In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, {a} I would have told you. I go to {b} prepare a place for you.

(a) That is, if it were not as I am telling you, that is, unless there was room enough not only for me, but also for you in my Father's house, I would not deceive you in this way with a vain hope, but I would have plainly told you so.

(b) This whole speech is an allegory, by which the Lord comforts his own, declaring to them his departure into heaven; and he departs not to reign there alone, but to go before and prepare a place for them.

People's New Testament

14:2 In my Father's house are many mansions. By the Father's house is meant the heavenly abode. He is about to return there, from whence he had come.

I go to prepare a place for you. If the separation was to be an eternal one, he would have forewarned them. Rather, he goes before to prepare a home for them where they can all be together. The departure of Jesus was needful to open an entrance to them and use.

Wesley's Notes

14:2 In my Father's house are many mansions - Enough to receive both the holy angels, and your predecessors in the faith, and all that now believe, and a great multitude, which no man can number.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2. In my Father's house are many mansions-and so room for all, and a place for each.

if not, I would have told you-that is, I would tell you so at once; I would not deceive you.

I go to prepare a place for you-to obtain for you a right to be there, and to possess your "place."

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

14:1-11 Here are three words, upon any of which stress may be laid. Upon the word troubled. Be not cast down and disquieted. The word heart. Let your heart be kept with full trust in God. The word your. However others are overwhelmed with the sorrows of this present time, be not you so. Christ's disciples, more than others, should keep their minds quiet, when everything else is unquiet. Here is the remedy against this trouble of mind, Believe. By believing in Christ as the Mediator between God and man, we gain comfort. The happiness of heaven is spoken of as in a father's house. There are many mansions, for there are many sons to be brought to glory. Mansions are lasting dwellings. Christ will be the Finisher of that of which he is the Author or Beginner; if he have prepared the place for us, he will prepare us for it. Christ is the sinner's Way to the Father and to heaven, in his person as God manifest in the flesh, in his atoning sacrifice, and as our Advocate. He is the Truth, as fulfilling all the prophecies of a Saviour; believing which, sinners come by him the Way. He is the Life, by whose life-giving Spirit the dead in sin are quickened. Nor can any man draw nigh God as a Father, who is not quickened by Him as the Life, and taught by Him as the Truth, to come by Him as the Way. By Christ, as the Way, our prayers go to God, and his blessings come to us; this is the Way that leads to rest, the good old Way. He is the Resurrection and the Life. All that saw Christ by faith, saw the Father in Him. In the light of Christ's doctrine, they saw God as the Father of lights; and in Christ's miracles, they saw God as the God of power. The holiness of God shone in the spotless purity of Christ's life. We are to believe the revelation of God to man in Christ; for the works of the Redeemer show forth his own glory, and God in him.