John 14:2:

In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

Full Question:

In John 14:2 Jesus said he goes to prepare a place for us. My question is: why do we need a place (room; mansion)? When we get there,
there will be no private entertainment such as television, we probably will not have a need to be alone so we won’t need a room for solitude,
we won’t need the privacy of using a bathroom because the body will probably consume all of what we eat, and we probably won’t need sleep due to the nature of our glorified bodies.

Don’t get me wrong, My wife and I are excited at having at place near Jesus. We can hardly wait for the rapture to take place so we can be with him. I don’t believe the Bible answers my question so I thought you might have a little insight I don’t have.

Thank you for your time and I hope to hear from you soon.”

Answer to the question

The question may be in danger of looking for a over-literal interpretation of what Jesus says. Taken literally, the question reads John 14:2 to mean that God has a house with lots and lots of rooms in it and Jesus is going to make sure each of these rooms is got ready for the saved to abide in it. But we know that the Kingdom is not going to be a single house but instead will fill the whole world, so we need to take the idea of a “room” less literally.

Jesus is saying that there are plenty of spaces in the Kingdom, plenty of dwellings for everyone who will turn to him for salvation and that the reason Jesus ascended to heaven was to complete the work that ensures our salvation. Nothing about physical abodes is implied.

As to the other points in the question; whether we will have separate rooms in the Kingdom, I don’t know the answer to that. I do not know whether our resurrected bodies will require bathroom breaks or not. I do not know whether our resurrected bodies will require sleep. I do not know whether we will be so gloriously happy that we never mind company or whether being gloriously content we’ll be happy to abide in solitude for a while. I do not know whether there will be entertainment or not. These are questions I don’t think we can plausibly answer this side of the resurrection.

The rapture?

Just to note in passing; there are a number of side issues in the question than actual rooms, for example the question mentions “the rapture” and getting “there”, and seems to suggest a rapture to heaven. That isn’t going to happen. The only angelic gathering prophesied by Jesus and Paul is to a central point on earth, Jerusalem. But there are other answer pages on that.

A more general point – a non literal room

The idea of room may be wrong anyway. Note that the word “rooms”, in old English Bibles “mansions” (Greek adobe) just means “dwelling places” not literal chambers. The only other place in the New Testament the word “mansion” (Greek adobe) occurs is here in the same chapter, in John 14:23. That indicates a present day application. Not the rapture, not the second coming.

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2 Responses to In John 14:2 Jesus said he goes to prepare a place for us. Why will we need a place/room/mansion in the Kingdom?

  1. emjee says:

    Regarding the question that was asked about the “Mansions” in John 14:2 The Greek word for “Mansion” is “Meno” Which simply means “A place for rest”.

  2. Matthew Tuckson says:

    I would suggest it is saying something else. 1 Tim 3:15 suggests Gods house isn’t the kingdom. It’s the church. Eph 1:22-23 suggests the church is the body of Christ. The Greek for “mansion” is venues or places, not specifically the type of place. So I’d suggest it’s saying Christ went away to make a place for us in his body. It could also be Christ telling the people there would be literally many places in the body. What I mean is, at the time jews had one place of worship, the temple. After 70 A.D. that changed and Christ could be literally have can saying that will change. Either way, Gods house isn’t the kingdom rather the church which is his body. We can’t assume Gods house = kingdom especially when scripture says something else in 1 Tim 3:15.

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