I go to prepare a place for you. – John 14:2

It is one of the better known passages of Scripture, and one of the most comforting. It is also one of the most reassuring promises, for our Lord goes on to say, "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, for where I am there you may be also." Since Jesus had just said, "In My Father’s house are many mansions" we may conclude that the "place" he was to prepare was to be in the Father’s house, which we may take to be heaven itself.

Jesus was returning to God and to heaven from which he came. He was not to prepare heaven, for it was already a reality – heaven is where God is -- but a "place" in heaven. It was to be something new, something special for the redeemed. I suggest in this essay that the "place" may well be the new City of God, the New Jerusalem, which God’s people have longed for – and have even "seen" by faith – since the days of Abraham.

Even though Abraham was rich and could have built a mansion for himself, he "dwelt in tents" because he realized he was but a pilgrim or sojourner in a foreign land. He was in Canaan, the land of promise, but it was not to be his permanent home. "God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to put his foot on" (Acts 7:5). It was only temporary. If the patriarch lived in tents "by faith," then God must have revealed to him that he was destined for something better.

We are told in Hebrews 11:10 what that was: "He waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God." What was the basis for his awaiting a city? God must have promised him that a special city – built by God himself – would be his permanent home. We are told in Hebrews 11:13 that the patriarchs "having seen the promises from afar off, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth."

Then it says in verse 14: "For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland." It goes on to say in verse 16 that "they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country." Finally, since they did indeed look beyond this world to something better "God is not ashamed to be called their God, and He has built for them a city."

If I am right in my thesis, then what Abraham longed for and saw dimly "by faith" is the city that Christ eventually built – or finished – when he returned to heaven. If what Abraham saw only dimly caused him to live in tents – since he would one day have something far better – should we desire to live in elegant dwellings when our view of the heavenly city is even nearer and clearer?

Indeed, the writer of Hebrews insists that already Christians "have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem" (Hebrews 12:22). In the church and in the fellowship of the Spirit it is as if we were in the environs of the city itself. Not actually there, but near. The same verse says that we have come "to an innumerable company of angels." We may not see the angels as we will in the New Jerusalem, but they are near.

The prophet Isaiah also envisioned this special city, along with new heavens and a new earth: "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth," he says in 65:17, and goes on to hear God say, "I create Jerusalem as a rejoicing." He says in this context that the old things will have passed and will not be remembered. Notice that God is "creating" anew – new heavens, new earth, and a new Jerusalem.

We may wonder if it was the celestial city that Paul saw – and heard its sounds – when he was caught up into Paradise while yet a mortal man (2 Corinthians 12:4). It was all so glorious that he was given a thorn in the flesh lest he exalt himself over the experience. For whatever reason he was not allowed to talk about it, and he says it was "ineffable" – he couldn’t find words to declare its glory even if he were allowed! But we do know that the "Jerusalem above" was part of his thinking, which he referred to as "free and the mother of us all" (Galatians 4:26).

The wonder of it all is that we are at last – as the curtain of revelation begins to be drawn – given a view of our future celestial home. In Revelation 21 the apostle John sees not only a new heaven and a new earth as future realities, but "I, John, saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God." It is a view of the holy city coming down to a new earth.

I take it that the new earth is that which our Lord said the meek would inherit (Matthew 5:5), which is heaven. The New Jerusalem is its capital. The entire universe will be the workplace for the redeemed, a ministry that will never end. John says, "His servants shall serve him" (22:3). Again, this goes back to Abraham who was told that he and his heirs, which includes us, would inherit the whole world ( (Romans 4:13).

It is a glorious picture. This cursed, sinful world is transformed into "the new earth." Note that God makes "all things new" (Revelation 21:5), not "all new things." The New Jerusalem, the holy city – which Abraham saw but dimly -- comes down to the new earth (heaven) to serve as its capital. Living in the capital, where there is immense room, we will move instantly like angels to the far reaches of the earth – now no seas – and on into an endless universe to serve God in ways that are now beyond our comprehension.

No wonder Paul would exclaim, "Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!" (Romans. 11:33).

It is appropriate that the curtain of God’s revelation should at last close with, "Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and enter through the gates into the city" (Revelation 22:14).