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Joh_14:2-3 serve to arouse the πιστεύειν demanded in Joh_14:1, to which a prospect so blessed lies open. In the house of my Father are many places of sojourn, many shall find their abiding-place ( μονή only here and in Joh_14:23 in the N. T.; frequent in the classics, comp. also 1Ma_7:38), so that such therefore is not wanting to you also; but if this were not the case I would have told you (“ademissem vobis spem inanem,” Grotius). After εἶπον ἂν ὑμῖν a full stop must be placed, and with ὅτι (see critical notes) πορεύομαι a new sentence begins. So, first Valla, then Beza, Calvin, Casaubon, Aretius, Grotius, Jansen, and many others, including Kuinoel, Lücke, Tholuck, Olshausen, B. Crusius, De Wette,[140] Maier, Hengstenberg, Godet, Lachmann, Tischendorf. But the Fathers of the church, Erasmus, Luther, Castalio, Wolf, Maldonatus, Bengel, and many others, including Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 464, and Ebrard, refer εἶπον ἂν ὑμῖν to what follows: if it were not so, then I would have said to you: I go, etc. Against this Joh_14:3 is decisive, according to which Jesus actually says that He is going away, and is preparing a place.[141] Others take it as a question, where, however, we are not, on account of the aorist εἶπον , to explain: would I indeed say to you: I go, etc. (Mosheim, Ernesti, Beck in the Stud. u. Krit. 1831, p. 130 ff.)? but: would I indeed have said to you, etc.? In this way there would neither be intended an earlier saying not preserved in the Gospel (Ewald),[142] possibly with the stamp of a gloss on it (Weizsäcker), or a reference to the earlier sayings regarding the passage into the heavenly world (Lange). But for the latter explanation the saying in the present passage is too definite and peculiar; while the former amounts simply to an hypothesis which is neither necessary nor capable of support on other grounds.
The ΟἸΚΊΑ ΤΟῦ ΠΑΤΡΌς is not heaven generally, but the peculiar dwelling-place of the divine δόξα in heaven, the place of His glorious throne (Psa_2:4; Psa_33:13-14; Isa_63:15, et al.), viewed, after the analogy of the temple in Jerusalem, this earthly οἶκος τοῦ πατρός (Joh_2:16), as a heavenly sanctuary (Isa_57:15). Comp. Hebrews 9
ΠΟΛΛΑΊ ] ἹΚΑΝΑῚ ΔΈΞΑΣΘΑΙ ΚΑῚ ὙΜᾶς , Euth. Zigabenus. The conception of different degrees of blessedness (Augustine and several others) lies entirely remote from the meaning here; for many the house of God is destined and established, and that already ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου , Mat_25:34.
ὍΤΙ ΠΟΡΕΎΟΜΑΙ , Κ . Τ . Λ .] for I go, etc., assigns the reason of the assurance: ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ … πολλαί εἰσιν , so that ΕἸ ΔῈ ΜῊ , ΕἾΠΟΝ ἊΝ ὙΜῖΝ is to be regarded as logically inserted. The ΠΟΡΕΎΟΜΑΙ ἙΤΟΙΜΆΣΑΙ , Κ . Τ . Λ ., however, is an actual proof of the existence of the ΜΟΝΑῚ ΠΟΛΛΑΊ in the heavenly house of God (not of the ΕἾΠΟΝ ἊΝ ὙΜῖΝ , as Luthardt thinks, placing only a colon after ὙΜῖΝ ), because otherwise Jesus could not go away with the design of getting prepared for them in those ΜΟΝΑΊ a place on which they are thereafter to enter, a place for them. This ἙΤΟΙΜΆΖΕΙΝ ΤΌΠΟΝ presupposes ΜΟΝᾺς ΠΟΛΛΆς , in which the dwelling-place to be provided must exist. The idea is, further (comp. the idea of the ΠΡΌΔΡΟΜΟς , Heb_6:20), that He having attained by His death to the fellowship of the divine ΔΌΞΑ , purposes to prepare the way for their future ΣΥΝΔΟΞΑΣΘῆΝΑΙ with God (comp. Joh_17:24); but “therefore He speaks with them in the simplest possible, as it were, childlike fashion, according to their thoughts, as is necessary to attract and allure simple people,” Luther.
Joh_14:3. ΚΑῚ ἘᾺΝ … ΤΌΠΟΝ ] Emphatic repetition of the consolatory words, with which the still more consolatory promise is united: I will come again, and will (then) receive you to myself. Jesus says, καὶ ἐάν , not Κ . ὍΤΑΝ , for He will not mention the point of time of His return, but what consequences (namely, the πάλιν ἔρχομαι , κ . τ . λ .) will be connected with this departure of His, and preparation of a place of which He had just given them assurance. The ΠΟΡΕΎΕΣΘΑΙ Κ . ἙΤΟΙΜ , Κ . Τ . Λ ., is the conditioning fact which, if it shall take place, has the ΠΆΛΙΝ ἜΡΧΕΣΘΑΙ , Κ . Τ . Λ ., as its happy consequence. Comp. Joh_12:32. The nearness or remoteness of the appearance of this result remains undefined by ἘΆΝ . Comp. Düsterdieck on 1Jn_2:28, where the reading ὍΤΑΝ is an alteration proceeding from clumsy copyists.
