stumble further into their company, let us remind ourselves of some essential truths given graciously to us by our Lord through the Bible.
1) Jesus is in heaven.
‘So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.’ (Mark 16:19)
‘And when he [Jesus] had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.’ (Acts 1:9-11)
‘Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens;’. (Hebrews 8:1)
2) The Holy Spirit is present with us.
‘But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.’ (John 15:26)
‘This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear.’ (Acts 2:32-34)
3) Jesus will come again in bodily form from heaven to earth.
‘And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken of by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.’ (Act 3:21)
4) As at the time of writing, Jesus has not yet returned from heaven to earth in personal, bodily form as promised above.
‘Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.’ (Matthew 24:26-27)
‘And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.’ (Matthew 24:30-31)
Therefore, when Jesus says ‘lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world’, I understand this to mean that Jesus, being one with the Father and the Holy Spirit who is personally present with us – Jesus therefore knows everything about our situation and even our thoughts continually, and by the presence of the Holy Spirit with us, Jesus is present with us also. That does not mean he did not ‘go’ as he told his disciples he would in the scriptures above, and as they saw him go, or that his return will not be the magnificent, universally recognized and world-changing, physical event that the scriptures tell us it will be.
All these things: Jesus’ birth and life as a man, his death, resurrection, majesty, coming return, and so many other vital truths – these are continually under assault from within the Church and without. The idea that by Jesus’ ministry within us and in the world, the world will somehow continually improve and become in some sense heavenly, and the scriptures about Jesus’ bodily return in glory, and his making of a new heavens and a new earth, making all things new – that these things are largely figurative and might happen around us already while we scarcely notice it – these obstructions of the truth have been rolled out repeatedly in various forms and I expect may be again, along with all sorts of other, tedious concoctions. As someone who reads and believes the Bible I do at times forget how teachings obviously at odds with the Bible crash like incessant waves upon the shore of the Church, and perhaps undermine the footing of some.
There. Having got that off my chest so to speak, let us consider this statement about ‘mansions’.
‘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.’ (John 14:1-4)
Jesus’ statement is not one that makes ordinary sense in some ways. A mansion is itself a large house. A house may be described as having rooms (though in this instance I believe Jesus is speaking of the family of his Father, not just a physical house) but it is unusual to speak of a house containing within itself other, large houses i.e. mansions.
When I find in the Bible a statement which does not seem to make ordinary sense I take that as in indication of one of several things. Either I am not reading it correctly and so not understanding what is written. Or, my more general understanding is incorrect, in which case I cannot understand what is written because it clashes with other misunderstandings I already have. Or, the writers and/or translators of the Bible were trying to express something unusual which doesn’t fit within our normal understanding of the world, or of spiritual things.
Furthermore – my impression of the King James Bible from having read it is that it is a literal translation. Others disagree. But it seems to me that when the translators of the King James Bible were not sure what something in the original texts meant, they simply put what it said, regardless that it may sound odd in English. And the passage in John 14 about mansions seems to me a possible example of that.
Nothing in all my reading of the Bible suggests to me that the translators went out of their way to write things which sound strange in English. If it sounds strange, it is for a reason. And I do not assume that if something sounds strange or I cannot understand it, then it may be because the translators made a mistake. Because it appears to me from their work – from the King James Bible itself – that an extraordinary measure of the grace of God operated through those people, most likely more than I may ever have the unspeakable privilege of knowing in my own life. So it is most likely I who am mistaken in some way, not them.
In the case of the ‘mansions’, I had never been troubled by this phrase until I heard the preaching on it recently. I had simply taken it that the word in scripture was meant to express something more than what would immediately have been imagined if the word ‘house’ or ‘room’ had been used. And I presumed something in the original texts must have suggested that. As said, I have not found the King James Bible to contain fancies introduced by the translators, or that they have shied away from anything which the scriptures clearly say. (I suspect there may have been less ‘PC’ pressure on Bible translators in the early 17th century concerning many things which are considered controversial today, nonetheless they would have had other pressures to contend with, such as characterized their own time in history.)
It seemed to me that in John 14, Jesus is not speaking about a dwelling place in this present earth because, as mentioned, he was on the eve of the events which led to his departure from the earth. ‘I go,’ he said. And, ‘I will come again’. And, ‘Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards.’ (John 13:36)
So, Jesus was speaking of his departure from this mortal life – though he himself was immortal, yet he died, the Bible tells us, on our behalf and for our salvation. And the place where he went – ‘whither I go’ – was in his life after death. Peter seemed to understand this, and Jesus did not refute his understanding, though he questioned Peter about where that would lead him.
