The Many Mansions.
What a home aspect there is in this “word of Jesus!” He comforts His Church by telling them that soon their wilderness-wanderings will be finished,—the tented tabernacle suited to their present probation-state exchanged for the enduring “mansion!” Nor will it be any strange dwelling: a Father’s home—a Father’s welcome awaits them. There will be accommodation for all. Thousands have already entered its shining gates,—patriarchs, prophets, saints, martyrs, young and old, and still there is room!
The pilgrim’s motto on earth is, “Here we have no continuing city.” Even “Sabbath tents” must be struck. Holy seasons of communion must terminate. “Arise, let us go hence!” is a summons which disturbs the sweetest moments of tranquillity in the Church below; but in Heaven, every believer becomes a pillar in the temple of God, and “he shall go no more out.” Here it is but the lodging of a wayfarer turning aside to tarry for the brief night of earth. Here we are but “tenants at will;” our possessions are but moveables—ours to-day, gone to-morrow. But these many “mansions” are an inheritance incorruptible and unfading. Nothing can touch the heavenly patrimony. Once within the Father’s house, and we are in the house for ever!
Think, too, of Jesus, gone to prepare these mansions,—“I go to prepare a place for you.” What a wondrous thought—Jesus now busied in Heaven in His Church’s behalf! He can find no abode in all His wide dominions, befitting as a permanent dwelling for His ransomed ones. He says, “I will make new heavens and a new earth. I will found a special kingdom—I will rear eternal mansions expressly for those I have redeemed with my blood!”
Reader, let the prospect of a dwelling in this “house of the Lord for ever,” reconcile thee to any of the roughnesses or difficulties in thy present path—to thy pilgrim provision and pilgrim fare. Let the distant beacon-light, that so cheeringly speaks of a Home brighter and better far than the happiest of earthly ones, lead thee to forget the intervening billows, or to think of them only as wafting thee nearer and nearer to thy desired haven! “Would,” says a saint, who has now entered on his rest, “that one could read, and write, and pray, and eat and drink, and compose one’s self to sleep, as with the thought,—soon to be in heaven, and that for ever and ever!”
“My Father’s house!” How many a departing spirit has been cheered and consoled by the sight of these glorious Mansions looming through the mists of the dark valley,—the tears of weeping friends rebuked by the gentle chiding—“If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto my Father!” Death truly is but the entrance to this our Father’s house. We speak of the “shadow of death”—it is only the shadow which falls on the portico as we stand for a moment knocking at the longed-for gate—the next! a Father’s voice of welcome is heard—
“SON! THOU ART EVER WITH ME, AND ALL THAT I HAVE IS THINE.”