Jesus Will Come Again

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also (John 14:3).

There are many texts in Scripture that give the Christian great comfort in times of distress, discouragement, even death. John 14:1-6 is one of those texts.

Jesus said, And if I go and prepare a place for you. The word ‘if’ (ean) is in a 3rd class conditional sentence, so it should be translated ‘since’. It makes perfect sense. Jesus said in v. 2, I go to prepare a place for you. That’s a promise He made to His disciples then, and to all who will be His disciples in the future. Why would Jesus make the promise in v. 2 only to question it in v. 3? He wouldn’t. So vv. 2-3 should read, 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? And since I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also. (By the way, in v. 2 Jesus said, In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so . . . . The word ‘if’ in that verse is ei, but it is a 2nd class conditional verse, which means it is an unfulfilled or questionable result. It is often translated ‘otherwise’, ‘but if not’, or ‘else’. The questionable result is laid to rest as being affirmed in v. 3).

There are 3 wonderful truths related to this place that Jesus is preparing for His disciples: (1) He will come and get us, (2) He will take us unto Himself, and (3) we will be with Him there. First, He will come and get us. This refers to the rapture, then the 2nd coming - two separate events in which Jesus comes to get His people. The rapture will occur at an unspecified time in the future, but is drawing very near. All that has been prophesied to occur before the rapture, has occurred. We are simply living ‘on borrowed time’, awaiting the time when He will appear.

The bodies of all who die believing in Jesus Christ (between the time of Acts 2 and the rapture, also known as ‘the age of grace’, or ‘the church age’; the time we are living in now) will remain on the earth, wherever and however their remains have been disposed, but their souls will immediately go to be with the Lord in heaven. At the rapture, Jesus will appear in the sky, but will not set foot on the earth. Those who have died during the church age will appear with Him. Their bodies will be resurrected from the grave, be transformed into glorified bodies, their souls will inhabit their bodies, and will remain with the Lord in the air. Those who are alive at the rapture, their bodies will be immediately transformed into physical, glorified, eternal bodies, and will rise up in the air to meet the Lord. All of this will happen in an instant, in ‘the twinkling of an eye’. The Apostle Paul makes this clear in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.

It is a blessed thought that Jesus will not ‘send’ for us when it is time for us to leave this earth, but He will actually come for us in person to take us to the Father’s house in heaven. What a glorious day that will be! Amen.

Pastor