By ΠΆΛΙΝ ἜΡΧΟΜΑΙ Jesus means, and that not indefinitely, or with any approach to a spiritual signification (De Wette), but distinctly and clearly, His Parousia at the last day (Joh_6:39-40, Joh_11:24), and not His resurrection (Ebrard), to which the following κ . παραλ ., κ . τ . λ ., is not appropriate. That in John also (comp. 1Jn_2:28), and in Jesus, according to John (comp. Joh_21:22, Joh_5:28-29), as in the whole apostolic church, the conception existed of the Parousia as near at hand,[143] although, on account of its spiritual character in the Gospel, it steps less into the foreground, see in Kaeuffer, de ζωῆς αἰων . not. p. 131 f., comp. also Frommann, p. 479 f.; Lechler, Apost. und Nachapost. Zeit. p. 224 ff.; Wittichen in the Jahrb.f. D. Th. 1862, p. 357 f.; Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 181. On this His glorious return He will receive the disciples into His personal fellowship (as raised from the dead or transformed respectively), and that as partakers of His divine δόξα in the heavenly sanctuary which has descended with Him to the earth, in which a place will be already prepared for them. He comes in the glory of His Father, and they enter into fellowship with Him in this ΔΌΞΑ in the Messianic kingdom. Comp. Origen and several others, including Calvin, Lampe, Luthardt, Hofmann, Schriftbew. I. p. 194, Hilgenfeld, Brückner, Ewald. The explanation of a coming, only regarded as such more or less improperly, in order to receive the disciples by a blessed death into heaven (Grotius, Kuinoel, B. Crusius, Reuss, Tholuck, Lange, Hengstenberg, and several others), is opposed to the words (comp. Joh_21:22) and to the mode of expression elsewhere employed in the N. T. respecting the coming of Christ, since death does indeed translate the apostles and martyrs to Christ (2Co_5:8; Php_1:23; Act_7:59; see on Php_1:26, note); but it is nowhere said of Christ that He comes (in order to be personally present at their dying bed, so Hengstenberg, indeed, thinks) and fetches them to Himself. Except in the Paraclete, Christ first comes in His glory at the Parousia. The interpretation, however (according to Joh_14:18 ff.), that here “only the spiritual return of Christ to His own, and their reception into the full sacred fellowship of the Spirit of the glorified Christ” (Lücke, Neander, Godet) can be intended (comp. Olshausen, Ebrard), is not to be approved, for the reason that Jesus Himself, Joh_14:2, has decisively provided beforehand for the words being understood of His actual return, and of local fellowship with Him (in Joh_14:18 ff. the entire context is different).
πρὸς ἐμαυτόΝ ] spoken in the consciousness of the great value which the love of the disciples placed on fellowship with His own person. Only with Himself have faith and love the final object of hope, and their blessed reward[144] in the Father’s house.
[140] He terms the assertion “somewhat naïve.” But it has rather its full weight in the faith presupposed in the disciples, that He cannot leave them uninstructed on any essential point of their hope. Comp. Köstlin, Lehrbegr. p. 163.
[141] This reason is valid, whether we read now in ver. 3 καὶ ἑτοιμάσω , or with Lachmann merely ἑτοιμάσω : Hofmann follows the latter, and connects therewith, as well as with ἐάν , artificial and laboured departures from the simple sense of the words. Ebrard also adopts a forced and artificial view, according to which ἑτοιμάσαι is said to be objective: bring about your presence; but ἑτοιμάσω (without καί ) must point to the making accessible for the disciples. How could a listener hit upon this difference of idea in the same word?
[142] He would also place εἰ δὲ μὴ … τόπον ὑμῖν within a parenthesis, and finds here either a saying out of a now unknown gospel, or rather out of the fragment supposed to have been lost before chap. 6.
[143] However decidedly this is still denied by Scholten, who finds in John only a spiritual coming, in the sense, namely, that the Spirit of Jesus remains. According to Keim (Geschichtl. Chr. p. 45, ed. 3), the fourth Gospel has, “in sufficiently modern fashion, relegated the future kingdom to heaven,” and “broken off the head” of the expectation of the Parousia. But the head is exactly in the present passage.
[144] It is incorrect to maintain that in John the notion of reward is entirely wanting (so Weiss in the Deutsch. ZeitzsChr. 1853, pp. 325, 338, and in his Petr. Lehrbegr. p. 55 f.). As Christ seeks in prayer eternal glory for Himself as a reward, Joh_17:4-5, so He assigns it to the disciples also as a reward. See Joh_17:24, Joh_12:25-26, Joh_11:26. Here applies also the promise of ἰδεϊν τὴν βασιλ . τοῦ θεοῦ , Joh_3:3; Joh_3:5, and the resurrection at the last day, Joh_5:28-29, Joh_6:40; Joh_6:54. Comp. 1Jn_3:2-3, where the future transfiguration and union with Christ is expressly designated as the object of ἐλπίς , as well as John 8 where even the expression μισθὸν πλήρη is employed, and is to be understood of eternal blessedness (see Düsterdieck, II. p. 505).