‘Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake. Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, the cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied my thrice.’ (John 13:38)
So it seems to me that Peter and Jesus both understood that where Jesus was going was a place in life after death. Jesus was not speaking about a place in this present earth now, as I heard the preacher say, because Jesus departed this earth and has not returned in the flesh (though he was present with the disciples periodically for a season after his death, before his ascension). And the ‘mansions’ are in the place where Jesus will be also in the day when we, by the astonishing grace of God, enter that place.
At this point I must confess to assumptions I may have made myself concerning John 14. I realize I had, without thinking particularly on it, imagined the ‘mansions’ to be in a heavenly place. And while I believe that is true in essence, I realize now I cannot exclude the possibility that Jesus may have been speaking about this present earth, but in an age to come, following his return. Because – and this will have to wait for a future study to examine and verify in detail – I understand that Jesus will return to this present earth, and reign here, and also create ‘a new heavens and a new earth’ at some stage following that.
‘Seeing that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness,’ (2 Peter 3:11-13)
But let me now return to the subject of ‘mansions’ which, in the first place, was the only thing I meant to write about. So, seeing the meaning of this word and its validity challenged by the preacher, I resorted to my ‘Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible’. For those who are not familiar with the joys of this book (I am not being facetious) it contains a list of every word of the King James Bible, with references to the corresponding words of the original Greek or Hebrew texts from which the English words were taken.
For example, according to Strong’s the word ‘room’ occurs 30 times in the Bible: 17 times in the Old Testament and 13 times in the New Testament (the scripture reference for each occurrence and part of the verse containing the word are shown in the concordance). That is for the singular, ‘room’; there are more instances of ‘rooms’, etc. Four different Hebrew words are translated as ‘room’ in different places in the Old Testament, and seven different Greek words in the New Testament. But just one of those Greek words is translated also in other places as ‘licence’, ‘place’, ‘coast’, etc. That word – roughly represented in the Roman alphabet as ‘topos’ – can mean an ‘opportunity’ or a ‘place’ e.g. ‘I have no room where to bestow my fruits’ (Luke 12:17). Whereas another word translated as ‘room’ may mean more specifically a physical room in a building, or some other type of ‘room’, and some are also be translated as other words.
What, therefore, does Strong’s tell us about ‘mansions’?
The concordance tells us there is only one occurrence of the word ‘mansions’ in the King James Bible. (‘Mansion’ singular does not occur.) That is the reference above in John 14:2.
Moreover, the Greek word translated as ‘mansions’ – roughly in English represented as ‘monay’ – is used only twice in the whole Bible (in the New Testament): once translated as ‘mansions’ in John 14:2, and once translated as ‘abode’ in John 14:23 – the same discourse in which Jesus speaks about the ‘mansions’.
‘Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. (John 14:23)
‘Our abode with him’, and ‘in my Father’s house are many mansions’ – these two references appear essentially to be talking about the same thing – a place of our dwelling with God. So this one Greek word is used only twice, in same passage, and to mean the same thing, or aspects of the same thing.
I felt my confidence in the translators (at least in the grace of God working through them) somewhat vindicated discovering these things, because if the Greek word is used nowhere else in the Bible, then it is not surprising that it is translated there into an English word, ‘mansions’, which also occurs nowhere else in the Bible. But Strong’s goes one step further; it lists its own, direct translation of the word.
According to Strong’s, the word translated ‘mansions’ and ‘abode’ in John 14 means ‘a staying’.
‘A staying’. The moment I saw that strange definition (is there even such a thing in the English language? a ‘staying’?) my mind went back to the revelation I received so many years before on my return commute as I approached the inlet, the place of my morning solace and communion with God. A sense of home, deep beyond measure, lasting, peaceful, saturated with belonging and fullness. This is a home we cannot fully enter in our mortal lifetime, because it stretches far beyond our mortal life. It is a home which cannot be fully present in the present earth, because as Peter tells us, ‘the elements shall melt with fervent heat’ – but this home shall never pass away. The mansions Jesus speaks of are our eternal dwelling with God. Be that now, or in the ages to come, or in the heavens and the earth now present, or in those to come – these are everlasting dwellings.
It makes sense to me now why ‘dwelling place’ or ‘room’ were not chosen by the translators of this word in the Bible. Because, when we think of those things, we imagine them in this world where the most permanent of dwellings is fleeting by comparison with the home to which our Lord Jesus calls us. ‘Mansions’, likewise, in this earth pass away. But a mansion represents the enduring seat of a family, a statement of permanence, however inadequate that can only be in this world. So I feel I understand the translator’s choice, their struggle to express something for which there is no language, because none living have fully entered into it. Our home with God.
Praise be to God who has called us to dwell with him in the mansions of his great house for ever and ever. Amen.
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