When you think about the significance of God’s coming to dwell with us in Jesus, most people think about salvation. “Jesus came and died for my sins.” This is most definitely the truth, though a drastic oversimplification of the importance of Jesus’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Immediately thinking about Jesus saving me from my sins is also, to be completely honest, a slightly selfish way of thinking about God’s work in Jesus. It simplifies the work of Jesus down to what he has done for me rather than how he has drawn me into God’s story that encompasses the entire world. 

Nevertheless, we must consider Jesus’s incarnation as salvific because Jesus, and only Jesus, saves. One passage people often turn to when speaking about salvation and heaven in John 14:1–4, which says, 

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.”

We like and remember these verses because of the rendering of the King James, which has Jesus saying that in his Father’s house are many “mansions.” So, we sing songs like “Mansion Over the Hilltop” and talk about how we cannot wait to go and live in our mansion in heaven. However, mansion is not the word Jesus uses. He uses the Greek word noun monē, which comes from the Greek verb menō, meaning to remain, abide, stay, or dwell. Jesus is saying that in his Father’s house there are many places for us to stay or abide. The imagery is much closer to God’s house being like an apartment complex with plenty of apartments for each of us to live in. 

With that thought aside, what’s interesting is that the language Jesus uses here to speak about heaven does not emphasize heaven as a place we long to go but as a relationship we long to have. Jesus speaks about his “Father’s house,” emphasizing his intimate and unique relationship with God as Father. This fits well with the use of “heaven” throughout John’s Gospel, where John uses the term “heaven” to emphasize Jesus’s unique connection to God as the one who has come down from heaven (cf. John 3:31; 6:41). 

The emphasis on relationship can also be seen in the other use of monē and menō in John 14. In John 14:10, Jesus says that the Father “dwells” (menō) in him, and in John 14:23, Jesus says that both he and God will come and “make our home” (monē) in those who obey his teachings. These two additional uses of the terms for remaining/abiding emphasize the relationship God has with Jesus and the relationship with God and Jesus that has been opened up to us. 

Jesus then says in John 14:5–7 how we gain access to such a relationship. 

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” 

Jesus says that he is “the way” to a relationship with God. In Judaism, the term “way” does not typically refer to a path from Point A to Point B but rather to a way of life (cf. Psalm 119:1). Jesus is saying that the way he is opening for us is a way of life in full relationship with God. As such, Jesus is the embodiment of this way and has given us access to this way. 

This concept is reinforced by the subsequent two terms Jesus uses. He continues by saying that he is “the truth.” That is the standard of living for the way. We live a way of life in full relationship with God by living in the truth. We model our lives after the truth we see in the life of Jesus and the truth taught by Jesus. 

Jesus is also “the life.” Jesus’s own life, his giving up of that life in death, and his taking up of his life again in the resurrection frees us from slavery to sin and opens up access to a new way of life—a way of life in relationship with God, but also the hope of eternal life where we get to dwell with God and God with us for all eternity. 

Jesus’s point in saying all of this is simple: pursue after Jesus and find God. It is only through Jesus that we find “the way” to true life in relationship with God. We cannot achieve this life except through the forgiveness found in Jesus. We cannot see this way of life except in the life of Jesus. We cannot learn this way of life except through the teachings of Jesus. We cannot hope for the fullness of this way of life except through the resurrection of Jesus. 

By: Spencer Shaw

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