Did Jesus Go To Prepare For Us Literal "Mansions?"

"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."

John 14:2-3

 

In my own experience, every time I have ever heard this passage taught on, the pastor or teacher always without fail has said that these are not literal mansions. He will tell the audience or class that instead of being literal buildings that Christ has gone to prepare for us, all He is doing is just making for us a dwelling place in heaven.

 

I understand that Jesus is aiming to comfort His disciples as He is telling them of His upcoming betrayal and death, but what if Jesus was serious? I mean, am I even allowed to question this? I dare say that we as believers in Christ should learn to question everything that everybody ever tells us in Scripture.

Heaven is a big place. I don't think that God needs to make sure there is room in heaven for another believer.

 

Actually, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you may not necessarily be spending eternity in heaven anyway. Did I just say what you thought I said? Again, I say that born again Christians might not be spending eternity with God in heaven.

 

Now before you stone me, hear me out. Believers will be able to go to heaven, but Revelation 21 speaks of a new earth in which we will mainly be spending eternity with God there. Heaven and the New Earth are two distinct places. They are not the same.

When you think about heaven or the New Earth what generally comes to mind? Streets of gold? Tree of life? God? Well, upon typing "heaven" into google images I found that the pictures that actually attempt to describe visually what heaven might look like generally include buildings...

Could these be the mansions that Jesus talks to His disciples directly about? Why is it that so many of us read the above Scripture passage and attempt to do away with the literal mansion idea, yet when we visualize what heaven or the New Earth look like we always seem to visualize a city with mansions in it.

So I leave you with this thought: What if Christ is actually preparing a place for us...literally?