Gonna be Rich in Heaven!

John 14:2 says, “In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.”

For many years as a Christian I heard that when we get to heaven, we were all going to be very well off and each with their own mansion. From an earthly materialist view, this sounds great. It sounds like in heaven we are going to have everything we could ever want, which a mansion implies.

The Greek word for house is oikos. An oikia then is a multi-partitioned house or an estate with many rooms -- a mansion. Yet, the word used in this verse is monai, or dwelling place. The Early Church fathers contextualized these dwelling places as small rooms. The vision is not that we each get our own mansion, but rather that we get to dwell in our Father's house, which has many rooms. The implication is on the fact that we won't be alone, not that we get our own big isolated mega-house. To have our own big crib is actually antithetical to the Gospel, which seeks unity between man and God and man and man. In short, heaven is being together as a family and family homes have rooms for all the kids. 

We must also not anachronize here. To be with God is to be on Zion or atop the holy mountain. It is there that God connects the heavenly realm to our created order. The wilderness becomes tame. In the wilderness people sleep in tents. The Jews even have a holiday called sukkot or the feast of booths/tabernacles. This means tents. The Jews will basically camp out in remembrance of their migrant past, where they lived with one another and were led by God through the desert. The many rooms Jesus promises has that same sense of intimacy. Even ancient homes were predicated on a village model. Nuclear families weren't a thing. People lived in extended families, clans, and tribes. People relied on one another for everything. So, in God's house, there are many rooms, because the family is all together in complete reliance on one another and the Father. To be in an isolated mansion implies exile, which is biblically equivalent to death and that means Hell, not Heaven. 

Blessings.