John 14:2

As an encouragement to this trust, He adds, ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ … ὑμῖν. He is going home to His Father's house, but had there been room in it only for Himself He would necessarily have told them that this was the case, because the very reason of His going was to prepare a place for them, ὅτι assigns the reason for the necessity of explanation: the reason being that His purpose or plan for His future would require to be entirely altered had there been no room for them in His Father's house. “My Father's house” is used in John 2:16 of the Temple: here of the immediate presence of the Father and of that condition in which His love and protection are uninterruptedly and directly experienced. This is most naturally thought of as a place, but with the corrective that “it is not in heaven one finds God, but in God one finds heaven”. Cf. Godet. In this house, as in a great palace, cf. Iliad, vi. 242, μοναὶ πολλαί εἰσιν. μονή (μένειν), only here and in John 14:23, means a place to abide in, and was used of a station on a journey, a resting place, quarters for the night, and in later ecclesiastical Greek a monastery. See Soph., Lexicon. “Mansions” reproduces the Vulgate “mansiones”. See further Wright's Bible Word-Book. εἰ δὲ μὴ … “were it not so, I would have told you,” “ademissem vobis spem inanem,” Grotius. Had there been no such place and no possibility of preparing it, He necessarily would have told them, because the very purpose of His leaving them was to prepare a place for them. ἑτοιμάσαι τόπον, a figure derived from the custom of sending forward one of a party to secure quarters and provide all requisites. Cf. the Alcestis, line 363: ἀλλʼ οὖν ἐκεῖσε προσδόκα μʼ, ὅταν θάνω, καὶ δῶμʼ ἑτοίμαζʼ, ὡς συνοικήσουσά μοι. What was involved in the preparation here spoken of is detailed in Hebrews. Cf. Selby's Ministry of the Lord, 275.