John 14:2 In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.
1Cor. 2:9 However, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him”—
There’s much we cannot know about Heaven – but there are also clues. The clues give me a stronger belief in the remarkable eternity that awaits those who have Jesus trust and seek Jesus life.
It's possible that upon reading John 14:2, we have in mind a large mansion-like dormitory with many rooms. One might think that Jesus is going to this place to prepare one’s room – sort of like a maid readies a room for a guest. Silly perhaps – but it’s what we have to go with.
I suspect it’s different than that however. I believe that what Jesus is trying to convey is that Heaven offers an endless progression from one experience to another. He is suggesting a mansion of magnificent proportions with endless (rooms) places of discovery. Perhaps you have been to some of the grand Chateaus of France or seen Buckingham Palace, or Windsor Castle or Versailles. His analogy is most likely a marriage analogy, the groom receiving the bride to live in His family's home.
So I imagine Jesus is saying that when we enter Heaven – it’s like entering the most magnificent place, with experiences and the presence of God that will thrill our souls and appetites beyond what we could ever imagine. Depending on our relationship with God, we may enter into one room, or another – whichever would be most magnificent for each. God being infinite, then Heaven in some way must be an eternal experience of discovering more of Him – but the discovery never ends, the thrill and joy and love and goodness our soul’s will experience grows as our Heavenly experience increases. It must increase – otherwise it is finite or static.
So when we have been delighted beyond our soul’s deepest desires, we come to the end of a room. Unlike the confinements of earth, this does not mean our experience is coming to a close, rather there is another door to another room. Opening it, we find that this room is more magnificent in its experiences, more thrilling, more filling to our desires. And, it was the experiences in the prior room that have enabled us to understand and receive and enter into, the experience in this room – which is larger in all respects than the prior room.
When we come to the end of this room – we are led to the door of another room – a new room. Add to this, that we will somehow share all of this with those we love, and with the family of the redeemed. Sharing it with others will increase the joy of it just as the mutuality of experience increases the joy of the best things of earth, over experiencing it alone. Then, then… add to that, that the rooms are all part, somehow, of a city – the new Jerusalem, a place of immense shared joy, where the presence of God is it’s light, filling each soul with it’s deepest longing. A pulsating city of activity, discovery, love, light, soul-filling.
Imagine next that since our minds have conceived this much of what Heaven could be, that it has to be far, far, more than that because in actuality – “no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him – “
