IF IT WERE NOT SO I WOULD HAVE TOLD YOU

John 14:2

WHAT then are some of the reasons WHY He would have told us, and did tell  concerning the place for each one in eternity, or its address ? Below are 14.

1. Without this, His whole testimony, grant and coverage would have been incomplete. He would be talking of life more abundantly as if an advance in connotation on the Old Testament, or at least in scope and emphasis, but giving much less (cf. Psalm 17:30, Job 19:21-29, Psalm 16 with Isaiah 26:19, Proverbs 10:25, 12:28, Daniel 12 and so on).

2. Similarly, it would have been impersonal. Death in itself is so impersonal! Its carcases lack individuality, neither do they recall. If this were the end of a life, it would occlude all personal continuity, abruptly dismiss all relationships and abort the intensively complex and startlingly brilliant fact of the entire bodily construction, mental facilities and spiritual verve, leaving a result like a bombed city, without colour, life or wonder. No wonder David asked so voraciously for life for ever and ever, as in Psalm 21:3ff.

3. Thirdly, such an end would be disruptive. No more the sound of voices, the array of thoughts, the surge into understanding, but a breach, break, dismissal like that of a hired servant. Christ put such things far away, as having no relationship to His people (John 6:47ff.).

4. Fourthly, it would be dispersive. The aggregate, the integrality of all that makes up the human expressive and impressive powers, the receptivity and the capacity would be thrown to the winds, as Psalm puts it of the death, place or impinging destiny of the ungodly, they are like chaff blown. "Unite my heart to fear Thy name!", says the Psalmist in Psalm 86:11.

5. Fifthly, such an omission would be unloving, like handing your wife a bunch of flowers full of blossoms in season, and then suddenly slapping her face.   Paul rather speaks of a love undisruptible, undispersible, incorruptible, resisting to all powers, that nothing could disrupt or sever (Romans 8:37-39, Ephesians 3:17-21), a love that would rather face and outface death itself than abandon His own flock.

6. Next, the simple dispensing with, not of, life for the carefully cultivated and redeemed individuals would be a disproportionate severance, a breach which, for one who created all life and has it in His own power to give, would represent an act of will, not incapacity, falsify the cross in its stated intention (Hosea 13:14) and put a muzzle on immortality, consigning life with all its aspirations and yearnings, to the dust-bin.

7. Life with Christ (cf. Galatians 2:20) would be subjected to disparagement, for the ones who were so exalted in expectation,  many to friendship with Himself. Thus disparaged, this would thus make of those bonds a mere set of streamers, like those joining well-wishers to a vessel carrying a friend or relative far away on some tour. When the time comes, these streamers  break; but even in that case there is normally expectation of return. Here there is assurance of it (Acts 1).

8. Moreover, such an omission would be contrary to the normal kindness and control of Christ. This was epitomised in the drama of the disciples' fear that their boat would sink in the tempestuous conditions, by His meteorological control ("Do you not care that we are perishing!", Mark  4:38), as in Luke 10:40 concerning Lazarus. In each of these direct challenges, He not only acted, but did so immediately, and not only with power physically, but in the latter with that to raise the dead, and again not only that, but as planned in advance as a testimony (John 11:8-16), and this not least to His disciples who soon would have trials enough!

9.Christ IS the resurrection and the life (John 11:23-26). He controls it, not vice versa. Its power is inherent in Him (cf. John 2:19-21) and the relevant question is who receives it, since the divine dynamic with which to do it when He so desires is not in question (John 6:50-54). Failure to prepare a site for immortality in resurrection would be contrary to this triumphant reservoir of irresistible power that not only confers eternal life, but exuberant joy with it (John  4:14, Isaiah 11:10 and 51:11), where relevant. It is in John 3 that Christ gives His own motive and method and measure for each man found in Him,  in superabundant clarity and beautifully frank fulness.

10. Though we who believe in Him are many, for all that we are only a remnant, crystallised in conviction and surrounded with salvation. This will remain, as will His righteousness, when the world departs (Isaiah 51:6, Matthew 24:35). All the multitudinous particles of sand and incandescent stars of the heavens are His and He has made them (Genesis 1:16). Moreover they are subject to His control (Isaiah 48:13). All the multitudinous cells, neurons and the trillions of connections in the human body are His, and He made them fearfully and wonderfully (Psalm 139, 14). Relatively large and relatively small multitudes according to their various repositories are all under His control, available for use and provision; for nothing is too hard for the Lord, even an incarnation as man (Genesis 18:14, Jeremiah 32:17,27, Luke 1:37).

Similar is His integration of all the subsidiary systems to organs and functions, their interweaving in unified thrust attesting multi-disciplinary dynamic from the Source adequate for it, including types, specialised formats as in ants and termites, where function and teaming are coordinated in actual diverse forms of these creations. Masses of cells, by the billion, integration into just one person and equipment facilities as provided in the package, of underlying systems, like that for protein folding, with co-ordination and collateral functioning with stunning effect, but just one mind: all this is the work of the One in provision for any human who lives, and indefatigable as is this labour, it is one of love that does not count mandatory mishandling as sport. On the other hand, cancellation of indebtedness to the Creator received by faith, through His salvation, is a breeding ground for spiritual beauty.

Failure to supply the consummation of eternal life to those believing amidst the multitudes of mankind, when He who IS eternal became in physical format, one of us would be singularly askew from His motive and mandate (Hebrews 2:10-3:6).

11. Omission of preparations for eternal living would also be outstandingly unconscientious, and so contrary to all the particular care shown by Christ when on earth, for whom no detail seemed beneath regard (Matthew 17:24-27, John 21:9,11, Mark 10:30). It is not that God was in some way obligated to provide this eternal life for some, but that its provision entailed the entire Gospel, with its gore and glory, God's own option, and having done all to achieve this, He illustrated on every side, in theme and development, an utter concern right down to defending the use of the exceedingly expensive perfume, and the giver's justification from His own lips. Unbelief misdirects kindness, but it does nothing to eliminate it. Even murder does not remove it from the breast of the Divine One.

12. Christ then did not give His life for some diminuendo version of it (Matthew 20:28), as a ransom, sin-cover and quietus for judgment for those who received it, in order than it should be aborted (II Corinthians 4:16-5:1). Life in Him is as irrepressibly undivorcible as it is deformable, but a gift in its entirety from Him who, coming from eternity, made man in his entirety. To omit such an element would be like a biography of Einstein omitting E=MC² . It would be far more discordant, for Einstein found this, but Christ's life is no brief candle, but eternal and such is what is received by all who accept His offer and receive HIM (John 1:3-5,10-15).

13. The Scripture, the Bible has clearly indicated resurrection - so dwellings are provided (Isaiah 26:19, Daniel 12, II Corinthians 5, I Corinthians 15), as at the first on earth (Genesis 1), in the form of a body, made of the things of the earth, and as at the last  in the consummation, the clothing and condition for the heaven itself .
Without this there would be a spiritual cavity rather than a spiritual body, leaving the believer unconsigned..

He who made the body with such enormous diligence did not fail to cover every component of the composition of wonders in heaven.

14. HE would not BE the way if He left an open door to a precipice. If He has bothered to maintain the stellar system, He certainly would not fail in the spiritual habitations. Moreover, the former is temporal, and His righteousness and salvation is for ever (Isaiah 51:6, John 10:27-28). The omission of such provisions as made clear in John 14:3, would be marring the marvel of His complete works, and His reason for this (Isaiah 51:16, Ephesians 1:22-23).