"In My Father's house are many mansions.... I go to prepare a place for you." John 14:22In 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. (John 14:2). It was in His Father's house, the place that He occupied as Son, where He was at home; there He was going to prepare my place. This is unspeakable blessing! It was a comfort, a joy to have Christ with them in the world, but that was by the way. He was going to prepare a place where He was at home. Think what the home of such a heart as His must be, where all His divine affections would flow out, the divine Son, and yet a Man, and to think that this is the place where He is going to take us. What a wonderful thing! What a home must that be!
"I will come again, and receive you unto Myself." Not call you up; that would not do. Not send for you; that would not do. But, "I will come." How touching! Though gone into glory and sitting on His Father's throne, He would leave it to come and fetch us into His Father's house. His affections are so set on us that He is not satisfied without coming Himself for us; He would not send. It is not only the blessedness to us of His coming Himself for us, but it is the expression of Christ's heart. He wants it-wants to have us. It is His own interest in us-His love to us. When we know that, then the heart is drawn out to Himself. No doubt it is an unspeakable blessing to us, but it is the revelation of Christ Himself. The one and only blessed hope of the Church is that He would come again and fetch us. Confidence is sure that when we are unclothed we shall be with the Lord-"Absent from the body... present with the Lord," Yet that is not the hope; the hope is that He will come and fetch us. It is on His heart and should be on ours. They went out to meet the Bridegroom; that was the condition of the Church at the first. Converted to wait for His Son from heaven, they all went to sleep, wise as well as foolish, and had to be waked by the midnight cry. It was, "My lord delayeth his coming," that brought deadness into the Church, that led to the eating and drinking and drunkenness and beating the men-servants and maid-servants.
This is no truth that may or may not be held. It is essential to the daily life of the Christian. If I am daily expecting Christ, I shall not like to be in any place where I would not like Him to find me, and whatever would not please Him, I should put off, whatever it is. We are looking for One who loves us. His heart wants us, and He is going to satisfy His heart. It is not prophecy; prophecy has to do with God's government of this world, and it is very interesting in its place, but it has nothing to do with our hope.