The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed by Kathy Shortridge of Billings, Montana from the tape, GC 1301-P, titled "Bible Questions and Answers Part 18."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE. ©1981. All Rights Reserved.

Question

The question I have has to do with John 14:2 where he is talking about (in the New American Standard), he’s talking about, "In my Father's house are many dwelling places." In the King James version it says "mansions" and I was just wondering is it "mansions" or "dwelling places"?

Answer:

Well its dwelling places, but I’ll promise you this, there going to be a whole lot like mansions. The actual Greek word is "dwelling places." I can even go further than that. The real Greek word is "room."
How could you say in my Father's house are many mansions? Have you ever seen a house with a bunch of mansions in it? You could say in my Father's house are many dwelling places, but that doesn’t even make sense. What the Greek says, "Is in my Father's house there are many rooms."

You know when I was a little kid I use to imagine Heaven as a big, big, place--sort of like London. Because somebody told me basically that the square 15x15x15, you know 1500 cubits by 1500 cubits by 1500 cubits is suppose to be the city, the eternal city, the New Jerusalem. If you figure 1500 cubed, its so huge that it would be the square area of London only cubed. I mean which is tremendous, you could hold everybody who ever lived in the world and still have room.*

So I imagined heaven as this big place and all these gold roads everywhere and we’d be 8 blocks down and 16 blocks to the left and there would be our big mansion and somebody would be down the street and all of this. That’s the way I grew up thinking. Then when I got into studying that text, when I went through John's gospel, it became apparent that what it was saying, "Is that in my Father's house are many rooms." I’m not going to be 18 blocks down and 16 to the left. I’m going to be in the Father's house. Were not going to be separated were going to be together. That’s the essence of it, in my Fathers house are many rooms. Were not just going to be in the same city were going to be in the same house.

*Note: Correction in the dimensions from the John MacArthur Study Bible:

Revelation 21:16 - length, breadth, and height. "The city has the symmetrical dimensions of a perfect cube, which parallels its closest earthly counterpart, the inner sanctuary in the tabernacle and temple (cf. 1 Kin. 6:20). twelve thousand furlongs. This would be nearly 1,400 mi. cubed or over two million square miles, offering plenty of room for all the glorified saints to live." -- John F. MacArthur, Jr., The MacArthur Study Bible, (Dallas: Word Publishing) 1997.

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
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