1“Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. 2In my Father’s house are many homes. If it weren’t so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. 3If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will receive you to myself; that where I am, you may be there also. 4You know where I go, and you know the way.”
5Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?”
6Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me. 7If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you know him and have seen him.”
8Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”
9Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you such a long time, and do you not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How do you say, ‘Show us the Father?’ 10Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I tell you, I speak not from myself; but the Father who lives in me does his works. 11Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe me for the very works’ sake. 12Most certainly I tell you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also; and he will do greater works than these, because I am going to my Father. 13Whatever you will ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14If you will ask anything in my name, I will do it. 15If you love me, keep my commandments. 16I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, that he may be with you forever: 17the Spirit of truth, whom the world can’t receive, for it doesn’t see him and doesn’t know him. You know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you. 19Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more; but you will see me. Because I live, you will live also. 20In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21One who has my commandments and keeps them, that person is one who loves me. One who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will reveal myself to him.”
22Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, what has happened that you are about to reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?”
23Jesus answered him, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24He who doesn’t love me doesn’t keep my words. The word which you hear isn’t mine, but the Father’s who sent me.
25“I have said these things to you while still living with you. 26But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I said to you. 27Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, I give to you. Don’t let your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful. 28You heard how I told you, ‘I am going away, and I will come back to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced because I said ‘I am going to my Father;’ for the Father is greater than I. 29Now I have told you before it happens so that when it happens, you may believe. 30I will no more speak much with you, for the prince of the world comes, and he has nothing in me. 31But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father commanded me, even so I do. Arise, let’s go from here.
The teaching of Jesus in John 14:1-3 relates to His future return for believers that is discussed by the apostle Paul in 1 Thess 4:13-18. Both passages have much of the same terminology and relate to the coming of the Messiah.
In John 14, after Jesus announces the betrayal of Judas (John 13:21), His soon departure (13:33), and Peter's denial (13:38), understandably the disciples were disheartened. In view of this Jesus assures them that He is going away but that He is coming again to take them to Himself. Jesus' imagery of an engaged man who, according to ancient custom still practiced today in the Middle East, upon becoming betrothed, begins to prepare a room (μοναi, monai; Greej; mansiones, Latin for abode or dwelling place) in his father's house for him and his future wife. Upon completion, the engaged man would go to marry his bride, have a feast, and then bring his newly-married wife back to the father's house to live in the room or dwelling place he has built. The passage has often been used for speaking of a believer's death and going to be with Jesus, but the text clearly speaks, using this marriage imagery, of the coming of the bridegroom Jesus to receive His bride at the rapture of the church. The use of the word mansion in the KJV has caused considerable confusion in the text, even spawning songs of mansions (transliteration of the Latin, for dwelling place) that we will live in after we go to heaven, yet the text is speaking of our reunion with Jesus, which is far better, after which we will go to a marriage ceremony, after which she will be with Him forever.
Though Paul's teaching on the coming of Jesus to receive His church does not have the imagery of Jesus' words in John 14:1-3 comparing His coming for believers, the similarity of the words between this passage and 1 Thess 14:13-18 would appear to be speaking about the same event. Both passages speak of the believers (John 14:1; 1 Thess 4:14) as being distraught (John 14:1; 1 Thess 4:13). These persons are said to believers in God and in Jesus (John 14:1; 1 Thess 4:14), and receive this teaching of Jesus' return from Jesus Himself (John 14:2; 1 Thess 4:15), when He returns (John 14:3; 1 Thess 4:15). Those for whom Jesus comes are taken (John 14:3; 1 Thess 4:17) are reunited with Him (John 14:3; 1 Thess 4:17) and be where He is (John 14:3; 1 Thess 4:17).
The accounts are not exactly the same, with the account in John being based on a story relating to marriage and the one in 1 Thessalonians being a straightforward doctrinal passage, but the components are speaking of the same event with Jesus.