Monday

Related Verses
John 14:1-2
1 Do not let your heart be troubled; believe into God, believe also into Me.
2 In My Father’s house are many abodes; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.

1 Tim. 3:15
15 But if I delay, I write that you may know how one ought to conduct himself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and base of the truth.

John 2:16
16 And to those who were selling the doves He said, Take these things away from here; do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise.

Eph. 2:21-22
21 In whom all the building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord;
22 In whom you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in spirit.

1 Peter 2:5
5 You yourselves also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house into a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Related Reading
John 14:1 reveals two very important points. The first is that the Lord is the same as God. If one believes into God, he must also believe into the Lord, for the Lord is the same as God Himself. In fact, the Lord is God Himself.

The second important point in 14:1 is that believing God is different from believing into God. You may say that you believe God, but do you believe into God?…The basic thought of this chapter is that the Lord intended to help or instruct the disciples to be in God. We must remember that to believe God is objective but to believe into God is subjective. It is this kind of subjective believing that brings us into God. In effect, the Lord was saying, “If you believe into God, you must also believe into Me.” The preposition into is very important…We must not miss the preposition. It is not a matter of believing the fact objectively; it is a matter of the subjective believing that brings us into God. The central thought of this chapter is that we must believe into God. (Life-study of John, 2nd ed., pp. 336, 338)

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According to the natural concept, most Christians think that the Father’s house mentioned in John 14:2 must refer to the third heaven where God the Father dwells. But we must not interpret the Bible according to our natural concepts. Rather, we must interpret the Scripture with the Scripture…The phrase My Father’s house is used twice in the Gospel of John. It is used the first time in 2:16, where it clearly refers to the temple, the dwelling place of God on earth. The temple is a type, a figure, of the body of Jesus (v. 21), which…has in resurrection been enlarged into the Body of Christ…In 2:16 My Father’s house refers to the temple on earth. It does not denote a place in the heavens but God’s temple on earth. Since the temple is the type of the body of Jesus, the body of Jesus is the tabernacle (1:14), the temple, for God’s dwelling place on earth. This interpretation of the phrase My Father’s house is clearly shown in chapter 2…We should not take this phrase in 14:2 to have a different meaning from the same phrase found in 2:16, for that would be illogical. The second time that this phrase is used in the same Gospel, it must have the same definition as the first time it is used. Thus, the Father’s house in chapter 14 must also mean God’s dwelling place on earth. It cannot mean the third heaven. In chapter 2 the Father’s house is eventually the Body of Christ, and in chapter 14 it must also be the Body of Christ… Now we have the proper interpretation of the phrase My Father’s house: it is the Body of Christ, that is, the church.

In the Epistles the revelation that the Body of Christ is the church and that the church is the house of God is fully developed. First Timothy 3:15 discloses that the church is the house of the living God. Hence, the Father’s house must mean the house of the living God on earth and not in heaven. First Corinthians 3:16 tells us that the believers, as a whole entity, are the temple of God. First Peter 2:5 says that we, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house…Furthermore, Hebrews 3:6 says that we are the house of God, and Ephesians 2:21-22 says that the believers are being built together as God’s dwelling place, not in the heavens but in spirit. Thus, the whole New Testament supports the interpretation, as found in the Gospel of John itself, that the Father’s house is eventually the Body of Christ. The Father’s house in the Gospel of John and in the whole New Testament is not heaven but the Body of Christ, which is the church as the dwelling place, the habitation of God on earth. (Life-study of John, 2nd ed., pp. 338-339)

Further Reading: Life-study of John, msgs. 29—30