I agree with NTW that the passage refers to the immediate rest with Christ after death and not to the resurrected state in the new creation. Jesus is telling his disciples not to fear death; he is close by and they will be with him in his Father’s house if they die.

In mainstream Christianity I have heard that when Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions; I go to prepare a place for you,” He was of course referring to heaven. Many take this literally, as a physical dwelling place where we will live forever, and some take it more metaphorically, but still in the context of a future heaven we will go to.

But one interpretation I have heard more recently is that the verse reads, in Greek, “In my Father’s house are many abodes.” And this could mean that He is referring to the church in the here and now as the Father’s house. The “abodes” are the believers, us, who are each individually a dwelling place of God. I.e. our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Corporately, together, we as the church are the Father’s house. Jesus Christ, when He went to be with the Father (in resurrection), was preparing a place for us not in heaven but on earth. Now, as believers, we are already in the Father’s house. We are the many abodes. He lives in us, and we live in Him.

This to me is much better than a heavenly mansion. But I’m curious if you agree with this interpretation?

“I am well aware from my own ministry that there are moments of suffering where it should be clear to any Christian that “to depart and be with Christ is far better.” A visit to any hospital, nursing home or blighted community will underline this truth.”

To take it a bit further, as someone else said on the Too Much Heaven 1 thread, we in 21st-century America may well have a very unusual, even unprecedented, environment in which to consider heaven.

As few as 100 years ago, life was terribly difficult for most ordinary people, even in the U.S. Children worked in factories 14 hours a day; women routinely died in childbirth; even my relatively wealthy and educated grandmother was lucky, by the standards of her day, to have been able to raise five healthy children out of the eight she bore. Nowadays, for many of us, such suffering is seen only in the “hospital, nursing home or blighted community”

For people who are now living in the poor parts of the world, which are vastly more populated than our rich world, such sufferings are daily facts. Three out of five children in Africa, for instance, still die before their fifth birthday — and Africa is where Christianity is spreading very rapidly.

Even in the U.S., the Appalachian mountain living conditions were, until recently, lagging far behind the rest of the country. Those mountain region cultures, like the culture of American slaves before the Civil War, are the communities from which the most fervent “hope of heaven” teaching comes. Here in southern Ohio, the Appalachian foothills only 100 miles east, I have a friend whose aunt was a rural nurse some 40 or 50 years ago. My friend has recounted her aunt’s stories of going to isolated homes, helping the wife with childbirth, and learning that the newborn was going to be taken into the woods and “knocked on the head” to kill it, because the family was simply unable to afford another child. This is within the last hundred years, in this country, the richest nation in the world.

So for the world’s people who are living on the knife-edge of existence, suffering daily, with no hope for improvement in the future, an other-worldly Heaven may be a vital belief. Whether it is theologically sound is something I’m not qualified to debate. But you (Michael) do work in an area which was until recently an isolated and poor one, and the prevalence of the “Heaven’s my destination” message may in some ways reflect that simple economic fact.

Ken – Phillip Sampson, in his book ‘Six Modern Myths’ (IVP) has an excellent chapter on this issue.
Entitled ‘The Human Body – a Story of Repression’, it traces through from the Apostolic era to the present the various concepts and ideas which have essentially stole the cardinal truth concerning Creational (bodily) redemption from its key place in Christianity. It’s certainly time this was regained.

As I used to put it, “Heaven’s supposed to be better than Hell, but not by much.”

Now saying THAT around Christians can get you turned into a pile of rocks real easy.

The permanent triumph of God’s Kingdom is not the removal of God’s people to some distance city beyond space, but the appearance of the New Jerusalem in this world.

Somebody needs to tell that to all those Christians up on the roof in their white Rapture robes and marked-up copies of Left Behind, jumping up and down to get in practice.

I suspect the Victorian mania for bowdlerized sentimental romanticism had a lot to do with it.

Judaism is very “earthy”, and the respect for learning and wisdom (as well as the often-accompanying sense of humor) sure doesn’t hurt.

Judaism’s Earthiness makes a great counter to Too Much Heaven.

I’ve been really thinking about this post and part one of this post (particularly after your gentle rebuke ). I think what you are articulating here will have a greater transformative impact on those of us who have Christ as our Savior. It seems you captured this when you said “If this is true, there is a heavenly aspect to every human activity…” Wow! This thought alone has the ability to transform how we think about and do life.

Thanks for provoking Christ honoring thoughts in me.